The UK Brexit vote to leave the EU

[greybeard]

Eye on France: Brexit blues bite in London

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/eye-france...160004508.html

Over the weekend, the European Banking Authority quietly moved from its Canary Wharf offices in London, to set up shop here in Paris, in the business district known as La Défence. The reason for the move is, in case you have not already guessed, big, bad, Brexit.

The business magazine Forbes has a lovely, if completely incomprehensible, report on the move of the abbreviated EBA and its sister agency the EMA from the UK. This is because, once Theresa May, she’s the PM, announced that the UK would leave the EU and refuse the jurisdiction of the CJEU, there was nothing the DEXEU could do.

I hope that’s clear.

The DEXEU is the United Kingdom’s Department for Exiting the European Union. They tried to convince the European Banking Authority, the EBA, that staying in London after Brexit would pose no problem. The EU negotiators saw it differently. The bank is a Single Market, SM, institution operating under EU law. No way could it remain in a country that was leaving the Single Market and repudiating the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, or CJEU.

Just to complete the explanatory round-up of those abbreviations, the EMA is also leaving London. That’s the European Medicines Agency which regulates the pills and potions which our doctors prescribe to keep us safe, sane and standing upright.

No way were we going to leave such intimate matters in the hands of those pesky Brits. Take a pill, Bill!

But let’s get back to the serious stuff, the money!

All through the Brexit debate, the Rulers of the Universe who operate from the towers and spires of London’s financial district were arrogantly adamant that the City would remain the centre of the known world, whatever happened to Europe. They would have free access to the European marketplace, simply because that European marketplace could not survive without them.

Will London become a distant backwater?

Now, with no deal in place, it looks as if London might become a distant backwater, deserted by both the continental institutions and the big financial groups who like to be within a stone’s throw of the action.

The Forbes’ article continues by pointing out that there is as yet no agreement on anything, and the UK hasn’t left the EU. But the cross-channel stance on Brexit has, we are told, hardened considerably. The European elections saw popular opinion polarised between leaving the EU with no deal and not leaving at all.

Mrs May, the unfortunate prime minister whose attempt to please everyone ended up pleasing no-one, has been hounded out of office. The front runners to succeed her would all rather leave the EU with no deal than agree to the Irish backstop – which is perverse, since a majority of Northern Irelanders themselves seem quite comfortable with that bizarre attempt to ensure that northern loyalists get to keep their cake, eat it, and gobble the share of their nationalist neighbours as well.

But that’s because the Democratic Unionist Party believes that eternal damnation would be preferable to even a few months of fraternal sharing of their island province with southern Catholics.

Let's hear it for Plan B

As the danger of a no-deal departure increases, more London-based financial institutions are setting up subsidiaries in European Union member countries. European banking is leaving London, heading for Paris, Luxembourg, Frankfurt or Dublin.

Financial services have tended to be the forgotten facet of the Brexit debate. London is by far the richest part of the UK; many of those who voted to leave blame the vast GDP per capita gap between London and everywhere else on its close connections with the hated EU.

Some analysts argue that the UK’s dominant financial services sector drains resources from other sectors and prevents the economy from diversifying. And people haven’t forgotten the financial crisis, the bank bailouts and the austerity imposed on them to pay for it all.

There is a widespread view that cutting the bloated City down to size wouldn’t be a bad thing. Protecting banks from Brexit is thus a much harder sell than protecting car manufacturers and farmers. Unsurprisingly, politicians have concentrated on softening the impact of Brexit on goods exports, and largely ignored services.

The news is not all bad

The Reuters news agency, which specialises in sharp financial information, says that property prices in the City of London are on the way up. So someone thinks London is an investment opportunity, Brexit or otherwise.

The Forbes guy thinks the next big thing could be a career for London’s rich and powerful running a kind of off-shore financial centre, right on Europe’s doorstep.

Strange creatures those Brits. Even when they offer to leave, they’re still hard to get rid of.

[avid]

The City of London, will just do what it has always done, wield power along with their cohorts - the Vatican City and Washington DC, sovereign states of banksters.
Watching Deutsche Bank at the moment, as they may just drag the whole lot down deliberately...

[greybeard]

News
If we crash out of Europe, Britain will miss out on the next industrial revolution – and millions of jobs
The Independent Vincent McCarthy,The Independent 8 hours ago

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/crash-euro...085453009.html

Just before the recent elections that saw Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party ravage both Labour and the Conservatives, EU leaders signed off on an ambitious science funding programme for €100bn – which if there was a no-deal Brexit British scientists would be barred from accessing.

The EU’s Horizon 2020 programme will fund science innovation from brain science, to quantum computing; from 5G, to batteries for renewable storage. The new science programme is vital to spurring a new industrial infrastructure revival – one the UK would be excluded from if a hard Brexit becomes a reality.

Faced with economic stagnation, rising populism and escalating climate disasters, the EU science plan is a no-brainer that leverages an age old reality: the driving motor of economic prosperity is the curiosity that propels scientific innovation. But a hard Brexit could prevent British scientists from accessing this crucial funding.

The continued pursuit of no deal is about to torpedo a core basis for British economic vitality. Perhaps that is why on 17 May, the same day the Conservative government’s Brexit talks with the Labour Party collapsed, the government quietly but officially withdrew a document published under Theresa May’s predecessor David Cameron, extolling the critical role of science innovation in Britain’s economy.

The document makes clear one thing: hundreds of billions of dollars invested into the UK could be at risk if Britain is no longer seen as a safe environment for science innovation. This would not merely knock Britain off its world leadership perch for European scientific innovation. It would leave Britain out of one of the most exciting science funding programmes in recent years, one designed precisely to help plug the gaps of previous EU efforts.

Horizon is the ninth instalment in the EU’s research funding scheme, established in 1984, which cultivates large cross-border collaborations. Science works best in this way because it allows the fruits of curiosity to be harvested. Horizon will also be launching a new European Innovation Council to help finance start-ups and entrepreneurs pioneering commercially innovative ventures.

Two years ago, an interim evaluation projected that Horizon would generate at least €400bn in economic gains by 2030 – a colossal 400 per cent return, that Britain will have no part of under a hard Brexit.

This all isn’t to say the EU’s science policies have not been without flaws. Compared to the US and China, for instance, Europe is still lagging behind in science investment. The commitment to Horizon was what remained when the European Commission decided to cancel €3bn’s worth of flagship science projects in May.

The EU’s investment in the clean energy transition is also still wanting, and has meant that the rate of adoption for renewables has slowed down in over half of EU countries. EU efforts to leave coal behind, while commendable, have been similarly misguided. To meet the goal, the EU is switching increasingly to questionable dependence on “biomass”, which often relies on burning massive volumes of wood – which scientists warn is terrible for climate change. This underlines the need to switch to the sort of innovative clean tech the Horizon programme will focus on.

Another self-defeating policy is the EU’s recent block on palm oil for biofuels from multi-billion dollar trade partners Malaysia and Indonesia. Ostensibly aimed at stopping deforestation, scientists say that a complete ban (as opposed to robust regulation) will increase deforestation in the Amazon, because continued rising demand will be displaced onto intensified rapeseed and soybean production, which uses four to ten times more oil per unit of land. So this potentially worsens climate change while endangering the EU’s trade with Asia – fast becoming a hub of science innovation. These faults are all the more reason for Britain to remain engaged with the bloc.

In fact, these decisions seem to be symptomatic of the same “head-in-the sand” approach that drives the thinking that being separate will lead to a better future. The idea that nations should go it alone, shut down trade and collaboration to “protect” themselves, rely on outmoded technologies like fossil fuels, and pretend there’s no such thing as the Information Age (social media memes notwithstanding).

Against these glitches, the EU’s decision to fund Horizon is a breath of fresh air inspired by a sense of possibility for a future that promises to kick-start the innovations we need to sustain prosperous societies.

