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...

Saw a commentator on the news this morning talking about Brexit, apparently it was less about the mechanics of trade deals and more about being able to make a political change, so that ordinary folk would no longer feel disenfranchised and would get to be able to wield as much power as politicians. Or something like that.

Brexit has been sold to people as them controlling what happens to/in the UK. Hence all the nasty bullying stuff online as people feel more powerful. Totally misleading, of course. The working classes are being screwed by the upper classes, in a way that wasn't possible while in the EU.

Does anyone know how the M20 test runs are going on Kent? News has gone very quiet on that.

Operation Brock. I can only find articles from before the weekend.

"The point I’m making is - if the U.K. no deals for a few days/weeks (taking the whole fucking country down) , is this enough time for them to make their money before a deal is stuck?"

They want to asset-strip the UK as well, and don't forget that bonfire of workers' rights...

There’s a thread about schools closing in Greenwich that has turned into a vociferous dispute about what places are actually London and what are not. For example, is Bromley London or Kent?
Maybe it will all become clear once Kent is cut off from both the UK and the EU.
(Apologies to anyone who lives in Kent, I feel for you wrt both Covid and Brexit.)

Can someone please explain to me about the level playing field, I don’t understand, when each country in the EU has its own wage structure ( min wage etc ,) different rates for people and trades etc across the EU, different rates, energy costs, tax levels, income, NI, corporation tax or equivalent, if everything was at the same rate across the EU I would get it

@TurquoiseBaubles That's awful, I'm sorry that your daughter had to deal with that. People can be awful.

@Sirius99

Can someone please explain to me about the level playing field, I don’t understand, when each country in the EU has its own wage structure ( min wage etc ,) different rates for people and trades etc across the EU, different rates, energy costs, tax levels, income, NI, corporation tax or equivalent, if everything was at the same rate across the EU I would get it

www.bbc.co.uk/news/51180282

@Sirius99 - it's about things like state aid, labour laws, environmental laws etc rather than everything being exactly the same.

If, using an extreme example, the UK diluted environmental laws so that chemical companies could just dump waste while chemical companies in the EU are required to dispose of it safely, the UK companies would have an unfair advantage.

Workers rights and wage levels vary across the EU, China has a trade deal with the EU and their labour, environmental laws are below EU standard and the use of state aid is well known

@Sirius99

Workers rights and wage levels vary across the EU, China has a trade deal with the EU and their labour, environmental laws are below EU standard and the use of state aid is well known

China does not have a trade deal with the EU.

@Sirius99

Workers rights and wage levels vary across the EU, China has a trade deal with the EU and their labour, environmental laws are below EU standard and the use of state aid is well known

China isn’t the UK. Not all trade deals or agreements are the same. Why not read the BBC fact check link I posted? Here it is again.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/51180282

And workers rights, environmental standards etc have minimum levels set across the EU via Regulations and Directives - individual members can chose to exceed those levels if they wish.

@borntobequiet

There’s a thread about schools closing in Greenwich that has turned into a vociferous dispute about what places are actually London and what are not. For example, is Bromley London or Kent? Maybe it will all become clear once Kent is cut off from both the UK and the EU. (Apologies to anyone who lives in Kent, I feel for you wrt both Covid and Brexit.)

Haven’t seen the thread but Bromley is in the London borough of Bromley. Greater London. Used to be in Kent. So both are used.

Same with Richmond and Kingston (used to be in Surrey) now in London borough of Richmond and Royal borough of Kingston upon Thames. Surrey is sometimes still used on the address by some people which confuses everyone.

I’m in Bromley my postcode is Kent, Bromley became a London borough sometime in the sixties I think it’s a large borough though my part boarders Lewisham/Lambeth/Croydon.

@Sirius99

Workers rights and wage levels vary across the EU, China has a trade deal with the EU and their labour, environmental laws are below EU standard and the use of state aid is well known

If China was on the EUs doorstep, it would get the same treatment the UK is.

If the UK were where Canada is, it would be much more appropriate for a Canada style deal.

Geography is everything. Which is why the endless parade of moron of the month for various ministers involved in Brexit has (ironically) been a matter of hilarity around the globe.

Two things the average English person knows fuck all about: history and geography.

London boundaries changed lots in the 1960s - Greater London created in 1965 from London, Middlesex, bits of Kent, Hertfordshire, Essex, Surrey, and then again in 1969.

Doing family history stuff, relatives are described as living in Kent when you’d never have expected those places to have been - Woolwich for instance.

It saddens me to see that standards we have worked hard to improve like food standards are likely to be trashed in the name of Brexit. Some of these standards that we also encouraged the EU to adopt.

Oh goodness, this thread is now going the same way...

There are people living in Sandwell who will bang on for hours about how it shouldn't exist, and people living in Sutton Coldfield who would die rather than call it Birmingham.

Parochialism is funny from afar, but a tad pathetic close up. Especially as to most "Londoners" (i.e. anyone in the South to a Northener) "The North" starts at Watford. So it's fair to say that more people think Solihull is in Birmingham (it isn't) than actually live in Birmingham and Solihull combined.

Whatever you might think about that. It is.

I’m sure Brummies felt the same about Birmingham leaving Warwickshire.

What have I done...

@borntobequiet

Oh goodness, this thread is now going the same way...

There’s no dispute here everyone has said the same thing.