Digby wrote:Anyone care to take a guess on whether the cabinet will come to a consensus position this coming week and then not all bitch about it in the media?
And okay we mayn't get our consensus take past the Eu never mind the 27, but after 2 years it does seem like it'd be nice to at least start trying
And they get paid to do this professionally. I do accept it's an absurd thing to try and do, but they're going to have to do it, and if they're worried almost nobody will like the outcome then their concerns are probably true, but they'll likely never get luckier than having to face Corbyn the Absent in opposition
Digby wrote:Anyone care to take a guess on whether the cabinet will come to a consensus position this coming week and then not all bitch about it in the media?
And okay we mayn't get our consensus take past the Eu never mind the 27, but after 2 years it does seem like it'd be nice to at least start trying
Don’t worry, there’s an article in the Telegraph telling the cabinet to stick 2 fingers up to the EU as we are strong and they are weak.
Digby wrote:Anyone care to take a guess on whether the cabinet will come to a consensus position this coming week and then not all bitch about it in the media?
And okay we mayn't get our consensus take past the Eu never mind the 27, but after 2 years it does seem like it'd be nice to at least start trying
Don’t worry, there’s an article in the Telegraph telling the cabinet to stick 2 fingers up to the EU as we are strong and they are weak.
Luckily business investment whilst haemorrhaging for now is in a position to recover somewhat, but we don't know what % of that might go to opportunities outside the UK if businesses do not get a deal that works for them, though even if not invested capital would at some point be returned to shareholders.
Even as is we're spending billions on this, and we're never going to get back the lost growth based on the missed investment opportunities that we're now experiencing, but if we really stick two fingers up I'm more than a little worried about what happens if the cash pile a lot of businesses will be sitting on don't get invested, we're not good at investing at the best of times.
Because the British were the world industrial leaders once, more than a few Brexiteers think that we can be so again, and that we are hampered by being in the EU. Whilst we were on top, that was due to a historical advantage that was clawed back by the rest of the industrial world within a generation or 2.
Still, as Gove kind of said in the referendum, facts are irrelevant.
Okay - who had 46 hours in the sweepstake?
How long before she gets a leadership challenge?
Will anyone actually put themselves forward? Or are they all just too scared of taking on the poisoned chalice?
Will they go for a vote of no confidence and trigger another general?
Is there any chance whatsoever of emerging from the next year or so without an absolute shit fest?
Which Tyler wrote:Okay - who had 46 hours in the sweepstake?
How long before she gets a leadership challenge?
Will anyone actually put themselves forward? Or are they all just too scared of taking on the poisoned chalice?
Will they go for a vote of no confidence and trigger another general?
Is there any chance whatsoever of emerging from the next year or so without an absolute shit fest?
Nope.
Look, I absolutely get what it is like for UK residents.
But as a European resident, this is almost unbearable. What happens after Brexit? What happens with VAT? What happens with any business I have in the UK? What about import tariffs? What about company registration and ownership? What about banking for non-residents? What about airfares? What about airport taxes?
Every single one of these impacts my life considerably and I get to see nothing about how these are going to be resolved.
So bye bye Boris, the joke is finally over. We might get a foreign secretary with some gravitas now and hopefully the clown has made enough gaffs to have shot any leadership aspirations in th foot.
Standby for a vote of no confidence and leadership challenge, although I don’t think they will have enough ballots to beat May if she is determined to stay on. Given that we do t have time for this posturing right now, I hope she wins any contest quickly.
Sandydragon wrote:So bye bye Boris, the joke is finally over. We might get a foreign secretary with some gravitas now and hopefully the clown has made enough gaffs to have shot any leadership aspirations in th foot.
So we have any Tory politicians with gravitas we could appoint?
Sandydragon wrote:So bye bye Boris, the joke is finally over. We might get a foreign secretary with some gravitas now and hopefully the clown has made enough gaffs to have shot any leadership aspirations in th foot.
So we have any Tory politicians with gravitas we could appoint?
Let me have a think. I’ll get back to you later in the year.
It is more than two years since the British people voted to leave the European Union on an unambiguous and categorical promise that if they did so they would be taking back control of their democracy.
They were told that they would be able to manage their own immigration policy, repatriate the sums of UK cash currently spent by the EU, and, above all, that they would be able to pass laws independently and in the interests of the people of this country.
Brexit should be about opportunity and hope. It should be a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy.
That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.
We have postponed crucial decisions – including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November – with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system.
It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves accepting that we are not actually going to be able to make our own laws. Indeed we seem to have gone backwards since the last Chequers meeting in February, when I described my frustrations, as Mayor of London, in trying to protect cyclists from juggernauts. We had wanted to lower the cabin windows to improve visibility; and even though such designs were already on the market, and even though there had been a horrific spate of deaths, mainly of female cyclists, we were told that we had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.
So at the previous Chequers session, we thrashed out an elaborate procedure for divergence from EU rules. But even that seems to have been taken of the table and there is in fact no easy UK right of initiative. Yet if Brexit is to mean anything, it must surely give ministers and Parliament the chance to do things differently to protect the public. If a country cannot pass a law to save the lives of female cyclists – when that proposal is supported at every level of UK Government – then I don’t see how that country can truly be called independent.
It is also clear that by surrendering control over our rulebook for goods and agrifoods (and much else besides) we will make it much more difficult to do free trade deals. And then there is the further impediment of having to argue for an impractical and undeliverable customs arrangement unlike any other in existence
Conversely, the British Government has spent decades arguing against this or that EU directive, on the grounds that it was too burdensome or ill-thought out. We are now in the ludicrous position of asserting that we must accept huge amounts of precisely such EU law, without changing an iota, because it is essential for our economic health – and when we no longer have any ability to influence these laws as they are made.
In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony – and many will struggle to see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement.
What is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how we see the end state for the UK – before the other side has made its counter-offer. It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them. Indeed, I was concerned, looking at Friday’s document, that there might be further concessions on immigration, or that we might end up effectively paying for access to the single market.
On Friday I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail, and congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. As I said then, the Government now has a song to sing. The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat. We must have collective responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go.
I am proud to have served as Foreign Secretary in your Government. As I step down I would like first to thank the patient officers of the Metropolitan Police who have looked after me and my family, at times in demanding circumstances.
I am proud too of the extraordinary men and women of our diplomatic service. Over the last few months they have shown how many friends this country has around the world, as 28 governments expelled Russian spies in an unprecedented protest at the attempted assassination of the Skripals. They have organised a highly successful Commonwealth summit and secured record international support for this Government’s campaign for 12 ears of quality education for every girl, and much more besides. As I leave office, the FCO now has the largest and by far the most effective diplomatic network of any country in Europe – a continent which we will never leave.
Everyone wants to "do deals" and figuratively fuck collective agreements before they are negotiated. Soon we will reach peak grammatical spastic and "I done a deal what is good" will be cemented in the political lexicon. These people are fucking muppets.
In order to do deals clearly you need to vacate existing deals as those only tie ones hands. There can be no envisaged downside to each iteration of government in each sovereign nation entering into a succession of deals that suit an incumbent executive before everything changes again.
You wouldn't have thought respect for Boris could fall lower but his resignation to advance his political career over brexit leaves high and dry Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe when he was supposed to have ruled on her diplomatic status this week. Now the new home secretary will review from scratch, FFS he could have tried to undo some of his own failings before chickening out
Digby wrote:You wouldn't have thought respect for Boris could fall lower but his resignation to advance his political career over brexit leaves high and dry Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe when he was supposed to have ruled on her diplomatic status this week. Now the new home secretary will review from scratch, FFS he could have tried to undo some of his own failings before chickening out
Well Trump has endorsed him as a future PM so that might help his levels of respect to fall a little further.
Digby wrote:You wouldn't have thought respect for Boris could fall lower but his resignation to advance his political career over brexit leaves high and dry Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe when he was supposed to have ruled on her diplomatic status this week. Now the new home secretary will review from scratch, FFS he could have tried to undo some of his own failings before chickening out
Christ. I just assumed he’d sorted that all out. What a moron that makes me. I’m struggling with an adequate word for Boris, but the endorsement from Trump comes pretty close to summing it up.
Digby wrote:You wouldn't have thought respect for Boris could fall lower but his resignation to advance his political career over brexit leaves high and dry Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe when he was supposed to have ruled on her diplomatic status this week. Now the new home secretary will review from scratch, FFS he could have tried to undo some of his own failings before chickening out
Christ. I just assumed he’d sorted that all out. What a moron that makes me. I’m struggling with an adequate word for Boris, but the endorsement from Trump comes pretty close to summing it up.
And still Boris can probably distinguish between home and foreign secretary, so at least he's doing better than me.
Even if he wasn't going to award diplomatic status he should still have done that so the family could have moved on to whatever the next step is rather than leaving them in limbo