The EU is by no means perfect, but it made the right choice. So, will Britain? Will it continue to play a leading role in helping to fix the glitches and enhance that future? If it does, it would be part of a platform that will provide billions in revenue, millions of jobs, and education for the next generation of innovators and discoverers.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Vincent McCarthy is director of Curiosity Studio and co-founding CEO of The Festival of Curiosity, which is Dublin’s international festival of science, arts, design and technology with over 45,000 attendees each year
image

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by greybeard (here)
The EU’s Horizon 2020 programme will fund science innovation from brain science, to quantum computing; from 5G, to batteries for renewable storage. The new science programme is vital to spurring a new industrial infrastructure revival – one the UK would be excluded from if a hard Brexit becomes a reality.

This could be a hidden blessing for the UK.

Industrial Revolutions are seldom funded by large programs investing in well known technologies.

Rather they arise from revolutions in the underlying technology and science, that have names and ramifications seldom anticipated by anyone, prior to their blossoming forth (blossoming slowly at first, until the bastions of the "prior age" die of old age.)

[greybeard]

Rory Stewart accuses Tory rivals of 'misleading' voters on prospect of new Brexit deal
The Independent Andrew Woodcock,The Independent

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/rory-stewa...101800352.html

Conservative leadership hopeful Rory Stewart has accused rivals, including Boris Johnson, of "misleading" voters about the prospects of negotiating a new Brexit deal.

The international development secretary said that other contenders in the race to replace Theresa May were not being "honest" about their plans, which he said amount to an offer of a no-deal departure from the EU on October 31.

And he warned of the danger of "collapsing the country" and forcing a "disastrous" general election if the Conservative Party chooses a new leader who claims to be able to deliver a new deal by the Halloween deadline.

Mr Stewart is calling for a citizens' assembly process to build consensus behind the deal secured by Ms May with Brussels last November.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Emma Barnett, Mr Stewart said: "There is only one thing anybody can do - and this is where people are not being honest. You can't get no-deal through parliament and you can't get another deal from Europe. This is the deal we have got. We got 270 votes for it, in the end this is about getting 45 more MPs to vote for this deal."

He added: If we are to hold the country and the party together, we are going to have to start being very, very careful with being straight and that means not setting expectations we can't meet.

"The only way we are going to avoid tumbling into a disastrous election or collapsing this country is if we avoid politicians pretending they are going to get a better deal from Brussels - which they won't - or pretending they will get a new deal by October - which they won't - or pretending that they can take a no-deal through - which they won't."

Leadership candidates like Mr Johnson who claim to be able to renegotiate the EU withdrawal agreement by October are displaying a "lack of realism" and "misleading themselves and others", he said, adding: "That is going to be catastrophic."

"Let's take a candidate like Boris," said Mr Stewart. "He is saying he is going to go to Europe and negotiate a new deal by October 31 and if he doesn't get a deal before October 31 he is going to go no-deal.

"Anyone who knows anything about Europe can assure you there is not the slightest hope of getting a new deal through Europe by October 31. Not a hope.

"Any leadership candidate pretending they are going to go to Brussels and get another deal simply doesn't understand Brussels, hasn't been following the news, doesn't understand what's happening in Europe and doesn't understand that the European position is very clear.

"Anyone offering that is offering no-deal, is trying to get no-deal through in October, because there is no other deal coming."
image

[Tintin]

@greybeard: just wanting to say a huge thanks for the work you are doing on this thread, and, capturing the ongoing narrative/drama, and quite simply very odd one at that around this theatre so diligently. It's valuable work you are doing here. Kudos

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤


I'd encourage anybody who would like another voice to whom to refer to visit the excellent John Ward and his blog, here

Those of us more invested in what is unravelling on this side of the 'Pond' may find John's perspective a refreshing change. Note that he does use some quite 'fruity' language but only to enforce his argument. Please do spend a little time digesting his commentary; it is quite profound in many ways, and I think anyone reading this may also determine that it contains a little healing power.

Do enjoy (TQ)

________________________________________

Uncertainty – the spread of doubt and the fear of doubt – is at the very core of the Human Condition. Serial uncertainty has always been created by ideologically driven lies, but the arrival of exponentially multiplied media alongside a revival in unjustified belief has created a species crisis for Homo sapiens. The Slog asks what this means for individual free speech.

THE WEEKEND ESSAY: Nothing is real. (Or is it?)
Date: April 20, 2019
Author: John Ward

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Just under two days after Lyra McKee was shot dead in Derry, the question “Why?” is still unanswered. That’s hardly unusual following a shooting; but there are other uncertainties surrounding her death that can be summarised as follows:

The police were attending a riot in Derry where dissident Republicans are alleged to be once again active in encouraging vigilantism and sectarian violence. For the IRA, as ever, bigotry is good for business. But why has there been a flare up now?

McKee – a top-class investigative writer and lesbian activist – was attending the riot while standing among police officers as an accredited journalist. The assumption has spread that dissidents shot her because of her fearless attempts to track down any and all sectarian killers. But the assailants were 18 and 19, using handguns, and firing at the police. They and their weapons are not redolent of IRA ‘executions’. It is, I think, much more likely that she was shot “by accident”.

Manslaughter might therefore seem a more apposite charge. But the two teenagers face a murder rap, the police tell us.

That disturbances like this are still taking place before any border changes occur (if they do) as a result of Brexit might suggest to some that there ought to be more weapons checks at the Eire/Ulster border whatever happens between the UK and Brussels. That’s not meant to be inflammatory: just logical.

One of the things Lyra McKee might have wanted to investigate (had she survived) is exactly who has been stoking up the violence in Derry, where the weapons are coming from, and what the motives of the agitators might be. To speak plainly: a black op designed to show “just how fragile” the Irish Peace is would make sense to people on both sides of the Brexit impasse.

Some, all or none of the above could represent “reality”. I make these points not to start a conspiratorial epidemiology; I make them to point out just how totally our lives and the analysis of important events within them have been muddied (I would argue, almost ruined) by intelligence services, spin, propaganda, black ops, psy ops, false flags, compliant social media and State controlled publicity apertures of every kind.

Because without ideologies and religions (and the industrial scale denialism they all demand of their devotees) none of this pernicious cloak-and-dagger truth-bending would be necessary.

Earlier this week we had the almost obscene rush to ‘accident’ judgement in relation to the Notre Dame fire – despite a long history in France of arson attacks on churches.

Last year we had the farce of Skripal events and narratives that changed almost daily…..to take into account facts pointing out that the previous explanations were hogwash.

The man who played a principal role in that farrago was Boris Johnson….the Foreign Secretary who rubbished naysayers during the Russophobic sitcom, and then (having resigned over Brexit) began accusing Theresa May of conspiracy to sell Britain down the river. I think his second assertion was correct, but would you buy a narrative from this man?

For a commentator trying to make any scintilla of sense about contemporary trends and influences, I can tell you exactly what it feels like: being regularly buggered by a hooded goblin while being held prisoner in a coal cellar. This is I think apt as a “feeling”, because goblins aren’t real, but the fiction I’ve offered sounds unimaginably awful in every way.


Look back if you will over the last (say) twelve years during which this blog has had some sort of measurable niche influence. Look at the causes/investigations and frauds that have been surveyed by the content here: Gordon Brown’s mental health and eyesight, the global derivatives scam, Fleet Street hackgate, Jeremy Hunt’s track record, the truth behind the vassalisation of Greece, The ECB’s ambush of Yanis Varoufakis, the Sky takeover engineered by Newscorp, the paedophile scandals, the demonisation of DJs and tradtional comics by a Met Police in the pay of Murdoch, the acquittal of Rebekah Brooks, the real nature of Antifa and Momentum, the Clinton Foundation racket, the disgraceful embezzlement of female State Pension entitlements by the Establishment, the courageous fight of 2020 and Waspi women to get reparation, the corrupt, creeping attempt to invade the NHS with globalist private health insurance, and now the geopolitical machinations and legislative treachery behind the dilution of Brexit to Brino.

There is, of course, the unmistakable and vomit-inducing stench of self-interest and hypocrisy running through every one.

But the most malign feature is the ideologue’s never-ending attempt to deny, change, disguise and then obliterate reality.

Philosophers and scientists have speculated over millennia – in equally near-infinite measure – on the nature of what reality is in a cosmic, metaphysical sense…or even if the the cosmos and the physical themselve are “real”. “The answer lies within,” the Buddhists conclude.

