Westministenders: Sub-Prime Minister at large

[BigChocFrenzy]

Our Sub-Prime Minister BJ is threatening a govt tantrum strike until he is allowed his Haribo GE on 12 December.

If MPs vote for a GE, he has promised them "more time" to debate the WAB,
but that would only be from 29 October to 7 November

• ridiculously inadequate for such complex legislation -

before Parliament is automatically dissolved for the 25 sitting days before a GE.

The GE debate starts Monday 2:30 pm in the HoC
Corbyn says he'll agree to a GE if BJ takes No Deal off the table

BUT wIth this WA,
No deal cannot 100% be taken off the table whilst the Tories are in office:

they could still No Deal after transition ends on 31 December 2020,
if they don't request a transition by July.

We don't know when the EU will give their decision on an extension, or what it will be:

The EU may decide only after the HoC vote
- in which case MPs would be voting "blindly"

Tusk, Merkel & most other leaders want to grant the Flextension until 31 January,
but Macron & a few others want to give a short extension of only 2-4 weeks, to pressure MPs to pass the WA in November

• in which case the GE would take place shortly after Brexit, which would be a gift to BJ.

A 12 December GE would also cause serious logistical problems for local council officials:

Apart from their poll station bookings clashing with Xmas bookings for church halls & schools,

they are legally required to send out all the polling cards based on the current electoral roll,
then at the GE, check names against the new electoral roll which must be updated on 1 December

The Rebel Alliance want a long extension, so they have time to add amendments to the WAB,
e.g. a CU, the Level Playing Field agreement in May's WA, maybe even a PV
So many may want to vote against a GE before that ..... but what does Corbyn want ?

BJ as PM could still change the date of any GE after he has agreed to it, if it suits him.

What does BJ want ?
Alice Cooper said it:

"I'm your top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice
I wanna be elected
I'm your yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce
I wanna be elected
Kids want a savior, don't need a fake

I wanna be elected
We're all gonna rock to the rules that I make
I wanna be elected, elected, elected..."

m.youtube.com/watch?v=cSvy8HpxFxo

• Post edited to correct dates

How has our country ended up being run by Violet Elizabeth Bott?

I go to bed relatively early (cold house!) and catch up on threads early in the morning, so I miss some interesting interchanges in real time...last night’s was a good one, I do like Misti’s style (and admire her knowledge), and Cat’s post at 22:49 was a wonderfully forensic dismantling of the disingenuous word salad offered up by Megan.

Thanks Berkow

Good morning. I’m going to avoid Brexit for a few hours. My plan is go out for breakfast, and then watch the rugby.

PMK - thread turnover is so fast...

I hope the Tories are denied their GE. They have to own their decision to throw British business under a bus along with the British people. Hopefully it kills their party forever.

The thing about trickle down economics is trickle is an appropriate description, it all gets dammed up at the top. What society needs is for benefits to flow down from a healthy spring.

Surely if it's not acceptable for professional sports people to bet on matches they are involved in and insider trading a crime etc why are MPs allowed to have outside work, directorships etc where they can financially benefit from policies they've made/voted on? I know they declare interests etc but that's not enough imo.

I've been saying this for ages. It absolutely should either be criminalised or banned. I'd prefer the former.

You could also easily say that only private people can support a party and put a limit on how much they can give.
You could impose that each side has exactly as much air time as each other. Incl the greens and other smaller parties.

There are many things that could be done to allow fairer elections.

“ remember a visitor we used to have who claimed to work in FinTech.
Anyone else remember that visitor?
And the visitor had no idea about holidays in the UK.”

Odd, isn’t it? I remember arguing with one who didn’t know who the Chancellor was. You’d think they’d do their homework, wouldn’t you?

@Sostenueto

Congrats on your grand daughters uni offer - unis will be well aware that early applicants will be applying to Oxbridge so I think they like to get offers in quick to good candidates.

Morning all. I see Arlene Foster says no but has yet to officially say so. I can't see bozo getting a GE so what's the plan if he doesn't? I'm only just starting on my morning cup of tea and not awake yet so apologies if this has already been discussed.

BTW, I don’t think H&S standards will drop - lots of legislation stems from H&S At Work Act 1974, and there have been some corporate manslaughter cases that should be a good incentive not to drop standards.

Or the one that was trying to convince us that ROI was Iraq not Ireland and the one that managed to vote for the BXP during the local elections where they were not standing any candidates. Bizarre.

Makes me chuckle when the same poster suddenly finds paragraphs and punctuation usually during a mid morning ‘shift change’.

