Da Boss wrote:
So the summit is tomorrow and as far as I can see, Britain is just walking into it shrugging and saying "No plan, whaddayagonnado?"

Either the UK has to capitulate and come to the table on NI, or the EU should take transition back off the table as the UK has violated the December agreement. I wonder if the EU will have the stones to do that, or are we in for another frustrating, disappointing fudge. I think it would be better to deliver the shock therapy now, giving the UK time to come to it's senses, rather than waiting to the last minute and risking a catastrophiic crash out.

jouso wrote:
This is the assessment of the American Embassy in London makes of Brexit.

And it's not pretty (from a Channel 4 documentary)

https://twitter.com/davemacladd/status/1011636382786314240

jouso wrote:
This is the assessment of the American Embassy in London makes of Brexit.

And it's not pretty (from a Channel 4 documentary)

https://twitter.com/davemacladd/status/1011636382786314240

They haven't actually done a lot of, sort of, macroeconomic modelling of this, almost, like deliberately. Like "We don't want to know, because leaving is going to be great and it's what people voted for so lets not spend government money on analysis that suggests that maybe people got it wrong"

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Unfortunately for the UK, the UK has set various time limits and red lines which make it impossible to carry on without a massive climb-down by the PM which would result in the Conservative Party exploding, so it won't happen.

 Whirlwind wrote:


Hence Tory approach is Wrexit is

 Riquende wrote:
It's a funny thing that human contentment seems to work in relative terms, not absolute. We're okay as long as we're better off than most people we know in whatever metric is important to us. Status is a very common metric, and money is heavily tied into this.

So when you look at many of the leading Brexiteers it's a common thread to find that they are wealthy individuals already, and that most of that wealth is independent of a functioning economy. People who own vast estates, or property portfolios, or foreign investment funds, etc don't have to worry about actually being employed to have income rolling in. Terms like rising GDP or falling unemployment are actually an anathema to such types, as it shows a burgeoning middle class whose status is rising to meet theirs.

So what can they do about it? Simple, use whatever means necessary to tank the economy completely. Make anyone dependent on wages suffer for a generation or two whilst maintaining your own position of privilege.You may not actually gain anything (unless you're in a position to "gamble" on forewarned currency markets) but if you make the bulk of the population worse off then your contentment level rises automatically as they gap has enlarged.

Neil Hamilton adopting the visual cues and language of alt-right YouTube stars (the map!) as part of some reverse cultural takeover of UKIP.

I’d like to welcome @PrisonPlanet, Sargon of Akkad, @CountDankulaTV and Milo Yiannopoulos to UKIP. I look forward to them developing truly dank memes that will trigger lefty luvvies like @GaryLineker, @mrjamesob and their politically correct establishment chums. Onwards!

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Can we get a summary that isn't an hour's worth of Youtube videos?

Herzlos wrote:
So he's a pretty good fit?

 reds8n wrote:

I’d like to welcome @PrisonPlanet, Sargon of Akkad, @CountDankulaTV and Milo Yiannopoulos to UKIP. I look forward to them developing truly dank memes that will trigger lefty luvvies like @GaryLineker, @mrjamesob and their politically correct establishment chums. Onwards!

 reds8n wrote:
https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1011697868250509312

Neil Hamilton adopting the visual cues and language of alt-right YouTube stars (the map!) as part of some reverse cultural takeover of UKIP.

I’d like to welcome @PrisonPlanet, Sargon of Akkad, @CountDankulaTV and Milo Yiannopoulos to UKIP. I look forward to them developing truly dank memes that will trigger lefty luvvies like @GaryLineker, @mrjamesob and their politically correct establishment chums. Onwards!

...given recent events this has well quickly eh ?

..somewhat laughable that Hamilton claims not to be establishment eh ?

I'm sure the guy from Prison Planet/infowars will quickly help UKIP gain credibility,.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Can we get a summary that isn't an hour's worth of Youtube videos?

He's an idiot who cannot read.

He also got banned from Twitter for sending gay porn to people.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
...You posted a youtube rant to discredit someone who...does youtube rants. Thats rather petty.

He sent interracial gay porn to the Alt Right, to piss them off and get them to stop following him. Kinda exposes the lie that he's Alt-Right, doesn't it? The Alt-Right hates him as much as the Far-Left does.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Can we get a summary that isn't an hour's worth of Youtube videos?

He's an idiot who cannot read.

He also got banned from Twitter for sending gay porn to people.

You posted a youtube rant to discredit someone who...does youtube rants. Thats rather petty.

He sent interracial gay porn to the Alt Right, to piss them off and get them to stop following him. Kinda exposes the lie that he's Alt-Right, doesn't it? The Alt-Right hates him as much as the Far-Left does.

politico.eu wrote:As a former U.K. home secretary, May was in her element in the marathon negotiation on migration policy. You could almost have forgotten that Brexit was on the agenda too.

