The Tory Party Is Bracing Itself For All-Out Brexit War

[Denzil_DC]

Plenty of media are running scene-setters for tomorrow's start of the Tory Party Conference (the splash shenmue posted about May's trumpeted "Great Repeal Act" features on The Times's front page and is developed in an interview with her inside), but this one from BuzzFeed is as good as any I've seen so far (beyond that typically clickbaity headline).

Theresa May should not be taking to the stage in Birmingham this Sunday. It’s a highly unusual move for a party’s leader to address its conference on day one, before it has even got into its swing: Traditionally the leader only appears on stage to close out proceedings.

This subtle but significant decision points to a simple truth: though the past year’s dramatic Labour infighting has distracted from it, the Tory party is facing one of the biggest ideological crises in its history.

On the surface, the split is simple and clear – it’s between Remain-backing Tories who fear Theresa May will take Britain out of the EU single market and customs union – a so-called “hard Brexit”, and Leave supporters who argue that this is in fact exactly what the British public voted for.

May will address the issue on day one, in a session entitled “Global Britain: making a success of Brexit”, alongside three of her pro-leave ministers: Brexit secretary David Davis, International Development secretary Priti Patel, and Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/the-tory-party-is-bracing-itself-for-all-out-brexit-war

[Denzil_DC]

1. Tom Peck in The Independent isn't impressed!

Welcome to 'Global Britain': an arc of stupidity bending all the way from Trump Tower to North Korea

Right then. Get on with the job. That’s the May way. Get the Brexit thing over and done with on day one and then onward to the domestic stuff that no one’s voted for. In that sense, the four day Tory conference of 2016 will be a microcosm of the four year May administration. Rush through Brexit in as quick and kamikaze a fashion as possible, then save the electoral day with some guaranteed Ukip-friendly vote winners. Test the water with grammar schools, ramp it up with a bit of pledging to spend the international aid budget on repatriating prisoners (a genuine policy announcement on Sunday from Priti Patel). The election's not for four years. Don't imagine chemical castration for paediatricians is off the table.

Out they all came, on the stage in Birmingham, one by glorious one. May, Davis, Johnson, Fox. Not Liam Fox of course, that would be too risky, but as fortune would have it the MEP for Gibraltar is called Ashley Fox so they wheeled him out instead.

(Liam Fox is on Monday, by the way. What a pity the Tories don’t bother with any lefty Labour and Lib Dem nonsense like an on-stage signer for the deaf. They could have saved time by deploying a Number 10 Press officer to stand stage left live-denying his every word in semaphore.)

What they did have stage-left was half a Union Jack lovingly reimagined in teal. This is what you get when you put a huskie-hugging PR man in charge of the party for a decade. (No sign of him by the way). But it was a fitting enough metaphor. A gentle nod to the half-Britain they have planned for us all. A vision of the nation they are by no means done debasing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/welcome-to-global-britain-an-arc-of-stupidity-bending-all-the-way-from-trump-tower-to-north-korea-a7341996.html

[Denzil_DC]

2. Nor is Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times!

Theresa May walks into a Brexit trap
The UK prime minister announces she will trigger an exit from the EU before getting any guarantees


Theresa May has one great advantage as a politician. She looks serious and responsible. But appearances can be deceptive. If you examine how the UK prime minister is handling Brexit, a different sort of politician emerges.

By announcing that she will start the formal negotiations for Britain to leave the EU by March 2017, the prime minister has walked into a trap. She has given away what little leverage Britain has in the negotiations — without receiving any of the assurances that she needs to achieve a successful outcome.

The announcement of the decision about when the UK will trigger Article 50 — the process by which Britain gives formal notice that it intends to leave the EU — was made in a statesmanlike fashion. But the actual content of the decision is reckless and driven by politics, rather than Britain’s national interest.

Once Mrs May triggers Article 50, she has precisely two years to negotiate a new deal with the EU. Senior civil servants have told the prime minister that it is highly unlikely that the UK will be able to negotiate both the terms of its divorce and a new trade deal with the EU within the two-year deadline. As a result, they warned the prime minister that she must have assurances on what an interim trade agreement with the EU would look like in the long period between the UK leaving the bloc and a definitive new deal being put into place.

https://www.ft.com/content/7b78f276-8940-11e6-8cb7-e7ada1d123b1

[Denzil_DC]

3. Business Insider's Adam Payne joins the chorus!

The Tories are on the brink of warfare over Brexit

The Conservative party is a ticking time bomb ready to explode over the issue of Brexit.

