Government reassures voters post-Brexit ration books will also be blue

[Celerity]

https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2019/08/18/government-reassures-voters-post-brexit-ration-books-will-also-be-blue/

The government has taken bold steps today to reassure the public after a leaked Whitechapel report detailed how the UK is likely to face food, medicine and fuel shortages after Brexit.

Many experts are now certain that pretty much everybody will be forced to survive on canned peaches, spam, pets and neighbours’ children for the first four or five years after Brexit.

“We just don’t want people to panic.” A spokesman for Michael Gove told The Rochdale Herald.

“Yes there’s going to be shortages of stuff like the ingredients for all the food we eat and all the medicine we make, and electricity and diesel and other stuff we might not have even thought of yet.”

“But we have taken all the steps necessary to ensure that the ration books we’ll be issuing will be navy blue to match the passports we’re having printed in France. We’re going to put a flag on it and maybe a nice patriotic lion or something.”

Snip

[Soph0571]

1. Hehe

Can hardly wait for Spam Casserole recipes...

[Matilda]

2. I've never quite understood

what was wrong with May's deal with the EU.

I'm probably missing something, but it seemed pretty reasonable to me, from a distant standpoint, and I wonder whether it's just the fury of the hard right that's putting so many people into a flap.

I also understand what's involved with the Irish backstop, but doesn't it make sense to take a pragmatic approach and avoid a return to a hard border at any cost?

Was it really all about anti-immigration? I understand that too, because we have plenty of those nutters here as well, not least in the despicable government currently in power, but the price of a no-deal seems to be awfully high just to try to stem the flow of immigrants, which experts say might not be possible anyway.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. It didn't seem that bad to me

For the Tory right, as far as I can tell, they just decided they had an ideological revulsion at any continuing involvement with the EU, so they couldn't bear the backstop. They certainly haven't been pragmatic about Europe, for the past 30 years.

It gave them what they wanted on immigration, as far as I could tell.

They seem to have a further list of what they hate about it, though:

David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, told the Telegraph’s Brexit podcast that he had a whole shopping list of desired changes. He said:

I’d argue for contingency on the money. I’d argue for tighter limits, timetable limits, sunset clauses on ECJ and things like that. I’d have a small shopping list.

It wouldn’t be a ridiculous one, but one I think that any serious European Parliament and any European Council that wants a deal could go with.

If I were doing this for Boris, I would be insistent on is that they make the bill - the £39bn, the second half of it - contingent on progress on the future economic partnership.

And Sir Bill Cash told the paper:

You can’t restore self-government as a cut and paste operation and I am sure they understand that - taking parts of the withdrawal agreement.

We will be governed for a number of years by the other 27 member states under the existing draft withdrawal agreement ... even with the backstop removed.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/aug/23/brexit-latest-news-tories-tell-boris-johnson-backstop-is-not-only-problem-with-withdrawal-agreement-live-news?page=with:block-5d5f8fbe8f084061ab38b14b#block-5d5f8fbe8f084061ab38b14b

It sounds like they think the EU will be so desperate to avoid No Deal that they think they can ask for everything they want and they'll get it, in a month. This just doesn't seem to match reality. I think they're incapable of seeing things from the EU point of view.

I was surprised that May's talks with Corbyn failed so quickly. I thought Corbyn, who is quite happy to leave the EU, and has supported a customs union, could have got something in to say "here was what I achieved" and they could have pushed it through. But his tactics have all been about how to become PM, I think; so he made sure May fell, and then didn't go for an immediate no-confidence vote (which would have allowed an election before the Oct 31st exit date), but waited until the only way to get Johnson out before then was for parliament to appoint a new PM, ie him.

And the Lib Dems looked bad when they'd said "we'll avoid no deal by any means possible" and when presented with this idea of Corbyn's, said "... except that".

All in all, the politicians really are a poor shower. The leak of the queen saying as much was quite right.

[Matilda]

4. I don't know what to make of Corbyn now.

I liked his politics, and for a while, he looked strong, but lately, I'm not so sure. He seems to be faffing around a lot of the time, but then, distance makes us reliant entirely on journalists' reports, and these days, you can't trust many of them either. But May also had her "red lines", and if you're trying to reach a compromise to avoid disaster, you'd think perhaps some of those red lines should have been erased. Perhaps May mistook stubbornness for strength.

[Denzil_DC]

5. Cash seems to have cottoned on to what many of us on the Remain side were saying all along:

there's no deal that will be as good as being an EU member, the EU isn't going away (despite Farage & Co.'s fevered fantasies), and we have a choice of continuing to stand in the tent and pissing in, or ineffectually loafing outside it trying to muster the head of urine to piss in while looking for favourable trade deals from those we're pissing on.

Behind all the bluster is the convenient-at-the-time amorphousness about what "Leave" actually meant and the failure since the referendum and to this day to formulate a coherent set of bargaining positions on anything. As soon as May tried to very belatedly nail it down rather than dreaming of "Brexit means Brexit" and "A Red, White and Blue Brexit", many in her Cabinet (including our current prime minister) bailed out and the fractures in the Tories got even wider.

Whatever happens, we'll be rule-takers, pure and simple, with no say in what the EU decides. That's what "Leave" means, after all.