While the core of the eventual compromise was a proposal championed by France’s Emmanuel Macron to create “controlled centers” for asylum seekers on EU territory, May intervened helpfully to describe the U.K.’s efforts at strategic communications to discourage migrants from turning to smugglers.

She made clear Britain’s own interest in helping Europe manage migration and asylum and helped to negotiate important changes in the (English) language of the leaders’ conclusions. When the nine-hour debate ended just before dawn, May emerged looking as exhausted — and as happy — as her EU27 colleagues.

Of course, the U.K. remains a full member of the EU until formal withdrawal on March 29, 2019, and London has a clear interest in cultivating good will.

“You have to give it to her,” said a senior EU official. “She did in fact contribute constructively and positively to the migration debate. We will miss the U.K. for so many reasons. This is just another one of them.”

 monarda wrote:
From Politico.eu's summary of important points from the EU summit:

politico.eu wrote:As a former U.K. home secretary, May was in her element in the marathon negotiation on migration policy. You could almost have forgotten that Brexit was on the agenda too.

While the core of the eventual compromise was a proposal championed by France’s Emmanuel Macron to create “controlled centers” for asylum seekers on EU territory, May intervened helpfully to describe the U.K.’s efforts at strategic communications to discourage migrants from turning to smugglers.

She made clear Britain’s own interest in helping Europe manage migration and asylum and helped to negotiate important changes in the (English) language of the leaders’ conclusions. When the nine-hour debate ended just before dawn, May emerged looking as exhausted — and as happy — as her EU27 colleagues.

Of course, the U.K. remains a full member of the EU until formal withdrawal on March 29, 2019, and London has a clear interest in cultivating good will.

“You have to give it to her,” said a senior EU official. “She did in fact contribute constructively and positively to the migration debate. We will miss the U.K. for so many reasons. This is just another one of them.”

The common idea that it was always the UK against the rest isn't even true now.

While Mr. Banks was spending more than eight million British pounds to promote a break with the European Union — an outcome the Russians eagerly hoped for — his contacts at the Russian Embassy in London were opening the door to at least three potentially lucrative investment opportunities in Russian-owned gold or diamond mines.

One of Mr. Banks’s business partners, and a fellow backer of Britain’s exit from the European Union, or Brexit, took the Russians up on at least one of the deals.

The extent of these business discussions, which have not been previously reported, raise new questions about whether the Kremlin sought to reward critical figures in the Brexit campaign. Much as in Washington, where investigations are underway into the possibility that Donald J. Trump’s campaign may have cooperated with the Russians, Britain is now grappling with whether Moscow tried to use its close ties with any British citizens to promote Brexit

David Davis has spent just 4 hours in talks with Michel Barnier this year

David Davis, Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator, has held only four hours of talks with his Brussels opposite number this year, according to government records.

The lack of political engagement was cited by EU leaders on Friday as they rebuked the UK for slow progress on Brexit. In a joint summit statement, they insisted on “the need for intensified efforts” and warned that there had been “no substantial” advances on the vexed issue of the Irish border.

Theresa May, UK prime minister, hopes to breathe new life into Brexit talks by agreeing a shift in position with her cabinet next week, but the time left for serious negotiations in Brussels is running out.

In a sign of the relative stasis in recent months, Mr Davis has met Michel Barnier, the EU lead on the talks, only three times in the first half of 2018 for talks lasting a total of four hours.




The pair met in London in February, in Brussels in March and again at the EU capital in June. While British officials have worked behind the scenes on detailed talks, high-level political discussions between the two principals have lasted on average 40 minutes a month since the start of the year.

Mr Davis has devoted more time to touring European capitals, aiming to raise awareness on Brexit issues with national ministers and increase pressure on the European Commission to take a more flexible approach.



A spokesperson for the Department for Exiting the EU said Mr Davis “oversees the full sweep of the negotiations and stays in regular contact with his counterpart”.

“He is also responsible for our domestic preparations for exit and the legislation that entails,” the spokesperson said. “In addition this year he has travelled to the majority of member states.”

Day-to-day negotiations with the commission have meanwhile passed to Olly Robbins, a senior civil servant who is Mrs May’s chief EU adviser and representative in talks. Brexit talks have to conclude by the end of the year, leaving time for the British parliament and European Parliament to approve any final deal.

“This desultory amount of face-to-face time shows the government has been treading water since December,” said Pat McFadden, Labour member of the Commons Brexit committee.

“They are more interested in negotiating with one another than getting a good deal for the UK.”

Mr Barnier on Friday warned that “huge and serious” differences have to be overcome on exit talks, and warned Mrs May the EU would not accept any move to keep Britain in a single market-style arrangement for goods only.

“Now we are waiting for the UK white paper,” he said. “And I hope it will contain workable and realistic proposals.” He added: “Time is very short.”

