Zompist Bboard Again

Richard W wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:27 am

evmdbm wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:18 am

The big question is who will enforce a hard border from Northern Ireland to the Republic.

Not a big question - RoI immigration and customs will have to build the border.

But will they?

Talking of borders, up until we joined the EEC, Irish Immigration policy had to support ours or else the UK government would easily halt the free movement of Irish citizens to the UK - all it took until 1973 was an instruction to immigration officers to inspect Irish citizens. The UK is now throwing that threat away by treating Irish citizenship as a visa granting indefinite leave to enter - I saw no provision to suspend this by statutory instrument.

Well, the CTA (Common Travel Area) arrangements are separate from the EU, so the UK's departure from the EU doesn't mean the CTA has to end. However, then the situation between Ireland and the UK then becomes akin to that between, say, France and Switzerland: there's no immigration border*, but there is a customs border.

*For citizens of CTA and EU member states, at the present: the CTA isn't a common visa area, so a UK visa doesn't authorize entry to Ireland and vice-versa. The UK generally does not require inspection of people arriving from Ireland, but Irish immigration officials can and do inspect air and sea passengers arriving from the UK.

evmdbm wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:18 amNot a big question - RoI immigration and customs will have to build the border. That is a clear requirement of EU law or the single market for goods and common external tariff will not function. But this is the inherent contradiction in the EU position - never mind the fact that the British government has no position of any rational meaningful sort - they need a deal with a backstop or they throw the Irish under a bus and force them to set up a border and finish the peace process. If they can't get a deal with a backstop, no deal is not an option without either a) throwing the Irish under a bus and forcing them to set up a border or b) throwing the single market under a bus by instituting customs and regulatory checks between the RoI and rest of the single market. Macron might talk no-deal and they might whine that it's all too complicated to sort the Euro Parliament elections out but in the end any extension the British ask for must be given or either a) or b) is true.

It's strange to talk about this as if it was the EU's decision. No Deal means Britain chose to exit by rejecting the Withdrawal Agreement. This forces the EU to deal with a suddenly-foreign country with which it has no trade deal.

The EU, unlike the UK, has broad agreement on what it wants: one of the UK a) staying in (but enthusiasm for this has plummeted after two years of dealing with May); b) signing the deal that both sides agreed to; c) leaving. If it's (c), they'd prefer it happen sooner rather than indefinitely.

I read recently that the dreaded backstop was the British demand, not the EU's. The EU had suggested NI stay in the common market while the rest of the UK was free to be outside it, and this was re-offered when the WA was rejected the second time. This would mean a customs border in the Irish Sea, which is relatively enforceable, and leaves the GFA in place. But the DUP didn't like that, so May extended the backstop to the entire UK.

NI can't be outside the UK's market; too much of their economy would be disrupted. There's just no possible solution (unless if maybe there could be no customs border between NI and the EU and NI and Britain, but still a customs border between Britain and the EU)

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:09 pm I read recently that the dreaded backstop was the British demand, not the EU's. The EU had suggested NI stay in the common market while the rest of the UK was free to be outside it, and this was re-offered when the WA was rejected the second time. This would mean a customs border in the Irish Sea, which is relatively enforceable, and leaves the GFA in place. But the DUP didn't like that, so May extended the backstop to the entire UK.

The British principle was that the customs union of the United Kingdom, in place since 1801 (except for a ten year transition period and possibly a theoretical gap in December 1922), should remain.

mèþru wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:24 pm There's just no possible solution (unless if maybe there could be no customs border between NI and the EU and NI and Britain, but still a customs border between Britain and the EU)

Which is just what the UK does for people. The Republic is slightly different - it has a sea and air immigration border for people between the Republic and the UK. Of course, it is a criminal offence for someone without even automatic permission to stroll across the border from the Republic to Northern Ireland - most US citizens may do it, but most Peruvian tourists can't.

If I might intrude: rumour has it the PM may be replaced in the next couple of days. All the papers seem to have it - the Cabinet has told her to leave, and leaked about it to everyone whose number they could find. There's disagreement over whether she'll be replaced by Liddington or Gove - Liddington would just be a nightwatchman, while Gove could hang on longer.

Now, the obvious complication here is that Cabinet can't get rid of her. Probably. Traditionally, constitutionally, the PM is only the chair of Cabinet and serves at the pleasure of Cabinet. But in the modern world, PMs serve at the pleasure of the House and their Party. Party rules say they can't have a formal leadership election, so what if May refuses to go?

Theoretically, Cabinet could whip the party to support a parliamentary VONC against her. If she lost, which she would, they could offer a new PM to form a new government within two weeks to avoid fresh elections.

[Oh what a hell there'd be if there were snap elections! No Deal Brexit in the middle of a general election campaign!]

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:56 pm Oh what a hell there'd be if there were snap elections! No Deal Brexit in the middle of a general election campaign!

Wouldn't we be allowed to hold the European and UK parliamentary elections at the same time?

