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

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

51 minutes ago, bickster said:

Liz Truss

Get her on Mastermind.  She's funny.

 

[tonyh29]

7 hours ago, bickster said:

Gwan, admit it, you just googled that didn't you? 

I have a guardian reading friend who likes to let me know how intellectual he is and casually bring up shit like this when we have the group beer and curry night ,  he never seems impressed that I can name all the Banana splits or know all the lyrics to white lines ... until today I always thought that info would be more useful to me , who knew  

[chrisp65]

21 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I have a guardian reading friend 

[NurembergVillan]

"Great" Britain.

Most of the people in this country shouldn't be allowed to decide what they have for dinner, never mind deciding the future of our economy.

[Davkaus]

At least they finally came to their senses and brought in a bloke. 

[HanoiVillan]

Long but good read on the current Brexit situation from Stephen Bush:

Forget the Tory psychodrama, the real crisis is the threat of a No Deal Brexit

'It is important to understand what the Brexit crisis at Westminster is not about. First, and most obviously, it is not about whether Theresa May survives in office.

Yes, the accord reached between the Prime Minister and the European Union on 14 November has thrown her political future into doubt. Yes, it triggered more than half a dozen resignations from her front bench, including the departure of her (second) Brexit secretary. Yes, there is still a furious battle between Tory whips and the leadership of the ultra-Brexiteer caucus, the European Research Group, with the whips desperately trying to persuade MPs that this is not the time to trigger a vote of confidence in May’s leadership.

But that political theatre doesn’t really matter. Whether the opponents of Theresa May’s Brexit strategy can muster the signatures of 15 per cent of the parliamentary party – 48 Conservative MPs – that are necessary to cause a confidence vote is an amusing spectacle for some, but ultimately irrelevant. The number that matters is seven: that is the number of Conservative rebels necessary to wipe out the government’s working majority (achieved with the help of the Democratic Unionist Party).

Significantly more MPs than that have publicly declared they will not vote for May’s deal: the rolling tally on the New Statesman website puts the current number at more than 50. (They include both Brexiteer Boris Johnson and his Remainer brother Jo, plus Labour Brexiteers such as Kate Hoey and Graham Stringer. The Lib Dem, Labour and SNP leadership are whipping their MPs to vote against it too.)

So even if May is forced out or resigns, any new Tory leader will find that mathematical problem will not change. Many Conservative MPs quietly agree with the lonely pro-European voice of former chancellor Ken Clarke, who said last week it would be “stupid” to have a leadership election in the circumstances, “with blood running in the gutters, only to have a load of silly arguments about Europe between the various contenders”. The substance of the deal will also not change, despite the suggestion by cabinet Brexiteers such as Andrea Leadsom that they could tinker around the edges. It is sharply limited not by May’s personal preferences but by the combined demands of Conservative MPs, their partners in the DUP and the 27 other EU member states.

What are those demands? On the Conservative side, they can be summarised in three broad categories: ending free movement of people, maintaining the union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and the ability for a post-Brexit Britain to strike its own trade deals.

With the exception of a handful of Leavers such as Peter Bone (and May herself), very few Tory MPs have a burning opposition to free movement in principle. However, Conservative MPs in marginal seats do tend to have a burning desire to reflect the opinions of their constituents, and for the most part, that means ending the free movement of people. If Britain does that, we must give up the other three freedoms of the single market: goods, capital and services. The European Commission has warned all along that “cherry picking” is not an option.

As for the union, its importance to the hardline Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party is indicated by their very name. Any deal that peels away Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK is unacceptable to them, even if there are Tories who consider that a price worth paying for the freedom to pursue an independent trade policy.

Unfortunately for them, our withdrawal has to be negotiated with a European Union in which every state has the power to veto an accord it doesn’t like, and where no Irish Taoiseach could survive signing a deal which resulted in a hard border on the island of Ireland.

It’s true that an election might solve the conundrum. With a majority, the Conservatives could free themselves of the unionist preoccupations of the DUP. Labour could (although it would be unlikely to) overturn its 2017 manifesto promise to end freedom of movement, allowing it to negotiate a softer exit, perhaps into the European Economic Area in a “Norway-style” deal.

However, in the absence of such an election, a deal very like the one May brought back is the only one available. Whether it is her at the helm or another Conservative leader, that reality will not change.