Mr Barnier’s comments reflect a growing fear in Brussels that Mrs May will take on the Eurosceptics in her cabinet to push for a softer form of Brexit, only to come up with a compromise that the EU cannot accept.

In particular, the EU negotiator fears that Mrs May will try to flesh out plans to keep Britain aligned with Brussels rules for industrial goods, while leaving the UK with more freedom to diverge on services.

Mr Barnier argues that this would break up the “indivisible” single market freedoms — free movement of goods, services, capital and people — and amount to the kind of cherry-picking that Brussels has consistently rejected.

On Friday, he briefed the EU27 leaders on progress on Brexit talks, urging them to stay calm and respect the EU’s red lines, while expressing confidence that an exit deal would ultimately be agreed.

The EU27 adopted a summit communiqué reprimanding Mrs May for the slow progress made in exit talks, notably on the Irish border, saying there had been “no substantial progress”.

But the conclusions also held open the prospect that the EU could improve its offer to the UK should Mrs May drop some of her red lines, particularly her insistence on the ending of European Court of Justice jurisdiction in the UK after Brexit.

The leaders agreed that “if the UK positions were to evolve, the union will be prepared to reconsider its offer”.

But they also called on all member states and EU institutions to prepare for the possibility of a highly disruptive “no deal” Brexit.

Donald Tusk, European Council president, said at the end of the summit: “The most difficult things are still unresolved. This is the last call to put cards on the table.”

Spoiler:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
So opposing the Far Left makes you Alt Right. Gotcha.

As a rule of thumb in Whitehall, the greater the levels of dysfunction at the top, the pettier the reactions that follow.

Current dysfunction levels are high. This month alone Boris Johnson attacked the prime minister’s handling of Brexit and branded the Treasury the “heart of remain”; the defence secretary appeared to question the security qualifications of Theresa May; and Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, criticised almost everyone.

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, teamed up with Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, to lead a revolt against the prime minister first on relaxing rules on immigration in the NHS and then on the medical use of cannabis.

A dispute with David Davis, the Brexit secretary, nearly led to his departure from government while Steve Baker, a junior minister, got as far as packing the contents of his ministerial office in a box because of a row over Brexit.

So, as one government aide said this week, is the cabinet “fractured beyond repair”? It certainly seems as if calm leadership is needed, although sometimes, as happened last week, the temptation for pettiness overwhelms.

Early on Thursday afternoon, Downing Street was circulating a provisional press release welcoming a decision by the Australian government to award a British company a multibillion-pound contract for anti-submarine warships. After a scratchy week in government-business relations, it was a rare piece of unambiguously good news and they were keen to boast about it.

The internal document being prepared to be fed into the next day’s papers carried quotes from Theresa May, Liam Fox, the trade secretary, Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, and Guto Bebb, a junior defence minister.

Yet at the point of victory, collective Tory discipline broke down once again. No 10 was caught off guard when the Australian government announced the deal online eight hours earlier than expected, and a ministerial scramble for credit began.

First Mr Williamson put out his own comments welcoming the deal, jumping ahead of Mrs May.

Some sources said that Mr Williamson had middle of the night conversations with the Australian defence industry minister Christopher Pyne to secure the deal. This prompted counter briefing from a Tory MP that the Australian defence minister “nearly scrapped the whole thing [because] when Gavin went to lobby for it he berated them about technical crap he clearly didn’t understand.”

As MPs started criticising the slow response to the news from Number 10, one senior member of the government was insisting that it did not understand the time difference between London and Canberra.

Then allies of Michael Fallon, Mr Williamson’s predecessor, weighed in to demand his share of the political spoils. Downing Street, which can be sensitive to comments on Twitter, grew increasingly irate as the debate threatened to spoil their good news story.

Finally, in a highly unusual act of petulant retribution which will not be forgotten, someone in Number 10 decided to remove Mr Williamson’s remarks — which had been in the earlier draft — from the Downing Street press notice, and sent it out without mentioning his contribution.

Public rebukes that stark do not come often; and it reveals a growing enmity between the MoD and parts of No 10.

“If they can’t send out a press release, how can they deliver Brexit”, wailed one veteran Tory MP yesterday.

Articulating a point increasingly made by others, they went on: “There have been a number of party leaders who the party have been frightened of. Margaret Thatcher and Michael Howard most obviously, and under David Cameron my colleagues were afraid of George Osborne because he was on top of the job and in charge of promotions.

“People were afraid of Mrs May until she called the election. Now you get the sense she can’t do anything to anybody. Indeed if you have discussions with her about why she should get rid of Boris, you get a blank look and then a feeble smile.”

As unprecedented a situation as this feels to many, one source said that despite the incredible week of briefing and counter-briefing at the highest levels, the cabinet remains serene — boring even.

