Westminstenders: The Final Week

[RedToothBrush]

Our final week in the EU...

Australia has no trade agreement with the EU. Is this No Deal, asks HMP? Much Johnsonian waffle results.

Wait...tow us to the South Pacific?

No need for towing, just BELIEVE enough and you can overcome the forces of plate tectonics.

Back in the referendum campaign, Brexiters were talking a lot about Norway +++

They switched after the referendum over time from Norway+++ to Canada
and Canada+++ to ++ to + to Minus ......

Now after Brexit we have slipped from Canada_Minus to Australia

WIll the next step be Zanzibar, or will it be Mars ?

UK expats in the EU

I'll report on how it's working for me in Germany and I'd love to hear from other Westministender expats in other countries
Misti, MissClimpson .... ?

Backgound

Germany is a federal republic, so unlike the v centralised UK, all admin is very devolved locally

imo, this is much more convenient for the residents as you visit / phone local offices for everything
and talk face to face with another human being, who handles your case and has time to give specific advice
In my experience over the years, it is also far more efficient with much lower stress
< Aspie and visually & hearing disabled; I can get v stressed when dealing with The Man >

Germany has a population of 80 million and is divided into 16 states, each with their own Parliament and head of state, together handling federal, shared & exclusive competences.

Within each state there are several districts each of which has an admin centre to deal with registration, tax, foreigners etc for everyone living within their district

The centre for my district is in the next big town and covers a population of 275,000

Every town and village also has a local town hall / office, where everyone (German or foreigner) has to report when they change address

• you just need passport / ID plus contract for rent or house purchase (as proof of address) and registration takes 2 minutes, no charge. They also deal with other local matters, such as voting, local amenities etc

What I did so far
I had collected proof of income, last 2 tax returns, letter from my employer, health insurance certificate ....

I phoned our district centre, who asked for my DOB, town and surname
They said I could come anytime, but just needed to bring my passport and 2 photos

So looks like I won't need any of the other stuff !
That's exactly how the federal govt said it should work - but I didn't quite believe it could be that simple < cynical > after hearing what EU citizens are finding in practice in the UK

Anyway I'll go Wednesday after gym - if it's not raining ! - and post back here if it is really that simple
I'll take all my additional documentation, just in case though

Next stop Mauritania - the only country in the world that trades nearly all on WTO terms (although even it has some preferential tariffs with developed countries because it is a developing country).

Re the David Schneider tweet.

What is it about Australian systems?

We had the actual
Australian digital election team running the Johnson election campaign.

We apparently want their immigration system.

Do we want their fire brigade? Largely under funded volunteers I thought?

BigChoc can only speak from my experience, but anything administrative here in France is usually lengthy and bureaucratic. We got our permanent residence cards three years ago. It took five round trips to the Préfecture (120km a time), a mountain of paperwork (I think about 40 hours for the two dossiers), photographs and fingerprints, a few hundred euros for birth, marriage, death certificates (yup I am 70 and unsurprisingly my parents are dead), expensive official translations of our birth and marriage certificates, lots of petrol and hours of queuing. The icing on the cake was when the cards came back with my photo on DH's card and vice versa so we had to get another set done.
We ran a small business for a few years and that was also a bureaucratic nightmare.
Every region does it differently so others will have a different tale to tell.
BTW if that tosser of a PM has to make a speech and crash the pound could he not do it on our pound to euro transfer day? 😱

What is it about Australian systems?

I don't know. Let's ask Sir Lord Lynton Crosby. Or Rupert Murdoch. Or is he American now?

.....what's that you say, Skippy? The trees are all gone and you can't breathe and the Prime Minister says its nothing to do with coal?

WIll the next step be Zanzibar, or will it be Mars ?

This bunch is the kind of people who could soon argue that access to oxygen is a privilege not a right...

Yes, I'm bitter today.

For the record ....

Rowena Mason in the Grauniad just now
Political journalists walked out of No 10 Downing Street this afternoon in protest at the government planning to give a briefing on the EU only to selected reporters - banning The Mirror, i, Huffington Post, PoliticsHome, Independent and others from attending.

Reporters on the invited list were asked to stand on one side of a rug in the foyer of No 10, while those not allowed in were asked by security to stand on the other side.