There's always the option of a bad faith revocation of Article 50 if we don't get the further extension. I'm sure the continentals have already dusted down the phrase "perfide Albion".

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:56 pm Party rules say they can't have a formal leadership election, so what if May refuses to go?

Does the prime minister have to be a party leader?

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:56 pm Party rules say they can't have a formal leadership election, so what if May refuses to go?

Does the prime minister have to be a party leader? John Major resigned as party leader without resigning as prime minister; why not the other way round?

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:56 pmTheoretically, Cabinet could whip the party to support a parliamentary VONC against her. If she lost, which she would, they could offer a new PM to form a new government within two weeks to avoid fresh elections.

Even if they did, isn't she still party leader, untouchable till December?

Also: why are they bothering? If they want the WA, do they think they can sell it better than her? And if they want No Deal, why don't they wait a week for Meaningful Vote 3 to fail?

The PM does not officially have to be a party leader, no. Although they always are. This case would be doubly weird, though - if May went, she pretty clearly wouldn't be the party leader in anything but name. I think even she would have to resign in that situation.

It's not clear why this is happening - it's probably a confluence of motivations rather than one big reason. Some reasons include:
- the extension pissed people off. Some people were pissed off she got any extension, while others are pissed off it's a symbolic extension of a couple of weeks and we're still facing No Deal just a fortnight after we would have been.

- rumour has it MV3 won't happen. They could find a way to get around Bercow's ruling, but since they're going to lose again, apparently they're not keen on trying.

- rumour has it the government's surrendering and allowing so-called "indicative votes" - letting parliament vote non-bindingly on a range of ways forward. This obviously risks the wrong thing being selected, and the government has warned that voting for a non-May option may precipitate a general election. A general election will scare people, and the idea of the wrong options being on the table in the first place will piss people off.

- it's possible May might survive. Once we get through Brexit, what happens then? We start to negotiate future trade deals with Europe. Who does that? Why, the Prime Minister! But, given what a shit job she did of the last lot of negotiations, nobody wants her in charge of the next ones. Ideally, the Tories want her out the door the morning after Brexit happens, before she can lay the groundwork for fucking up the next phase. Worse - what if she gets her deal through somehow and the public are grateful we avoided No Brexit? Or what if Labour fuck up the local elections so badly (what if there's a symbolic, pro-EU vote for the other leftwing parties, for instance, while their Leave heartland abandon them?) that the Tories do OK? May's position would actually be strengthened, and she might not quit. Or what if there's No Deal and the Tories are wiped out in the local elections - wouldn't we have to have a general election then? A lot of tories have sworn oaths that they won't let her be in charge for the next general election, giving how cataclysmically, unprecedentedly bad she was at the last one.

- on the other hand, some MPs want May's deal to pass. But everyone hates May. So some people think the deal will be passed more easily if it's put forward by somebody else. Her premiership for her deal.


The timing does sort of make sense. they get rid of her now, or get a firm promise to resign immediately afte Brexit. A nightwatchman comes in, oversees the disasterous local elections, lets someone new come in with a clean slate. And if they want rid of May, it probably makes sense to pressure her now, when they have some leverage, rather than after Brexit, when they'll have much less power.

There have been rumours that Corbyn wants out (on either physical or mental health grounds) and is being pressured to stay by his team. He originally ran as the token leftwing candidate because it was his turn, probably with no great expectation of winning. Since then, he's been attacked hard both internally and externally. He's also at an age where you'd expect to be retiring, not potentially becoming prime minister.

Regardless of what you think of him, it wouldn't be surprising if he's feeling the strain from the constant attacks and the demands of the job. The role of campaigner and semi-independent conviction politician no one really notices is very different to party leader, where every utterance and position has real political repercussions. His habit of vanishing or finding excuses to vanish when placed in a position of having to violate his own principles or inclinations because of party politics also suggest a man not very happy with his job.

If it's true, one party leader would be clinging on despite their cabinet, and the other wants out but is being held hostage. Maybe TM and JC should just do a job swap?

One thing I am finding increasingly amusing in the abstract is that, in my feed at least, amongst people who are political activists, those who make anti-Brexit posts and those who make pro-Corbyn ones are basically two discrete categories, with the latter indeed tending more to say that those calling for a People's Vote are showing they don't care about kicking the Tories out to save jobs, public services, and hospitals (... by opposing a Tory right project that will cause damage to all those things).
With the non-activists meanwhile, they don't just overlap, they are basically the same category. It's weird.

...even she would have to resign

Sooner or later, we're going to have to stop saying this.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:28 am

...even she would have to resign

Sooner or later, we're going to have to stop saying this.

She will never resign. She will stand alone if needs be, bravely standing up proudly against those who would ruin our great country, indefatigable to the end, like a true patriotic British leader, etc, etc.

You can check her out any time you want, but she will never leave.

