one out all out: a brexit from the modern world and every one of its problems please (we're all gonna die lol)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtvWGt9WwAAf5Zm.jpg

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2012%2F07%2F10%2Farticle-2171685-00E1F3201000044C-481_233x423.jpg&f=1

he looks a bit like "handsome Shrek" in Shrek 2, but with very dark secrets.

looks just like my sister-in-laws boxer. bet he loves having his tummy scratched

Very entertaining S. Bush takedown of Nick Timothy's Telegraph grandstanding here.

I know that looking for self-awareness from Nick Timothy is like looking for moral philosophy from a cow, but hang about: “the week that Brexit was finally killed” was the week of 18 May 2017: when Theresa May launched her manifesto, a politically toxic document that insulted the young, offended the elderly and alienated the middle-aged. The most damaging policy of all was that concerning social care: one authored by Nick Timothy, the object of concern to his co-chief, Fiona Hill, and the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The damage that did to Theresa May’s popularity and to the Conservative campaign was decisive in the election result – which returned a Parliament which will only be able to agree a Norway-type Brexit. That is the clear and inescapable truth of every serious post-mortem of what happened to the Conservative Party in the final weeks of the campaign.

The reason why May can't make this argument personally is that it means returning to the scene of the crime: telling Conservative MPs that not only did her maladroit conduct of the 2017 campaign cost them their majority and the careers of their colleagues and friends, but that it locks them into a Brexit trajectory in which the only available exits are ones that most Conservative MPs fear will be politically disastrous. But if Nick Timothy wants to identify the week that Brexit was “killed”, he should look to the past: and if he wants to know the culprit, he should look in the mirror.

That's heavily otm

Also the fact that the Tories were so high on Brexit hubris they thought they could drop any steaming turd of a policy without anyone noticing.

Stephen Bush is mostly right, most of the time.

That was a very satisfying read. Still hoping for Nick Timothy to go the same way as his twin Rasputin, though.

Nick Timothy wishes he had the dark brooding sexual magnetism of Rasputin, he's more like the tosser off the Top Cashback adverts

Ugh. Thx for reminding me of those, NV.

I was going to libel him on the bbad advert thread, he always makes me think of Timotheh

Stephen Bush is mostly right, most of the time.

pretty sure he predicted the TV debate outcome perfectly as well.
his morning emails at the moment are the best way to keep up with the chaos.

So is this big or...?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/06/jeremy-corbyn-general-election-brexit-labour-theresa-may?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Either he's fucking crazy or his ego knows no bounds.

His plan is that he'll get a customs Union and single market access while getting to set his own immigration targets. In other words, breaking of the four freedoms. Or what May, Davis et al sought to try and do two years ago.

He also misses a potential dichotomy in his argument - he's mentioned many times that Con govts to come after the transition period could worsen workers' rights below current EU standards. Well that's true but a Lab govt could raise standards above above the current level so either he thinks the EU levels are the pinnacle of achievement or he doesn't see a strong Lab majority any time soon.

He also rolls out the EU restrictions on state aid which we've heard about before as what he needs Brexit to remove.

As I said before, I think his tongue is knowingly as forked as it can be right now. I cannot believe him or MacDo seriously believe they can square the freedom of movement circle

i find labour extremely disappointing on brexit. i don't really see the point of this kind of bullshitting in the situation we're in. i know the time for politicking is basically all the time, but would personally appreciate a more honest approach

yeah this seems uhh not great?

Wow, I’m reading this v differently. This struck me as far more sensible and less unicorny than things we’ve heard before from Labour.

Yes he mentions immigration, but it doesn’t mention any “freedom of movement” red line *at all*. That’s the thing that has really blown it for May, and I think he is talking about the sort of immigration controls we could have had anyway (eg on non workers).

And the mention of state aid is to point out that the current WA locks in a restriction on that while not protecting worker’s rights - you could absolutely see a Labour govt negotiating that with reversed priorities and getting different results.

Yeah I was just going to say, re workers’ rights?

Lastly, we want to see guarantees that existing EU rights at work, environmental standards and consumer protections will become a benchmark to build on – not fall behind and undercut other countries at our people’s expense.

Sounds pretty much opposite to:

Well that's true but a Lab govt could raise standards above above the current level so either he thinks the EU levels are the pinnacle of achievement

The immigration part mentions policies and explicitly excludes targets.

If you want to set your migration levels, or target individual areas "to meet the needs of the economy" you have to restrict other areas (whether by region, income or whatever). That's the opposite of 'free'. I get that he's saying it'll be planned rather than an arbitrary level and that's what makes him different from the Tories but they're both restrictions.

You're right, I had missed that bit about worker's right. But his words suggest he wants a commitment (a new bill for the govt to raise?) saying the current level will never be reduced as a political choice?

I don't get that he's making a connection to state aid from workers rights at all - he's just listing bad things about the deal. EU state aid rules didn't prevent the Nissan investment, for example.

I don’t think that completely follows. He is (I think) talking about policies that encourage workers for the areas we need them (as the link there suggests). Whether and if there are areas he’d want to restrict is left totally unspoken.

Sorry, yes, I don’t mean to imply the state aid is linked to the worker’s rights — they’re just two things that are the wrong way around in the WA from his POV.

If you're not going to make any restrictions then the logical conclusion of wanting to set policies to meet economy needs, such as at the link, is that you're going to increase immigration if need be or offer incentives to target immigrants. Either or both of those would be easy to say.

That's where the forked tongue bit probably comes in, I guess.

