The Brexit Thread

[Tubby Isaacs]

Kate Hoey, the Labour pro-leave MP, is speaking now. She says she is disappointed that Labour is voting against the bill. That will be seen as a refusal to accept the results of the referendum, she says.

She says she will only accept a transition period if from day one Britain has made it clear it will not pay any more money to the EU.

The Conservative John Redwood intervenes to say he agrees.

This Bill is going to pass, isn't it?

[E10 Rifle]

How many Tories (and DUP) might vote against it?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve and maybe Soubry and Morgan and Heidi Allen.

Hoey and Stinger and Field might be the only Labour voters for it, maybe John Mann. The other Brexiters will probably care enough about the powers to vote against.

[E10 Rifle]

For a Tory party supposedly split all over the shop on Europe, that's a piss-poor rebellion

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some of their MPs in marginal constituencies with lots of Remainers (Cheltenham, Reading West, plus London seats they haven't pissed away) will in time be in trouble, but not yet. There's a good trend for Labour there, I think, of the Tories losing some of its core middle class in fairly well off areas.

Actually, maybe Alex Chalk in Cheltenham could vote against now. He's a lawyer.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Maybe Stephen Crabb too. But he's got lots of Brexit pensioners keeping him in his very marginal seat.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hahey! The rebranded Vote Leave liars wade in on the Single Market.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...on-hard-brexit

“Continued membership of the single market, even as part of a transitional arrangement, would quite simply mean EU membership by another name – and we cannot allow our country to be kept in the EU by stealth. The government must respect the will of the British people, and that means leaving the single market at the same time as we leave the EU.”

It adds: “The truth is that the single market is a political project, and requires its members to constantly introduce new EU laws. Therefore, the longer one remains a member the harder it is to leave.” It also rejects the idea that the government could continue to pay into the EU budget during any transition period – “pay to play”, as it is known.

Trade deals, of course, aren't political projects.

[Tubby Isaacs]

George OsborneVerified account @George_Osborne 7h7 hours ago
Today's editorial @EveningStandard: the Brexit Bill will tell us who the real parliamentarians are

His successor in Tatton, Esther McVey, won't be one of them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The latest lie doing the rounds is that this Henry VIII nonsense is at least better than the EU foisting "directives" on us. Redwood was trying it this morning. And our old friend here.

Nick TimothyVerified account
@NickJTimothy
Remainers worried about Parliament's scrutiny of secondary legislation were v quiet when govts transposed 1000s of EU directives that way.

Remainiacs Podcast @RemainiacsCast Sep 5
Replying to @NickJTimothy
Because they'd been scrutinised by our MEPs and reps on the council of ministers? PS Why is anyone listening to you, you massive failure?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

erm I think we're a bit at cross purposes here. Corbyn did very well by talking about those issues that you raised, but I don't think he has any real sense how these things all fit together, and if he did, his arguments would carry so much more force. I also am deeply unimpressed that even though corbyn talks about certain issues, his proposals for solving them, while occasionally very good, are more often than not, really unconvincing.

But there's something else to consider. A lot of People in the UK have taken low inflation for granted. in the 25 years before the eu single market, prices doubled three times (I.e. £1 in 1968 bought you the same as £8 in 1992. They doubled once in the last 25 years. People now think that's the way things just are, rather than something extraordinarily unusual. The other thing is that Old people fear inflation considerably more than foreigners, even if they really aren't keen on foreigners. The thing is that inflation has been basically about as low across the whole EU, so that is something that you can attribute directly to the European Union. All of the other issues on the other hand are basically unique, or at least relatively rare in other EU countries to the UK. Those things are on the Tories. I don't think that corbyn either sees, or understands this distinction.

But tactical issues surrounding brexit position prior to the next election aside, when is anyone going to notice that the UK essentially a services economy, and they are in the process of shutting themselves out of exporting services almost completely. ECJ and FOM are the price the UK pays for access to the only free market in services in the world, getting rid of them will cut the UK's exports in half overnight. this is all that people should be talking about. A huge chunk of the UK economy is going to disappear almost overnight. Any talk about a better, more progressive tomorrow without acknowledging this extremely worrying inevitability is simply delusional nonsense.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The old are protected from inflation by the pensions triple lock nowadays. Big Phil Hammond had a go at weakening it a bit at the election but the DUP got it guaranteed again, and the other parties shamefully supported it anyway.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Tories are doing badly in council by-elections. Labour, LD and Green all gaining seats from them last night.

Brexit not going well.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The old are only partially protected by the pensions triple lock, which is in effect chasing inflation and that's not something that is going to survive a collapse in govt revenues and a spike in inflation. A 1% rise in the state pension is a huge amount of money. A 3% rise is actually an absolutely enormous amount of money.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Of course, but it's a good example of what you were talking about earlier of McDonnell/Corbyn not getting the bigger picture. If things deteriorate, and Big Phil does assert himself and scrap the triple lock, then we'll likely see Labour attacking him for it, and saying they'll send the bill to "big business".

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is the level of the people driving Theresa May along.

John Redwood
@johnredwood
I have yet to hear from another member state what barriers they wish to impose on their citizens trading & travelling to the UK post Brexit.

It's called keeping your powder dry. Won't be any barriers if we don't impose them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Batshit Tory backbenchers' letter. Nice sighting of "foreign criminals". And proposes that the UK can unilaterally pull out of any deal with the EU, so that the "government is in charge of the deal not the EU".

[E10 Rifle]

A former work colleague, and fellow union activist, crystallised some of my thoughts on why our government is so rubbish at negotiations, with this post on the Facebooks this morning, which is worth sharing:

Fascinating watching the boss class (aka the Tory Party) trying to negotiate from a period of weakness. These are people who are used to getting their way, generally because they are able to say no until their arm is twisted. In the negotiations over Brexit the EU is effectively the "management" because it is the UK that wants to change the status quo. And the Tories have no idea about how to play the role of the 'union'. It's embarrassing to behold."

[E10 Rifle]

The other thing about exports is that Brexiters tried to big up the fall in the value of the pound after the vote by saying it will help our manufacturing exports, only for that to not really come to pass, due to, er, us not having a great deal of manufacturing to export.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Well that's another example of 1930's thinking. I mean it might work if you were selling steel made with iron ore and coal exclusively sourced in the UK, but it's basically a useless way of thinking about things that are more complicated than bars of iron. The biggest problem is that it doesn't take into account is that much of UK manufacturing is the assembly of parts made all over europe, so a weak sterling makes these components more expensive.

[E10 Rifle]

Well I guess 'Capitalism in One Country' is kind of their slogan

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, I think that's a very good point about not being used to negotiating from a point of weakness.

This lot are a particularly bad part of the boss class though. They tried to get the FTSE 100 bosses (who at least can do the sums) to sign a letter supporting them. The bosses politely declined. Brexit's always attracted a particular type of businessman.

[Lang Spoon]

Cunts is the term I think.

[E10 Rifle]

Aside from the Capitalism in One Country delusion, Brexit-capitalism's prime mover is Liam Fox, who is deadly and profoundly keen on turning Britain into a Dubai-with-rain. He'd actually think that was great.

[Lang Spoon]

Whatever more dirt is on the furtive wee shite needs to be dumped into the public domain, and fast.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Disgraced former minister, Liam Fox, to give him his formal title.

No shortage of younger replacements if he gets caught out again. Dominic Raab is particularly awful.