Brexit Is Finished.

[Colin James]

On 15/11/2018 at 22:17, Roger said:

No Deal is on the table. That was always my choice. That might focus some minds' if we were serious about leaving. Which we never have been ~ as a Govt. As for Jesse Norman he has never engaged enough with the Brexit process for my liking. He seems to be backing May with that tweet but he has been too low profile on this important issue. Or rather no profile. 

I also think unless we get a better deal than the current terrible one that we should walk away with NO DEAL. 

[Colin James]

On 15/11/2018 at 22:17, Roger said:

No Deal is on the table. That was always my choice. That might focus some minds' if we were serious about leaving. Which we never have been ~ as a Govt. As for Jesse Norman he has never engaged enough with the Brexit process for my liking. He seems to be backing May with that tweet but he has been too low profile on this important issue. Or rather no profile. 

I also think unless we get a better deal than the current terrible one that we should walk away with NO DEAL. 

[megilleland]

Mrs May’s favourite lies from the day she walked into Number Ten have been “Brexit means Brexit” and “Honouring the result of the 2016 Referendum”. For these reasons she ruled out various actions, and drew various red lines we must not cross. These were:

* Getting a better deal than No Deal

* Leaving the Customs Union

* Limiting the Irish backstop period

* Under no circumstances having a Second Referendum

* Leaving on March 29th.

What I say and what I do are entirely two different matters - don't you plebs understand?

2020 will be another interesting date with elections due in UK and USA, unless of course Trump is impeached and we as a region of the EU vote only for an MEP. However we can save £4 billion on renovating the Houses of Parliament and turn it into a theme park for democracy - they are already running pantomines there daily.

[megilleland]

Mrs May’s favourite lies from the day she walked into Number Ten have been “Brexit means Brexit” and “Honouring the result of the 2016 Referendum”. For these reasons she ruled out various actions, and drew various red lines we must not cross. These were:

* Getting a better deal than No Deal

* Leaving the Customs Union

* Limiting the Irish backstop period

* Under no circumstances having a Second Referendum

* Leaving on March 29th.

What I say and what I do are entirely two different matters - don't you plebs understand?

2020 will be another interesting date with elections due in UK and USA, unless of course Trump is impeached and we as a region of the EU vote only for an MEP. However we can save £4 billion on renovating the Houses of Parliament and turn it into a theme park for democracy - they are already running pantomines there daily.

[megilleland]

On 25/11/2018 at 12:05, megilleland said:

Time for Jesse and Bill to tell us which way they will be voting on May's Brexit deal. If it's voted down in Parliament the Cabinet and the EU have a plan B to make sure we are stitched up forever.

Letter in Hereford Times - 8th March 2019

Jonathan Gammond is kind to praise my "intelligent views and independence of mind". But he's wrong to think they ended in 2015, still less that I have taken a vow of silence.

It is true that I have always fought against the division, tribalism, shouting and rudeness associated with so much of the Brexit debate, on all sides. What we need are decency, courtesy, warmth and a positive outlook.

That has always been my approach as an MP, and it always will be.

On Brexit: if people want to catch up on the latest news, there are plenty of national newspapers and media outlets they can turn to.

Local papers are, mainly, for local issues. That's why I have always tended to keep my columns in the Hereford Times and other local papers to local issues, such as our recent campaign to save the Broadleys pub in South Wye from closure.

But at key moments in the Brexit debate, I have set out my views for Herefordians. So I have written columns on the EU Referendum, on the High Court ruling, on triggering Article 50, on the EU Withdrawal Bill, and on the threat to the constitution posed by some of the Speaker's actions.

Anyone wanting to know more has only to spend a couple of minutes online to see that I am on my feet in the House of Commons every week discussing Brexit and taking new laws to prepare for Brexit through the House of Commons; laws without which Herefordshire - and the country - would be ill-prepared indeed.

Or they can come to one of my surgeries. Or call me. Or drop me an email, as Mr Gammond has done on many occasions over the past decade, much to my benefit.

