** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

[pete75]

I agree about we should put a stop to the Uk being a conduit for Irish exports - let them bear the full cost of independance & stop clogging up our roads. Would put a dent in their prosperity?

And then France and Belgium puta stop to being a conduit for UK exports..... Just where would this childish proposal end?

What do you propose - a ban on lorries using UK roads to travel to/from Ireland? How would, for example, Guiness arrive in the UK? By magic chariots pulled by unicorns?

Guiness comes by the undersea pipeline, of course.

Road Haulage always has costs, some of which are externals, not paid by the user. It might be better to have only one ferry journey, if somewhat longer, and keep traffic off the roads, without being at all chauvinist.

Just how are you going to do that except by banning vehicles travelling through the UK to Ireland? The EU might then take retaliatory measures against vehicles from the UK travelling through EU nations.

[Mike Sales]

Road Haulage always has costs, some of which are externals, not paid by the user. It might be better to have only one ferry journey, if somewhat longer, and keep traffic off the roads, without being at all chauvinist.

Just how are you going to do that except by banning vehicles travelling through the UK to Ireland? The EU might then take retaliatory measures against vehicles from the UK travelling through EU nations.[/quote]

If the external costs were better allocated to the users it would change the financial decisions made by hauliers.
At present road haulage does not even pay its track costs.
The change of framework within which transport decisions are made would have beneficial results far beyond Ireland/Continental goods movement.

[Mike Sales]

Just how are you going to do that except by banning vehicles travelling through the UK to Ireland? The EU might then take retaliatory measures against vehicles from the UK travelling through EU nations.

If the external costs were better allocated to the users it would change the financial decisions made by hauliers.
At present road haulage does not even pay its track costs.
The change of framework within which transport decisions are made would have beneficial results far beyond Ireland/Continental goods movement.

[Psamathe]

A new worrying aspect emerging:
I find it very worrying when Cummings, who has admitted massive data harvesting operations within Facebook (for Leave Campaign purposes), data sharing with other organisations and who refuses to provide answers to Parliament is now at the centre of a new secret data harvesting operation. The new secret operation is being driven by Johnson/Cummings harvesting data from gov.uk, collecting data from various government departments to be collected withing the Cabinet Office (Cumming's domain). (Sorry, a longer excerpt but I've tried to only take the relevant bits)

Boris Johnson Secretly Asked For A Massive Amount Of User Data To Be Tracked. Dominic Cummings Said It’s “TOP PRIORITY”.

Boris Johnson has secretly ordered the Cabinet Office to turn the government’s public internet service into a platform for “targeted and personalised information” to be gathered in the run-up to Brexit, BuzzFeed News has learned.
...
However, BuzzFeed News understands that some officials in Whitehall are concerned about such an enormous transfer of data being done at speed, behind closed doors, at a time of national crisis. It is not obvious, one said, how the Cabinet Office having access to all the GOV.UK data from across Whitehall will aid its Brexit preparations.
...
Privacy campaigners, policy experts, and opposition politicians said the move raised a huge number of legal and ethical questions. Pooling the user data from across government would give GDS a detailed picture of people’s online interactions with government, the privacy experts said, and this should not be done without the public’s knowledge and rigorous checks to ensure that data rights will be protected.

“Secret orders are not the way to handle these complex policies that have generated huge controversies in the past,” Javier Ruiz Diaz, head of policy at the Open Rights Group, told BuzzFeed News. “We need consultation and public debate to build social consensus for any new gathering of personal data, including the appropriate safeguards.”

I thought such data sharing had been considered before and rejected. But now being done in secret and under control of Cummings! And without any justification as to what legitimate government business it is needed for.

Ian

[Oldjohnw]

I see that the Scottish appeal judges have ruled Johnson's proroguing is unlawful.

It's all going so well.

[Mike Sales]

A new worrying aspect emerging:
I find it very worrying when Cummings, who has admitted massive data harvesting operations within Facebook (for Leave Campaign purposes), data sharing with other organisations and who refuses to provide answers to Parliament is now at the centre of a new secret data harvesting operation.

I agree. This needs scrutiny.

[mercalia]

I see that the Scottish appeal judges have ruled Johnson's proroguing is unlawful.

It's all going so well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49661855

In a summary of their findings, the Court of Session judges said they were unanimous in their belief that Mr Johnson's decision to suspend was motivated by the "improper purpose of stymying Parliament".

They added: "The Court will accordingly make an Order declaring that the Prime Minister's advice to HM the Queen and the prorogation which followed thereon was unlawful and is thus null and of no effect."

