Westminstenders: Constitutional History

[RedToothBrush]

The Supreme Court case continues
(ruling possible Friday but likely Monday)

The new NI proposal is bollocks and Johnson didn't get why until it was discussed in Europe.

There was a press conference in Luxembourg which looks good for Johnson.

Johnsons approval ratings are up.

And we are making no obvious progress to anything but no deal...

Red - I'll go with the "hair on fire" defence on that one

Plus the SNP members I've come across, including some Women's & Equalities Officers, don't seem to have such extreme views and are very much in favour of, eg, biological women-only safe spaces (I refuse to use the word cis except to say I refuse to use it ). Joanna Cherry seems to be sensible on the topic - and as long as there are people like her involved and influential, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Post independence, I would hope and expect that sane parties from across the spectrum can re-invent themselves - and that it may well be that at that point the SNP would itself fragment and have to reinvent itself.

Thank you BigChoc . I'll pm you if that's ok.

To be fair I don't think anyone thinks LD's will get a chance to actually revoke. They just know they have to keep banging that drum to keep their voters. I have no idea how they would react after Brexit if they had to coalition with Labour, for instance - their deck would have changed so far from their current stance no one can know!

pamper I suspect that is to safeguard against any particular rogue country becoming a dictatorship or their judiciary falling to bits . Wonder who they might have had in mind there?

Until recently, the Scottish government (mainly SNP) has been forging ahead with pro Trans and anti girls/women legislation and guidance. Without equality impact assessments. And they are hugely controlling of their politicians. Seems undemocratic.

I am so f**king frustrated with Labour. Corbyn has the lowest leader rating in decades at a time when Peppa Pig's dad would do a better job that Johnson. There are some great Labour MPs. But Corbyn's "neutrality"; Emily's ridiculous Taliban statement and now news that Momentum want to get rid of Tom Watson mean that most centre ground potential Labour supporters will run a mile. Dividing the "Remain" vote gives Tories more power!!! Aaarrgghhhh!!!

There's no way that small businesses will comply with that GDPR rule. What will the consequence be? I suppose that even people doing online teaching or selling a few things online would be covered.

The link from one of the websites says that if the data transfer is “occasional” (but there’s no clear definition of what this means) then it doesn’t apply.
But your question about b&b is interesting. Say one has a business as holiday let in the U.K., but most of his guests are european, or the agency that sends him the guest is...there’s is this clause in the regulation:
Where should the Representative be established? Guidance from the European Data Protection Board (Guidance 03/2018) has confirmed the Representative should be based in the EU country where the most data subjects are – and that data subjects in other EU member states should find the Representative ‘easily accessible’ –

So if one year your guests are mostly french you need to appoint a French rep, but another year you might need to appoint a German one?
I hope there’s a simpler version of life, let’s put it like that....

This sounds like “death by a thousand little regulatory misalignments”!

BigChoc
Ireland gets dibs on that song. With Trump on one side and Brexit in the other we are “Stuck in the middle with EU”

This is a Copy&paste from a page of the gov.uk about state aid in case of no deal...
(I’m adding th bold, or trying to, to the sentences that appear a bit optimistic to me?)

The government intends to pass secondary legislation under the Withdrawal Act in good time for Brexit. This will replicate the existing state aid framework, with only technical modifications to correct deficiencies with the transposed EU law to ensure the regime operates effectively in a domestic context.

This notice is meant for guidance only. You should consider whether you need separate professional advice before making specific preparations.

It is part of the government’s ongoing programme of planning for all possible outcomes. We expect to negotiate a successful deal with the EU.

Corbyn has the lowest leader rating in decades at a time when Peppa Pig's dad would do a better job that Johnson

Exactly this.

Anyone who supports Corbyn now, despite his piss poor performance, needs their head reading.

We need a decent opposition, who actually, y’know, oppose.

"So according to the GDPR thing, every small business that deals with EU citizens, eg a small hotel or an AirBnb owner, needs to appoint an EU company as its representative within the EU, to receive GDPR complaints."

Or a childminder...?
I have EU citizens as clients. I am certainly not the only one by a long way.

Oh, this is going to be fun...! 🤨

Small businesses won't comply with that GDPR rule. They won't know about it, and they wouldn't be able to afford it. So what's the punishment?

GDPR_ Fines / Penalties_

Hope the courts won't fine the maximum for the first year

https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/fines-penalties/

For especially severe violations, listed in Art. 83(5) GDPR, the fine framework can be up to 20 million euros,
or in the case of an undertaking, up to 4 % of their total global turnover of the preceding fiscal year, whichever is higher.

But even the catalogue of less severe violations in Art. 83(4) GDPR sets forth fines of up to 10 million euros,
or, in the case of an undertaking, up to 2% of its entire global turnover of the preceding fiscal year, whichever is higher.

A bit more detail on Corbyn's apocalyptic approval ratings, just because, well, I'm loving it:

NEW @IpsosMORI / @standardnews

Jeremy Corbyn's leader satisfaction rating falls to worst ever achieved by a leader of the opposition in our series - dating back to 1977.

Satisfied 16%
Dissatisfied 76%
Net -60

For context, Michael Foot only ever hit -56 at his lowest point. Corbyn was also at only -25 at the start of the 2017 Election campaign, versus -60 today.

But Corbyn's the anointed saviour and we should all rally around him, right? Right 🤣

And the comedy continues as Labour prepares to abolish Tom Watson's position in utter contempt of the mandate from the membership that is also Corbyn's sole claim to continuation in his own position...

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall

Well placed source indicates Corbyn likely to try and calm things down tomorrow.

Briefing coming out is that moves to abolish deputy leadership “didn’t have his blessing” and was something cooked up between Lansman and McCluskey.

We’ll see.