Part of the problem here is all the spaces in the ambiguities here are being filled in with the context of all his previous statements. Like someone on Twitter said, if the exact same thing was written by a Jolyon the Remain crowd would likely be mad for it.

Lol for a good while I've been dreading Labour putting forward its own Brexit plan in more details because of my strong fear that their position on immigration & FoM would be awful - this is perhaps not as bad as I feared, def leaving a lot deliberately open to interpretation at this stage. I still predict it will get a lot worse if they're in a situation of putting Brexit proposals in a GE manifesto & campaigning on them.

***
I still worry a bit about the EU rules on state aid & the free movement of capital, I do think that they create serious problems for the implementation of some of the key pledges from the last Labour manifesto. And it's def pie in the sky thinking to expect that they can negotiate a withdrawal deal that allows for deviation from them but maintains customs union membership & single market access - accepting the rules against anti-competitie measures are the price you pay for getting into those afaict.

Anyways, do ppl think that this possible Govt. amendment to give parliament a say on any possible future activiation of the backstop is likely to sway enough rebels for the deal to pass? Or is it too little, too late at this stage?

Diane Abbott is responsible for Labour’s immigration policy and is a lot more benign and in favour of it than a lot of the party, inc Corbyn & McDonnell, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

To be clear, I think the plan is lip service to ending freedom of movement and the intention is probably to not pursue it when the power to not do that is theirs but you can't infinitely weave lies within lies , especially if a GE can be forced

To be clear, I think the plan is lip service to ending freedom of movement and the intention is probably to not pursue it when the power to not do that is theirs

I mean, I really, really want this to be true obvs. We'll see.

It seems to not even be lip service any more. Just a wink to those who expect it, and quietly stopping talking about it at all.

Seems really risky, but they might pull it off

I'm not sure if Stephen Bush meant "write" where he said "say" here, but I think he's tending to the "good not bad" reading here too. Thread has people on both sides

The other sign that Dan's reading of what this means in policy terms is correct IMO is that this is a written article, not a speech. JC often struggles to say things he doesn't believe even if he has been convinced of the need to say them.

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) December 6, 2018

no he means say: he's making the point that corbs giving this speech as a speech (.i.e. with his mouth) wd be less able to glide over the bits which it this point need not saying -- it's a crit of his ability to do effective forked tongue at a lectern

No, I think he means 'say' - he's saying that JC is a better dissembler on paper than in the flesh.

bah xpost

Ah gotcha yes thanks

andrew's way of explaining it is shorter and less weird than mine but i have had a lot of beer (in my mouth)

I think also Starmer contributed a lot to that, which makes sense considering.

Some people have pointed out Corbyn’s Labour gets critiqued for stuff while meantime you’ve got Yvette Cooper coming out with stuff about closing the borders and Tony Blair constantly coming out with muck like this:

Tony Blair on @GMB: “If we have another referendum, I think at that point it’s possible that Europe would make us a renewed offer, including on things like immigration which I think were the true drivers of the vote.”

Watch on @ITV 1 or online here. https://t.co/kiqfb59xrj

— Tony Blair Institute (@InstituteGC) December 3, 2018

Some might say it takes the biscuit.

at this point I'll take the many messy contradictions and jarring problems with Corbyn/McD Labour's Brexit and FoM prevarications. Especially if it meant the end of evil things like UC and PIP/fit for work assessments/child poverty and these cunts not being in government for at least in the short term.

Labour doesn't seem to have a concrete social security proposal or replacement either, though.

I don't have any worries about Corbyn and McDonnell on that score tbh.

... the EU is an entirely different matter.

it just seems weirdly far down on their list of plans or priorities. If someone can correct me on that i'd be pleased, obviously.

Even if they did say something, no-one would notice, no-one is listening to anything other than Brexit.

Except if there's an election, when I think Matt and history are right : only nutters have the EU as a deciding factor

all that hot air expended on an option that's not even possible
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/07/norwegian-politicians-reject-uks-norway-plus-brexit-plan

I'm seriously at a loss as to whether Remain-but-Racist is more or less delusional than Brexit-but-Only-The-Nice-Bits.

I don't think you can credibly wrap yourself in the cause of Better Brexit and just try and ignore the anti-immigration hysteria that helped drive it. The kinds of structural reforms that Corbyn is talking about could well reduce that hysteria over time (by making people more economically secure) but substantive change will take time - probably more than the lifetime of one Parliament.

Certainly longer than it takes for Brexit voters to start wondering why we haven't just ended immigration already. And make no mistake the right wing press will be hammering those migration figures on a daily basis.

Ireland faces food shortages and will suffer a bigger economic hit than Britain in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to leaked government papers.

Cabinet ministers and Brexiteers have seized on the papers, obtained by The Times, as they believe their contents could let Theresa May put pressure on Ireland to drop the “backstop”.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/warning-of-food-shortages-in-ireland-gxlf36k8p

This will go well.

Lads.

I don't think you can credibly wrap yourself in the cause of Better Brexit and just try and ignore the anti-immigration hysteria that helped drive it

What percentage of pro-brexit sentiment would you attribute to immigration? I mean, I don't have an answer to this , but from my own admittedly limited dealings with strong brexit advocates, immigration didnt seem particularly high up. yes it was there but definitely behind "hate Brussels", "Britain is too great to be part of some crappy club", weird existential reasons I couldnt make head or tail out of, and "I hate regulations"

Mystic Meg here on the opinion pages of the very same paper on the Norway "option": https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/mps-brexit-norway