When navigating the sound and fury of this crisis it is equally important to remember that Theresa May’s deal is not a blueprint for the final relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom. It is not a trade deal but an exit deal, with narrow limits.

These include a guarantee of the rights of British citizens in the European Union and those of the three million EU citizens living in the UK; a commitment to maintain the British government’s financial contributions as agreed before the Brexit vote; and most important of all, a promise to keep the Irish border open.

There is, along with the withdrawal agreement, a declaration about the shape of the final trade agreement between the EU and the UK, but this has about the same force as the handshake between a divorcing couple when they agree to keep things cordial. Nice, but with no legal force.

This has proved a sticking point for some Conservative MPs. Anyone hoping for clarity about the post-Brexit future of the UK is not going to find it in the withdrawal agreement. To continue the divorce analogy, the UK has agreed the sale of the family home – but we are no closer to knowing what the new flat we’ll move into will look like.

Right from the beginning of her leadership, May has talked up the Article 50 negotiations, as if she were finalising a trade agreement rather than simply finessing the terms of exit. Both Conservative MPs and the public have been told to expect a trade deal and, as a result, the withdrawal agreement is a profound disappointment.

This is not, however, the only problem with the document from a hard Brexiteer perspective. By committing to an open Irish border, the options for future trade deals are limited. Moving to a low-tax, low regulation Singapore-style economy will be impossible.

Why? Because the only way to maintain the status quo is for both Northern Ireland and the Republic to continue to operate within a shared regulatory and customs framework. That means no bonfire of red tape, in Brexiteer jargon, and little in the way of swingeing tax cuts, at least not in Northern Ireland. Or at least not without moving the border to the Irish Sea, allowing Northern Ireland’s regulations to diverge from the rest of the UK, and enraging the DUP. (File that under: only possible if the Conservatives secured a landslide majority.)

And so, we return to the one fact that is unchanged beyond all the Westminster soap opera, and will remain the same no matter how many LBC phone-ins the Prime Minister submits to, or how many grandiose press conferences Jacob Rees-Mogg holds.The only available Brexit is one in which the whole of the United Kingdom remains within the same regulatory and customs orbit as the European Union, which means that the dream of becoming a mid-Atlantic Singapore will be indefinitely mothballed.

That is why so many pro-Brexit Conservative MPs will vote against it. And with Labour set to vote against the deal, it is impossible to see how the withdrawal agreement could pass the House of Commons.

What happens then? An increasingly common analogy being drawn at Westminster is with the fate of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), the bailout measures put forward by George W Bush in 2008. These were voted down by Congress on 29 September that year. Four days of market panic and a few concessions to the opposition Democrats later, and a near-identical programme was passed on 3 October.

Many in parliament envisage a similar outcome. The Labour leadership’s private justification to its MPs for voting against the deal (and risking a no-deal exit) is that they can force an election. But most MPs of all parties think this is highly unlikely, as Conservative MPs would be “voting for unemployment” in the words of one pro-Corbyn MP. What next? There is a general view that once Jeremy Corbyn has tried and failed to secure an early election, Labour backbenchers will feel empowered to break the whip to secure an end to the crisis.

****

But what would “ending the crisis” look like? That’s where MPs are less certain. For some pro-Europeans, a failed deal would embolden them to argue for another referendum, with the ballot choice being between the withdrawal agreement, staying in the European Union or leaving without a deal. Others would push for a withdrawal agreement that dictated a softer Brexit after the transition period expired.

Much hinges on the outcome of a case before the European Court of Justice on 27 November on whether the invocation of Article 50 – the formal process for leaving the European Union – can be revoked. If it can, Britain has more options (and, potentially, more time in which to consider them).

Almost every legal expert and every close observer of the European Court expects the verdict to be a yes. What is less certain is whether the power to revoke Article 50 rests solely within the hands of the departing nation or if it would need the agreement of all EU member states.

If Britain can revoke Article 50 without anyone else’s permission, that gives pro-European MPs reassurance that they can vote down May’s deal and then stop the exit from the EU on 29 March 2019. There would then be time for a referendum act to pass through both houses of parliament.

If the decision to revoke Article 50 is not solely in British hands, however, that increases Theresa May’s leverage. It will allow her to present MPs with the choice between her withdrawal agreement and a sudden jump off the cliff edge.