That's meaningless, Bigchoc. The EU is not going to fine an Airbnb owner €10 million for not having an EU based rep. What would they actually do?

No Deal Brexit is the one thing that gives Corbyn a chance of becoming PM

• but that would be in a year or two, in the GE after the next Tory govt has been brought down by the disaster

Not so easy presenting him as the bogeyman if the Tories have sent the economy over the cliff
and people are panicking over shortages of meds & fresh food etc

Yellowhammer appear to be the base case, not worse case and even that should keep any party out of power for a generation

It's why Corbyn & chums are so desperate for him to stay on - it's their once in a lifetime chance to bring in their dream policies
It's also why the conservative media are going into overdrive against him: they know it too

pamper Those are the maximum fines
Same as any GDPR offences now, I expect, which is afaik far from the maximum
or they could look to make examples of any offenders, especially if the ignoring looked wilful or particularly stupid.

re AirBnB owners, they would probably look for a way to give a whopping fine to AirBnB itself, if they shared in the offence,
but would fine the owner substantially if they had also committed an offence, probably the same amount as they would fine now

In the case of small businesses, they might well give a large enough fine to make others pay attention - that might be enough to drive the first few into bankruptcy if they don't have large reserves

Westministener lawyers can tell us whether it would be only EU-based businesses fined, or UK too, in the event of a No Deal

Mos EU businesses have already been reviewing their relationships with any Uk subsidiary or client
and checking if they need to cut off data, or indeed the relationship

It's being cut off from EU data that is really going to hammer some Uk firms

Some UK public orgs too, e.g. the police have expressed great concern, because they will be cut off from some EU databases, at least until an agreement can be sorted out later

I think I agree with your analysis re. Labour Party, BigChoc.

For a few days, it did look as though Corbyn might be going for a country-before-Party, adults-in-the-room stance.

But this move has Party calculation all over it. All routes lead to factoring in GE loss, probable No Deal, & securing the (gutted) Labour Party for the hard Left.

It's damaging & it's hard not to see how it won't further damage Labour in the polls. Which, of course, suggests that doing well in a GE isn't part of the calculation.

As you say, we'll have to see whether Corbyn & McDonnell officially roe back from this, or whether they just wNt 'clean hands'.

Personally, I think the chances of 'No Deal' just went up again. 🤷‍♀️

Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) of the New Statesman is suggesting it might be about preparing the ground for Corbyn's resignation (& clearing way for Rebecca Ling-Bailey or Laura Pidcock to take over).

Whether that's GNU or post-GE is not clear.

I'm not sure either of those two would fare any better commanding confidence in GNU, so I still think this is about post-GE.

It's really poor coming up to a GE. I see a lot of Corbyn supporters coming out to bat for it but, on any sensible metric, this is not the way to do well in a GE & it does nothing to help avert No Deal. Which, really, should be top priorities at this stage if you genuinely want to help the most vulnerable people in the UK.

On Corbyn I've always said that the British electorate has a very short disloyal X factor voting attention span these days. If Corbyn is replaced too soon before an election then the public honeymoon period will end before the election takes place. The replacement had to be timed so their popularity is still on the short ascendancy at the time of the election.

Some random thoughts on data processing to join in with the chat upthread.

Data protection is often in danger of being misunderstood (like the way health and safety myths evolved as an excuse when a jobsworth wants to avoid something ).

If you find yourself rolling your eyes and thinking it’s health and safety/ data protection gone mad then research and check. If you’re eye rolling the chances are you might have got the wrong end of the stick.

The only businesses that will receive big DP fines are going to be profitable businesses that have significantly abused citizens rights by dodgily processing or storing data - its not about an inadvertent mistake from an occasional bnb landlady.

Really the primary legislation to talk about in the U.K. is the DPA 2018 not the GDPR.

There are exceptions in both the GDPR and the DPA.If the processing of the individuals’ data is occasional and low risk to the data protection rights of individuals then there’s no need to appoint data protection officers etc!

DPOs are only needed for public authority or companies whose core activities require “large scale, regular and systematic monitoring of individuals (for example, online behaviour tracking)”
or” core activities consist of large scale processing of special categories of data or data relating to criminal convictions and offences.”

•Obviously the digital age has exploded.So previous laws for example throughout the UK, EU and U.S. haven’t been able to keep up with the pace of technological advancement.Hence the rules need big overhauls at least every decade or so.
• All countries have DP rules ( see link).Its the more troubled places like Honduras that have limited protections.
• Social media users in some countries may have their details legally freely used and sold on to target the population but it’s pretty rare.
• . People use the terms GDPR and DPA interchangeably...but the main Act governing data about U.K. citizens comes from Westminster -because in fact contrary to Leaver myths- Parliament is supreme. (Well apart from when the U.K. gov illegally circumvent it.)
•The U.K. gov chose to make the DPA align with the GDPR as it makes sense if U.K. businesses want to sell stuff from France etc and use French citizens data etc.

So ... if any company breached UK citizens rights the DPA covers the position. If a U.K. or French or US company abuses of Dutch citizens it’s the GDPR.

As long as any business only limits their storage and processing of details to what is necessary for the transaction and deletes the data afterwards there’s no issue. The company has to not hold the data for more than needed for its purpose.
.

Obviously if a business like Air bnb itself or M and S were to disregard citizens rights to lawful processing and say sell data onto say an airline or a car hire company or something then that’s a different kettle of fish.

Mostly the potential fines are all about protecting individuals’ rights -so to try and stop say Facebook or Mumsnet or M and S selling your details and abusing customers’ privacy.

[[https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/accountability-and-governance/data-protection-officers/
link~to~DP~officers]]

https://www.dlapiperdataprotection.com[[https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/accountability-and-governance/data-protection-officers/ /
Interesting~Link~to~data~protection~worldwide]]