[kwackers]

[b]In a summary of their findings, the Court of Session judges said they were unanimous in their belief that Mr Johnson's decision to suspend was motivated by the "improper purpose of stymying Parliament".

I'm not sure what bizarre worldview you'd need to think otherwise.

Funnily enough if you look at the government response to the petition to prevent the prorogation it continually repeats that the UK will be leaving on the 31st Oct which appears to answer the question of what the purpose of prorogation was - straight from the horses mouth as it were.

[mattheus]

I see that the Scottish appeal judges have ruled Johnson's proroguing is unlawful.

It's all going so well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49661855

In a summary of their findings, the Court of Session judges said they were unanimous in their belief that Mr Johnson's decision to suspend was motivated by the "improper purpose of stymying Parliament".

They added: "The Court will accordingly make an Order declaring that the Prime Minister's advice to HM the Queen and the prorogation which followed thereon was unlawful and is thus null and of no effect."

But from the same article:
"
In a separate case brought by anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller, the High Court in London also ruled last week that Mr Johnson had acted lawfully
"
So where does THAT leave us? (and the ProRogues??)

[kwackers]

So where does THAT leave us? (and the ProRogues??)

Split?

So nothing new.

[mercalia]

So where does THAT leave us? (and the ProRogues??)

Split?

So nothing new.

Matter fot the Supreme Court asap?

[Cugel]

So where does THAT leave us? (and the ProRogues??)

Split?

So nothing new.

Matter fot the Supreme Court asap?

As I understand it, the English judges opined that the judiciary had no remit or precedent for making a judgement about "a political matter". I'm no expert on the law but this sounds like a Pontius hand-wash to me.

One could imagine several actions of a political nature that are certainly well within the remit of the law. In fact, the whole of the law is generated by political action as law is the prime exudation of politics in a democratic state run by the rule of law. The Scottish judges obviously felt no such limitation on the scope or domain of their authority.

The Hitler history and others of a similar kind illustrate the technique of proto-fascists gaining enough power to declare some sort of state of emergency requiring the suspension of normal political processes, including the checks & balances of other powers, rule of law and whatever else stands in their way of declaring unilateral actions supposedly for the good of the nation-under-threat. Essentially, that's what BoJo is doing now, with impending Brexit the supposed "emergency" condition.

In 1933/4 the German judiciary also rolled over in the face of political pressure and secret dealings/threats from the Nazi politicos. The initial excuse was the Reichstag fire, blamed on the communist opposition (who had nothing to do with it). As a result, all opposition was rounded up and interned without trial. Himmler and the SS expanded the process of identifying various enemies of the state (jews, gays, gypsies and many others, as well as any Hitler-critics) placing them in Dachau, where the murdering began.

"It couldn't happen here".....? Well, it's not that likely we'll have a Himmler in the next year ... but give it time. Bojoklown and the Dom-Dommie are well aware of this technique for dismantling democratic states and seem pleased to use one version. Their intent is not so bloody as that of the Nazis but they certainly intend to set up a state bereft of regulatory controls, including an ineffective Parliament that will enable their continuation of an even more extreme version of neoliberalism, engineered not so much for the ordinary goods & services maker capitalists but for financial speculators and criminal elements happy to pay a fee for money laundering and tax evasion facilities.

If BoJo and the mad far right Tories currently in power get away with one proroguing of Parliament, they will try more ... and perhaps more severe and permanent avoidance of democratic modes. Once they have an unassailable power, they will inevitably do anything to hang on to it. Once they have an unassailable power, they will use it to do what they want, which will include many very unpleasant things damaging to the vast majority of the population.

Cugel

[bovlomov]

As I understand it, the English judges opined that the judiciary had no remit or precedent for making a judgement about "a political matter". I'm no expert on the law but this sounds like a Pontius hand-wash to me.

As the decision would in any case end up with the Supreme Court, it was more likely that the English judges would take a more cautious line. The problem, if the decision is upheld, is that it allows any government to close down parliament for any length of time. How can it be a said to be a matter for politicians rather than judges if the politicians are locked out of the decision making process?

[bovlomov]

Anyone have any further comments to make about Project Fear, in the light of tonight's partial publication of Yellowhammer?

The main change from the leaked document has been the heading. Although the analysis is largely unchanged, the document is now described as 'HMG Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions'. Before it was the 'Base Scenario' (a very different thing). Another of Gove's lies.

[Debs]

Anyone have any further comments to make about Project Fear, in the light of tonight's partial publication of Yellowhammer?

I fear the band on the Titanic had a better chance of survival