Boris Johnson, the obese philandering sociopath supposedly running this country, has succeeded in moving a new law one step towards acceptance.
This law is a unilateral do-over of the agreement he signed with the European Union in January. He’s going back on it, and trashing the UK’s reputation.
More, it would basically give permission to the UK government to override UK laws - it has been appropriately compared to the 1930s Nazi Enabling Act.
We need to mobilise UK hearts and minds - I call on you my American friends to help advise us in our hour of need!
What do we do - what has worked for you in countering Trump and his disgusting lackeys?
How would the US be able to help in any way? They haven’t really been able to budge public support for Trump in any significant way. His approval ratings are still insanely high. The only way they can help is by voting for Biden and making sure that Alex Johnson cannot destroy the country further by signing a detrimental trade deal with Trump.
I’m afraid this one is on you: it’s the UK populace that needs to find a way to stand up to the Tories. We in the EU can’t help either, your compatriots have made it very clear they don’t want us. Anything we could do would probably be counter productive.
they’re not my compatriots - they’re enemies sharing the camp.
Johnson won’t get a trade deal - it won’t get through Congress now, following last night’s vote. Congress is immensely pro-Irish, and they have immense pride in having had such a strong hand in bringing peace to Ireland (and I congratulate them - I’m a quarter Irish, and as I live more, I learn more about the appalling treatment of the Irish by the English).
The British are moved by spectacle. Exciting demonstrations - they’re a very influenceable country. 75% of this nation are polled as NOT supporting the changes to the Withdrawal Agreement - in particular, the young (18-24) showed only 6% support.
The foundation is there, we need to leverage it.
Any advice - how to run groups digitally, how to track the lies - anything will help.
I’m activating hard online, I need a way to have people actually engage!
I think people in the EU can help by keeping a way out for those of us who would be targeted for not fitting in with what the Brexiters have decided is Britishness. That is the most you could do, and it will be appreciated.
I agree wholeheartedly. I have an avenue, but it will take time. I don’t have domestic support for this, but if indeed this country is sliding into autocracy, I might have to yank my family out.
Commencing already to shift from ownership to renting everything.
Make no mistake people - this is a very British autocracy coming down the track.
I think the last time demonstrations did anything in the UK was the poll tax, and those were maybe closer to riots. As long as the tabloids and near-tabloids are on the Tories/Brexiters/government side I don’t see any amount of demonstrations shifting the public mood, tbh.
As for the trade deal: I hear that a lot but I’m not certain the Irish caucus will actually put their votes where their mouth is. At the end of the day they have domestic political concerns to contend with and being seen as blocking a trade deal that will be (clearly) in favour of the US over the UK might outweigh any electoral concerns with Irish-identifying Americans (who aren’t really a coherent voting block anyway). It’s certainly good to see them supporting the GFA but for now I’m interpreting it as lip service.
Sorry for being so negative, btw. We’ve just seen initiative after initiative against Brexit fail and the project become harder and harder, while the government became more and more authoritarian.
Yep, that is pre-planned and deliberate creation of weariness!
Brexit is not a project to leave the EU - it is a project to destroy the UK, and rebuild it in some golden libertarian hope of copying countries like the newly resurgent Vietnam. That’s why they bleat it’s 50 years until we see the benefits.
But more, the wealthy believe they can take this country, destroy asset prices, buy them up, and create immense wealth on the upside as the country eventually recovers.
It’s straight klepto fascism.
We’re fighting hard, but everything needs to step up a gear, fast.
The people may be. I’ve seen no evidence recently that Tory MPs are influenced by anything other than what they think people they think will vote for them think.
That sentence is rather difficult to parse which is fitting.
As far as I can tell Tory MPs are going to be getting lots of indications that ‘their’ voters like this bill. That the message that the EU is being highhanded and threatening to blockade the mainland is being accepted and repeated amongst the voters.
Listen to the sort of radio phone-in shows where this sort of thing gets discussed and it won’t take long before you get someone phoning in frothing at the mouth about how it can be that the EU just don’t understand that we voted OUT!!!1111
I suppose it depends how much any deal ends up looking like it’s Trump’s deal.
From an economic point of view, I’m not sure there’s much to lose by blocking a putative deal. It’s not like Britain is suddenly going to stop or even reduce trade with the US.
I will say that leaving aside the inevitable harships that will be caused, I am looking forward to seeing the linguistic and logical somersaults that are going to be needed to square our unyielding principled adherence to independence and self-determination in all respects as against the EU with the sort of subservience to US ideas and whims that would be needed to reach a trade deal with the US.
You can already observe these summersaults by looking at the Japan-UK deal, which imposes much more stringent state aid rules than the proposed EU deal that is currently blocked by the Cummings/Johnson government over alleged EU state aid curbs.
A government spokesperson said: “In all our trade negotiations, including with the EU and with Japan, we consistently make proposals which provide for open and fair competition, on the basis of high standards, in a way which is appropriate to a modern free trade agreement between sovereign and autonomous equals.”
Waffle waffle. In other words they will just insist the emperor is wearing clothes/the US trade deal doesn’t reduce UK sovereignty more than the EU deal. It’s so frustrating. They found out you can just outright lie and the media won’t challenge you, and after a few days the issue will just go away.
“What’s intriguing is in these international agreements it is really normal for both parties to put restrictions on the other country, so that they know that country won’t pull a fast one, and start dumping things or subsidising their own industries.
“So when it comes to things like state aid and food standards, you show your cards and you tell the other party in that agreement how you’re going to manage those things.”
Pointing out the hypocrisy of the UK government, she continued: “And when it’s Japan, it seems OK for us to say ‘this is what we’ll do on state aid, happy to sign up for that. This is what we’ll do on food, let’s sign up for that’.
“As soon as it’s the European Union, those reasonable negotiated agreements between countries turn out to be ‘an assault on our democracy’ and ‘how dare they ask us to know how we’re going to manage food standards’.
I think it’s worse. What politicans the world over have learned from the example of Trump is that you can blatantly lie, the media will challenge you - and you can use that to cement your support.
How would that work? I mean they could attempt (but won’t and would fail) to blockade Britain but it’s such a silly idea nobody has thought of it apart from the Tories.
Which of course is projection as Priti Patel did of course threaten to cut off food supplies to Ireland.
As for the congressional ways and means committee and the trade deal. Yeah they would and could stop it with little to no harm. Problem is how the law works has no meaningful impact on how the Trump administration actually behaves.
ETA
Blockading mainland Europe is obviously particularly farcical (and linguistically it would be weird for the small to blockade the large).
they’re not my compatriots - they’re enemies sharing the camp.