Jesse Norman MP

So he is voting to remain.

[megilleland]

Artist Taxi Driver sums up the situation following the pantomine in House of Commons last night. General Election around the corner?

 

[twowheelsgood]

All valid points he makes, what a monumental mess. The old two and half party political system has to be in its death throes as a result of this - no one has any confidence in, or respect for, politicians any more, at local level or national level. We need a benevolent dictator ...

[Denise Lloyd]

A little bit unkind but very funny and fairly true

 

[megilleland]

From The Slog 15th March 2019:

BRUSSELS BOMBSHELL: No extension without Second Referendum or Softer Brexit

DID ANYONE SERIOUSLY EXPECT ANYTHING ELSE?
Blair “advice” to the EU fingered by Brussels source

Welcome to life as a vassal captive of the European Union. According to The Times this morning, the European Council will veto the spineless British demand for an Article 50 extension unless we agree either to a Second Referendum or an even worse Withdrawal Agreement than the one we’ve got. (Which was, until 24 hours ago, a closed and sacred book which must not be opened otherwise a plague of anthrax-riddled scorpions would surely emerge). It is an entirely predictable bullies’ power grab that vindicates every last British vote to Leave this coven of witches.

Immediately following the Times story’s appearance, I rang The Slog’s Commission mole. This was the response.

“The story doesn’t surprise anyone here. It has the fingerprints of Guy Verhofstadt and Tony Blair all over it. It’s what they do, it’s the way they work. The UK side’s best hope is to lobby very hard among the 27 to have the strings removed”.

Some simple observations:

A clear Parliamentary majority has twice rejected the existing WA – by massive majorities – as being a capitulation even Remainers can’t stomach. But the Commission is quite happy to ignore that, and make it worse for the UK.

An even bigger Commons majority yesterday rejected the idea of a Second Referendum; indeed, the Prime Minister Theresa May has staked what little remains of her reputation on never contemplating such a thing. But the Commission has no respect for that either.

The bad-cop line being adopted is bound to persuade large numbers of Remainer Tory MPs to accept the May Deal: there is now a real possibility that illegal threats from a foreign power will drag the corpse across her final Red Line. Don’t imagine that any of the Brussels mobsters will lose a second’s sleep about it.

The only sensible, loyal and decent Sovereign act left open to this disgrace of a Westminster corporate State is to call an emergency debate once the demands are confirmed, and vote to leave without a deal on 29th March.

But our “representatives” won’t do that of course. They will whine and dither and then “with great regret” and “under extreme duress” vote for the WA signed by the Prime Minister and dictated by Angela Merkel….under the treasonous direction of Anthony St John Lynton Blair.

For once, I am lost for further words this morning, beyond two: General Election.

What's Jesse going to do about this - sod all!

[M. Preece]

On 13/03/2019 at 08:07, megilleland said:

Artist Taxi Driver sums up the situation following the pantomine in House of Commons last night. General Election around the corner?

 

Oh and Labour could do a better job... Both parties are in array 

[megilleland]

Agree all the present parties we have are as bad as one another. The electoral system is constructed so that we have a pendulum effect which results in an extreme swing to the opposite side of the political spectrum or as we have seen a coalition government of all the parties getting their own hobby horse on the statute books - mainly to the detriment of the average citizen. We end up with no decent politicians who can create a caring and fair society to get this country back on its feet.

Twenty-two million votes were “wasted” in June's 2017 general election and had no impact on the result, a study by The Electoral Reform Society revealed.

The ERS also blasts Britain's first-past-the-post system, which is designed to avoid hung parliaments – but, for the second time in three general elections, left no party with a majority.

Chief executive Darren Hughes said: “The vast majority of votes are going to waste, with millions still stuck in the electoral black hole of winner-takes-all - a diverse and shifting public having to work around a broken two-party system.

A Government spokeswoman said at the time: “We are pleased the Electoral Commission's report into the 2017 General Election found the elections were well run.

First-past-the-post is a voting system that offers a robust method of electing MPs.

"A referendum on changing the voting system for general elections was held in 2011 and the public voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the first-past-the-post system. This Government has no plans to change that position."

Alternative Voting may be the only way of saving the nation from itself as there are now two camps which may not be fully reflecting public opinion. A broad coalition reflecting a mainstream view of various opinions of right and left will never surface, because both main parties are in the pockets of the EU.

A lot of people are saying that they are not going to vote in the next General Election - exactly what the present lot politicians want us to do. With Brexit they have already discounted the referendum result and carry on with their own agendas.

As a sovereign nation, the people in the UK are witnessing a form of treason by their own Parliament and Government. Perhaps that is because most in those institutions do not consider the UK to be sovereign, just a region of the EU and want it to stay that way for their personal benefit.

All European countries within the EU have a stark choice to make. Lose your nation status and become a region of the EU, fundamentally reform the EU to be a group of cooperating nations, or leave, like the UK are trying to do.

[Ubique]

Megiland ........after meeting up with you yesterday you have convinced me to vote if required.  I believe that history will initially blame Cameron and Osborne for  the mess we are in ...........I believe that the average Layperson ( and that includes me ) was not told all the requirements needed to leave the EU , hence the mess we are in plus of course how much money has this cost so far ! 

[Ubique]

T

[megilleland]

Is this why the EU don't publish any accounts on where our money is going?

 

[megilleland]

Italy IGNORES EU warnings over China’s ‘colonisation of Europe’ to sign Beijing deal

ITALY is likely to risk the European Union’s wrath by signing up to China’s monumental global investment plan when President Xi Jinping visits Rome later this week, as Brussels braces itself for rebellion among frustrated member states which feel let down by years of the bloc’s austerity.

Mr Salvini said: “If it is a matter of helping Italian companies to invest abroad, we’re ready to talk to anyone.

“We’re absolutely not going to let foreign companies colonize Italy.”

Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament, added his fears over Italy’s cosying up to China: “We cannot become a new colony of the Chinese empire.”

But it's alright for us to become a region of the EU and not a sovereign state. The EU don't like it up them. Pity our politicians don't have any balls. As one person commented:

Gosh, a trading relationship that doesn't demand that you surrender your national sovereignty, pay money simply to TRADE, nor demand that you allow unfettered immigration. No wonder the EU is wetting itself  at what CHINA is offering, this sound suspiciously like FREE TRADE without domination by the stronger party!

[megilleland]

We have just had a local person here in Hereford win £71 million pounds and this of course has generated a lot of comment in the local press and local radio. Obviously other than the way money will change their life there are other problems facing them on how they will live their life in the future.

Many years ago in the 1970s, I purchased a book in a junk shop - EF Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful". ironically his book came out on the eve of the vote on the European Common Market in 1975 – but he believed such scale led to a dehumanisation of people and the economic systems that ordered their lives. You don't come much bigger than the flatulated EU.

Many of the issues Schumacher raises we are still wrestling with. He questioned the shibboleth of economic growth as the central preoccupation of politics; he talked of resource constraints on economic development. Above all, he insisted again and again that human happiness would not be achieved through material wealth. 

Its such a shame that many of our national and european politicians only seek to increase their own material wealth to the detriment of those around them. What Schumacher wanted was a people-centred economics because that would, in his view, enable environmental and human sustainability.

(extracts from the article below published 2011 The Guardian)

It was a radical challenge which, like many of the ideas of the late 60s and early 70s (feminism is another example), were gradually adopted and distorted by the ongoing voracious expansion of consumer capitalism. Niche brands such as The Body Shop in the UK or Ben & Jerry's ice-cream in the US attempted to build a "small is beautiful" model of economic enterprise that put relationship, craft and environment at the heart of their way of working. They were later snaffled up by corporate giants. Small became cool but only as part of a branding strategy which masked the ongoing concentration of political and economic power. Gigantism has triumphed.