In recent years, it isn’t just that science has made giant leaps forward at the same time as discovering more and mystery the further they go: it has also been a case of science in several fields discovering that several ancient practices based on inspired insight and instinctive leaps are being borne out. The dilution involved in homoaeopathy has been in part vindicated by the reversal factor in the sub-atomic realm. The prophet Buddha’s insistence that “everything is connected” and “time is an illusion” is now mainstream majority thought in physics.

In the original Hebrew translation of Jesus’s response to the pharisees, when asked who his father is, he replies, “My father’s house is without Time”.

Earlier this week I visited the website Medium.com, and read with great interest a piece by Masters MD Jill Blakeway. In it she makes this profound observation:

‘The body is intelligent in ways that can be prompted and harnessed. I try to honor that intelligence in a way that is grounded in science but doesn’t undervalue the mystery that always seems to be just outside our reach.’

As an expert in both Chinese and Western medicine, Blakeway is that rare thing – an open mind. She clearly isn’t interested in turf wars: she simply believes in an eclectic approach to healing, and she is certain that the body is indeed capable of healing itself. After fifteen years of struggling to master meditation (I’m still a novice) I agree with her completely.

The open mind is the way forward, because the key to perhaps all healing lies in the mind.

Disastrously for our species, the last thirty years have also seen the largely unpredicted revival of belief systems based on wishful thinking, bigotry, just a dash of perverted science, politically correct fancy, greed, and ignorance without reference to IQ level. That is to say, the rise and rise of both thick and intelligent idiots….the Useful Idiots so historically categorised by Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov – or Lenin to you and me.

I know that some readers will balk at this, but I include all the following in the trend defined in my previous paragraph: collectivist socialism, Friedmanite neoliberalism, globalist neoconservatism, Antisemitism, radical feminism, Islamism, modern monetary theory, climate change denial, climate change cause assertion, educational achievement conformity (aka Blairite targets) and remote control geoblocism.

All of them are systemic attempts to herd social numbers, rather than science-based philosophies that begin with the human individual as a flawed social being whose single biggest desire is to be left in peace and harmony with his or her family and community.

Systemics are very good at closing ranks as the means to achieve an ill-defined end. But they are also spectacularly successful at closing minds.

Minds closed by ideology are – in 2019 – the greatest enemy of enlightenment. As such, they are come together today in a perfect storm designed to hide blue-sky thinking that inspires contrarian minds.

The conformist, faux-certainty of ideology belongs in the dark mediaeval ages. And yet here it is again, bossing the game in the 21st century.

—————————————————————
What is the attraction of Unreal Certainty? Probably, I suspect, that it is the opposite of Real Uncertainty….the very uncertainty that foul play and evasive obfuscation produce in the first place.

It appeals to people who need the security blanket of the Status Quo: people who are ruled by fear of the unknown…..whose most powerful weapon is thus that very fear. No matter how bonkers and unfounded the fear might be, it serves to give such ideology followers peace of mind: because they and they alone have the antidote.

Further, their very fear of new experiences is projected (as a mindset) onto the enemy.

Brexit Leavers are thus denoted ‘Little Englanders’. Observation of misogynist and anti-social behaviour by certain elements in UK Islam is dubbed a ‘phobia’. An ability to recognise and record the anthropological need for independence is deemed ‘racist’. And most disturbing of all, anyone who doubts the received truth of what is ‘settled’ or ‘correct’ automatically becomes an extremist.

All the belief systems I fingered in the previous section of this post represent a form of protectionist conservatism: a defence of everything they declare as being (variously) progressive, correct, proven and safe. Those who dare to question the flimsy catechism of their eternal truths are – obviously – anti-social elements whose sole interest lies in the creation of anarchic violence and hate.

“You can’t say that these days,” is an irritating form of hyper-conformity that one hears over and over again: from friends, our children, the media and soi-disant opinion leaders. It is as if a lightning bolt might strike one down should the words “coloured person”, “lesbian nutter” or “eskimo” emerge from the mouth. ‘Gammon’, ‘snowflake’ or ‘scum’, however, are just fine. But on debating with Believers, I never get the slightest feeling of awareness from them that their double standards might just be hypocritical, or their Groupthink in any way dangerous.

—————————————————————

Nor does their enthusiastic adoption of Orwellian syntax strike them as chillingly ironic: off-message, sex-worker, hate-crime, hate-speech, cultural appropriation, inappropriate behaviour, affirmative action, white supremacist, institutional racism and all the dozens of other fascist Newspeak they employ…..all are used with a serious expression and a sense of superiority.

I was truly jolted when an old friend of mine in London – on being asked by me whether he voted Remain in 2016 – answered, “I certainly did” as if he might be responding to, “So did you jump in the river to save that kid?” The air of saintliness was (to me) bewildering and sad.

The fundamental problem with assumptions of correctitude within a broadly-based attitudinal group is so blindingly obvious, the threat it presents to real progress in objective knowledge should not need enumerating or exemplifying. But for the sake of contemporary context, here are just a few:

• It can convince you that democratic decisions are a mistake
• It can persuade you that a narrow majority is invalid
• It can demand that guilt should be ignored “for the common good”
• It can dismiss quantified research as “differently analysed”
• It can generate fear of a foreign State based on little or nothing
• It can make a flawed President a rapist
• It can persuade people that adults are children
• It can make more fuss over 78 injustices than over 3.6 million
• It can declare every voter for self-determination a racist
• It can persuade millions that conspiring against democracy is justified.

In the speech that perhaps ensured his early death at the hands of people who saw themselves as patriots, John F. Kennedy said in November 1963, “There are those in this land who believe the perversion of free speech and democracy is a price worth paying for the defeat of Communism. I am not one of those people”.

JFK’s dad Joe (a profoundly nasty old bastard) was once asked the secret of his success in the stock market. He replied, “I watch what the mass of saps do, and then do the opposite”.

Most of our species knowledge base comes from the experience and eccentric wisdom of contrarians.

At long last – after beating myself up about my own tendencies in that direction for seven decades – I am at ease with my conviction that not all cultures are equal, Big is almost always bad, globalism is tosh and will be reversed, narcissm is divisive, Islam is not a tolerant religion of peace, I’d rather converse with those who know something rather than everything, most tyranny derives from electoral apathy, fascism comes in all the colours, and above all, ideologically awkward truths must be faced.

We live in a three-dimensional Universe governed by e = mc², on one tiny speck of dust in a south-eastern suburb of one nebula among (allegedly) millions of others. As a factory-wired pack species, such success as we have achieved is based on competition within the pack and cooperation with other packs.

The globalist ideological falsehood promotes the idea that forced, impoverished equality in the pack (beneath an obscenely privileged élite) is good, and cooperation with other packs is a mortally dangerous sin.

This kind of thinking created the injustice in Northern Ireland, and caused the death (however indirectly) of Lyra McKee. It was the driving force behind Monnet’s idea of a Federalist EU power bloc in which individual conformity is valued, along with protection against the World outside.

Both are antithetical to the natural order of things. The free movement of workers (the better to be exploited by global combines) is a false God. The most important principle for humanity is the free exhange of ideas – as in, freed from the shackles of ideology.

[greybeard]

Thanks Tintin for your kind remarks.
Im trying to post all the various points of view as found on Yahoo.
I would advise anyone interested to watch the Andrew Marr shown on Sunday mornings.BBC1.
His questions to the point and obviously the researchers have done their job.
It will be interesting to see how the leadership contest goes.

Labour held Thursdays by election--the Brexit party a close second.

Chris

[greybeard]

Labour sees off challenge from Brexit Party to win Peterborough by-election
PA Ready News UK By Gavin Cordon and Sam Russell, Press Association,PA Ready News UK

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/labour-fig...031219125.html

Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party has failed to secure its first MP as Labour took the Peterborough by-election in a closely-fought contest.

The Brexit Party, which launched less than six months ago, was beaten by just 683 votes as the Conservatives fell back into third place.

The constituency, which voted 60.9% for Leave in the 2016 referendum, had been regarded as potentially fertile ground for the new party.

