Westminstenders: Off he pops to Brussels

[RedToothBrush]

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex
There's no way Johnson has not already decided whether or not to concede on Level Playing Field. Which makes the trip to Brussels dressing. Whether it will dress a concession as "I have saved us" or No Deal as "I tried my best" remains to be seen. But the choice is already made.

Amanda Cole @amandajanecole
What's your gut feeling, will he put his job ahead of the country? Given his past self serving form?

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex
I think he is so cornered - and has done so badly on Covid19 - his instinct will be one last, double-or-nothing throw of the dice. Only no deal does that.

The issue is that coming back with a deal will earn him much heckling and zero back-slapping from his peers. But no deal will earn him just as much heckling, but also plenty of back-slapping. What I don't know is just how ominous the departmental briefings he's getting are.

Its also worth noting the following:

Mujtaba Rahman @mij_europe
I understand @BorisJohnson wanted @EmmanuelMacron & Merkel to join his phone call with @vonderleyen last night, but she rejected the idea

So even yesterday he was STILL looking to undermine the EU and split its leaders. After all this time and the number of times he's tried this on.

Have no doubt that a) everything will be blamed on Macron (probably personally, with Conservative hardliners coming out calling for the public to boycott French cheese and wine - I'm serious btw) and covid b) covid provides a handy distraction at least for the moment. It will be used accordingly - that means its possibly now not in Johnson's interest to stop a spike in January. All efforts will be put into the vaccine rollout for PR but thats going to hit the breaks fairly soon. No doubt the EU will be blamed for that too.

What I'm not anticipating is another full lockdown. I think at least parts of Greater Manchester will now get out of T3 on 16th December. Traffords numbers look exceptional and I think it politically impossible for Johnson to keep it in T3. Its Graham Brady's patch and Manchester as a whole looks far far better than T2 London.

Anyone who gets out of T3 before Christmas won't go back into it. I'm not anticipating London to go T3 unless No Deal turns really ugly and its useful to quell civil unrest.

I think if we head into no deal then tight restrictions won't be used for covid reasons no matter how bad the hospitals get - it will only be about civil unrest, it will all be about keeping the economy going - backbench revolts are what scare Johnson most, and he's already said no more Tiers after the start of Feb.

We shall see what the day brings...

Still think on balance that we are getting a deal.

Tony Conneely with brexit for slow learners. It's a good summary of the talks.

www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2020/1212/1183991-tony-connelly-brexit/

Gunboats is a distraction for the locked in looming twin crisis of a spike and overwhelming of hospitals in Kent and parts of London that i think we are on course to hit around 1st January. T3 in London won't make a blind bit of difference between now and then. Especially not with the Christmas break. Note the calls in the press today from scientists urging people to reconsider their Christmas plans.

The supply chain issues are already baked in. And i think we may start to see problems appearing which are visible to the public pre Christmas. They happen whether we deal or not.

Johnson can't stop either. Thus he needs a distraction and someone to blame.

Where is the incentive in a pre 1st January deal if the two twin crisis above are already locked in.

It suits Johnson to try and shitstir with Europe and get one or more country to tell us to piss off or for the EU to break off talks so that he can blame the EU for the problem.

Mass testing in London in schools from next week? Far too little too late to make a real difference. Good optics though.

The looming twin crisis in London and Kent isnt getting noticed by the press. No one is putting two and two together.

But im pretty damn sure whats sitting on Johnson desk does.

@Mistigri

Still think on balance that we are getting a deal.

Johnson does his deal in January when other factors in both crisis start to resolve so he gets to say "well i solved the problem by getting a good deal and the EU were to blame for our little shitshow".

That Tony Conneely article can be summed up by "The UK refused to agree to any of the EU's suggestions regarding standards, competition, state aid and environmental issues, but also refused to come up with any ideas of their own".

How can negotiations achieve anything when one side simply says "no, I won't agree to your terms, and I won't tell you what terms I will agree to because I haven't a fucking clue what I actually want ".

It must have been like negotiating with a toddler.

British food trapped in Europe as port chaos spreads

www.thegrocer.co.uk/sourcing/british-food-trapped-in-europe-as-port-chaos-spreads/651282.article

The shipping crisis is being vastly underreported. People moaning about Christmas orders not turning up are starting to notice.

@TurquoiseBaubles - yes but Tony is way too polite to put it like that

I saw Nick Timothy mouthing off the other day with a facetious comment about food supplies pre-1973. Apparently, he was only born in 1980 - Christ, hard paper round.

Anyway, great thread response to his vacuity here. I well remember the sugar shortage.

twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1337526891868254208?s=20

I know that the shipping crisis has been brewing since the at least the beginning of September, as did various shop keepers. So why didn't the Government?

Gun boats = Brexiteer wet dreams.

