Westminstenders: Pah International Law. Who needs it?

[RedToothBrush]

I mean its not as if trade deals and human rights are relevant is it?

(sorry eating my dinner so must be brief)

I waz once in a job where the Manager wanted me to do something of dubious legality : I voted with my feet. Financially it wasn't easy, although I was able to get work to tide us over, but my integrity remained intact.

I'm guessing that Hitachi twigged that any undertakings they may have been previously given about operating the power plant (especially around guaranteed prices) aren't worth shit now, and discreetly removed themselves from harms way.

I wonder how many other companies that have been secretly promised something are now waking up to realise that they haven't any hope of enforcing that ?

"I wonder how many other companies that have been secretly promised something are now waking up to realise that they haven't any hope of enforcing that ?"

A government that breaks legal agreements won't hesitate to dump any "gentlemen's" agreement for financial aid, that was done with a handshake
Or indeed dump a signed agreement

Boris Johnson doesn’t understand the detail of his own Brexit deal – that’s the alarming truth

imo, still possible he cba becuse he always intended to renege, whatever the WA detail
Not a "details man", as Ed highlighted so memorably 😂

www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-boris-johnson-eu-trade-deal-northern-ireland-withdrawal-agreement-b452212.html

Two months ago, a senior Whitehall official told me that Boris Johnson did not understand the Northern Ireland protocol he signed last year 🤦🏻‍♀️
to clinch a withdrawal agreement with the EU.

I didn’t believe it;
it sounded too good a story to be true.

Now I do believe it.

I know it sounds incredible, and of course some things are so damaging that they will be denied by Downing Street.
Yet it explains the prime minister’s extraordinary decision to take powers to override the protocol in an agreement he hailed as “fantastic” and “wonderful”.

It explains why Johnson told Northern Ireland business people they could put “in the bin” any customs declaration forms relating to trade with Great Britain.

It explains why he said there would be a trade border in the Irish Sea “over my dead body”.

It explains the sheepish suggestion from Johnson allies that the full implications of the protocol to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland were unclear last year because the deal brokered by Johnson and his then Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar was inevitably rushed.

That might be the case, but it can't disguise the alarming truth:
we have a PM who doesn’t do detail, and didn’t understand the small print of his own deal.

Yes, it’s complicated, but not that complicated.
Johnson should have got it, because only two proposals for avoiding a hard Irish border were on the table:

Theresa May’s Northern Ireland-only protocol, part of the deal over which Johnson resigned as foreign secretary,
or a customs border in the Irish Sea, to which he signed up after succeeding her.
...
Johnson’s aim was to play hardball in the EU negotiations in the hope Brussels either made concessions or walked out in protest, so he could then blame it for the collapse.

But the EU is not playing ball.
It is deliberately keeping calm and carrying on negotiating a trade deal.
Officials tell me they will be “the grown-ups in the room,” which also tells us precisely what they think of Team Johnson. 🤦🏻‍♀️

‘Britain does not break treaties’: EU president quotes Thatcher as she tells Boris Johnson he cannot change Brexit deal

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-boris-johnson-deal-eu-northern-ireland-von-der-leyen-thatcher-b451406.html

Ursula von der Leyen says EU will ‘never backtrack’ on withdrawal agreement
....
"The EU and the UK jointly agreed it was the best and only way for ensuring peace on the island of Ireland," she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

"And we will never backtrack on that.
This agreement has been ratified by this House and the House of Commons.
"It cannot be unilaterally changed, disregarded or dis-applied.
This a matter of law, trust and good faith."

Ivan Rogers: BJ wants No Deal

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/trumpite-boris-johnson-wants-eu-to-fail-former-british-diplomat-says-1.4356233

"The UK conduct of the of this set of negotiations has, if anything, been even more dismal than the UK conduct of the previous set of negotiations,
including in August by demanding negotiating sessions and then having nothing whatever new to say in them,” 🤦🏻‍♀️

The EU will say that they tried to do a deal
but the UK never accepted the obvious automatic consequences of leaving the customs union and single market,
they had better now see and experience those consequences and they need a period of sobering up whilst they realise just how difficult it’s going to be as a third country without any preferential deal.

“On the British side, if we have done this deliberately, Johnson will be firing up to get people behind him, it will be full on,
a story every day in the press about resisting the humiliation imposed,
‘we are not going to be treated like this by the evil empire’.
It will be nasty.”

Yes it will be nasty, but the only bonus I can see is that Johnson has destroyed a lot of potential goodwill with his handling of Covid.

Johnson has destroyed a lot of potential goodwill

Hasn’t he done that pretty much everywhere? Apart from the erg

they need a period of sobering up whilst they realise just how difficult it’s going to be as a third country without any preferential deal

But they don't need anything do they? BJ, JRM, DC et al, all of them will be just fine thank you. They will still jet off to their homes in the south of france, drink their imported wines etc. In fact they will very likely have done extremely well out of shorting the pound.

