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The now-enacted will of (some of) the people


blandy

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For my own noodlings I've been looking in to the stats for the Wales voting leave thing, referenced in the Bicks post above from the FT.

Cardiff Uni and the Welsh Governance folks have some research I'm trying to get hold of. Rather than using the usual criteria of age, income or education to work out who voted what, they used self identified nationality.

This is interesting because approximately 21% of people in Wales were born in England (by contrast, the figure for Welsh born living in England is 0.96%). In round numbers, 70% of the population in Wales were born in Wales

They divided up voters in to those that identified as Welsh / Welsh British / British / British English / English.

Briefest of brief headlines.

Those identifying as Welsh: 70% voted remain

Those identifying as English: 29% voted remain

I'm still trying to get hold of the first hand info or notes or slides or data, it's turning out to be a bit mythical. 

That's quite clunky at the moment, a work in progress, but 70% of 70 is 49% which then requires a 100% block vote to leave EU by the identified English living in Wales. Which feels somewhat unlikely.

Hey, it's a hobby.

 DcEAG5wXcAA9z0m.jpg

 

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15 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

turning out to be a bit mythical.

 

13 hours ago, peterms said:

Some would say that's very appropriate for Wales... :)

Jonathan Ross  would for sure 

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Pinched from elsewhere, and a month old now (thankfully a month where the scenery didn't change very much), but worth a watch particularly for Anand Menon and Curtice's sections (from about 40 minutes onwards). It's not good listening for any side.

Edit - shit I'm all over the place today...

Edited by Chindie
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On 07/01/2019 at 08:52, ml1dch said:

Tom Peck of the Independent is covering the practice no-deal traffic jam. Sounds like it's going as well as everything else.

 

 

Tom Peck seems to have conveniently ignored the words from Puissesseau who runs the port of Calais that “Calais will not impose extra delays, other than the migrant checks running now.”

 

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6 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Tom Peck seems to have conveniently ignored the words from Puissesseau who runs the port of Calais that “Calais will not impose extra delays, other than the migrant checks running now.”

Unfortunately this is one of those things that you need to look a bit closer at than the headline from a Radio 4 interview. You'll be delighted to know that I have.

With apologies for the long post that follows. Long-ish chunk from longer article quoted about his Radio 4 interview last week:

Quote

...When it comes to Puissesseau, though, we are dealing with something of a mixed bag. Born on 13 August, 1940, he is – to English eyes at least – one of those strange French mixes of businessman and politician, for which there is no real equivalent in the UK. 

President of the Strait Ports Operating Company (SEPD) which was created in 2014, he was previously President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Calais, followed by a term as President of the Côte d'Opale CCI, representing Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk, before standing down in December 2015 to avoid "conflict of interest" in his current position. 

Politician rather than "expert", he has business interests in the Calais football club, in a household appliance wholesaler, publishing and housing rentals. Through his links with the port, he has been a high-profile spokesman for its interests, a voluble critic of the French government for not dealing effectively with the migrant problem, and equally critical of the European Commission when it sought to exclude Calais from its "Motorway of the Sea" project once the UK had left the EU. 

As such, he is something of a "hired gun", ready to defend the interests of the port whenever necessary. But in this last intervention, apparently contradicting his claims made in March, there is more to this than meets the eye – much more. 

In what is and remains a murky picture, we have to go back to early October of last year, when Gérald Darmanin, Minister of Action and Public Accounts came up from Paris to meet 50 or so customs officers from Dunkirk, Boulogne and Calais. 

Brexit was discussed but only in private, but what came out of a subsequent meeting with the mayor and Natacha Bouchart, vice-president of the Region in charge of port issues, about forty guests, was more than interesting. 

The Minister announced the creation of a customs office in Calais and then Natacha Bouchart proposed the creation of a central control centre that would bring together the customs office and the Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service at the borders (SIVEP) at a site known as the Turquerie.

This is a proposed logistics park, part of an ill-fated regeneration programme dreamed up in 2011 and more or less abandoned after an incomplete phase one, although the politicians, Natacha Bouchart amongst them, are reluctant to give up on their pet project, which they regard as a strategic necessity in the post-Brexit trading environment. 

Situated along the Calais-Dunkirk railway line and between Calais Port and the Channel Tunnel, it is some distance from both terminals. But this was at a time when the French government wrongly believed that there could be derogations to the EU law requiring border inspection posts to be "located in the immediate vicinity of the point of entry".

When in early December, Ms Céline Gauer, Deputy Secretary General of the European Commission, told the National Assembly that there would be no derogations, that must have thrown the plans for Calais into complete disarray, completely scotching the idea of using the Turquerie site. Not only could there not be a combined facility to service both port and tunnel, separate installations would have to be built in both terminals. 

Since then, while there has been some discussion in the French press about inspection facilities for the Normandy ports, there has been an almost complete absence of references to provisions at Calais. Despite intensive trawling, I can find no further references since October. It seems that the local politicians, having found they could not use Brexit to reactivate their pet scheme, had no alternative to fall back on.

Yesterday's Guardian, however, referred to the French authorities in Calais building temporary border inspection posts near the port "for the mandatory checks on food and live animals that will be required after Brexit in a no-deal scenario", but that is either old news or incorrect. 

The article itself had Cabinet Office minister, David Lidington, responding to Puissesseau's claims that the port had already been building infrastructure and parking. Lidington reminded us that "European law says all food exports and livestock exports from a third country to the EU have to be inspected 100 percent [and] checked at a designated border inspection post", stating that Calais did not have infrastructure in place to carry out all the necessary checks in the event of a no-deal exit. 

Given the "radio silence", one can take it that this is more likely to be true. If there was any progress at all, it seems hardly likely that there would have been no mention at all of it in the French media. Thus, Puissesseau's protestations seem more like bluster to cover up the lack of any progress, representing an opportunity to protect the interests of his beloved port, trying to stave off the prospect of business going elsewhere

http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87112

The French government position:

http://douane.gouv.fr/articles/a15053-faq-brexit-english-

Lots of relevant, but the main bit is:

Quote

"If negotiations fail, there will be no transitional period and all the consequences linked to the change of status of the United Kingdom will apply from 29 March 2019. This includes, for economic operators, formalities & customs controls (customs and transit ...) as well as non-customs controls (i.e. sanitary & phytosanitary controls)"

If you listen to the full interview or read a transcript, when further pressed, he says that yes, customs paperwork will need to be checked. But that'll be fine. And yes, plant and animal products will need to be checked, but that's not an issue, because the infrastructure to check that is being built right now.

It's basically the person in charge of the port trying to inspire confidence that the thing he runs isn't about to go to sh*t.

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At least two groups of rebel MPs are plotting to change Commons rules so motions proposed by backbenchers take precedence over government business, upending the centuries-old relationship between executive and legislature.

Downing Street believes that would enable MPs to suspend article 50, putting Brexit on hold, and could even lead to the referendum result being overturned

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/revealed-commons-plot-to-seize-control-from-theresa-may-ahead-of-brexit-vote-6zp62hh57

From The Times (behind a paywall). 

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