Westminstenders: The Final Week

[RedToothBrush]

Our final week in the EU...

Mystery if you had to go through a different exit, somebody isn't honouring the transition... Nothing changes until the 31st of December 2020

Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam

Then they need telling off.

Ryanair are recruiting staff it seems

Cabin Crew Opportunities - London Recruitment Day 1 February 2020

Ryanair, London

REQUIREMENTS
Applicants must have the unrestricted right to live and work in the EU

link here

Oh dear the disadvantages of leaving the EU are horrific.

Disingenuous. If you have been following you will have heard the word Transition. Given Boris Johson's attention to detail, he could and is likely to muck up getting a deal and you might find that it's not quite so easy this time next year.

For what it's worth, I returned today from an EU country and the automatic passport gates for EU citizens worked fine, so I did not take any minutes longer. Perhaps you should still have pretended to be an EU citizen? Who knows whether my England and Wales passport will work when I have to obtain that.

In the last few months I have noticed how sometimes UK citizens get put in a different queue. For instance, it happened at St Pancras last December. They directed UK + non EU citizens to another queue. Maybe it was to test run how it would look post brexit.

Mystery if you had to go through a different exit,

Mystery was probably trying to make a point. Even before last weekend I have seen UK passport holders queue at the non - EU gates when they could have waltzed straight through. (Oh sorry, waltz isn't an English word, can someone supply a substitute?)

I want to say Morris dance. Just because the mental image has made me laugh tbh.

Rafa

Actually Peregrina you've probably nailed it. Maybe it's pre-emptive martyrdom?

THis sort of Morris

You know those pervy blokes who ride around on crowded public transport so they can rub themselves against unsuspecting (usually female) commuters? And they go from one bus/train to another when they're noticed? That.

Any US POTUS would put the US first and take advantage of the UK's vry weak negotiating position.
So the prospects for a US FTA probably won't improve even if Trump fails to win

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/31/trump-will-put-us-interests-first-in-trade-talks-says-kim-darroch-ambassador

Donald Trump will put the interests of corporate America first and demand that the NHS pays higher prices for US drugs in a free-trade deal with the UK,
the outgoing British ambassador to Washington has told the Guardian.

Kim Darroch, in his first interview since his resignation from his post in July, from where he spearheaded attempts to grow trade with the US,
insisted that Trump would reward his backers in drug firms and farming communities by opening up British markets,
while questioning where the UK’s gains would be found.
....
Darroch, who said that warnings on the US’s trade demands had been made to No 10 during his tenure in Washington DC,
also said it was “impossible” for a deal to get through Congress by the end of 2020 and
that it appeared to be “a narrow and rocky path to get to where they [the UK government] want to be”.

We need to keep informing Brexiters that transition keeps the legal status quo* until 31 December*
So it's pretty pointless for them to keep posting nothing much has changed:
that's the whole point of a transition period !

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/03/boris-johnson-weak-brexit-uk

Here we go again.
Brexit did not end on Friday night.

Formal divorce proceedings reached a messy conclusion, but the couple will cohabit for at least another 11 months.

Nothing in practice has changed.
No one is hurt, yet.
Anything might still happen.
...
Trade is not about sovereignty.
It is about commercial and economic weight.

In this respect, Britain outside the EU has been weakened, not strengthened.
The lion has become a mouse, a mouse trying to roar.

Donald Trump will put the interests of corporate America first and demand that the NHS pays higher prices for US drugs in a free-trade deal with the UK,

This is one thing which worries me very much. Johnson is the sort who could quite happily say that we are spending £350 million a week on the NHS and conveniently miss out the detail that this is because we are now paying inflated drug prices, when it ought to be going on staffing, or new buildings.

....and the Brexiters voting public is gullible enough to be taken in by that

My God, these Leavers are a mardy bunch, aren't they? They have won, but they don't seem to know what they have won.

Turbulence in cabinet.

NEW: Sajid Javid is at war with Dominic Cummings and has been battling to save his job

mobile.twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1224412476156059648

Not surprised.

It is crucial for the government to encourage and maintain the belief that Brexit has happened in its entirety. To not mention it or the deals that may or may not be made before the end of the year. So there is a long period where leavers (and others) think nothing has happened of an adverse nature. Then when shit things occur after transition it could be attributed to "other factors".

Just thought it was worth mentioning again.

Who will be the next Chancellor then?

Was BJ drunk for his own speech, or is that how his brain works ?

Graham Lithgoww@grahamlithgow*

Not to call Boris Johnson incoherent,
but you'd get more sense out of a lethally intoxicated acid casualty attempting to recite the Gettysburg Address with a swarm of locusts in his mouth.
😂🤦🏻‍♀️

This may explain the racist Happy Brexit Day posters in the Norwich flats - and the MNers minimising / justifying it:

YouGovv@YouGov*

A quarter of Brits (26%) - and 41% Leave voters - say they're bothered when they hear those from a non-English speaking country talking to each other in their own language whilst in the UK

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/02/03/66818/3?utmsource=twitter&utmmmedium=dailyquestions&utmmcampaign=question_3

That illustrates the "culture war" we have discussed, that caused Brexit.

I have been busy working and am behind with the thread and missed part of the discussion of the Streatham attack. Having read and listened to some main stream media on this, something occurred to me. It may just be me, but....

Previously, even with the majority of terrorists being home grown somehow the way it was reported often left a suggestion hanging there of responsibility being elsewhere. It often seemed implied some how the EU was responsible for sending us the terrorist. Even if the person was born here, or in the commonwealth, or their grandparents came due to empire arrangements or whatever -somehow there was a link made that the terrorists arrived from the EU. Even if the terrrorist had once been on a long weekend to Paris, or had once eaten a baguette, or had travelled through or via the rest of Europe to go on a training camp, somehow that left the EU partly responsible for terrorism here.

But this time, the first since leaving, it feels different. It feels that now the same (false) implication and attribution can't be made? It's weird psychology but it just seems to me that somehow the act of leaving means that we have to own stuff now -the responsibility is now more domestically focussed.

We might wish that Brexit means taking responsibility instead of blaming the EU for everything

However, I expect the blame game to get much worse, as Brexiter fantasies smack against economic reality

BBC reporting UC delayed again:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51318730
This time it's the fault of the claimants

• no mention of scalability concerns, release failures or software design failings. I do wish there were reporters who understood tech enough to ask the right questions - but I guess that's true across the board.