On camera, UK prime minister Theresa May and the rest of the ruling Tory party put on a united front. The prime minister received a standing ovation on Sunday when she declared "Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a success of it."

But, behind the scenes, in the many fringe events and receptions taking place in Birmingham as part of the party's annual get-together, battle lines are being drawn between Brexiteers and those who wanted Britain to Remain in the European Union.

"We are no longer in the tent — what do we do now?" is what one pro-EU member told BI at an event hosted by the Conservative Group for Europe. "They [the party] isn't reaching out to the members who voted Remain," another said.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/conservative-conference-brexit-article-50-birmingham-2016-9

[geardaddy]

4. And Theresa May is blocking any input from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

[LeftishBrit]

5. They seem to think that saying 'We will make a success of it' is a substitute for actually having

any concrete plans for doing anything about it.

I remember how we used to ridicule the Iraqi propagandist known as 'Baghdad Bob' or 'Comical Ali', whose main job was to trumpet that the war was going perfectly for Saddam, whenever the opposite was conspicuously the case. But he was small beer as a propagandist compared with our own dear current leaders. The economy is great! Everybody is panting to trade with us! We will be able to sell jam to the French and coffee to Brazil and no doubt ice to the Arctic! We won the war (no, the Allies did) and we are the 5th largest economy in the world (no, not since the referendum) and we don't need any bloody foreigners here! We can order the wind and waves to do whatever we tell them to!

At one point, there was a survey of people's most hated words, and 'Moist' and 'Brexit' topped the list. Perhaps, rather than a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, we will have a moist Brexit, consisting of the UK sinking to the bottom of the sea.

[Denzil_DC]

6. Michael Deacon in the Telegraph is surviving conference - just!

I’ve spent three days at Tory conference. Now I know what death feels like

We WILL make Brexit a success! That was what Andrew RT Davis, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, was supposed to tell party conference in Birmingham.

Unfortunately, however, he misread his autocue – and instead shouted, with full-throated gusto, “We WILL make breakfast a success!”

I’m not going to make fun of him, though. I’m grateful to him. It was the most interesting thing a politician said onstage all day.

Honestly. What a rotten conference this has been for speeches. The sheer, screaming boredom of it. It’s all so lifeless. So crushingly half-hearted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/04/ive-spent-three-days-at-tory-conference-now-i-know-what-death-fe/

I caught a couple of the speeches on TV, and my impression was similar to his description - there seemed to be a brittle lassitude, and the ovations were a bit "Well, if we must ...." Just glad I didn't have to attend.

[Denzil_DC]

7. And after all the grand speeches, the dust settles ...

Why Europe wants a hard Brexit to hurt

Britain’s European partners are uniting around a very tough position on the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. At the same time, Theresa May is starting to rule out options that could leave Britain closely integrated with the continental economies. Both her government and the 27 are being driven by politics rather than economic self-interest. This will harm trade and investment and therefore leave Britain poorer.

May has announced that she will invoke the article 50 exit procedure before the end of March, while also rejecting the jurisdiction of the European court of justice. Together with her promise to restrict the right of EU citizens to work in Britain, this precludes staying in the single market with which Britain does almost half its trade.

This means the UK will have to negotiate access to the single market, sector by sector, through a free trade agreement (FTA). British manufacturers may not suffer too much, since FTAs (such as the recent EU-Canada deal) eliminate tariffs on goods, although the UK’s likely decision to also leave the EU customs union will create hassle on borders for importers and exporters. The problem with such an agreement is that it would do little to open up markets in services such as finance, construction or aviation. That would require the removal of regulatory barriers – which is what the European single market is all about.

The British economy is about 80% services. The glummest faces that I saw at the Conservative conference in Birmingham were those of the bankers. They noted that ministers failed to speak out on the importance of their sector. They are becoming resigned to losing “passporting” – the rule that allows a UK-regulated firm to do business across the EU – and are preparing to shift operations out of London. Some bankers reckon that this exodus will deprive the Treasury of about £10bn in taxes a year.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/07/europe-hard-brexit-hurt-british-trade-deal