that ridiculous method of calculating them was another gift from Iain Duncan Smith

yet is peculiarly the same as most other countries in Europe. It’s not a Tory ploy or an IDS legacy it’s been manipulated for decades by every government under the sun that bothers to pretend to care

Anyone just listened to the Jeremy Vine show. Anyone would think the BBC were under orders to soften up the populace for a revoking of Article 50 🙂

I haven’t heard anything about “bad news” being slipped out today under cover of the rolling 24 hour news coverage of the Duke rolling his car. They can’t have asked him to do it for nothing.

There are multiple employment/unemployment/benefit payment/economic activity stats published. I wouldn’t get too hung up on it. Total employment is much quoted by the current Govt as it fits their narrative – as long as no-one looks to closely!

Personally, reading any sober analysis of the present situation, it would appear revocation of Article 50 is the only “do-able” option left. There’s no way “no-deal” will get through parliament and the only other option left is to revoke A50 – accepting (and that may be a leap for many) that PV and/or an extension are both out of reach at this stage.

David Allen Green (constitutional lawyer, not a fervent remainer) is always worth a read on this stuff. Here’s a short thread:

Kiss of death, I know, as I once thought (for reasons now sadly obvious) that no government would be mad enough to send the A50 notification.

But for first time since notification I can now see a plausible political path to revocation.

The Deal being voted down changed things.

— David Allen Green (@davidallengreen) January 18, 2019

I’d say revocation is the best thing. Call a GE and let everybody go away and have a think about how to proceed. Brexit has failed.

And the ever readable Fintan O’Toole:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/18/europe-brexit-britain-state-politics-fit-for-purpose

thing. Call a GE and let everybody go away and have a think about how to proceed. Brexit has failed.

GE will fix and prove nothing. 80% of voters would vote for the reanimated corpse of Thatcher on a platform of killing every male child if she had the right colour badge on come polling day. Those that vote labour will vote labour. Those that vote Tory will vote Tory and the rest of us who can manage to name the candidates we voted for will still be in the minority voting for someone we agree with.

What ever happens this needs to be fixed and put to bed before a GE gives who ever wins a “huge mandate” to carry out which ever option they decided to put on their manifesto.

There’s no way “no-deal” will get through parliament

This just isn’t a thing.

If Parliament do nothing, we get no deal.

I think we’re looking at no deal. Which would be no bad thing – it would give us all an opportunity to learn some valuable lessons about democracy, demagoggery and the dangers of letting people from public schools run our country.

In a hundred years time we’ll all look back on it and laugh.

This just isn’t a thing.

If Parliament do nothing, we get no deal.

True, but I strongly believe at some point a remain MP will blink and move to revoke A50. About the only thing the HoC is even vaguely united on is that No Deal is a Bad Thing. The problem isn’t passing the legislation to revoke A50, it’s getting someone to stick their head above the parapet. Neither a Tory nor Labour MP can do it without being crucified by the MSM, so it’s down to either a very brave backbencher or one of the LD / SNP / PC / Green MPs to get the ball rolling.

EDIT: this is already in the works!

I think we’re looking at no deal. Which would be no bad thing – it would give us all an opportunity to learn some valuable lessons about democracy, demagoggery and the dangers of letting people from public schools run our country.

I find this a very scary line of thinking. Brexiteers are already on the “it would have been fine if Remoaners hadn’t sabotaged the process” narrative, there is no way that this will come back to the Leave campaign being based on false hopes. Not a chance.
On top of that, if food prices rise at all, it’s going to hit those already impacted by austerity. People who are “just getting by” will end up dying. That’s not a price worth paying.

EDIT: I’m not keeping up-to-date, clearly! The Spelman/Dromey (Con/Lab) amendment being raised on Monday explicitly forces the government to revoke A50 rather than crash out with no deal. https://www.itv.com/news/2019-01-18/the-no-deal-vote-will-be-the-big-one-that-decides-if-may-survives/

BOOM!

To be fair to the guy, he did always say he was going to "lie in front of a bulldozer."

And now he has, for forty straight minutes. pic.twitter.com/07mcrTDJDH

— Tom Peck (@tompeck) January 18, 2019

I see a moment very soon when a joint announcement from the EU/UK will be made regarding a radical reform of just what freedom of movement in the union should be (unlimited business, pleasure and study movements but anything more will require a permanent job placement and at least 2-4 years employment before host nation benefits can be accessed. All medical costs to be covered by reciprocal agreements or bespoke insurance policies. Or something along those lines… ) . The rise of the far right is a worry in lots of EU states and unless they get a handle on this issue (perceived or otherwise) it isn’t just the UK who are going to split.
On the back of the joint announcement the UK will revoke Article 50 and go flat out to ostensibly implement the new EU wide policy on freedom of movement, and thus, Brexit will not be seen as a failure, but as a necessary precursor to bring about the change in the EU that many of the states secretly wanted. The UK will be lauded as heroes 🙂

Thank you kimbers, that actually made me smile.

I mean how much more distanced-from_
-the-working-man-middle-class-half-wit-remoaner can you get than someone who can’t tell a bulldozer from a digger 😉

I see a moment very soon when a joint announcement from the EU/UK will be made regarding a radical reform of just what freedom of movement in the union should be

I think that would have to get through the EU parliament and possibly also member states, so I don’t think it would be that soon…

Brexit will not be seen as a failure, but as a necessary precursor to bring about the change in the EU that many of the states secretly wanted. The UK will be lauded as heroes 🙂

Regrettably i think that’s the likely conclusion of your suggestion and even less palatable to the EU than a night out with nige where no-one else is allowed to speak.

Brexit changing Europe in a way the (now not leaving) brits wanted would do more to encourage the mid to far right in Europe than imaginary immigration issues ever will. They’d all be at it in a week

This just isn’t a thing.

I’m afraid, it very much is a thing.

GE will fix and prove nothing.

Revocation does the fixing; for now.

A suggestion from India 🙂

The Delhi Mail
·
I suggest we break the Brexit deadlock by the traditional means the British have always used in these cases. In Palestine, Ireland, India, Iraq, and all the **** over Africa. I’m talking about good old Partition. N.Ireland and Scotland go their own ways. Wales and the North of England become a new country, Great-Grow-Some-Bollocks-Take-Are-Country-Back and they get to be independent of everywhere else, and London and the South become Modern Britain, and remain part of the EU and the wider world.
Oh, I know that ignores all sorts of communities and pockets of Leave or Remain majority areas. It rides roughshod over all of it in fact, but hey, that’s how Partition works. Goes with the territory. Or not, as the case may be. 😉
Ok, there’ll be a few months of chaos as people trek up and down to get themselves on the right side of the border that they want to be on, not to mention centuries of ensuing hostility between the new nations, but erm….**** you. That’s partition.

NB: for best results, the border should be hand-drawn on a map after a long and boozy lunch by a lawyer who’s never visited any of the areas in question and cares even less.
You don’t get more traditional and British than that.

Revocation does the fixing; for now.

Maybe but it’ll just be same shit, different day.

I see a moment very soon when a joint announcement from the EU/UK will be made regarding a radical reform of just what freedom of movement in the union should be

Agree. It does seem to be the part of the EU that is most disliked (validly or not) and the EU should be sensing that rather than sticking to it as a key requirement.

@Welshfarmer, unlikely as most EU member states already have some requirements of access to their benefits and healthcare.
Also, i suspect the ‘coming over here and stealing our benefits’ line is likely based on a lie as (as i understand it and i could be wrong on this) benefits and health care are recharged between member states, this is how the one or two retirees in Spain get their health care.

It’s also what makes the EU/EEA work, frictionless movement for goods only is only half (or in our case a third) of the story. You need to facilitate cross border services… and services means people.

Anyway, back to post Brexit “Global” Britain…

US agribusiness lobby calls on Trump to target UK food and environment rules in Brexit trade deal

(as i understand it and i could be wrong on this) benefits and health care are recharged between member states, this is how the one or two retirees in Spain get their health care.

I believe you’re right though i think there is a cap on how long that applies for and how much is paid (i seem to recall a row with Poland about them only paying back benefits at the rate and on occasion you’d qualify in Poland, regardless of what you received in the UK. So for instance [made up example follows] a Polish citizen wouldn’t qualify for JSA in Poland but does in the UK so we pay but Poland won’t cover it, if they did qualify, in Poland the rate would be 12pln a week so that’s all the polish government pays back.) Because our qualifiers are very generous for healthcare etc and rates are high, everyone is happy to take our expats and bill us as we pay in full.

More importantly as i understand it though we’re fully entitled to change how you become eligible for benefits so long as it doesn’t discriminate on certain things. E.g. we could say no benefits/hc for anyone until you’ve paid NI for 3 years and that would be legally fine even if morally not so long as it also applied to UK citizens not just those arriving here.

^^^ All i get is a sad face kimbers, though I’ll be honest, I assume that sums up what ever you’ve tried to post perfectly

I thought so. I know with both Germany and Spain your eligibility to access benefits and health care starts with registration and they make that very difficult if you don’t have a job with a permanent contract.

We already have benefits for which you require a certain number of years of NI contributions.

Anyway, UKIP and Farage are going at each other in public now… and Boris and Gove are very much on opposite sides… could be interesting if we do have another referendum…

Peston’s take on the amendments to be on Monday as posted by SamB is interesting. That could be where the real game is

Lots of people have ganged up on me on twitter … and changed my mind about sonething … perhaps the rEU has lots to gain from us Leaving after all. I’ll post examples, if people care. But they’ve convinced me… I was wrong on that. Who else has recently changed their mind on anything Brexit related?

Kelvin, this is Brexit. You must never admit to being persuaded of a contrary argument, no matter how compelling it is 😉

I suspect there won’t be many who say they have. A shame if so, because I don’t think the country is as divided as the media portrays and we should be able to have open discussions without being labelled with such terms as re-moaner or gammon.

Who else has recently changed their mind on anything Brexit related?

Well when i first read May’s plan i thought it was terrible but that she’d done rather well to get even that much, and that our elected representatives might see it the same way and it was likely the best we’d manage in the circumstances. I’ve been disabused of that notion.

With luck though we might get a Tory amendment, opposed by the government (she doesn’t need to allow a free vote, she’ll be ignored and knows it) but supported by Labour that says no deal isn’t acceptable so forces a withdrawal of A50. I think I’ll have my mind changed on the likelihood of that in due course too.

Who else has recently changed their mind on anything Brexit related?

More people than I originally thought are completely bat shit crazy.

There’s no way “no-deal” will get through parliament

Unfortunately it’s ALREADY made it through Parliament. It’s the law unless as and until the law changes. And to change the law requires Parliament to be given the opportunity to agree to do something else.

Through this whole sorry farce one of the most insightful and lucid commentators has been Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times. That degree of detatchment seems to be whats needed to see things a bit clearer. This is a fantastic article on the reasons for Brexit as seen from Dublin. Difficult to argue with any of this….

It was never about Europe. Brexit is Britain’s reckoning with itself

What we see with the lid off and the fog of fantasies at last beginning to dissipate is the truth that Brexit is much less about Britain’s relationship with the EU than it is about Britain’s relationship with itself. It is the projection outwards of an inner turmoil. An archaic political system had carried on even while its foundations in a collective sense of belonging were crumbling. Brexit in one way alone has done a real service: it has forced the old system to play out its death throes in public. The spectacle is ugly, but at least it shows that a fissiparous four-nation state cannot be governed without radical social and constitutional change.

Who else has recently changed their mind on anything Brexit related?

I have gone from remain to leave and they just need to get on with it.

And to change the law requires Parliament to be given the opportunity to agree to do something else.

Not entirely true, the government can introduce an amendment (at this point it must be a gov’t one in order to be binding, bercows allowing of retrospective amendments by non gov’t members has allowed parliament to make its will known but it’s been agreed they’re non binding) to the existing bill to revoke the deadline date. From a UK point of votes that is sufficient, it washing with Brussels is another matter entirely though and is likely to be dependent on the gov’t timetabling a free vote on revocation and or another option.

