Westministenders: Canada Plus and the Transition Phase

[RedToothBrush]

As we approach the 31st January, we slowly tick towards exit and transition.

Things are not yet signed off though the No Deal planning has quietly been stood down with no press release and the government have said they won't talk about trade deals post 31st Jan because the public are bored of them and don't understand.

The new EU president has said that the UK doesn't have time to make a full deal with the EU before 31st December with a deadline which isn't flexible.

We still have no idea what the government plans are. We still have many EU citizens feeling very vulnerable.

Perhaps we should start talking about this rather than Royals for a couple of weeks...

I might get a
..."but it's what you voted for!..."
T shirt made....

Dubs amendment to protect child refugees - the ones the Lords threw out - is defeated in the Commons. Not a good look.

Conservative MPs have voted down a House of Lords amendment to Boris Johnson’s Brexit legislation, which would have guaranteed family reunion rights for unaccompanied child refugees after EU withdrawal.
Despite appeals from children’s charities, MPs rejected the safeguards in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill by a margin of 342 votes to 254 – a majority of 88. All of those voting against the measure were Tories.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-vote-result-child-refugees-dubs-amendment-eu-bill-commons-a9297056.html

Dubs amendment to protect child refugees - the ones the Lords threw out - is defeated in the Commons. Not a good look.

(strap in, this could ramble)

for various reasons, the US case Brown vs. Board of education came across my eyeballs recently. And one thing jumped out which I hadn't really paid much notice to previously (I have self-pardoned myself for being an IT geek not an historian) which was the fact that the US Justice department filed a brief as a friend of the case, citing "international concerns" ...

The United States is under constant attack in the foreign press, over the foreign radio, and in such international bodies as the United Nations because of various practices of discrimination in this country.

(Secretary of State dean Acheson)

So basically, the US government itself felt it had to intervene to demonstrate it's opposition to the southern states open racism, as it was costing the US abroad.

A tacit admission that pester power can work.

Anyway, the tinfoil hat moment comes when I find myself wondering if the creeping alt-rightism of the world is somehow a long game plant to change the rest of the world to be more accepting of US racial intolerance.

Again.

Especially when a lot of Trumpian rhetoric about Mexicans and walls seemed to find an English-accented echo from the ELD-UKIP-BXP corners of the media ?

(As Sister Michael might have said: "Do you not sometimes think you have too much time on your hands ?" )

Grim. And predictable.

Dubs amendment to protect child refugees - the ones the Lords threw out - is defeated in the Commons. Not a good look... All of those voting against the measure were Tories.

On the contrary, I expect it's a very good look to Brexit/Tory voters, whilst of course nobody voted Brexit/Tory because of xenophobia or plain nastiness, mm'kay?

How utterly awful and predictable

I see the US Treasury Sec. is threatening to slap a tax on "British Car Companies."

I wonder who he has in mind? Toyota? Nissan? Ford?

The conspicuous exports are Rolls and Bentleys (German) and JLR (Indian).

Maybe he means Morgan?

^I see the US Treasury Sec. is threatening to slap a tax on "British Car Companies." [] I wonder who he has in mind? Toyota? Nissan? Ford? []
The conspicuous exports are Rolls and Bentleys (German) and JLR (Indian). Maybe he means Morgan?^

Lotus ?

Isn't Lotus owned by a Chinese company?

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall
NEW: The European Withdrawal Bill has passed the House of Lords and its final parliamentary hurdle. It is now heading for royal assent and the statute book.

James Rothwell @jameserothwell
Stefaan De Rynck, adviser to EU Brexit chief Michel Barnier, has warned that there can be no "backsliding or half measures" from the UK on checks on goods in the Irish sea after Brexit, as required in the Withdrawal Agreement

Earlier today Boris Johnson gave "emphatic" assurance to DUP MPs that there would be unfettered access i.e no checks/paperwork/barriers etc.

Either that is not true, or UK has a fight with EU on its hands before phase two talks have even started

Sounds like things are going well... The WA hasnt even got the Queen's Signature on it yet...

On the contrary, I expect it's a very good look to Brexit/Tory voters, whilst of course nobody voted Brexit/Tory because of xenophobia or plain nastiness, mm'kay?

At least when there is a reckoning, those who voted for the Dubs amendment will be able to hold their heads up high.

David Allen Green@davidallengreen
And so Brexit will begin

With a Big Ben that does not bong, because Boris Johnson's gung-ho, can-do confidence failed against logistical reality

And at 11pm not midnight, because UK starts Brexit off as a rule-taker, departing on Brussels time not London time

Our future awaits

Sienna Rodgers @siennamarla
Andrew Neil announces that Keir Starmer will be a guest on Wednesday 4th March. (That’s 12 days after the ballot opens.)

Ian Warren @election_data
To be clear, around two-thirds to three-quarters of members will have voted by this interview 🙄

Basically, Keir won't be interviewed before the election. Which people rightly called Boris out for. Presumably, this is different because.....

^

Meanwhile you might want to keep some of your Brexit stockpile. Y'know just in case...