But with a relatively high turnout for a by-election of 48.4%, it appears that they were unable to match Labour’s organisation on the ground.

Mr Farage made a brief appearance at the count – apparently anticipating victory – but left without talking to reporters.

In a tweet, the party said it was a “remarkable result” for such a new organisation.

“If we can come so close in our 201st target seat, no seat is safe,” it said.

The result came as a huge relief for Labour after their dismal showing in last month’s European elections amid complaints they had failed to offer a clear line on Brexit.
Graphic of the Peterborough by-election results

[greybeard]

'Crowds booing Tories': party leader hopefuls weigh up TV debate risks
The Guardian Jim Waterson Media editor,The Guardian

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/apos-crowd...133929618.html

Tory leadership candidates are considering which television debates to take part in, as campaign teams weigh up the risks of derailing their bids to be the next prime minister with an unpredictable live television appearance.

The BBC has confirmed plans to host a hustings on Tuesday 18 June, according to a memo sent to campaigns seen by the Guardian. The programme, chaired by Emily Maitlis, will be called Our Next Prime Minister and be broadcast live on BBC1 at 8pm. All candidates who are still in the contest at the time of broadcast will be invited to take part.

Multiple leadership campaigns privately said they were particularly concerned about appearing in front of live audiences, especially if they represented a cross-section of the general population rather than the roughly 150,000 Conservative party members who will get to choose the next prime minister.

Michael Gove

The environment secretary is to pitch himself as a “unity candidate” capable of attracting leavers and remainers, as he formally declared his candidacy saying: “I believe that I’m ready to unite the Conservative and Unionist party, ready to deliver Brexit and ready to lead this great country.” But robust Brexiters in particular dislike the fact that he stayed loyal even in the final days of the crumbling May regime.

Sam Gyimah

The former universities minister is calling for a 'final say on the Brexit deal' as the only way to break the parliamentary deadlock. Gyimah is the only candidate offering a second referendum on Brexit, saying 'There is a wide range of candidates out there but there is a very narrow set of views on Brexit being discussed'.

Matt Hancock

The health secretary remains a relative outsider, but the longer the race goes on, the more he gains ground for the seemingly basic virtues of being apparently competent and broadly similar to a normal human being, albeit a particularly energetic one. A concerted effort would probably require an image consultant.

Mark Harper

The former immigration minister and chief whip was behind the controversial 'go-home' vans when working under Theresa May at the Home Office. He resigned as immigration minister in 2014after it emerged he was employing a cleaner who did not have permission to work in the UK. He later served as David Cameron’s chief whip. But he has not served in Theresa May’s government and has, therefore, sought to cast himself as the candidate who offers 'fresh thinking.

Jeremy Hunt

Fears that the foreign secretary would be another overly woolly compromise choice were hardly assuaged when after a set-piece speech he seemed unable to outline why his brand of Conservatism might appeal to voters. Hunt has been backed by Liam Fox.

Sajid Javid

The home secretary still has the same weaknesses: he is an uninspiring speaker and some worry he is too fond of headline-grabbing, illiberal political gestures. But he is almost as ubiquitous as Liz Truss, and clearly believes this is his time.

Boris Johnson

The out-and-out favourite, so popular with the Tory grassroots that it would be hard for MPs to not make Johnson one of the final two. He has been relatively quiet recently, beyond his regular Telegraph column, but this is very deliberate.

Andrea Leadsom

The former House of Commons leader, who left Theresa May as the last candidate standing when she pulled out of the previous leadership race in 2016, has decided to have another tilt at the top job, saying she has the “experience and confidence” to “lead this country into a brighter future”. But even with her staunch Brexiter tendencies, she would be seen as an outsider.

Esther McVey

The former work and pensions secretary, who quit last year over May’s Brexit plans, has launched her own in-party campaign group/leadership vehicle called Blue Collar Conservatism, promising to make the party more amenable to voters in deprived communities – mainly through a promise to deliver a strong Brexit and policies such as diverting much of the foreign aid budget to schools and police.

Dominic Raab

Few things say “would-be leader in waiting” like a kitchen photoshoot with your spouse, and the former Brexit secretary duly obliged with this imageawash with tasteful pastel hues. He formally launched his bid in the Mail on Sunday. Among the more core constituency of Conservative MPs, Raab has been pushing hard, as has his semi-official “Ready for Raab” Twitter feed.

Rory Stewart

The cabinet’s most recent arrival – Mordaunt’s promotion to defence led to Stewart becoming international development secretary – certainly has the necessary ambition and self-belief, plus a privileged if unorthodox backstory covering Eton, Oxford, a senior role in postwar Iraq and a bestselling book about walking across Afghanistan. He remains an outsider, not least because of his remain tendencies and slightly 2010 view of compassionate Conservatism. He's become a social media darling and been endorsed by Ken Clarke, but his reputation as 'Florence of Belgravia' may hinder him.

And those not in the running

Sir Graham Brady, Penny Mordaunt and James Brokenshire are yet to declare their intentions. Liz Truss and Amber Rudd have ruled themselves out.

Among other senior figures not expected to run are Brandon Lewis, Chris Grayling and Philip Hammond. Gavin Williamson’s recent sacking after the Huawei leak inquiry will also surely rule him out as an option this time around.

James Cleverly and Kit Malthouse withdrew from the contest.

One source on a leadership campaign said inviting the general public to take part in a programme would damage all of the contenders, especially if there was an adverse reaction from Labour supporters in the room: “If I was Jeremy Corbyn, I’d then just show this video of crowds booing Tories.”

The proposed BBC hustings will not have a live audience, making it harder for campaigns to turn down the appearance. Instead, the invitation said it would draw on questions from people around the UK: “Between now and the broadcast, we will ask members of the public to submit questions and we will select the best of these. The questioners will join the programme from studios around the UK and put their questions to the candidates.”

Related: New Tory leader could avoid immediate confidence vote

The BBC will also host a special edition of Question Time and two Andrew Neil interview programmes on BBC1 with the final two candidates, once the shortlist has been whittled down by MPs.

British broadcasters endured a torturous few weeks at the end of 2018, trying and failing to agree terms for a televised debate between Corbyn and Theresa May over Brexit. This eventually fell apart, with neither side able to agree on the rules of engagement.

This time around most broadcasters have chosen to announce the programmes after preliminary chats with candidates and to then challenge the campaigns to take part while negotiating on detail.

Channel 4 has attempted to get ahead of the BBC by announcing its own leadership hustings, which is scheduled to last 90 minutes on Sunday 16 June at 6.30pm, after the first round of voting among MPs. It will be hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy in front of a live studio audience of potential Tory voters drawn from across the UK.

However, multiple campaigns said they were weighing up whether to take part in the Channel 4 show. This is because of the time involved in preparing a candidate for an appearance on national television at a time when the focus of the contest is on winning over MPs rather than party members. Leading candidates such as Boris Johnson were thought to have more to lose by opening themselves up to attack by the rest of the field.

One leadership campaign cited perceived leftwing political bias by Channel 4 – and the presence of an audience – as risk factors, even though the programme would have to comply with Ofcom broadcasting rules. Every campaign has been reluctant to repeat May’s boycott of the BBC 2017 general election debate, when she was mocked for being the only leader not to turn up.

ITV and Sky News will broadcast programmes during the final round of voting, when Conservative members will choose between two Tory leadership candidates.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Tintin (here)
Earlier this week I visited the website Medium.com, and read with great interest a piece by Masters MD Jill Blakeway.

That Jill Blakeway link leads to a most delightful article - don't miss it: The Human Body Can Heal in Astonishing Ways -- Even for energy healers, people’s sudden recoveries can be hard to explain

[greybeard]

Brexit: No-deal outcome could force shopping bills up by £800 a year, says union

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-no-...051100336.html

The cost of a family’s weekly shop could rocket by more than £800 a year if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal, a major union has warned.

Analysis for the GMB found that the bill for a typical supermarket basket of goods would increase by £15.61 a week – 17 per cent – if Britain was forced to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules, which require tariffs on many goods.