Yup. See the other thread. If those are real people (and some usernames I've seen around for years, so I'm sure they are real), they really are getting a rather erotic level of excitement at the thought of war conditions, food rationing, blaming immigrants, re-educating/deporting fellow citizens for thoughtcrime...

Johnson does his deal in January when other factors in both crisis start to resolve so he gets to say "well i solved the problem by getting a good deal and the EU were to blame for our little shitshow".

Massive risk there: that things don't start to improve. I think the current (not directly Brexit related) shipping crisis still has some way to play out. Containers are in the wrong places and shipping costs are rising everywhere.

I still think on balance that the government knows it can't manage - or even contain - several simultaneous crises. A rise in COVID cases and problems at ports are already guaranteed in January, deal or no deal. You have to ask whether even Johnson is prepared to add to that a currency and financial market slump, a steep rise in food prices (supermarkets will ration, one way or another), and military involvement over fishing grounds.

I think that the Brexit shaggers know this - hence the bellicose language over the last 2 days.

I'm agnostic about the timing, but the markets will react on Monday if there is no deal (yet). I spent last week hedging my sterling exposure. I'm sure I'm not the only nervous investor. Sterling might look weak against the Euro but against the dollar it's looking distinctly overbought.

Gun boats won't save the UK fishing industry, without a deal they're stuffed.

Fish merchant who voted Brexit to “take back control of UK waters” says he was “brainwashed”
"The problem, rarely acknowledged by ministers, is that Britons do not much like the fish caught in the UK's rich fishing waters".
A leading fish merchant who voted Brexit to “take back control of UK waters” says he was “brainwashed” after the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) unveiled requirements for exports from 2021.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Ian Perkes of Ian Perkes Fish Merchants Ltd, said he “wish he hadn’t” voted to leave the European Union in 2016, adding that tariffs on exports would be a catastrophe for his business and the fishing boats that supply it.

My parcel (ordered from UK Amazon with Prime, but for some reason being sent directly from Poland) arrived today, having spent 9 days somewhere near Rotterdam.

That's my last parcel from the UK. From now on I'll only order from European sites; it's not worth the risk of VAT and other charges.

twitter.com/John_Cotter/status/1337440396553707521?s=20

That's my last parcel from the UK. From now on I'll only order from European sites; it's not worth the risk of VAT and other charges.

Same. I'm still waiting on a couple of things but no more orders to the UK.

The German amazon site has an English version. Only thing is, there's no free postage if you spend a certain amount.

I just tried to order from John Lewis, but no international delivery 😨. Tried Amazon.fr and couldn't get what I wanted, but .de came to the rescue.

"I'm agnostic about the timing, but the markets will react on Monday if there is no deal (yet). I spent last week hedging my sterling exposure. I'm sure I'm not the only nervous investor. Sterling might look weak against the Euro but against the dollar it's looking distinctly overbought."

I think Johnson is trying to affect the markets quite deliberately. I seem to remember Farage doing something similar just before the referendum announcement.

I think Johnson is trying to affect the markets quite deliberately

That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it’s always been about, isn’t it?

Yes, the free postage is the main reason I've used Amazon UK in the past, but I've discovered that Amazon DE usually has a flat rate, so if I put in a big order the postage isn't too bad. Added to which Amazon UK has recently been adding a "fixed price currency conversion" charge to orders which somewhat cancels out the free postage.

I expect one bonus to Ireland (of Brexit and Covid) is that suddenly Irish companies have discovered reliable and relatively affordable online systems where many never bothered before.

I still think on balance that the government knows it can't manage - or even contain - several simultaneous crises

We've been told in no uncertain terms that is not the governments job.

As with Brexit itself, we hear all about what it isn't rather than what it is.

@Peregrina

I know that the shipping crisis has been brewing since the at least the beginning of September, as did various shop keepers. So why didn't the Government?

They were told. Whether they listened is a different question.

Or it is about 'when we leave we can do what we want.'

What the blimming heck do we want to do? We have to follow rules whatever. We can't just do what we want, whatever we do we have to follow some sort of rules. And what is it we want to do? I still don't get that reasoning.

I am in a bad mood. Someone destroyed some of our outside Christmas lights last night, which upset me more than it should have done.

Anyway Costco and lidl trips coming up to ensure I have a decent stock of food in, to get through the Covid/Brexit January shower of poo.

God, I really would be in a panic right now reading about all this if I didn't have food stashed everywhere.

How has the panic buying not yet started?! Fair enough if e.g. the container crisis is just being discussed on Loadstar and The Grocer, but it's now in BBC news articles.

Who was that moronic conservative MP interviewed on Radio 4 last night? Apparently, "Boris is a patriot through and through ", so whatever he does will be the right thing for the UK.

@stationed

Who was that moronic conservative MP interviewed on Radio 4 last night? Apparently, "Boris is a patriot through and through ", so whatever he does will be the right thing for the UK.

I didn’t listen but that sounds like Andrew Bridgen. OTOH it could be one of any number of idiots.