PA Media @PA
#Breaking Chinese state media has said the city of Wuhan is shutting down outbound flights and trains as the coronavirus spreads more widely

"Earlier today Boris Johnson gave "emphatic" assurance to DUP MPs that there would be unfettered access i.e no checks/paperwork/barriers etc."

Well, he will bring transition to a grinding halt if the EU believe he plans to break the WA,
which specifies full checks - after transition - on goods travelling from GB to NI,
the so-called "NI frontstop" or Irish Sea border, designed to protect the EU's SM.

If they trust him to do so and then the post-transition checks don't happen, the EU will likely take the UK to an international court and sue for damages.
and / or cancel any trade deal and put up tariffs

However, the other direction is up to him:
he can choose not to put any checks on goods travelling from NI to GB

• those checks would only there to prevent NI being used by EU exporters as an open gateway into GB

Since the UK govt in practice wants to wave through whole sectors of EU goods at Dover & Folkstone - food, JIT components etc -
the EU goods that his govt wants to check / apply tariffs & VAT, might not be that high a total and could be ignored, to help NI business.

Cummings back, putting the frighteners on again ?
This time to the Beeb

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/22/no-10-says-it-wont-meddle-in-choice-of-bbc-boss-despite-anonymous-threat

No 10 has insisted that it will not seek to interfere in the BBC’s choice for director general,

after an anonymous Downing Street source* threatened that if a leftwinger were selected then a government-appointed board chairman would fire them next year.*
.....
But two briefings from Downing Street sources were given to the Daily Mail and ITV
suggesting the government would look very unfavourably on the corporation choosing James Purnell, the former Labour cabinet minister and current director of radio at the BBC.

A senior No 10 source told the Mail:

“We are concerned about reports of a ‘BBC stitch-up’ to select the new director general.
Obviously the first task of any new chairman would be to remove an unsuitable director general immediately.”

Later, ITV described a “well-placed Downing Street source”
saying that if the BBC’s board
“try to put someone like Purnell in [as director general], we will put in a chairman whose first job is to fire him...

The likes of Purnell [would be] ‘dead on arrival’.”

If they trust him to do so and then the post-transition checks don't happen, the EU will likely take the UK to an international court and sue for damages.
and / or cancel any trade deal and put up tariffs

The Brexiters would love this. It would be "waa, waa, waa, nasty EU taking us to court." The full on victim scenario, which they love.

*However, the other direction is up to him:
he can choose not to put any checks on goods travelling from NI to GB

• those checks would only there to prevent NI being used by EU exporters as an open gateway into GB*

I don't think this is correct, because of rules of origin for eg if a product or raw material from NI is used in a good that might subsequently be exported.

I am pretty sure that the ROO trade folks on twitter say that documentation will be required both ways.

stinkeddie has been put out to grass, she believes due to a different thread (see site stuff). She says Hi and will lurk.

Misti Maybe there are different breeds of trade wonks !
Or I missed updates, always possible.
Do you have some links about needing both directions ?

What I've read so far is that the govt could choose to remove checks on NI goods entering the GB market,
providing they don't mind a certain amount of lost tariffs, VAT etc from EU firms using NI as a backdoor into the UK

Rules of origin currently count NI as part of the UK - and I presume no future trade deal the govt negotiates would change this

Any UK goods exported, whether from NI or GB, would have to satisfy the same rules of the importing country

Theoretically, a problem might arise if NI goods are used in a GB product that is later exported to a country that does not accept EU standards as sufficient

• NI would continue to follow EU regs just as if they still belonged to the EU

However, the GB exporter - if they know EU regs / standards would not be OK - would presumably be extra careful about specifying these different specs throughout their supplier chain

Britain heads for clash with us on three fronts:

Iran
Tech Tax
Huawei

Good negotiating position there lads.

BCF
Re Cummings and how he's got it in for the BBC (what Kofi Annan called Britains gift to the world), it seems he feels we'd be so much better off with that gem of a network, Fox News. So it's not that he's against biased reporting, just the direction of the bias.

Has everybody forgotten where Johnson stayed during the leadership race? Just incredible what they're getting away with in their relentless assault on democracy.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-bbc-fox-news-boris-johnson-think-tank-new-frontiers-blog-a9296411.html

There is a D notice (or similar) on Brexit now.

I don't agree with that, but it has worked now. Not a word in the MSM UK for weeks.

Great country of free speech and all that. But hey Cummings has organised it. So hey.

The United States is under constant attack in the foreign press, over the foreign radio, and in such international bodies as the United Nations because of various practices of discrimination in this country.
(Dean Acheson)

The US was particularly vulnerable to accusations of racism, inequality, and hypocrisy during the Cold War. The USSR got a huge amount of mileage out of Jim Crow and coverage of the very visible hatred expressed by white Americans during the Civil Rights era.

(The UK was sensitive to the effects of coverage of NI too.)

Someone needs to buy a megaphone, take it to Trump's border wall, and film him or herself shouting, 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'