Several candidates for the Conservative leadership, including frontrunner Boris Johnson, have said he is ready to leave the EU without a deal on WTO terms on 31 October if it proves impossible to renegotiate Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement by that time.

Dominic Raab has refused to rule out suspending parliamentary sittings beyond the Halloween Brexit deadline to prevent MPs blocking a no-deal outcome.

Among the price hikes resulting from the application of the WTO’s “most favoured nation” rules would by 42p on a 250g pack of butter (up 28 per cent), 62p on a 460g chunk of own-brand Cheddar (up 26.9 per cent), 43p on a pack of eight sausages (up 25.3 per cent), 32p on a 2.5 kilo bag of potatoes (up 14.4 per cent) and £2.56 on a bottle of red wine (up 32 per cent), according to the analysis by Acuity Analysis.

Releasing the figures on the eve of GMB's annual congress in Brighton, the union’s general secretary Tim Roache said: "Tory leadership contenders who casually throw around the idea of no-deal Brexit are completely ignoring what that reality would mean for working people.

“The prices of household essentials will go through the roof if hardliners like Raab and Johnson get their way, but why let people's actual lives get in the way of personal ambition in the Tory Party?

“Either they're negligent in understanding what leaving on WTO terms means or they just don't care.

“If the Tory Party choose a leader prepared to walk us off a Brexit cliff edge, our country will live with the economic consequences of that for a generation. They won't be forgiven easily for that at the ballot box."

Labour MP Clive Lewis, a supporter of the Best for Britain campaign for a Final Say referendum, said: "These Tory leadership candidates who back a no deal Brexit have no idea what it means to be working person in the UK.

"The reason they advocate this disastrous route is because they will never be in the difficult situation of having to make ends meet.

"It's disgraceful that these people think they should lead the country. What we need is a final say on Brexit for the people to decide if this is in their interests or whether a wealthy elite are taking advantage of the 2016 referendum."

[greybeard]

Johnson Woos Hard Brexiters as Gove Eclipsed by Cocaine Woes
Bloomberg Thomas Penny,Bloomberg Sun, 9 Jun 22:39 BST

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/johnson-wo...142212607.html


Johnson Woos Hard Brexiters as Gove Eclipsed by Cocaine Woes

(Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson, the front-runner to succeed Theresa May as U.K. prime minister, pledged a hard line on Brexit -- including the option of leaving without a deal -- as contenders to lead the Conservative Party sought support before the list of candidates is finalized on Monday.

Johnson, who also said he would scrap the Irish border backstop and withhold 39 billion pounds ($50 billion) owed to the European Union until an agreement is reached, was helped by the discomfort of Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who saw his campaign submerged under revelations that he used cocaine decades ago.

“Yes, it was a crime, it was a mistake, I deeply regret it,” Gove told the BBC as he tried to switch attention away from his past drug use toward his plans to cut sales taxes and renegotiate a deal with the EU. As justice secretary, “one of the things I said was that people should never be defined by the worst decision that they make, but should be given a chance to redeem themselves and to change,” Gove said.

As his opponents fall away, Johnson’s pledge to leave the bloc with or without an agreement on Oct. 31 will be watched closely by markets that have in the past been spooked by the possibility of a no-deal divorce. The Bank of England published a worst-case scenario in November that saw the economy shrinking by 8%, property prices plunging almost a third and the pound losing a quarter of its value under a chaotic no-deal split.

Johnson also unveiled his plan to slash income taxes for about 3 million Britons by raising the threshold at which they are subject to a higher rate. The plan, which he outlined in a story for Monday’s Telegraph newspaper, will cost 10 billion pounds a year, which Johnson said would be covered by money set aside to prepare for leaving the EU without a deal. The tax cut will stimulate the economy after Brexit, he wrote.

‘Hard Man’

Johnson’s Brexit vow, in an interview with the Sunday Times, brought him the endorsement of self-styled “Brexit hard man” Steve Baker, a key member of the anti-EU caucus of Tory MPs. Only Johnson could stop the Conservatives from losing votes to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party as they did in last month’s European elections, Baker said.

“I am going to put my complete faith in Boris Johnson,” Baker wrote on Twitter. “Unless we deliver a Brexit worth having in the opinion of Brexit Party voters then we will suffer a Jeremy Corbyn government with all the horrors that would mean for our prosperity and our wellbeing.”

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, another contender, also warned against the dangers of a general election, but said the only way to avoid one is to exit the EU with a deal. Any prime minister who tries to leave without an agreement would find themselves forced to call a national vote, he said as he made a veiled attack on Johnson’s suitability for the top job.

Split Vote

“What a wise prime minister will do is take decisions on the basis of the choices they have in front of them,” Hunt told Sky News. “What an unwise prime minister will do in this situation is something that precipitates a general election. If you say October 31 is a deadline come what may, and then Parliament blocks no deal, the only way you can deliver that promise is to have an election,” Hunt said.

If an election is held before the U.K. leaves the EU, the center-right vote would be split between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party and the opposition Labour Party would “come through the middle” to win, Hunt said. Both Hunt and Gove refused to rule out extending Brexit beyond the end of October to allow an agreement to be reached.

Hunt, who is pitching himself as an experienced negotiator who can find a way through the Brexit impasse, also said German Chancellor Angela Merkel told him when they met last week that the EU is open to new talks “if we take the right approach.”

Take Charge

A common theme among the contenders was that future negotiations should be carried out by politicians rather than officials. Gove, Hunt and Johnson all said they would take charge of talks with the EU, sidelining the officials who led the talks under May.

Johnson said withholding the 39 billion-pound financial settlement will be a “great solvent and a great lubricant” in forcing the EU to offer a good deal to the U.K. But the experience of Greece, when it threatened to default on some 250 billion euros ($284 billion) of loans to the bloc’s crisis-fighting fund in an attempt to extract concessions from its European peers, shows the EU might not be that easily lubricated.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who won the support of Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson, said if he succeeds, May he will provide funding to Dublin to pay for solutions to the impasse over the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, which will remain in the EU.

The border issue can be solved but “you need co-operation on both sides of the border to make it happen,” Javid told Sky News. It is “morally right” that the U.K. should pay for the alternative arrangements, he said.

Javid, who also pledged to slow the pace of U.K. debt reduction to allow for more investment in education, refused to comment on Gove’s disclosure. Instead, he criticized drug use among people who, like the environment secretary, talk about their concern for the Earth.

“There are people that you know, they have their organic food, they boast about buying Fair Trade, they talk about climate change and at the same time come Friday or Saturday night, they’re all doing Class A drugs and they should be thinking about the impact,” Javid said. “Anyone who takes drugs should be thinking about how they are not just hurting themselves, but how they are destroying so many countless lives on the way.”

(Updates with Johnson tax proposals in fifth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Tony Czuczka

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

[greybeard]

Brexit: EU will not reopen withdrawal agreement, insists French minister
The Guardian Jon Henley Europe correspondent,The Guardian


France’s state secretary for European affairs has confirmed that the EU27 are not prepared to reopen the Brexit withdrawal agreement, and that without a “new political line” in the UK or a second referendum, Britain must expect to leave the bloc on 31 October.

On the eve of a two-day working visit to London, Amélie de Montchalin also told the Guardian that France regarded the €39bn financial settlement Britain has agreed to pay the EU as part of the exit deal as a matter of international law.

“We are now waiting for clarification from the UK side,” De Montchalin said. “We consider it is up to Britain to decide how it wants to proceed. The exit agreement was not negotiated against the British; negotiators on both sides tried, painstakingly, to find the best solution for all concerned.”

Several Tory leadership candidates have said that if they are selected, their priority will be to go to Brussels and seek to renegotiate the deal agreed last December – and that if they do not succeed, Britain must be ready to leave without a deal. Others have said a further extension could be necessary.

Boris Johnson, the favourite to succeed Theresa May as party leader and prime minister, has pledged to consider withholding Britain’s Brexit “divorce” payment until the EU27 agree to improve the terms on which the UK’s leaves, describing the money as “a great lubricant” in getting a good deal.