But his point is still valid as the wellbeing debate today demonstrates; despite our increased wealth since the 70s, we are no happier. Schumacher warned against exactly the issues we are now dealing with as levels of mental illness – depression, anxiety, panic attacks, stress – rise and the World Health Organisation predicts that depression will be the second most common health problem in western developed nations by 2020. This was what Schumacher feared, and his answer was "small is beautiful". Go back to the human scale: human needs and human relationships, and from that springs the ethical response of stewardship to the environment.

The EU needs breaking up - its just too big to care.
 

[Roger]

There was a landslide in The Commons by MP's to trigger Article 50 to leave the EU. As per their Manifesto's. I'll just park that there. 

[ragwert]

[megilleland]

On Wales Online - Is this why our MPs want to stay in the EU on board the gravy train? Nice work if you can get it.

NEIL and Glenys Kinnock came under fire from critics last night as details of their estimated £10m European earnings were calculated by a pressure group.

Campaigners from Open Europe, which argues for greater transparency, calculated the pair’s multi-million-pound earnings from allowances, wages and pension entitlements over a 15-year period.

It worked out their salaries and perks included:

A total of £775,000 in wages for Mrs Kinnock and £1.85m for her husband, adding up to £2,625,000;

Allowances for Mrs Kinnock’s staff and office costs of £2.9m;

A £64,564 “entertainment allowance” for Lord Kinnock;

A total of five publicly-funded pensions, worth £4.4m, allowing them to retire on £183,000 a year;

A housing allowance that allowed them both to claim accommodation costs even though, as a married couple, they lived in the same house in the Belgian capital between 1995 and 2004.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign manager Susie Squire yesterday attacked the scale of the earnings.

She said: “It does seem an awful lot, but anyone who has experience of the Brussels gravy train will be able to believe these figures.

“There are lots of eurocrats on massive pensions and massive salaries living the five-star lifestyle at taxpayers’ expense.

“Brussels isn’t at all transparent. It’s very difficult to get information about money which is being spent in the first place.”

Ukip’s newly-elected Wales MEP John Bufton said he was “appalled” at the amounts paid.

“It’s quite incredible and unbelievable,” he added. “The Welsh public will see this as an absolute farce.

“And the thought that Gordon Brown is so desperate he has to bring in Glenys Kinnock shows the whole thing just stinks.”

Asked by the Western Mail what he wanted to say about yesterday’s revelations, former European Union Transport Commissioner Lord Kinnock, 67, replied: “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Quizzed as to whether the figures reported were accurate, the former MP for Islwyn, who led the Labour Party to two general election defeats before quitting in 1992 then spending 10 years in Brussels, said: “I’m not making any form of response.”

Earlier this month, Mrs Kinnock, 64, quit as an MEP after 15 years. Last Sunday Labour lost one of its two European Parliament seats in Wales to Ukip as Labour came second to the Conservatives in Wales, capping a disastrous election performance.

Mrs Kinnock is to be given a life peerage and appointed to succeed Caroline Flint who resigned as Europe Minister, saying she was not content to be Gordon Brown’s “female window dressing”.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Kinnocks, whose property portfolio includes a £815,000 home in Islington, North London and a £700,000 house in Peterston- super-Ely, outside Cardiff, disputed just one of Open Europe’s figures – a “transition allowance” Lord Kinnock received when he left Brussels in 2004, worth £355,143 at today’s exchange rate. She said the true figure was lower, but refused to reveal it.

Open Europe estimated Mrs Kinnock’s travel costs based on MEPs’ average.

It estimated she spent £1,179,482 for travel between Britain and the Continent over 15 years, and £45,777 for travel outside the EU.

During 10 years in Brussels, Lord Kinnock automatically received residential allowances totalling £276,962.

On Lord Kinnock’s income and perks, the spokeswoman said: “All of these details are a matter of public record.”