They've already dropped workers' H&S rights. The 'six pack' of H&S legislation no longer applies to give strict liability. It's been 6 years since that kicked in. You now have to prove negligence (you can use breach of the Regs to assist with this) rather than rely on statutory strict liability.

Or the one that was trying to convince us that ROI was Iraq not Ireland and the one that managed to vote for the BXP during the local elections where they were not standing any candidates.

Oh yes, those were good, weren't they?

Congratulations to your DGD Sos - very well done!

FT (paywall): LEAK - Fears rise over post-Brexit workers’ rights and regulations

https://www.ft.com/content/5eb0944e-f67c-11e9-9ef3-eca8fc8f2d65

The British government is planning to diverge from the EU on regulation and workers’ rights after Brexit,
despite its pledge to maintain a “level playing field” in prime minister Boris Johnson’s deal,
according to an official paper shared by ministers this week.

The government paper drafted by Dexeu, the Brexit department, with input from Downing Street stated that
the UK was open to significant divergence,
even though Brussels is insisting on comparable regulatory provisions.

The issue will come to a head when the UK begins the next phase of talks with the EU to forge a new trade deal
.....
In a passage that could alarm Labour MPs who have backed the Brexit bill,
the leaked government document also said the drafting of workers’ rights and environmental protection commitments “leaves room for interpretation”.

The paper appears to contradict comments made by Mr Johnson on Wednesday
when he said the UK was committed to “the highest possible standards” for workers’ rights and environmental standards.

The document said the UK’s and EU’s “interpretation of these [level playing field] commitments will be very different”
and that the text represented a “much more open starting point for future relationship negotiations”.

It added that London believed that binding arbitration would be “inappropriate”.

The document boasts that “UK negotiators successfully resisted the inclusion of all UK-wide LPF rules” in the previous Theresa May deal.

Jenny Chapman, Labour’s shadow Brexit minister, said:
“These documents confirm our worst fears.
Boris Johnson’s Brexit is a blueprint for a deregulated economy, which will see vital rights and protections torn up.”

The new deal is very different to Theresa May’s,
in which the UK made a legal commitment not to roll back EU regulatory standards in areas such as social and environmental protections
as long as her “backstop” plan for preventing a hard Irish border was needed.
< and the magic tech for that could never exist >

Congratulations to your clever DGD Sos 👏🏼 🤛🏼

Mr Speaker I would like to assosciage myself with the comments of the right honourable member for elements song in wishing Sos DGD congratulations and wish her the very best of luck

Excuse typos I’m on my phone not pc

Does anyone want to know what Jeremy Hunt thinks of parliamentary scrutiny. Go on, can anyone guess?
I wrote on Monday to express concern about the timetable for the bill (as many of us did to our MPs, I imagine) and said amongst other things that we needed to trust our elected representatives to read the small print (and not set a bad example that it doesn't matter!) and that not giving it due consideration was a shady way of pushing through a deal.
Turns out, he can understand where I am coming from (ie want to be represented by someone who reads the stuff before voting) but has "mixed views" and then completely ignores the wider point: "whilst I appreciate the magnitude of the Brexit decision and any bills surrounding it, we have been debating it for three and half years and so I think most parliamentarians are very aware of all the issues involved."
I specifically said that this was not solely Brexit related and should be standard to expect scrutiny but he then blahed on about the new extended deadline of 6 November offered by the PM and the need to get Brexit done (in his defence, he did not actually use those words)

Interesting sovie but pausing the debating of the bill is not ‘getting Brexit’ done is it ? At some point it has to go through Commons and Lords whether PM likes it or not.

And big well done to Sos DGD. It’s alway good to hear positive news on here.

It was difficult listening to R4 Today this morning with David Miliband so on the ball and absolutely nailing Brexit. If Only...

In a passage that could alarm Labour MPs who have backed the Brexit bill, the leaked government document also said the drafting of workers’ rights and environmental protection commitments *“leaves room for interpretation”.

The paper appears to contradict comments made by Mr Johnson on Wednesday when he said the UK was committed to “the highest possible standards” for workers’ rights and environmental standards.

More fool them for taking the word of a known liar and cheat. This isn't libel - it's a matter of public record that he has lied on more than one occasion and been sacked for it.

At one time the UK did propose higher standards - but the lowering of such has been part of rolling back the welfare state. As has renaming social security (which most of us thought a good safety net) as 'welfare' i.e. these people are different from us, they are feckless scroungers.