It is only us 'little people' that will find ourselves soberly reflecting on how difficult life has become as a third country without any preferential deal whilst regarding empty shelves again and rising unemployment.

.

What's the point if Parliament having a vote on whether they use the bill? The Tories have a majority ffs! Of course they will win the vote especially now yet another deal with ETG been done again.

ERG.

It really does look like the one not acting in good faith all along is Johnson. I don’t know how anyone can hide from that - unless he is a lot more stupid than he is claimed to be. Even I could see the contradictions of NI weren’t solvable. Theresa May certainly knew it.

Yes but Raab has told the US that it's the EU's fault. Predictably.
Will they fall for it?

Quick backtrack on the thread but rather relevant.
I was at Secondary school in the late 70s
the vast majority of older teachers at my school - and my primary school, and others like them - were unmarried women.

Lots and lots and lots of them had lost their fiances in the war and not found anybody else who measured up.
I don't remember it having an impact
but it MUST have affected every thought in the way they taught about the world

My History teacher I know lost her brothers and her boyfriend ....
I just remember her as old

That generation influenced lots of us
who is influencing now ?

@Peregrina

I probably only had one teacher who fought at the end of WW1. He was the one who was rather enthusiastic about Empire. My own GF who also fought never talked about it, until right at the end of his life and then to say what a bloody business it had been. He was patriotic, but not jingoistic.

Likewise my father went through WW2, lost a brother who was a pilot, but virtually never talked about it. The only time I remember him saying anything was a comment to the effect that he was always incredibly grateful that he wasn't involved in D Day as he was serving in Africa at the time. By contrast, my FIL was always banging on about the war, despite the fact that, as he was younger than DF, his service was limited to the Home Guard in the North at a time when the danger of invasion was well past. Unsurprisingly, he was a died-in-the-wool UKIP/Brexit supporter.

The front pages arent government friendly

Johnson did face a behind the schemes revolt - though the risk (certainty?) is he will double cross.

And the fact that Johnson has failed to do his job and manage the covid crisis couldn't be much clearer.

Local lockdowns imminent and pub curfews likely. With a work from home order also likely.

Its not very pretty.

Deservedly getting it in the neck

The Mail has definitely gone off him
Seems to be because of his Covid fuckups, not his Brexit ones.

Daily Mash: FLYING to Italy and being given a coronavirus test on arrival is far quicker and easier than trying to get one in the UK, the NHS has advised. 😂😂

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/foreign-holiday-quickest-and-easiest-way-of-getting-coronavirus-test-20200916200514

As the UK’s testing service continues to be as shambolic as everything else this government does,
doctors have confirmed that visiting a foreign country is the most guaranteed way of getting tested within six months and 1,000 miles of home.

A government spokesman said:
“Apparently in Italy they’re offering tests at the airport, which is a great idea if you think about it.
We refuse to think about it.

“Instead we’ve outsourced testing to six private companies, and they’ve outsourced it to 34 other private companies, and they’ve outsourced it to a warehouse full of angry chimpanzees.

“They’re doing wacky stuff like sending people on car journeys across seven counties only to find the test centre is closed,
but that’s the British sense of humour.
You’ve got to laugh!”

Express cover and tweet (as taken from another thread) about the possibility of a second national lockdown.

I think we need to keep eyes on this.

This smacks of the public being prepared for the possibility as reopening gradually and carefully has been completely fucked.

If it was a realistic possibility id expect Johnson to handle it by initially coming out all guns blazing about it, only to blame others and be able to play the hero that he tried but he couldnt nothing else and isnt he brave for taking such a difficult, controversial and hard decision.

A 2nd lockdown would be a total fucking disaster
Israel has just started theirs

Let's see what other European countries do
If they have a 2nd lockdown, it would be more believable it was unavoidable

If the UK is the only European country to do this though and the others have an "acceptable" level of deaths
then BJ & co should be strung up by their ears

< what is acceptable ? Germany had a peak of about 350; I'd accept that in a country of 83 million that normally averages about 2,500 deaths per day. YMMV
BUT ... how to be sure that's as high as it would go .... >

To even be hinting about a 2nd lockdown .... what data do the govt have that we don't yet ?

Just spotted a Telegraph article posted online "Boris Johnson has just six months left to save his premiership".

That's astonishing from a paper which is fanatically loyal to the Tories, about a PM who rode to victory less than a year ago.

Which fanatic would they replace him with?

@Peregrina, Gov? I thought that was the plan all along, except Covid has accelerated the timeline.

• Break Britain
• Get the population desperate enough to accept new infringements and fewer safeguards
• Deregulate and sell off anything left
• Watch the money roll in
• Blame Labour/EU/nasty foreigners for your actions
• Swan off and write a book about it.