Based on Open Europe’s calculations, they will receive a combined annual pension of about £183,000.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the think-tank said Mrs Kinnock can expect £67,835 a year from two pensions as an MEP: one a £19,370 basic pension and the other £48,465 from the European Parliament’s Additional Voluntary Pension Scheme which sees the taxpayer paying £2 for every £1 put into the pot by MEPs.

Her new ministerial pay package will be used to top up contributions to the basic MEP pension. She already claims a teacher’s pension.

Lord Kinnock receives an ex-MP’s pension, thought to be £32,000 a year.

He has a second pension as a former EU Commissioner, worth more than £80,000.

The Kinnocks have also built up a valuable property portfolio, with homes in London and Wales.

In 1992, they bought a house in Ealing, West London, for £445,000. They sold it in January 2007 for £1,515,000 and bought a smart three-storey property.

Other members of the family have also benefited from Europe. Son Stephen’s first job after Cambridge University was as a research assistant to an MEP.

His Danish wife Helle – tipped as a future prime minister of Denmark – sat as an MEP from 1999 to 2004, while the Kinnocks’ daughter Rachel was her mother’s research assistant at the European Parliament.

[megilleland]

I wonder what Blair has got out of the EU over the years. It's amazing what you can do with a socialist upbringing.

[twowheelsgood]

The question about the Kinnock's (and numerous other eurocrats) must be what have they achieved over 15 years that merits being paid such colossal amounts of public money?

[Roger]

EU blinked tonight and took their 'condition' off the table. However how has TM's deal changed from when it was last offered up for a vote? The Speaker is against offering up the same deal for another vote. The EU offering up a new carrot to vote for a deal does not change the deal on offer. I hope Bercow is consistent in his approach. 

[megilleland]

Our next Eurovision Song Contest entry. Some people may be offended by expletives used in this song sorry.

Maybe we can get Jesse and Bill to sing along with the chorus.

[megilleland]

As one commentator states; Jonathan Pie has gone from being satire to actually just being a genuine commentary on real life?

 

[megilleland]

EU MELTDOWN?

Anti-EU party's victory in Dutch elections sends SHOCKWAVES to Brussels elite

THE EU establishment have been plunged into yet another crisis after a shock victory for an anti-EU Dutch party in crunch elections this week.

A populist eurosceptic party has stunned the political establishment in the Netherlands and sent shockwaves across the European Union after a stunning election victory. The Forum for Democracy (FvD), which campaigns for a Dutch exit from the EU, won the most votes in elections for the upper house of parliament earlier this week. This has plunged the country and EU leadership into crisis, just as Brussels struggles with more deadlock over Brexit.

Thierry Baudet, who leads the FvD, which was only launched three years ago, told supporters: “We stand here in the rubble of what was once the most beautiful civilisation.

“We won because the country needs us. We are being destroyed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us.

“The voters in the Netherlands have spread their wings and shown their true power.”

He claimed that the “stupidity and arrogance” of the elites had been punished.

Only want Italy to tell the EU to get off when they are hoping to sign a Chinese trade agreement this week and then the EU will realise the people come first and not the bureaucrats and their henchmen.

[Roger]

Apparently 9.6% of our local Electorate have voted to revoke article 50. If you believe the linked screen cap! 

[megilleland]

Latest Slog comment worth a read

BREXIT ANARCHY: how lies, short memories and apathy killed a dream.

(extracts)

Another defeat for Theresa May, another cynical power-grab by a Remainer House of Commons, another massive march by the Remoanoid Sheep. March 29th abolished with the stroke of a Legal Instrument. Further ramrodding of the Constitution. But precious little from Leave leaders and voters. Only a miracle can save Sovereign Brexit now.

So Brexit has gone from being something without the Customs Union to being something within it. 

The success of the Brussels strategy remains the triumph of organised lying over short voter memories. However, the key word there is “organised”. What we have here is a war of cheating persuasion in which Leavers have been comprehensively outthought, outplayed and outclassed by a more determined, activist and media-supported Establishment.

[megilleland]

While our lot in Parliament have been playing in the playground the EU have slipped this through behind our backs.

