Brexit - Creating a Cuntocracy - Now with 4d chess option

A close friend has made a tidy living out of evaluating FP6/7 applications, usually as part of mulit-lateral evaluation team. He can tell stories til the cows come home of “but we have to approve this application, otherwise …”

Thank goodness shenanigans like this don’t go on back in Albion :wink:

Exactly. As far as I can tell this is the EU in microcosm. On the surface there is a transparent structure built on clear objective principles and enacted through laws/rules/obligations to which everyone signs up and adheres. But the real world is more complex than this and if we find we’ve put in place laws which have unintended bad consequences then we have to do something about that. My experience, very limited though it is, is that the UK tends to try to re-write the laws, messy though this can be, whereas much of the EU tends towards simply ignoring them and approving the business because it’s the right thing to do. This is why I suspect some of M Barnier’s red lines over Brexit will turn out to be crossable in the horse-trading. And some won’t. We’ll have to see which are which.

VB

I’d have thought it’s people in micrcosm, and has very little parrallel to Brexit, but OK - we disagree on that.
There are countless examples of British shenaigans from CAP subsidies, to Fisheries catches to - yes - grant applications, and so forth.

Look at the cabbal of vested interests involved in the UNESCO / Lake District fiasco. We’re perectly capable of fecking things up without the presence of an EU guideline.

When we need stuff from other people then we have to try to fit in with their way of doing things. But when we’re left to our own devices it sometimes works out better than that.

An example:

Much of the academic research funding in the UK is channeled to individual researchers through the Research Councils of which, over the decades, there have usually been half a dozen or so (Engineering and Physical Sciences, Medical, Economic and Social etc etc). When I started out as a scientist the RCs were independent of one another and in competition for the government’s pot of research money. The government actually restructured the councils from time to time, keeping them separate, e.g. detaching particle physics and astronomy from the rest of physics so that most of the physicists couldn’t hold the government to ransom by threatening to pull out of CERN or space research whenever the budget got tight. Competition is good, right ?

At some point the chairs of the RCs realised that they were handing the decision-making, at least at the larger scale, to a few civil servants and politicians (worst of all, Treasury). So they started to talk to one another on the basis that they might get better decisions made if they could co-operate rather than compete. They felt that they were better placed to decide the priorities between, say, a new telescope in the Canaries, a boat for the Antarctic, a DNA research centre etc, and if they could manage their bids into government then they could get what they’d collectively agreed on. Of course this collaborative approach frustrated any policy of competition. So the RC chairs met in secret. There was no budget for the meetings. I think they even had to borrow secretarial support to take minutes. But actually the process probably did result in a better overall outcome, despite it being in conflict with what might be thought of as ‘the rules’.

You’re right, collaborating when it helps is what people do. I suspect that if it had gone on in, say, France then no-one would have cared. Rules ? They’re there to be broken if that’s for the general good. But here the government decided that, since it was for the good, they’d get it out into the open and formalise it. So they set up RCUK - changing the rules, if you like. It achieves the same outcome but it’s just a different way of doing things.

VB

This isn’t short, but somehow manages to still be an excellent resume of where we are

Whatever, we’re swiftly heading towards D-Day, when the bluster and the bullshit won’t anymore cut the ice. I don’t pretend to know which way it will go but there’ll be copious blood on the floor whatever happens.

Loving your optimism regarding Tory benevolence, but none of them will turn it into a vote of confidence and tip their own Party out of power.

It has nothing to do with Tory benevolence (:rofl:, WTF??) or votes of confidence (which are ruled out under the Fixed Term Parliament Act). If they had the numbers the Tories would have rammed home their Brexit plans via the HoC. The two sides of the Tory party are arguing over plans that the EU have rejected. Moreover, the HoC may very well render both plans redundant by imposing the single market (or more ludicrously the EEA which the Lords are considering) upon the Government via a series of amendments to various bills.

Bojo, another fat man arguing over the colour of the skinny jeans he won’t fit into. Neither MaxFac nor Customs Partnerships will get a gig.

I wonder if an election during the summer, possibly during the World Cup might be on the cards…

Help me out - why do you think the EEA is a ludicrous option ??

That’s not entirely correct:

Under the Act, early elections can be triggered in two ways:

· If parliament votes for an early election by a two-thirds majority of all MPs (434). (= The Maybots wonderfully succesful election last year, no?)

· If parliament passes a no-confidence vote in the government with a simple majority and then fails to express confidence in a government within 14 days.

I meant the EEA is politically ludicrous at the present time. I can see the CU getting up, but unless the LAbour Party climb off the fence in a huge fashion, the vote in the Lords is doomed as Labour will abstain.

Yep, agreed about the ways you can trigger a vote of confidence. What you can’t do now is say that we regard the vote on motion X as a confidence vote. My understanding is that you would need to then table a separate vote of no confidence. That is, you might lose on the CU amendment, but subsequently receive the confidence of the HoC in a subsequent vote on a no confidence motion.