But De Montchalin, who replaces France’s former Europe minister Natalie Loiseau, now an MEP, said the bloc was not willing to reopen the 599-page exit agreement. “If Britain does want to leave, and if it wants to leave in an orderly fashion, then this is the way it must do it,” she said.

She said the only condition on which France would be prepared to grant a further extension to the 31 October deadline would be if there were to be a “profound change” to Britain’s current political stance on Brexit.

“As President Macron has said, if there is a totally new political line in Britain, the Europeans would be prepared to reconsider,” she said. “But for now, 31 October is the final deadline.” A no-deal Brexit was “not what France wants”, de Montchalin added, “but we are prepared for it, and so it is now a realistic option.”

Emmanuel Macron said last week he considered 31 October to be the “final, final deadline” for Britain’s much delayed departure, saying he did not want the new European Commission and executive to have to deal with Brexit.

De Montchalin described the €39bn that Johnson has threatened to hold back as “not a settling of scores, or some kind of exit bill – this sum simply represents Britain’s engagements. So this is now a matter of respecting international law … Britain will always be France’s neighbour.”

She said the EU 27 would remain united through the next Brexit stage, dismissing suggestions that some leaders might be ready to break ranks. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, claimed this weekend that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, would be willing to renegotiate the UK’s Brexit deal and possibly the Irish backstop.

“Every single member state realises the importance of maintaining that unity and engaging with the UK through the the EU,” she said. “There can be no mini-deals. It’s a question of the credibility of the bloc. And all have understood the importance of the future relationship with Britain.”

She said it would be “unacceptable” for France or any other EU member state to interfere in the present impasse. “I’m certainly not going to say the UK is wasting its time,” she said. “The problem is that there are almost as many kinds of Brexit as there are MPs. But we do need clarity now. We need a decision.”

[greybeard]

Irish PM concerned Britain set for 'terrible' Brexit miscalculation
Reuters
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/irish-pm-c...202154760.html


DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's prime minister warned British lawmakers on Tuesday against making "a terrible political miscalculation" of thinking their rejection of the Brexit divorce deal negotiated with the European Union means they will get a better one.

Several candidates vying to replace Prime Minister Theresa May have pledged to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement May's government struck with the EU, only for it to suffer three crushing defeats in parliament.

How to manage the land border between EU-member Ireland and British-run Northern Ireland - including an emergency "backstop" solution to prevent the return of extensive controls - has proven the most contentious element of the divorce deal.

"Like everyone in this House, I am a little concerned about political developments in London at present," Leo Varadkar told Ireland's parliament as a number of candidates launched their Conservative Party leadership campaigns.

"I am a little concerned that some people in London seem to think the failure of the House of Commons to ratify the agreement automatically means they will get a better agreement. That is a terrible political miscalculation."

Ireland has insisted that the backstop remain a central part of the withdrawal deal that Varadkar described as a finely balanced compromise that was the best deal Britain could have reached, given the limited leverage of a departing country.

Outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker also reiterated on Tuesday that the stalled divorce treaty - including the backstop - will not change with the arrival of a new prime minister in London.

"They made some miscalculations along the way," Varadkar said of the steps Britain had taken since voters decided to leave the bloc in a referendum almost three years ago.

"Some of them thought that when push came to shove, Ireland would be abandoned and EU unity would break. They were wrong about that. I hope they are not making a further political miscalculation."

[greybeard]

MPs defeat motion seeking to block no-deal Brexit

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/keir-starm...143335583.html

Conservative leadership candidates including Boris Johnson hoping to force through a “deal or no deal” Brexit in October have been handed a boost after MPs defeated a Labour-led attempt to begin legislation to stop the UK leaving the EU without an agreement.

MPs seeking to take steps to prevent a no-deal departure lost a vote in the House of Commons by 309 votes to 298 on Wednesday.

Tory MPs cheered as the motion was defeated, after which the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was heard to say: “You won’t be cheering in September.”

The cross-party motion would have given MPs parliamentary time to begin to pass legislation that may have significantly constrained a future prime minister, but Labour sources said they feared would-be Tory rebels had preferred to hold their fire until they see which leadership candidate is installed.

The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, vowed the move would be the first of many such efforts. “Labour stands ready to use whatever mechanism it can to protect jobs, the economy and communities from the disastrous consequences of a no-deal Brexit,” he said. “Any Tory leadership candidate should know that parliament will continue to fight against no deal.”

One shadow minister said opponents of a no-deal Brexit had missed a crucial opportunity, but plans would be made to find an alternative. “This isn’t the end of it. We’ll just have to be doubly creative,” they said. “The timing in the midst of [the] Tory leadership [contest] is poor, but not our choice.”

However, the former Conservative MP Nick Boles warned opponents of a no-deal departure were fast running out of options – apart from a confidence vote. “No-deal Brexit on 31 October is back to being a racing certainty,” he said.

“It is very hard to see where any further legislative opportunities will come from. So it’s now a question of politics – specifically whether a PM pursuing a no-deal Brexit can command and sustain the confidence of the House of Commons.”

The debate before the vote revealed fraying tempers in all wings of both parties. The Labour MP Gareth Snell, who represents the leave-voting seat of Stoke-on-Trent Central, said he regretted not voting for Theresa May’s Brexit agreement. He said he would abstain because he could not countenance parliamentary manoeuvres that would lead to a further delay.

“We will have been responsible for a no-deal Brexit by default because of our inability to make a decision,” Snell said.

The former attorney general Dominic Grieve said he was prepared to resign the Conservative whip and go against the government in a no-confidence vote if it would prevent a no-deal Brexit. “I simply have to say, here and now, I will not hesitate to do that if that is what is attempted,” he said.

The motion proposed giving MPs control of the parliamentary agenda in a fortnight’s time. That day could then have been used to begin legislation to prevent the UK from leaving the EU without a deal, though it is uncertain what form this would take.

Speaking in the debate, Starmer said MPs had been forced to act because of suggestions from leadership candidates including Johnson and Dominic Raab that the UK would leave – come what may – on 31 October. Raab had even suggested he would be prepared to prorogue parliament to stop MPs’ efforts to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

“It will introduce a safety valve in the Brexit process and it will be a reminder to all Conservative leadership candidates that this house will take every step necessary to prevent a no deal,” Starmer said.

The motion, which Labour tabled during an opposition day debate, was signed by the former Conservative minister Oliver Letwin and the leaders of the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party.

The Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, said it was a “blind motion” that gave no indication as to what path MPs would try to pursue to block a no-deal departure, and would have “virtually unlimited scope”.

Tory MPs who said they intended to back the plan included Antoinette Sandbach, Dominic Grieve, Sam Gyimah and Jonathan Djanogly, plus Boles, who had flown back to the UK specifically to vote on the motion.

Gyimah said there were “two principles at stake” – the right of the government to control the parliamentary agenda and whether the government could prorogue parliament in pursuit of its policy objectives, including involving the Queen.

“I believe the latter of those two principles is the weightier one, the one we should be bearing in mind as we vote today,” he said.

MPs working across parties believed it was essential to take the opportunity to begin efforts to stop a no-deal Brexit before the next prime minister was installed and prior to the start of the summer recess. There are no further opposition day debates scheduled.

Leadership candidates including Matt Hancock and Rory Stewart, who have opposed no deal, had earlier made it clear they would not back the motion.

Hancock said the motion proved what tactics parliament would use to stop a no-deal departure. “Parliament will do all it can to block no deal. We should stop banging our heads against the brick wall of parliament,” he said.

[greybeard]

Three candidates eliminated from race to be Prime Minister after first round of Conservative MP votes
Yahoo News UK Yahoo UK Staff,Yahoo News UK

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/becomes-fi...121209908.html


Andrea Leadsom, Mark Harper and Esther McVey have become the first candidates to be voted out of the Tory leadership race with Boris Johnson storming into the lead.

The three least successful candidates failed to meet the required threshold of 17 votes, achieving 11, 10 and 9 votes respectively.

The remaining seven candidates now go through to the second round of voting by Tory MPs.