Quote

Article 13 and Article 11 have been approved by European Parliament

The controversial directive has been branded a massive blow to the freedom of the internet

The European Parliament has voted in favour of Article 13 and Article 11 in the final vote on the controversial  EU directive today. The vote passed with a majority of 348 votes to 274.

This comes as awful news to content creators worldwide and proponents of a free and open internet - a large number of people were hoping for a last-minute miracle and for MEPs to 'see sense'.

Julia Reda, a highly outspoken opponent to the directive and German MEP for the Pirate Party said it was a "dark day for internet freedom".

In a press conference following the announcement Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian MEP and president of ALDE group said: "We have to make our own internet model in Europe as fast as possible so there is a choice for people and to reduce American monopolisation [of data controlling]".

"To do that, GDPR was the first step, copyright is the second step and we need other steps in the coming years: creating one regulator and internet standards in Europe," he said. "There is no freedom of internet today, the only freedom is to send data to US companies for their profit and that's all".

There will be no choice the EU will use our information just the same as the USA. It is not control of the internet - it is control of the people.

 

[megilleland]

THE SLOG ANALYSIS 29 March 2019: 
WHY BRITISH FREEDOMS & FUTURES DEMAND THAT MAY’S WITHDRAWAL DEAL MUST BE REJECTED AGAIN

(extracts - well worth reading this article in full. It may be the last time you'll be remembered as an UK citizen and becaome a vassal of the EU).

We are beginning to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to the term ‘Brexiteer’. Only Francois, Cash, Redwood, Hoey and a handful of others still deserve the monniker. The Prime Minister’s “deal” will produce fractious EU trade, continuing obeisance to EU Law, loss of military independence, potentially endless Stage2 trade negotiations and severely limited restrictions on our trade beyond the EU. Above all, it is a purgatory from which we could very easily be returned to Hell by a future British Government.  

Brexit is a mere skirmish. The War we are engaged in here is between the individual citizen’s right to control a creative personal destiny, and the totalitarian systemic processes of the insane corporacrats.

WA3 must not pass today. If it does, the current Parliament will have ceded our trade sovereignty for a lengthy period, and ceded our military sovereignty forever. The final step in our scrotaloctomy would be joining the Zombie euro. If a change of Government after the coming General Election is more minded to revoke Article 50 (and that will happen unless We the People exert direct tactics and pressure at constituency level) then such will undoubtedly be our fate.

As has been seen BREXIT isn't an exit door it is a revolving door.

[bobby47]

Essentially Britain has been playing Three Card Brag with the negotiator for the EU Commision and we lost. We lost because when you play three card brag, and I’m playing it all the time, you only ever play if you get a seat at the table, you get dealt three cards, you’ve money to gamble and you only ever win if you can avoid or minimise bad losses and capitalise on your winning hands.

To win at Three Card Brag the winner isn’t the player who gets dealt better or more lucky cards. It’s not even the player who has plenty of money to gamble with. The winner every single time is the player who doesn’t care to much about losing money and can read the nature of the player or players who are taking part in the game. In short, to recognise your opponents weakness and their fears of losing, places the clever player in a winning position.

The EU negotiating team were and are in a completely different mindset to the British. Theirs is the winning mentality with no fears of financial losses.They are not in the least bit concerned about losses of jobs, economic growth or anything else that people care about. Their only weakness is their desire to hold together the structures, social, economic and political that hold the European Union together. To them, nothing else matters. Even if 27 other countries are desperately get hurt and are adversely affected, the EU negotiators have no concern or fears about any of that. They simple want to keep what they’ve gained and any monies they’re gambling with are not theirs. Essentially, other than the Bloc collapsing from social unrest they’ve absolutely nothing to worry about.

Finally, when one sits down to play Three Card Brag, you’ve generally speaking got ten to fifteen minutes to work out who the idiotic loser is that’s sat around the table. If in that time you haven’t worked out who it is, then chances are it’s ‘You’, and in this case it’s us the British who were the idiots for gambling with the formidable EU Commision.