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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.

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OchonAgusOchonO · 09/09/2020 21:54

Report from RTE on Johnson's defence of the bill.

I have to say, I thought this statement by Johnson, presumably without a trace of irony, was absolutely class:

Asked why the British public at large should respect any laws now, the prime minister told MPs: "We expect everybody in this country to obey the law."

SabrinaThwaite · 09/09/2020 21:59

Asked why the British public at large should respect any laws now, the prime minister told MPs: "We expect everybody in this country to obey the law."

Hahahahaha.

cf Cummings Eyesight Defence.

Peregrina · 09/09/2020 22:01

Yet when Johnson was asked if he and his friends were above the law, he refused to answer.

Darker · 09/09/2020 22:04

If there was a Venn diagram which included 'everyone' and 'the British public' Johnson and Cummings would place themselves outside those circles, even if they like to adopt the guise when it suits.

SabrinaThwaite · 09/09/2020 22:07

Rules are for the little people.

How long before prominent politicians in England are caught partying?

Peregrina · 09/09/2020 22:07

I think that is what annoying me, seeing people on other threads pontificating about how people should obey the rules. Back in March - May pretty much everyone was doing. The Cummings tried on his silly antics, got away with it, and blew the whole strategy to pieces.

QueenOfThorns · 09/09/2020 22:10

@RedToothBrush

Maybe, but perhaps we’re crediting this bunch of eejits with too much intelligent deviousness

Or we are talking about trained and successful political election campaigners who are running the country outside election time in the same manner and know when to drop their dead cats to maximum effect.

The lack of mention of Covid marshalls on the News at 10 suggests that this isn’t a dead cat at all. Or maybe Laura K didn’t get the memo?
Darker · 09/09/2020 22:15

Where is LK?

QueenOfThorns · 09/09/2020 22:24

@Darker

Where is LK?
She asked a question at the press briefing thingy. I did stop watching after that point, I just get ranty and it annoys DH!
mrslaughan · 09/09/2020 22:41

Covid Marshall's - imagine the sort of people that will attract.

ERG saber rattling, saying that the internal markets bill does not go far enough.... you can almost sense they can smell blood. How many MP's in the ERG? 70? Why are 70 MP's being allowed to hold the country hostage.

Going to bed now - desperately worried about This country.

mrslaughan · 09/09/2020 22:42

LK is rumoured to be leaving the BBC - though she was just in the 10 news.

Wasn't the gov looking for a spokesperson?

SabrinaThwaite · 09/09/2020 22:49

I wondered where LK had been recently too - usually she’s all over the BBC and Twitter.

Twitter shows her on 27th July saying “last piece of work for a while” and then nothing until 2 days ago, so suspect a long summer holiday?

ListeningQuietly · 09/09/2020 22:52

She had a planned holiday and is back at work
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54074746

OchonAgusOchonO · 09/09/2020 22:58

Pelosi has warned that there will be "absolutely no chance" of a US-UK trade agreement passing the US Congress if Brexit undermines the Good Friday Agreement.

Peregrina · 09/09/2020 23:18

How many months have we been saying that the GFA must be respected and that the strong Irish-Amercan lobby will make sure that it does?

BigChocFrenzy · 09/09/2020 23:29

John Crace: 😂😂

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/09/boris-johnson-lets-rip-another-demented-monologue-in-commons

"The fact was that when he had said the deal was oven ready, what he had meant was that it was ready for total incineration"

colouringindoors · 09/09/2020 23:39

Liking the Pelosi statement.

DrBlackbird · 09/09/2020 23:55

Wow I go teach online for a day to come back and find the thread has raced ahead with all kinds of interesting / important / slightly odd diversions.

When I raised a number of current political issues with a colleague, I'm told that I'm being pessimistic. Why do so many folks want to ignore what's happening?

"It was written on the assumption that subsequent agreements to clarify these aspects could be reached between us and the EU on the details and that may yet be possible"

Did no one mention to our erudite MPs not to assume?

Re Covid marshalls... can see EDL and co jumping to sign up for that bit of power. What an incredibly stupid idea.

BigChocFrenzy · 10/09/2020 00:17

Blimey, I'd never let this bunch of incompetents represent me in business

BigChocFrenzy · 10/09/2020 00:17

Could the Lords reject Boris’s Brexit bill?

Has he packed it sufficiently with Fox, Frost & co or do they have the votes to block it ?