That would place the Labour leadership in an impossible position: it does not want to take co-ownership of a Brexit deal that it expects to be an unpopular disaster. But Labour MPs won’t want to allow a no-deal Brexit either. Difficult times lie ahead.

So, that is the real Brexit crisis. The psychodrama of the Conservative party might be horrifying (or entertaining, depending on your sympathies). But whoever is in No 10, the vital number will still be seven, and the countdown clock is ticking, fast.'

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/11/forget-tory-psychodrama-real-crisis-threat-no-deal-brexit

[snowychap]

 

[cyrusr]

 

25 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Much hinges on the outcome of a case before the European Court of Justice on 27 November on whether the invocation of Article 50 – the formal process for leaving the European Union – can be revoked. If it can, Britain has more options (and, potentially, more time in which to consider them).

Almost every legal expert and every close observer of the European Court expects the verdict to be a yes. What is less certain is whether the power to revoke Article 50 rests solely within the hands of the departing nation or if it would need the agreement of all EU member states.

If Britain can revoke Article 50 without anyone else’s permission, that gives pro-European MPs reassurance that they can vote down May’s deal and then stop the exit from the EU on 29 March 2019. There would then be time for a referendum act to pass through both houses of parliament.

If the decision to revoke Article 50 is not solely in British hands, however, that increases Theresa May’s leverage. It will allow her to present MPs with the choice between her withdrawal agreement and a sudden jump off the cliff edge.

That would place the Labour leadership in an impossible position: it does not want to take co-ownership of a Brexit deal that it expects to be an unpopular disaster. But Labour MPs won’t want to allow a no-deal Brexit either. Difficult times lie ahead.

So, that is the real Brexit crisis. The psychodrama of the Conservative party might be horrifying (or entertaining, depending on your sympathies). But whoever is in No 10, the vital number will still be seven, and the countdown clock is ticking, fast.'

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/11/forget-tory-psychodrama-real-crisis-threat-no-deal-brexit

Very interesting article. What I would say in relation to the decision next Tuesday, if it requires the agreement of Europe to revocation of Art. 50; then I do not foresee an opposition from Europe to revoke this. They have been pretty clear that the best outcome for them is for us to remain and so anything that pushes us in that direction will not face any opposition from Europe. I just hope the MPs have the guts to stand up for what they believe is best instead of falling for the "Hobson Choice"* approach that May has proposed to us. 

 

*not my analogy, but think it is rather apt.

[peterms]

44 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Right from the beginning of her leadership, May has talked up the Article 50 negotiations, as if she were finalising a trade agreement rather than simply finessing the terms of exit. Both Conservative MPs and the public have been told to expect a trade deal and, as a result, the withdrawal agreement is a profound disappointment.

Not to this particular tory MP:

Quote

Neil O’Brien, a Conservative, says he spent eight years campaigning for a referendum. He says he never expected to be standing here with the text in his hand of a new trade relationship with the EU.

Here.

 

[snowychap]

Brexit political declaration: what it means for the future UK-EU relationship

Quote

In the to and fro that all Brexit watchers are now used to, the draft text of the full political declaration between the EU and the UK is now available ahead of an expected summit of EU leaders in Brussels on November 25.

First, a note on what the Political Declaration is and what it isn’t. It is separate to the Withdrawal Agreement – the 585-page document published on November 13, which covers the detailed circumstances of the UK’s departure. Instead, the Political Declaration looks to the future and how the UK and EU might work together beyond the transitional period, and in what areas and how.

There are two key things to bear in mind. First, it is a political and not a legal document. Nothing in the document legally requires either the UK or the EU to do anything specific in the future. Things might happen, or they might not. Second, it is a declaration and not therefore a legal text. It has no particular formal force that could be used, for example, in a court of law.

So if it is not legally binding, then why have it? For a start, it gives us some indication of the areas that the UK and EU will have to work on intensely over the coming years. It is also an indication of the extent to which the British prime minister, Theresa May, has been successful in maintaining her “red lines” and how the EU side has managed to accommodate the differing views between the 27 member states. But this only goes so far – there is little to suggest here how closely entwined the UK and EU might be in, say, ten years from now.

Future flashpoints

The 26 pages reveal quite a lot (especially as the document was only seven pages long some days ago), but with some important omissions which may form the flashpoints of the future.