“The weekly cabinet just carries on regardless. Yes I suppose it might be getting a little more awkward; more and more people have fallen out with one another. There is the odd remark. But it just carries on,” one weary attendee said.

Few are denying the seriousness of Mrs May’s predicament.

There are long-delayed Brexit decisions to be taken in the cabinet day out at Chequers on Friday which could spark resignations from senior cabinet figures, the foundations of western security are at threat during the Nato conference and the visit of President Trump requires exquisitely awkward domestic political handling.

“The true problem is that there is a vacuum on so many different things,” the cabinet minister added. “Without that, it makes it more difficult to be focused on the job in hand.”

In truth, the problem for Mrs May is that she is allowing decision making to be made behind cabinet ministers’ back in the name of Brexit — undermining the very nature of collective responsibility.

Yesterday it emerged that immigration policy might not be decided until the autumn, and could form part of the EU Brexit talks, effectively stripping responsibility for a key portfolio from home secretary days after suggestions that Mr Javid did not want to replicate free movement after Brexit.

Olly Robbins, Mrs May’s official in charge of Brexit, will no longer appear before MPs alongside Mr Davis next week, as the man whose power outstrips most of the cabinet again avoids scrutiny because of a “diary clash”. There are suggestions that while Mr Davis is writing the Brexit white paper — this weekend he is working on version 10 and highly unlikely to fly with Brussels — Mr Robbins is preparing his own “briefing notes” in parallel, paving the way for alternative outcomes.

One government source said: “How, honestly, can you enforce collective cabinet responsibility when the cabinet doesn’t have responsibility for decisions.”

At the top of government, allies of the prime minister hold the view that she could withstand the loss of Boris Johnson but not survive if David Davis went alongside him, loudly declaring she was betraying Brexit voters.

Rank and file Tory MPs are at boiling point. They are being made to stay in the Commons on a three line whip, on the off chance that Labour call an unexpected vote. Labour, however, have happily released their troops to go elsewhere. This was noted bitterly on Wednesday night when Labour MPs were able to get to the ITV summer party hours before Tory MPs.

One embittered Tory MP said: “We are showing a level of discipline the cabinet is not able to match.”

The reason for government paralysis is simple. Despite a series of small decisions now taken on Brexit, the cabinet is split — potentially irrevocably — over the fundamental question of how similar to the EU Britain should be after Brexit.

Take customs. Eighteen months on Theresa May continues to push the customs partnership, hated by Brexiteers for retaining too much EU infrastructure and inhibiting trade deals. Mr Davis wants max-fac but accepts that this requires the EU to waive 80 per cent of cross border trade. The dividing line, as always with the Brexit Secretary, is about levels of ambition: Mr Davis thinks that the commission will accept the proposal when staring down the barrel of the gun.

Yet No 10 sees public signs and private evidence that the commission, backed by France and Germany, is holding firm and doesn’t want to leave this issue until the end. While max-fac after a long, long implementation delay suits some cabinet remainers, No 10 hate temporary solutions that last longer than the next election. It is unclear whether Chequers will solve things, and how much brexiteers will insist on leaving all vestiges of EU structures.

There are further reasons for pessimism. On Monday, Sir Jeremy Heywood stood down as cabinet secretary for further cancer treatment. It is hard to overstate the gap he leaves.

Every cabinet secretary does the job differently, and Sir Jeremy operates by calling in team after team of senior officials each day to interrogate how well different parts of government are functioning. Public spending teams, universal credit bosses and immigration officials are all hauled in “for what can best be described as a form of university viva”. His sessions leave those on the receiving end “exhausted” because they are so challenging intellectually and practically.

Each night Sir Jeremy writes a note to the prime minister with his conclusions. Sir Mark Sedwill, his temporary successor, who is a foreign policy expert, needs to prove he has the domestic policy acumen otherwise things that Sir Jeremy would have stopped going wrong now will cause political bedlam when the consequences play out in about 18 months’ time.

Other events have left some people in government even more shaken.

One member of the government reports concern “we’d be having to do ‘the’ announcement on the Queen this week. Thank goodness not”. Although suggestions that Her Majesty’s cold was more serious than publicly acknowledged are firmly dismissed, it underlines just how little in politics and the British state can truly be described as strong and stable right now.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
So opposing the Far Left makes you Alt Right. Gotcha.

No, spouting alt-right talking points like cultural marxism, islamophobia, etc. makes you alt-right.


All of which Sargon did. Then he got flustered when people started grouping him with other alt-right scumbags and began posting gay porn to alt-right people following him. He didn't examine why he was being grouped with the alt-right and seek to change his behaviour, because that would mean admitting that he was spouting alt-right bs to begin with.

He wants to spout alt-right bs, capture the alt-right audience on youtube for ad revenue but at the same time not be grouped with the alt-right.

Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc.