I am so sick of people saying that what they call Project Fear Mark 2 is ridiculous.
Is it?
Pretty much everything the Brexiteers have said or promised about Brexit has turned out to be bollocks on stilts, to put it mildly. Why should we believe them when they say that it'll all turn out fine, even though those who have real knowledge about ports and roads and importing/exporting etc are saying the opposite?
Stunningly unfortunate timing for you there given that someone who really is in the know has said the scare stories about the ports are indeed misleading.
Except that what he says is consistent with what I am saying. "Working through challenges" is an elegantly euphemistic way of saying there will be problems but we will have to deal with them.
Working through challenges does not mean the sky will fall in either.
Mervyn King amongst others has said that (a) this government has been negligent in its approach to brexit and (b) these doom laden projections are worst case scenarios based on ludicrous assumptions.
There will be problems, they will be May and her teams fault but they will be resolved.
Given that Mervyn King was the BoE Governor when we had our first bank run for a century and a half, in part because of his failure to live up to his responsibilities, I’m not sure how much value I’d place on what he says.
Problems can always - eventually - be resolved. But that is to miss the point. It is what the cost of doing so is, both the direct cost and the opportunity cost and whether it might have been more sensible to avoid having the problems in the first place.
Nevertheless I still take a little more notice of him than your whingeing remoanerism
NY Times: "In another personnel move, John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his post in the next few days, ending a tumultuous 16-month tenure still among the longest for a senior aide to Mr. Trump,"
There isn't a majority to be found for anything in the Commons apart from Remain, but the cancellation of Brexit can only proceed if both the Conservative and Labour pro-EU factions actually split from their respective parties and build a National Government together. This would have to be co-ordinated: there's no point in the rebel Tories jumping ship without the Labour Europhiles doing so at the same time, because there is no chance of a large cohort of centre-right politicians using their votes to put Jeremy Corbyn into power.
Well, the other possibility is that if there's a majority for something - I think settling the course of action by referendum would have a wider majority than plain Remain but who knows - TMay stays on as PM and does it.
The complications are: 1) TMay has to want to do it 2) Tory MPs have to not defenestrate her while she does it 3) If the DUP try to pull the plug on the government partway through, some brave opposition MPs need to get struck down by toothache during the confidence vote
May has a capacity to surprise as she showed when calling the last general election, I would not rule out her calling a 3 way referendum next week, Deal, No Deal and Remain, with the most popular of the first head to head facing the latter head to head, that would also give Deal the best chance to win
If I was her I wouldn't take the lead, I'd just say: We can't get this through on our votes alone so I'm open to proposals from MPs of all parties for things that *would* get through. Let the opposition MPs take the heat from Leavers for proposing the referendum, and if she's really lucky the ERG get back on side to head them off and she can pass her original thing.
Corbyn is not that stupid. If you want him to take the blame, let him be PM. You want him to share the blame? Government of national unity.
Or you could just ask the SNP, or the Lib Dems to propose it, and then pull a "with a heavy heart, we no longer believe it possible to deliver Brexit in the current political climate and will be supporting this amendment."
That's the kind of thing I was thinking of: SNP/LD take the lead, and get a bunch of Lab MPs in Remainian seats to agree to vote with them. As long as most Con MPs let this happen, Corbyn can keep his hands clean.
I have no idea what Tory MPs would do in this situation, though. Presumably enough letters would go in a for a vote, but it's a secret ballot and non-bonkers Tories don't really have a good non-bonkers alternative. TMay or the country burns.
"It has emerged that Mrs May has told No10 aides she will make a final decision on whether to have the showdown on Monday after a final “stocktake” once MPs are back from their constituencies."
So, the vote is off then...
But what happens next? There's no prospect of a deal that satisfies a majority of the commons and the EU. Plus if the ruling comes through that A50 can be revoked, then no matter what, no deal is getting passed.
May surely couldn't stay in office. The only route to getting anything done would be a Con leadership election, a GE, then a referendum. If the referendum comes back as leave then we're back to square one.
If it's stay in the EU by >52 then some semblance of normality will resume, but a UKIPesque party will come back with a vengeance.
If the referendum comes back as leave then we're back to square one.
If you did Deal vs Remain and the Deal part is binding like the AV vote, then you're no longer at square one.
If you put No Deal on the ballot paper and got that then yeah, you're back in the treacle with a big old bunfight about what kind of No Deal you're having, but at least the voters should be ready for the patriotic blood, sweat and tears.
Can I just say, any politician saying Brexit will mean "people will die through lack of medicines" is utterly odious when that politician is either a) too poor at their job to organise the supply of vital medicines with two years warning or - infinitely worse - b) refuses to organise that supply of vital supplies in time so that they can say "but people will die..."
They deserve eternal contempt.
It was asked at a recent general meeting of our hospital, of the Medical Director, what out "No Deal" Brexit risk assessment was. The answer was "we do not have one".
The two reasons why: 1) Because we have been instructed by the DoH to do no stockpiling. 2) There is no point in doing a risk assessment where we can take no mitigating action.
I’m not sure you understand a risk assessment if you think there are no mitigating action for no deal. You might do a risk assessment for an outdoor event and a risk could be inclement weather. It would not be acceptable to say “nothing we can do about the weather - we’re not God”. You would be expected to consider what the risks were and what you could do to mitigate.
It is not my answer, it was from the Senior Management.
Personally, If I were in that team I would have a plan for such a shitstorm.
Can I just say, any politician saying Brexit will mean "people will die through lack of medicines" is utterly odious when that politician is either a) too poor at their job to organise the supply of vital medicines with two years warning or - infinitely worse - b) refuses to organise that supply of vital supplies in time so that they can say "but people will die..."
They deserve eternal contempt.
It was asked at a recent general meeting of our hospital, of the Medical Director, what out "No Deal" Brexit risk assessment was. The answer was "we do not have one".
The two reasons why: 1) Because we have been instructed by the DoH to do no stockpiling. 2) There is no point in doing a risk assessment where we can take no mitigating action.
About as good at looking after IT security then....
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I have no idea what Tory MPs would do in this situation, though. Presumably enough letters would go in a for a vote, but it's a secret ballot and non-bonkers Tories don't really have a good non-bonkers alternative. TMay or the country burns.
May surely couldn't stay in office. The only route to getting anything done would be a Con leadership election, a GE, then a referendum. If the referendum comes back as leave then we're back to square one.
If it's stay in the EU by >52 then some semblance of normality will resume, but a UKIPesque party will come back with a vengeance.
Stay in by 50>x>52 then I don't even know.
What a mess.
If you put No Deal on the ballot paper and got that then yeah, you're back in the treacle with a big old bunfight about what kind of No Deal you're having, but at least the voters should be ready for the patriotic blood, sweat and tears.
Personally, If I were in that team I would have a plan for such a shitstorm.