May has again reiterated that the UK’s primary aim in leaving the EU and respecting the referendum result is to end free movement. This, along with an “independent trade policy”, is noted in the agreement as the key principle for the UK in the future relationship.

Given that the EU’s stated principles in the document are “the integrity of the Single Market” and the “indivisibility of the four freedoms”, there is an immediate incompatibility between these two positions. This incompatibility will be a clear barrier to having the kind of “ambitious, broad, deep” partnership envisaged in the text.

In place of the current free movement of people, there is a commitment to facilitating short-term visits between the UK and the EU but nothing more that that. In other words, UK citizens will no longer be able to go to EU countries under the same terms for anything more than short visits, and vice versa.

But given the EU’s consistent underlining of free movement of people as part of the single market, this limitation will inevitably hamper moves towards a close relationship in other economic areas. The UK will be unable to treat member states differently. Therefore, if the UK wants to facilitate access to employment opportunities for French and German citizens, then these must be identical for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, too. Everything else, such as the Erasmus programme for student exchanges, is only a matter to “consider” for the future. So good news for those who, like the prime minister, place ending free movement above all less. But less good news for anyone wanting future certainty on moving to the EU or recruiting from Europe.

On trade, the aim for “frictionless” trade has seemingly been downgraded as this term does not appear in the text. The declaration talks of a “free trade area” based on a “level playing field”. This could mean any number of things, but given insistence on the integrity of the single market as a core EU principle, the most likely scenario is that if the UK wants a free trade area, it will inevitably have to apply EU law (but without having any say over making it). This appears to be pointed at in the section on goods, in which the relationship will be “as close as possible” and building on the “single customs territory” provided for in the Withdrawal Agreement. This is unlikely to meet a favourable response from Brexiters.

Nothing off the table yet

On services, which are more crucial to the UK economy than goods, there is much less commitment to a deep relationship. Here, the declaration points to liberalisation “beyond” the World Trade Organisation commitments of the EU and UK. But this will fall well below the current level of integration for the UK in the single market. Financial services similarly receive no obvious commitment beyond cooperation. For the UK, this should be a major worry.

These aspects of the future relationship with the EU are key for the UK’s pursuit of an “independent trade policy” which, it would appear, has been inserted numerous times in the text at the UK’s behest. The problem for the UK is that it is not clear how an “independent trade policy” would work alongside a deep relationship with the EU. In other words, it might well exist in the future in theory, but not so much in practice.

The same can be said of so many other aspects. For example, the UK and EU agree to cooperate on sanctions policy, such as sanctions against Russia – but, in reality, the UK will not have the same leverage as it currently has over other member states on the detail of any sanctions. The choice is likely to be therefore to follow the EU’s lead and align, while attempting to present it as an independent policy.

In short, nothing is completely off the table and the development of future relations depends on future leadership, particularly in the UK. In the meantime, the Northern Irish backstop – and the possibilities for “technical” solutions to the issue of Irish border – is likely to provide the focal point for discussions.

This Political Declaration means that Brexit is not going to be “sorted” in the short term. Anyone hoping that this document will close one chapter of the UK-EU relationship and start another on a new footing will be disappointed. In the future, the UK and EU are likely to be locked in neverending discussions about their relationship, during which time – after March 29, 2019 – the UK will slowly start to discover what being an “outsider” is really like.

 

[snowychap]

[Talldarkandransome]

Angry woman from Cannock on Question Time

[Talldarkandransome]

Deffo gonna get 2nd vote, deffo not leaving

[peterms]

These showed up one after the other in  my timeline.   Manoeuvering and triangulation: hands across the sea.  Insincerity, playing to the gallery.  Lies.

 

[peterms]

Well, yes.  This is what the EU does for a living, is it not?

Link.

A brief lesson in EU budget rules
We’re about to see what happens when a member state defies the EU’s budgetary rules.

The Italian government’s showdown with the European Commission is not over a progressive budget. That battle was already staged, three years ago, in Greece. The European Union won, brutally. Almost at the cost of plunging Greece into the most brutal form of neo-fascism.