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The FTPA does not rule out a vote of no confidence at all. If a Party wishes to vote against it’s own Government and collapse a core piece of their Governments agenda, they can. No Government would survive that kind of onslaught. The Remain Tories only think they have the whip hand, right up until the vote is called.

The HOC can’t impose jack on the Government as the Government can always withdraw a Bill or they can resign. If the Government takes a Bill forward, no matter how heavily amended, it is by default the Government Policy.

As for the EU rejecting plans during a negotiation, well, hardly a surprise. I suspect the Governement will treat that approach with the contempt it deserves.

the EU are hardly the knights in shining armor in all of this, Barnier has used NI to stoke the fires of the UK Remain camp to undermine the Government and continues to use any issue where he can achieve a leverage. Again, not a surprise, he is a well trained center right technocrat and very good at what he does.

How do you think he’s used NI to stoke the fires of the UK Remain camp, Bob ?

To my mind Barnier has been consistent in pointing out the holes in the Government’s approach(es) thus far, insofar as one can read much into the gobbledigook that has been provided by keynote speeches.

HMG’s square doesn’t come within a light year of being technically or politcally circle-able IMHO, so I’ve seen him as just stating the bleeding obvious.

But as I happily and often change my opinion, what am I missing ?

PS: he’s a career politicam, BTW, no technocrat. That he can grasp a policy brief a wee bit better than Fox / BoJo / DD isn’t really saying much

I never said that Bob.

RONG, Standing by and watching your country being dragged down the toilet for the sake of your party is cowardly and utterly reprehensible. Labour will own their share of this shit, forever more.

They will be known as the cowards that could have stopped it, but chose to watch us burn.

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But State Aid.

Just think of all the nationalisation they’ll be able to implement as they pick through the rubble, you numpty

Hahaha yeah, Corbyn’s own lawyers have told him he could do that even inside the EU. He ignored that advice and lied to the electorate. He then went to Scotland and gave a speech blaming all our woes on immigration. He’s like a Communist Farage. Total cunt bubble that man.

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The FT Brexit Briefing is pretty good today:

A British prime minister’s cabinet is supposed to be governed by the principle of collective responsibility. That rule has pretty much broken down when it comes to Theresa May’s plans over the customs partnership.

On Sunday, Greg Clark, the business secretary, weighed in fully behind Mrs May’s idea after the setback it received at a cabinet committee last week.

Mr Clark said the customs partnership would allow the UK to maintain frictionless borders while also doing trade deals across the world.

He said it would help companies such as Toyota retain “just in time” production methods, because it would remove the need for a customs border between the UK and suppliers in the EU.

Today, however, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is on the attack. He condemned Mrs May’s customs partnership as a “crazy system” that would leave the UK “locked in the tractor beam of Brussels”.

Mr Johnson and his fellow Brexiters insist that the UK needs instead to go for maximum facilitation (the use of technology and trusted trader schemes to smooth the customs border). Here Mr Johnson is backed by an alliance of the 60 arch Brexiters in the European Research Group, and by the Daily Mail.

How will Mrs May respond? The PM is clearly in a bind. But there are two reasons to suspect that she will press ahead with a reworked version of the customs partnership plan and try to get her cabinet to back it.

First, the PM has little choice. If she were to climb down, she could well lose an impending vote in the Commons in which pro-European MPs are calling for Britain to stay permanently in a customs union.

Some commentators think Mrs May could survive in office if she lost that vote, declaring that she would have to abide by the will of parliament and move on. Others say defeat on the floor of the Commons would be a personal and political humiliation of the first order that could not be overcome.

Second, Mrs May might press ahead with a customs partnership if she >believes Mr Johnson’s diatribe is bluster.

Hard Brexiters get loud and aggressive when they are losing a key fight on Brexit. But they know, too, that they cannot bring Mrs May down, for fear of derailing Brexit altogether. So their hands are tied.

Even so, we should not be under any illusions over how high the stakes are in this key moment of the Brexit saga. Mr Johnson and his allies genuinely believe the customs partnership plan is a trap aimed at keeping the UK in a customs union for good.

As one person briefed on the Brexit negotiations puts it:

“Johnson and Co fear that Mrs May is aiming to sucker them into a temporary customs union on industrial goods, coupled with permanent regulatory alignment and delivered as close to the single market as possible. All this, whilst constantly saying that the glorious customs partnership is just over the horizon, when, in reality, it is never going to happen.”

The hard Brexiters think that this is now the game being played by chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins and the cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood. They may be right.

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Brino is fine by me. Basically means we’re ruled by Brussels rather than our incompetent shower of cunts

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I don’t buy that Robbins and Heywood are going rogue: they’re doing what they’re told.

I’ve been laughing off 'local" informed suggestions for months that this is the long game the Maybot is playing, as it grants her far too much credibility and skill, but it seems now possible that this is what she’s up to. Good luck with that, Theresa.