The full results were:

Boris Johnson - 114 votes

Jeremy Hunt - 43 votes

Michael Gove - 37 votes

Dominic Raab - 27 votes

Sajid Javid - 23 votes

Matt Hancock - 20 votes

Rory Stewart - 19 votes

Andrea Leadsom - 11 votes (eliminated)

Mark Harper - 10 votes (eliminated)

Esther McVey - 9 votes (eliminated)

Who else is left and what are their policies?

Boris remains the clear favourite to become Prime Minister but he is under pressure from rivals Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove.

International Development Secretary Rory Stewart managed to get over the line, despite doubts about whether he would manage to.

**********

Michael Gove: The Brexiteer aiming to heal Tory rifts and land the top job

Jeremy Hunt: Can the ‘true blue Tory’ see off his rivals and land keys to No.10?

Andrea Leadsom: Can former Commons leader become UK’s third female PM?

Boris Johnson profile: He’s the bookies’ favourite... but can he deliver?

**********

Former London Mayor Mr Johnson launched his bid with a warning to MPs that they will "reap the whirlwind" if they try to thwart Brexit - and said it was essential that Britain was out of the EU by the end of October.

But Mr Javid dismissed the former Foreign Secretary as "yesterday's news", saying the party needed to show it had changed.
What happens now?

The candidates will debate on Channel 4 on Sunday, June 16.

After that, a second ballot will take place on June 18. Candidates need at least 33 votes to get through and if all of them achieve that, the person with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated.

On the same day the remaining candidates will debate on BBC1 in the evening.
Tory leadership

[greybeard]

Along Irish Border, Johnson’s Ascent Adds to Brexit Unease
Bloomberg Dara Doyle and Rodney Edwards,Bloomberg




(Bloomberg) -- Richie McPhillips, living at the epicenter of the Brexit crisis, has a new worry -- Boris Johnson.

The favorite to succeed Theresa May as U.K. prime minister, Johnson said again on Wednesday he’s prepared to lead the nation out of the European Union without a deal if necessary, taking a harder line than most of his rivals. For McPhillips, that could mean a return to checkpoints and unrest along the Irish border that runs close to his home.

“Boris is a danger to the border,” said McPhillips, 61, who lives in Lisnaskea in Northern Ireland and voted against Brexit. “He would not bring any stability to the British political system.”

How the Tory Rivals for PM Reckon They Can Fix Brexit

The question of keeping the Irish border invisible has shaped the entire Brexit negotiation process, with the so-called backstop ultimately costing May her premiership. Johnson, who moved into the second round of the race to succeed her with a clear lead, wants to renegotiate that part of the deal, which was designed to keep the frontier free of customs officers, police or soldiers.

All sides said they wanted to avoid a hard border emerging that could pose a threat to peace on the divided island. But the measure is loathed by Brexit-backers because it risks binding the whole U.K. to EU rules indefinitely.

In the past, the former foreign secretary has described the backstop as “a suicide vest around the British constitution,” and “a constitutional monstrosity” that no other nation would accept.

Johnson later voted for the backstop in Parliament at the third time of asking as he said he feared failing to do so would mean losing Brexit altogether.

Now, he’s holding out the prospect of a no-deal Brexit if Brussels refuses to redraft the divorce agreement. In London, as he launched his campaign to succeed May, Johnson dialed down his earlier rhetoric, saying he isn’t aiming for no-deal exit, but the U.K. must keep the option on the table. He’s vowed to leave the bloc on Oct. 31 no matter what.

Johnson, a key figure in the Brexit campaign of 2016, has suggested the congestion charges he oversaw as London mayor could be a model for solving the border conundrum, an idea Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has dismissed as “extraordinary.” The 310-mile frontier meanders through countryside, dividing rivers, fields and even some houses.

A spokesman for Johnson didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.

Several rivals also want to renegotiate the deal, but shy away from Johnson’s rhetoric. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the current second-favorite, has called a no-deal Brexit “political suicide.”

Others, such as former ministers Dominic Raab, have deployed even stronger no-deal rhetoric than Johnson, but without his profile and status, attract little attention along the border. In the first round of voting to succeed May on Thursday, Johnson won 114 votes with Hunt second, with 43 votes.

Same Constraints

Johnson does have some fans in Northern Ireland.

“I think he would make a good leader, I like his style, I like the way he conducts himself, ” said William Walker, 56, a local councilor for the Democratic Unionist Party, which backs Brexit. “I believe he is an honest man.”

“If Boris becomes prime minister, he should make sure we get out of Europe hopefully with a deal,” said Walker. “But if we leave without a deal, it will not be the end of the world.”~

The prospect of the U.K. crashing out of the European Union in October is now a “very serious” risk, a senior Irish foreign ministry official said.

“Since March, there is an exhaustion with Brexit,” Rory Montgomery, who has helped oversee Ireland’s preparations for the U.K.’s exit from the bloc, said at an event in Nicosia on Wednesday. “The British government need to ask for an extension and it’s going to be difficult for a Conservative leader to do so.”

Ultimately, though, whoever becomes prime minister could find themselves boxed in on all sides, just as May has been. There’s no sign that Brussels is prepared to offer significant concessions. Walker’s DUP holds the balance of power at Westminster, and will keep fighting the backstop without those concessions. And there’s no majority in Parliament for no-deal.

“Personal charm and political skills won’t make much of a difference to the outcome in the short term at least -- it won’t change the arithmetic in Parliament,” said Richard Bullick, a former adviser to DUP party leader Arlene Foster. “There’s no majority for the current deal and no majority for no-deal. So we could be in for another extension.”

Even some Leave supporters in the region question whether Johnson can deliver Brexit, or any solution for the border.

“Boris wouldn’t be my first choice, no,” said Barry Read, 47, who lives near the border in Northern Ireland and voted for Brexit. “He has too much baggage. ”

[greybeard]

When will the resistance in Britain to populism properly begin?
The Guardian Nick Cohen,The Guardian


The resistance to the Johnson-Farage axis will not come from the parliamentary Conservative party. In private, MPs, who once made sure demagogues did not become prime ministers, admit that Johnson is a phoney, unfit for high office or any office. But the Tory party’s guardians no longer care. The gatekeepers are lifting the lock and urging the bull****ter to charge into the china shop.

They calculate that only an alliance between the right and the far right can ensure their party’s survival. The pact may be unacknowledged. Johnson may neutralise the Brexit party by becoming more Faragist than Farage. The Tories will take his votes and he will fade into the background. I don’t see a man with Farage’s sense of entitlement fading willingly. His friends Matteo Salvini and Donald Trump have power in Italy and America respectively. Why should Britain’s man of destiny allow the Conservatives to pat him on the head and say: “The grownups will take it from here”?

Farage more than any other politician is responsible for Brexit and feels no shame for the pain he has inflicted on the country he professes to love. He can threaten to run candidates against the Tories and let Labour in unless they recognised his greatness by making him, say, deputy prime minister. He surely wants to enter parliament in an early election and his surest route to Westminster is via an electoral alliance with the Conservatives.

One way or another, what we call “populism”, a feeble euphemism for an ideology that tolerates no constraints on the leader or his party, will soon be here. Indeed, it already is. For it is one thing for the Putinesque no-hoper Dominic Raab to say that he would suspend parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit. Quite another for Johnson, “our” next prime minister, to tell the Tory right he won’t take bypassing the Commons off the table either.

The crash that Farage and Johnson contemplate with such insouciance is as much a constitutional as an economic monstrosity. Whatever mistakes they made, no previous administration has deliberately wrecked the economy. But then no administration in the modern era has dared to contemplate inflicting economic misery without a mandate from the Commons or the electorate. You cannot say often enough that a no-deal Brexit was not on the ballot in the 2016 referendum. The 2015 white paper that spelt out the terms of the referendum did not say that no deal would follow a Leave vote, while Johnson and every other senior Leave politician promised that a free-trade deal would follow.

Populism is such a treacherous word because it implies that “the people” are in control. Farage and Johnson are proving that in the populist state the leaders are sovereign and the people get what they are given. You shouldn’t be surprised. What kind of popular democracy do you expect when the decisive voice in choosing the national leader is not the electorate’s but the voices of 160,000 Tory activists?