If she were willing to resign, there were plenty of moments for her to do so that would have been better everyone involved than right now. The horrible response to Grenfell plus reports that she was very sick with the flu due to the pressures of the job and that her husband was voicing concerns over it in private in particular comes to mind as a great time for her to resign.

The thing is, May is agreed by everybody to be fanatically loyal to the party (which disturbs other Tories, who are mostly backstabbing opportunists - loyalty is meant to be a Labour trait, ironically). Personal humiliation hasn't ousted her, and her endless self-confidence has insisted she can solve problems she clearly couldn't, and she's gotten into a sort of "see it through no matter what" determination. But I think most people think that if it's a question of genuinely and avoidably damaging her party, she'll step down. A situation like "Tories choose a new leader, but May sticks around claiming to be the leader while everyone ignores her" would probably fall into that category.

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:09 pm

evmdbm wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:18 amNot a big question - RoI immigration and customs will have to build the border. That is a clear requirement of EU law or the single market for goods and common external tariff will not function. But this is the inherent contradiction in the EU position - never mind the fact that the British government has no position of any rational meaningful sort - they need a deal with a backstop or they throw the Irish under a bus and force them to set up a border and finish the peace process. If they can't get a deal with a backstop, no deal is not an option without either a) throwing the Irish under a bus and forcing them to set up a border or b) throwing the single market under a bus by instituting customs and regulatory checks between the RoI and rest of the single market. Macron might talk no-deal and they might whine that it's all too complicated to sort the Euro Parliament elections out but in the end any extension the British ask for must be given or either a) or b) is true.

It's strange to talk about this as if it was the EU's decision. No Deal means Britain chose to exit by rejecting the Withdrawal Agreement. This forces the EU to deal with a suddenly-foreign country with which it has no trade deal.

The EU, unlike the UK, has broad agreement on what it wants: one of the UK a) staying in (but enthusiasm for this has plummeted after two years of dealing with May); b) signing the deal that both sides agreed to; c) leaving. If it's (c), they'd prefer it happen sooner rather than indefinitely.

I read recently that the dreaded backstop was the British demand, not the EU's. The EU had suggested NI stay in the common market while the rest of the UK was free to be outside it, and this was re-offered when the WA was rejected the second time. This would mean a customs border in the Irish Sea, which is relatively enforceable, and leaves the GFA in place. But the DUP didn't like that, so May extended the backstop to the entire UK.

It is the EU's decision to grant or not grant an extension requested by the UK. True we could all take even more of our senses (talking as a Brit) and choose to disappear into the abyss on April 12, but the one thing I hang onto in all this madness is only the ERG are that mad. Everyone else will request an extension to sort the mess out.

Indeed so the dreaded backstop was May saying she'd never get a deal through which treated NI differently from the rest of the UK. Now of course that's translated into an EU plot to stop us from ever leaving by tying the entire UK into a customs union thus making it impossible to get through. There is quite literally no pleasing the Brexiteer.

Anyone's guess what's happening this week.

so, the PM isn't gone yet, though she was forced to summon leading Brexiteers to Chequers over the weekend for an emergency summit.

She reportedly 'begged' them, but clarified that she would not consider offering any concessions.

[sidenote: apparently the leading Brexiteers refer to themselves as "The Grand Wizards"]

Anyway, it's back to Meaningful Vote 3, which was going to be tomorrow. But May's cancelled it, saying that she's discovered she might not have parliamentary support for her deal...

...so she's now planning to have MV3 "later this week", once parliament has come around.

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In response, parliament has sent a great big 'fuck you' back to the PM by voting to take control of its own agenda in order to hold "indicative votes" on Wednesday. These will propose a range of options both for the immediate crisis and for post-brexit negotiations, including things like no deal, a second referendum and so on. These votes will be only 'indicative' - they won't be legally binding on the government, but a vote for, for example, a second referendum would put immense pressure on the government.

There was also an amendment proposed to stop No Deal by requiring parliament to hold a vote to decide between no deal and extension everytime we get within a week of no deal - it was defeated, but only by 3 votes.


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The vote this evening has also brought about a historic victory for May: in order to defy the government, three further government ministers resigned tonight, bringing the total to 29. This is a landmark, because it means May has equaled Tony Blair - and much more quickly! May's had 29 go in 2 years and 254 days... whereas it took Blair the best part of 10 years to get to that mark. May's already 4 ahead of Thatcher. What's more, she's unusual in how many resignations have been due to policy disagreements - Major, for instance, had 23 (I think), but almost all of them were on account of being fucking scumbags. Only three of his were due to policy. Thatcher lost 5 over policy (and while the first two are mostly forgotten, the resignations of Hesseltine, Lawson and Howe are taught in political history classes). Blair lost 8 over policy, and in particular the resignations over Iraq shook the government - Hunt, Denham, Short, Cook. MAy's had... well, sources seem to differ, but at least 20.

May's also way in the lead for cabinet resignations.