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Brexit

Westminstenders: Governing by U-Turn

999 replies

RedToothBrush · 07/09/2020 01:45

Johnson's determination to get brexit done and to have 'a clean break from Europe' on terms which involve other countries happily returning fishing rights they bought from us (without recompense for the said previous purchase) in addition to the EU accepting terms they don't feel create a level playingfield and risk their economic future make any deal impossible. Our demands simply aren't achievable.

The alternative is adherence to the Withdrawal Agreement in which we are unable to bail out businesses via state aid and to have no deal which creates huge trade barriers and tarriffs overnight and massive customs red tape which we simply are not yet prepared for because the systems for running this are running behind schedule. This would lead to massive food shortages and Brexit lorry parks throughout the country for the forseeable future.

Johnson's latest bright idea is that he seems to think he can avoid chaos by a strategy which would cause even more chaos by deliberately reneging on the withdrawal agreement which is an international agreement just months after throwing a hissy fit for China doing exactly the same thing. This wouldn't just be hypocritical but would make a mockery of our credibility internationally and potentially endanger every other international agreement we've currently in place because well, why should anyone else stick to an agreement with the UK.

We could face years of legal wrangles with god knows which countries and businesses suing the British government.

But y'know Johnson thinks this is a sensible strategy and a cracking plan to force Brussels to blink first rather than actually take the subject seriously and do something in the country's interest rather than prevent Johnson from damaging his internal reputation with leave voters and because he thinks this is the correct hill to die on to prove he doesn't govern by u-turn. Johnson's ego seems more important to him than feeding the nation and having an international reputation.

Or he could do another u-turn.

OP posts:
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borntobequiet · 08/09/2020 18:12

Ha ha at 11am yesterday I said nothing was too crazy for them...soooo true (unfortunately). Break an international treaty? What a lark.

FatCatThinCat · 08/09/2020 18:19

and ?

He's sworn lots of things to lots of people - and not all of them are happy.

I just shocked that he signed an international agreement knowing full well he had no intention of sticking to it. Stumbling from one disaster to another is bad, but premeditated fuckwittery is a whole other level of disgraceful.

I don't know why I'm shocked though. He was never a trustworthy partner, negotiating in good faith.

ListeningQuietly · 08/09/2020 18:20

Another civil servant lawyer resigned
Rowena Collins Rice - Director General at the Attorney General's Office
said to be planned
but who do we believe

FatCatThinCat · 08/09/2020 18:20

Name change fail there. My phone and laptop refuse to come to an agreement on what my user name is.

HateIsNotGood · 08/09/2020 18:31

Well it's certainly turned the usual Negotiations PR process around. Normally, it goes:

  1. Brexit Negotiations - not a lot gets negotiated
  1. Barnier holds Press Conference and firstly states:

a) that not a lot has been negotiated
b) outlines the sticking points (again)

  1. Barnier takes Press Questions and then states:

a) the EU is not the problem and is right not to change its position
b) the UK is at fault for not changing its position.

THIS time:

  1. UK Govt leaks some info to the FT that they're gonna start playing Rugby, which just isn''t Cricket, and pass the ball back so they can kick it forward.
  1. A lot of Noise is created, the opposition run backwards as they chase the back pass, miss The Ball entirely as it's kicked to a Forward who scores easily scores a Try as all the Defence have been chasing the Back Pass.
  1. In reality the leaked info concerns some minor changes which may or may not happen.
  1. Barnier maintains a silence (not a Trappist one) as he prefers to report after negotiations. And realizes new tactics are needed.
TatianaBis · 08/09/2020 18:32

Having to sabotage a deal that you personally negotiated must surely be a plot line in a comedic series pilot that never went to air as being "too far fetched to be funny" ?

Exactly what I thought. Not even Jim Hacker etc. I can imagine the look on Humphrey’s face.

SabrinaThwaite · 08/09/2020 18:41

@DGRossetti

Just drop a prediction here that "no deal" will be branded "Australia Deal" (handy having Abbot on board for that).
That’s not news - they’ve been branding a no deal as an Australian style deal for months.

www.theweek.co.uk/105664/what-is-an-australia-style-trade-deal

Peregrina · 08/09/2020 18:46

I am not sure what you are getting at HateIs - do you think blatantly breaking international treaties that you negotiated and signed yourself less than a year ago is good? The bit that Johnson is trying to break is the bit he negotiated.

TatianaBis · 08/09/2020 18:51

I don’t give a Castlemaine XXXX what they call it. It’s shit.

SabrinaThwaite · 08/09/2020 18:53

3. In reality the leaked info concerns some minor changes which may or may not happen.

Of course, it’s just a minor tweak, nothing to see here ...