This time, the Lega Nord-Five Star coalition is trying to break from the European fiscal straitjacket, to bail out small business and regenerate 'national' capitalism. Salvini's government is vaunting, alongside infrastructural spending, a severe flat tax policy, massively defunding the state. The tax cuts overwhelmingly advantage the middle class and the rich. As with the Trump tax breaks, the short-term effect will likely be a competitive boost for national industries, a spurt of growth, followed by renewed crisis. So this is what the nationalist right's agenda looks like today: breaking with multilateral neoliberal agreements to promote domestic business, using severe tax cuts and rollback of regulations to gain a competitive advantage.

Traditionally, the state managers of 'peripheral' EU states accept its budgetary constraints, with some losses for national businesses, as the cost of gaining a relative advantage over non-EU states by gaining access to new markets and benefiting from economies of scale. The far right has a different set of priorities. In Italy, the Lega Nord gained office with the help of the Five Star Movement. Five Star was ostensibly the more powerful coalition partner, having twice as many votes as the Lega Nord. But it has been predictably clueless, ideologically aimless, and easily outmanouevred by Matteo Salvini. So the budgetary agenda, with some exceptions, is overwhelmingly that of the far more experienced and cohesive Lega Nord.

Nonetheless, this is a "teachable moment". Any left-wing government would encounter the EU's budget rules as a potential impediment. The demand for balanced budgets as, as Yanis Varoufakis points out, a scandal to reason in the European context. No government can successfully reproduce its national capitalism, prevent industrial collapse, bail out banks, and so on, without going into deficit. Bien-pensant leftists have hitherto cleaved to a "Europeanism" even less rigorous than the nationalist fantasies of the Brexit Right. But if we want to see what it would look like to make good on the claim that "another Europe is possible", then we need to pay attention to how it pans out when member-states defy the EU's budgetary rules. There would be no way to achieve any kind of left-wing agenda within the EU without ruptures of this kind.

The EU is relying, not only on the steep fines it can impose as part of its disciplinary arsenal -- the excessive deficit procedure -- but also on financial markets dumping Italian debt and stocks. Thus far, that has not happened, Perhaps this is in part because the government is promising to keep paying debt by selling off state assets, something capital would welcome. While in Greece, debt was used as a weapon by the European Central Bank to break a leftist government, investors have no leftist opponent to fear in Italy. But the FT indicates that investors may expect to benefit from the Keynesian multiplier effects of the government's stimulus package. And after all, the Italian state has been in crisis for years, with austerity proving absolutely unavailing. If the latter is at all in play, it would betoken a crisis of capitalist confidence in the EU's rules, and indicate a weakening of the Commission's ability to enforce them.

If it did begin to happen, however -- and precedent favours it -- it would make it much more expensive for the Italian state to borrow, and precipitate a new crisis of the state. I strongly doubt that the Italian government, despite its express intransigence, has the ideological coherence and assured command of the state to see this through. It is a government of coalitions, facing down EU civil servants -- Mario Draghi, Antonio Tajani, and Federica Mogherini -- linked to the higher echelons of the Italian state, and supported by the most powerful factions of Italian business. It would be prudent to expect an implosion.

Nonetheless, if we want to get a sense of how serious and concerted are the forces arrayed against any government which practices defiance of EU rules, we are about to get an object-lesson. This will be useful for us. We should watch very closely.

[bickster]

A whole thread of things they said about Brexit, including a real pearl from David Davis only last week

 

[HanoiVillan]

How are they still **** learning this, FFS?

 

[Stevo985]

I still think it's not going to happen.

I can't explain why, I've just always had this hunch that it would end up so obviously a bad idea that it would eventually get binned.

 

I said the other day I think it's very telling that May and the EU have started dropping the "no brexit" stuff into interviews and speeches.

[LondonLax]

Yes, the ”No deal is better than a bad deal” talk has dropped of the radar. It seems like the penny has dropped that ’No deal’ is a disaster.

It also seems like this is the best deal the UK will get from the EU and it seems like it will be voted down. 

It’s hard to know how this will end but if no deal is off the table it will either be vote for minor variations on the current deal enough times until it passes or call the whole thing off and take stock. 

Edited November 23, 2018 by LondonLax

[bickster]

33 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

It’s hard to know how this will end but if no deal is off the table it will either be vote for minor variations on the current deal enough times until it passes or call the whole thing off and take stock. 

1

For the deal to pass it needs more than "minor variations"