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/could-the-lords-reject-boris-s-brexit-bill-

A senior Tory tells me the House of Lords will turn the Salisbury-Addison convention
– which says the upper house won't block legislation that stems from a government's election manifesto –
on its head, when it comes to the two bills amending the Withdrawal Agreement.

He points out that the Tory manifesto describes Boris Johnson's renegotiated Withdrawal Agreement as ‘a great deal’ and ‘signed sealed and delivered’.

There were no qualifications.

So their lordships could rationally argue that by rejecting Johnson's attempt to modify the WA, through the internal market and finance bills,
they would be compelling him to honour the promise he made to the electorate.

Far from breaching Salisbury-Addison, they would be embracing its underlying logic.

tobee · 10/09/2020 00:47

@Peregrina

I think that is what annoying me, seeing people on other threads pontificating about how people should obey the rules. Back in March - May pretty much everyone was doing. The Cummings tried on his silly antics, got away with it, and blew the whole strategy to pieces.

This!

BigChocFrenzy · 10/09/2020 01:19

EU Considers Legal Action Over U.K. Plan to Breach Brexit Deal

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-09-09/eu-sees-case-for-infringement-proceedings-against-u-k-over-bill

The European Union is studying the possibility of legal action against the U.K. over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans to breach the agreement governing Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc,
according to a document seen by Bloomberg.

The EU may have a case to seek legal remedies under the divorce agreement even before controversial provisions in the U.K. internal-market bill are passed by Parliament
and that it would have a clear justification once the bill becomes law,
according to the bloc’s preliminary analysis of the U.K. legislation.

The pound erased gains from earlier in the session after the news.

BigChocFrenzy · 10/09/2020 01:21

Darran Marshall@DarranMarshall (BBC)

"Where there is an indication that a state intends to break international law,

it seems to me that
it may have a domestic effect on the confidence that the public may have in the legal system generally.”

Northern Ireland's Lord chief Justice reacts to ‪*@BrandonLewis*‬' comments

mobile.twitter.com/DarranMarshall/status/1303733357256245248

BigChocFrenzy · 10/09/2020 01:59

BMJ: Covid-19: Government plans to spend £100bn on expanding testing to 10 million a day

Another world-beating wheeze
That's not much less than the entire annual budget for NHS England (120 bn) - and it is unlikely to work

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3520

Critics have already rounded on the plans as “devoid of any contribution from scientists, clinicians, and public health and testing and screening experts,”
and “disregarding the enormous problems with the existing testing and tracing programmes.”

mathanxiety · 10/09/2020 03:55

Big difference between reunification of Ireland and Germany is that east and west Germans were all Germans. NI is made up of Irish and British people so those who feel very strongly that they are British are less likely to be swayed by financial support
@OchonAgusOchonO
There were massive cultural differences between East and West Germany and E and W Germans, and the impact of those differences is being felt today. That story is not yet over, but the future of Germany is going to take place within a EU framework, whic makes a difference. So too would Ireland's future.

I have a hunch that only a very small minority would be so alienated from the idea of a reunited Ireland that they would cause problems. There would be many who would support it for the chance to remain in the EU, with all that that means in terms of agricultural subsidies, and there is nothing wrong with that imo. Irish people themselves have always decamped to Britain for economic reasons regardless of strong patriotic feelings toward Ireland, have settled there and found themselves more or less comfortable among British neighbours.

...they are certainly valid points but I think the level of Britishness, and abhorance of all things Irish, felt by more extreme loyalists/unionists means they will never accept a united Ireland.
Yes, even a small minority adamantly opposed to the idea of a reunited Ireland is still not a pleasant prospect, but I don't think it's strong feelings of cultural Britishness that will cause problems. It's lack of political leadership. The group we are talking about has been emboldened for over a hundred years by British government refusal to make them engage constructively with political reality.

NI politicians of all stripes know (deep down, in some cases) that they are way down on the fourth page of the list of priorities of any given British government most of the time. Sheer number of MPs from the rest of the UK, as well as the irrelevance of NI political division to mainstream British political divisions guarantee that NI MPs are verging on invisible and certainly irrelevant most of the time in Westminster. The risk of being out of sight and out of mind 'below decks' in Stormont is very high while HMS Westminster tries to steer a course through the post EU choppy seas.

It will be a huge challenge for political leadership on both sides. But I think it is going to happen sooner rather than later, so both sides need to be ready.

If the DUP were smart (yes, big question mark) they would be researching socially conservative political opinion in Ireland and considering how the Irish PR voting system could be put to their use.