Funny that the Government’s most senior lawyer has resigned as a direct result of “just a minor tweak” though?

AuldAlliance · 08/09/2020 18:54

Hang onto your hazelnuts, you'll need them in Jan.
No point wasting them on squirrels.

FrankieStein402 · 08/09/2020 19:09

Wonder if they expect to publish the bill before, during or after PMQ. I wouldn't actually put it past pfeffel and cummings to have leaked this to lay a trap for starmer.

ie playing specifically to Starmer the lawyer and expecting him to attack for threatening to break international law when the actual bill proposes nothing of the kind.

Given the timing its probably not an option for Starmer to cover this at PMQ but once the bill is published I'd like to understand whether the leader of the opposition has standing to bring a case against the government for conspiracy to breach an international agreement...

DGRossetti · 08/09/2020 19:13

Given the timing its probably not an option for Starmer to cover this at PMQ but once the bill is published I'd like to understand whether the leader of the opposition has standing to bring a case against the government for conspiracy to breach an international agreement...

Parliament is supreme. If Johnson gets a majority vote in parliament there is nothing anyone in the UK can do further. It's obey the government or go to jail.

I imagine the Palace aren't too chuffed.

BigChocFrenzy · 08/09/2020 19:16

"Of course, it’s just a minor tweak, nothing to see here ..."

Breaking a treaty that the PM claimed as a big achievement

and made all Tory Parliamentary candidates sign up to support

Top government lawyers resigning

Pound dropping

Chair of US Congress Irish-American caucus retweeting what he posted last year, warning about NI Protocol if the UK wants a US trade deal

BigChocFrenzy · 08/09/2020 19:23

The government told the HoC that its plans to override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol would breach international law ‘in a very specific and limited way” Shock

That will be China's next line
and Saudi Arabia's
and .... every bloody dictatorship in the world, communist or fascist

A great public relations getout given to them all by the government of the UK

I wonder if this will be a defence for ordinary bods in UK courts:
Try being a defendant in court and saying you broke the law ‘in a very specific and limited way”.

SabrinaThwaite · 08/09/2020 19:37

Try being a defendant in court and saying you broke the law ‘in a very specific and limited way”.

The Cummings defence.

FrankieStein402 · 08/09/2020 19:45

"Britannia waives the rules"

(a comment on marina hyde's guardian column today)

TatianaBis · 08/09/2020 19:54

Ian Duncan Smith, John Redwood and Steve Baker rushing to Lewis’s defence. The kind of support Lewis could have done without as all three seemed to imply that Boris had promised them last year that he would renege on the Northern Ireland protocol, which was the only reason they had voted for it in the first place.

It’s nice to have proof that the hard right always intended to renege on NI.

TatianaBis · 08/09/2020 19:55

They really are such twatters.

BigChocFrenzy · 08/09/2020 20:09

Thought so !

Jo Maugham QCC@JolyonMaugham*

"My client only broke the law in a specific and limited way"
is amongst the rarer pleas advanced by Counsel in written or oral submissions.

WorriedMutha · 08/09/2020 20:31

I find it really quite alarming that this story is making it to about third in the news bulletins. Wtf is wrong with people. Zero media scrutiny of the issues. Of course I can find serious analysis amongst the lawyers and commentators I follow but MSM, nada. This is what's wrong.

JamieLeeCurtains · 08/09/2020 20:47

@WorriedMutha

I find it really quite alarming that this story is making it to about third in the news bulletins. Wtf is wrong with people. Zero media scrutiny of the issues. Of course I can find serious analysis amongst the lawyers and commentators I follow but MSM, nada. This is what's wrong.
Yes - I watched the main BBC news at 6pm and it was minimised. Shameful.
ListeningQuietly · 08/09/2020 20:49

TV news is all about opium for the masses now
the only true analysis is in the weekly periodicals and blogs

SabrinaThwaite · 08/09/2020 20:53

This is from Tom Hickman, QC and reader in law at UCL:

The resignation of Sir Jonathan Jones raises questions such as: ‘How sure does a Government lawyer have to be before advising that proposed conduct will be unlawful?’ And: ‘how certain does it have to be that conduct will be unlawful before a Minister should not proceed?’

An answer is to be found in the government policy on legal risk which applies to both domestic and international law. Released under FOIA in 2018.

Ministers can legitimately proceed even if it’s very likely conduct is unlawful, described as over 70 per cent:

It is only if there is ‘no credible argument’ that conduct is lawful they should be advised that the conduct will be unlawful and should not proceed:

You may be surprised how much leeway the policy gives Ministers to act ‘within the law’. But it gives an indication at least of the territory that Sir Jonathan Jones was presumably in when he decided that he had to resign.

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