Difficulty there is no government in their right mind would let Brussels tell them they must debate x y z or else at the best of times, given the subject matter it would rightly be unacceptable so needs to come from this side of the channel.

They can’t have asked him to do it for nothing.

They just showed him a cutout of Boris Johnson on the other side of the road.

I have gone from remain to leave and they just need to get on with it.

As I say to everyone who says that, with what? Which deal should they push through? If you got the choice would you vote remain or leave again?

just need to get on with it

If we proceed, when do you think things will settle down? Under which plan will things become stable or more certain quickest? In your opinion?

That degree of detatchment seems to be whats needed to see things a bit clearer. This is a fantastic article on the reasons for Brexit as seen from Dublin. Difficult to argue with any of this….

I didn’t read the posted article off the back of the excerpt but he frankly takes too much obvious glee in this to be detached. This isn’t about our “4 nation state” or if it was you’d not have two such disparate parts as the SE of England agreeing by and large with the NE of Scotland, it’s not the shape or form of our government compared with that of anywhere else. Any other county in Europe which had mustered the stupidity to put its self in the same situation would be fractured just the same.

The issue is decades of government indifference to the majority of the population as more than a statistic, that’s not a British trait its world wide.
The issue is allowing years of the press blaming the EU with no will to call them out and no desire to counter with examples of the good the EU does. There isn’t a government in the world that isn’t happy to “bury bad news” or let someone else take the fall, it’s not a British thing.
The issue is hundreds of years of the poor getting poorer and their means to remedy it getting fewe, all the while the rich get richer and the government cozy up to them further. If you want an example of that look at Versailles and the end of the French royal court, it’s probably not a bad annolgy.
If anything the issue is we’ve had a long long period of relative domestic inactivity and eventually it will come to a head in some form of fracturing civil disorder. The industrial revolution came and went, the luddites made a lot of noise up North mainly and were largely repressed or put down by rich middle class folk making money elsewhere but living in London who then carried on as they were (sound familiar?)
We had a civil war 400 years ago, but by and large it’s been quiet since. Half the countries in Europe haven’t existed for 400 years but the ones that have (portugal, Spain, France Belgium) have had some pretty torrid times over that same period so the suggestion this is some innately British failing is ridiculous.

Kerley , rather than waiting to go out of business due to a no deal should I just get on with it?
I can close my shop tomorrow and get down the dole office on Monday.
You could also get in on the act by asking for longer hours at less pay and only having 2 weeks holiday.
Just get on with it.

Kerley , rather than waiting to go out of business due to a no deal should I just get on with it?
I can close my shop tomorrow and get down the dole office on Monday.
You could also get in on the act by asking for longer hours at less pay and only having 2 weeks holiday.
Just get on with it.

My business has struggled under the Tories due to the way local authorities have been forced to cut their budgets.

I feel for anyone going out of business but there are so many factors for a business to survival, and I think the Tories have done bugger all for small businesses.

We have forgotten that the landscape of the UK is very much about the race to the bottom fed by Neo-liberal policies. The fact that we now have the Brexit to blame for ALL things business is ridiculous and will be the perfect smokescreen for the Tories failiure.

You are a piece of filth.

Classy!

No.. It makes no sense on any level. If you think you can take people’s rights away, and tank the country in the process via eroding rights and regulations.. yours and mine included, it just goes to show how blinkered and ignorant you are.

You are a piece of filth

That’s a wild, inaccurate and borderline offensive stand point.

Rights have been stripped a plenty by a succession of UK Governments.

Country is tanking and is in wild need of some form of wealth redistribution, if you think the EU is going to dig us out of that one whilst Germany moves into recession then that’s crackers.

Again, the centrists attack on Brexit at the expense of things like austerity is completely and utterly disproportionate.

That is filth.

Rone in the event of a no deal the product I sell will be subjected to a 30% tariff. That is down to brexit and nothing else the tories have done.