After one of Boris Johnson’s most senior advisers, Lee Cain, told the banned reporters they must leave the building, the rest of the journalists decided to walk out rather than allow Downing Street to choose who scrutinises and reports on the government.

Among those who refused the briefing and walked out included the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, ITV’s Robert Peston and political journalists from the Daily Mail, Telegraph, the Sun Financial Times, and Guardian.

The briefing was due to be given by government officials, who are meant to be neutral, rather than political.

The tactics from No 10 mirror those of Donald Trump in the US who has been known to try to exclude journalists from reporting on his activities and represents an escalation of Johnson’s tensions with the media, which have been ramping up in recent weeks.

Oh thats just horrendous listening

Trouble at t'climate conference:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51357200

...PM doesn't want Sturgeon "anywhere near" event hosted in Glasgow. Is Boney's old house on St Helena free?

Bad signs to watch out for......and we all know where it leads.

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Disdain for human rights
3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
4. Rampant sexism
5. Controlled mass media
6. Obsession with national security
7. Religion and government intertwined
8. Corporate power protected
9. Labor power suppressed

10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts 11. Obsession with crime and punishment 12. Rampant cronyism and corruption

This excluding journalists thing from No10 briefings is very worrying. I remember from this thread that the location of briefings was changed during recess - from House of Commons to Downing Street.

Chairman of the Lobby Christopher Hope said at the time he was ...concerned by the possibility that forcing journalists to access the Downing Street gate will allow the Government, or any future administration, “to refuse access to journalists it may not approve of”. (See Press Gazette here Jan3rd)

Guardian sketch writer John Crace also tweeted about press exclusions this morning - before this afternoon's event.

I keep hoping that what I think I'm seeing is wrong. And then as feared journalists are excluded from briefings. I feel sick watching this.

Downing Street are saying the journalist were told to leave because they forced their way into Number 10. Yeah, course they did. So do we have a major security breach on our hands or a lying toerag?

So do we have a major security breach on our hands or a lying toerag?

I'll take Door Number 2, please.

In response to my colleague Rowena Mason’s report about political journalists boycotting a No 10 briefing after Downing Street tried to exclude certain papers and news organisations (see 2.52pm), a senior No 10 source has just been in touch to say that there was a normal briefing for all lobby journalists after the PM’s speech and that the later one was a “smaller, selected briefing for specialist senior journalists”. The source said that “a number uninvited journalists barged into No 10 and demanded to be part of it” but that they were told they could not attend.

This account implies that those who were invited to attend were specialists, and that those who were not invited to attend did not have the same specialist background. In fact, all those involved - those invited, and those not invited - were regular political correspondents.

I worry that people, especially his own voters, won't notice what is happening for a long time.

Look how long Trump has got away with lies, bullying and controlling the press.

No more chats with journos over lunch either. Dom's got it covered.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cummings-spies-on-aides-at-lunch-6mxrvrbhj

UK immigrant in EU -

In Denmark we register on arrival in our local civic centre and are given a residency document there and then. The central government send you then an ID card, number and an online 'account' where you can update your details eg. bank account/address etc.

This ID number basically has all your details of every employer, address, bank account , basically everything about your life in denmark past and present, and therefore Brits now have nothing to do to prepare for december, cos DK know it all already! Easy peasy.

I feel desperately sorry for EU citizens in the UK. Its such a kick in the teeth having to jump through hoops practically, financially, emotionally everything I can't imagine the turmoil. And that's for the people who are able/know that they have to 'register'. What about all that don't or can't. Eugh.

I'm so glad that for once political journalists stood together, instead of the favoured few prioritising their careers

Underneath govt incompetence, the intended actions are alarmingly authoritarian

Just reading through Keir Starmer's answers on the Webchat today.

On the allowed 2 trans questions, he repeated "trans rights are human rights" without actually answering either question.
Slippery customer.

Keir is a lawyer.
Sitting on the fence on that one is a very good call while he is still in a competition
and about to face a government who would love to call himout on it

I do think Starmer is the best we have available. It's about time the opposition sorts itself out. No politician is ever perfect. How many centre left moderates do we have? Beggars can't be choosers here.

Having read the webchat too, I think he came across really well.

That is appalling about the treatment of the press. Really very scary.