It was a new type of press conference where Johnson’s claque booed reporters for asking questions

What of my trade of journalism? A poor thing, you might say, and one whose deference to “Boris” has been a disgrace. But as his first press briefing showed, our next PM treats reporters who call him “Johnson” and hold him to account with a hostility he never shows to the flunkies on first name terms. Instead of being a moment where journalists questioned a politician, it was a new type of press conference where politicians who supported Johnson booed reporters for asking questions.

I could go on. An independent civil service is a check, if only a reality check, on deluded politicians. The Institute for Government tells me what I had already guessed: Brexit has produced an unprecedented rise in the number of political attacks on civil servants. One of the first acts of a Johnson regime will be to fire Olly Robbins, the prime minister’s Brexit adviser. He has become a George Soros-style hate figure on the British right: the sinister manipulator its partisans blame for the inevitable failure of their impossible project.

Once the greatest check on runaway power was the opposition. Jeremy Corbyn agrees with Johnson and Farage on the need for Brexit, however, and only queries the detail. His failure to support Remain has fractured the centre left, opening the prospect of a united right coming through the middle in a general election. In any case, look at my description of rightwing authoritarianism. It applies as well to the far left. Corbyn and his network of post-communists don’t want to stop a recession. They are “disaster socialists” who hope, as Lenin hoped, that economic collapse will turn the masses to their cause. They would happily suspend parliament to force through a radical programme and nothing in their ideology suggests they believe in press freedom or civil service independence. They won’t oppose what they yearn for.

Opposition must now be as much without as within parliament. I am heartened to see that the next pro-European march on 20 July will be the start of a full-throated defence of EU membership rather than a process argument about the need for a second referendum. Protests on the streets will not occur in isolation. If any government risks no deal, the financial markets will go wild and employers will warn staff about their jobs. MPs may act independently and reconvene away from a shuttered Westminster. It will be the greatest economic, social and political crisis of our lifetime.

Whenever you talk about the far right or left, or make comparisons with Putinism and fascism, you are told it can’t happen here. Don’t be hysterical, old chap: Johnson is a joke, Farage a pub bore and Corbyn a passive-aggressive crank. They can’t hurt us. The critics don’t realise it has never happened here before because enough “hysterical” citizens have stamped on it early and hard. We are late in the day this time around and the moment to start stamping is now.

• Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist

[greybeard]

Brexit: Corbyn under pressure to clarify backing for second vote
The Guardian Heather Stewart Political editor,The Guardian Fri, 14 June

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-cor...182251852.html

Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet is set to debate Brexit on Monday, as the prospect of a Boris Johnson premiership accelerates Labour’s drift towards supporting a second referendum.

Corbyn is coming under renewed pressure to set out his backing for a fresh public vote more clearly, as the shockwaves from Labour’s catastrophic performance in the European elections continue to reverberate.

Shadow ministers will be shown the second part of a presentation on polling which began at last week’s meeting, and according to one person present showed Labour was being “squeezed from both sides”.

Corbyn said in the aftermath ofthe European elections that any Brexit deal would now “have to be put to a public vote” – though that could include a general election, and he subsequently suggested a referendum remained “some way off”.

Related: Corbyn 'listening very carefully' to Labour calls for second referendum

One shadow cabinet member and Corbyn loyalist described Labour’s Brexit policy as “in a state of transition”, saying they expected it to shift towards a clearer stance in favour of a referendum in the next “two or three weeks”, rather than wait for their hand to be forced by restive grassroots members.

Another shadow cabinet source said Johnson’s imminent arrival in Number 10 on a hard Brexit ticket must be “the decisive factor” for Labour’s policy.

Corbyn is content to allow the focus to remain on the warring Tories for the moment. But the Labour leader is facing a pincer movement from both sides of his deeply divided party.

Another Europe is Possible, the anti-Brexit campaign group that works closely with leftwing Labour MPs including Clive Lewis and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, has announced that it plans a “summer of resistance”.

Alena Ivanova, from the group, said: “What we’re witnessing this summer is the growth of a mass and plural movement against Brexit, with mass demonstrations announced for both July and October, and lots of different organisations holding speaker tours and preparing for a referendum.”

She added: “But this movement needs to be radical, both tactically and politically – it has to become a hot summer of resistance, willing to disrupt the status quo.”

Meanwhile Tom Watson, Corbyn’s deputy, has continued to push for a People’s Vote, and will make a major speech on the issue on Monday.

Recriminations from the party’s poll performance have continued. Some shadow ministers, including some on the left, lament what one called the “malign influence” of Corbyn’s advisers, in particular his key confidant, Seumas Milne, and chief of staff, Karie Murphy, complaining that the pair insulate Corbyn from criticism and challenge.

Related: Labour is under pressure to change tack on Brexit – but is it too late already? | Rachel Shabi

Several shadow cabinet members have told the Guardian that Corbyn himself was uncomfortable with the party’s message in the run-up to the European elections, which he felt was insufficiently clear.

“They’re clearly under pressure: I don’t think he’s happy with the way it’s working,” one said. Another claimed: “Even Jeremy, who has always held Seumas in awe, is increasingly dissatisfied with the messaging”.

The shadow cabinet was not consulted about the expulsion of former New Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell for publicly admitting he had voted Lib Dem at the European elections. “No politician was involved in that decision,” said one senior party source.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, was said by allies to have been particularly irked about Campbell’s expulsion, fearing it made the leadership look vindictive.

The decision to drop shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry from prime minister’s questions at short notice last week, after she spoke out about Labour’s Brexit policy, also raised eyebrows.

Corbyn was lambasted by colleagues at Monday’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), with one veteran of the Blair and Brown eras saying it was the worst they had witnessed, with Corbyn reading from a prepared script and failing to take on hecklers.

[greybeard]

Tory leadership race: Can Twitter darling Rory Stewart beat Boris to Number 10?
Yahoo News UK Ross McGuinness,Yahoo News UK

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/tory-leade...151614515.html

Race for Number 10: Rory Stewart

In a series of in-depth profiles, we take a look at the Tory leadership candidates to replace Theresa May and become Britain’s new Prime Minister.

Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, started out the race for the Tory leadership and Number 10 as an also-ran, but is now tipped to be the only man who can stop Boris Johnson’s seemingly inexorable march to Downing Street.
In one sentence:

The Tory Twitter king, Rory Stewart has gone from an absolute outsider to second favourite, off the back of his burgeoning public persona, driven by an intriguing social media campaign and a strong showing in the first TV debate.
Betting odds:

12/1 with Betfair, making him second favourite behind Boris Johnson. He was previously priced as high as 100/1 a month ago.
How did he vote on Brexit, and what does he think now?

Mr Stewart backed Remain in the 2016 EU referendum, but said after the result that “the decision is made, and we should be energetic and optimistic about it”.

He was a prominent supporter of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, despite its defeats in the House of Commons.

Mr Stewart is strongly opposed to a no-deal Brexit and has criticised Mr Johnson’s assertion that the UK should leave the EU with or without a deal on October 31.

He even went so far to say that he would not take up a post in a Cabinet headed by Mr Johnson.

“I would not serve under a Boris Cabinet,” he said. "I want to change this country and I want to challenge and say there are two completely different visions facing this country: Boris’s vision and mine. His strategy on Europe and mine. His vision on the economics and mine. And the question is, who do you want to represent us?”

Any controversy?

As a teenager, Mr Stewart was a member of the Labour Party, something which hasn’t endeared him to some Conservative Party members.

In 2010, he was forced to apologise to his constituents in Penrith and the Border in Scotland over comments he made about rural poverty.

He had told the Scottish Sun: “Some areas around here are pretty primitive, people holding up their trousers with bits of twine and that sort of thing.”

He said later: "It was an extremely foolish thing for me to say."

Last month, after filming a selfie video for Twitter inviting people to come and talk to him in Kew Gardens, London, Mr Stewart was accused of pretending to film the clip himself by holding his right arm out. He later tweeted: “It’s all fake”.

During the leadership campaign, he admitted smoking opium at a wedding in Iran 15 years ago, calling it a “very stupid mistake”.