More on Brexit
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I suppose that the only distinction in our positions is that rather than abstention and staying away from the polling booth, we promote the spoiled ballot paper to separate us from the apathetic non-voter, who like the anarchists, Farage will claim credit for, in any lower turn-out.
Maybe his Brexit Party will copy our policy and ask its supporters to write “BREKSHIT” across the ballot paper. Come to think of it that might not be a bad idea. A lot of people might do this anyway.
You brought it up before, ALB, that the EU ban on GM foods was really a protectionist stratagem.
The US claim that other EU food safety rules are for the same purpose.
Fears over chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef are “myths”, according to the US ambassador to the UK describing warnings over US farming practices as “inflammatory and misleading” smears from “people with their own protectionist agenda”.
National Farmers Union, said the UK government should not accept a US deal “which allows food to be imported into this country produced in ways which would be illegal here”
Amy Mount from Greener UK, an environmental lobby group, said: “This wish-list shows that a hard-Brexit pivot away from the EU in favour of the US would mean pressure to scrap important protections for our environment and food quality. “Any future trade deals should reflect the high standards that the UK public both wants and expects.”
I wonder how that fits in with May’s statement to parliament last Wednesday that part of her withdrawal deal is a commitment to continue to match, after Brexit, the EU’s environmental protection regulations:
As well as changes to the backstop, we are also working across a number of other areas to build support for the Withdrawal Agreement and to give the House confidence in the future relationship that the UK and EU will go on to negotiate. This includes ensuring that leaving the EU will not lead to any lowering of standards in relation to workers’ rights, environmental protections or health and safety.
Will post-Brexit UK succeed in opposing US food industry
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/06/food-fight-doubts-grow-over-post-brexit-standards
Chlorinated chicken. The EU banned the practice 22 years ago,
13 separate antibiotics classed by the World Health Organization as “critically important” to human medicine were still being used in US meat supply chains, Cattle producers in the US use hormones to induce faster, bigger animal growth but they have been banned in the EU since 1989.,
Ractopamine is a growth hormone used to promote leanness in animals by shifting nutrients into muscle and away from fat deposition. It is administered in the days leading up to slaughter. It is banned by the EU, mainland China, Russia and almost 160 other countries but not in the US,
In the US, products that include Yellow 5 and 6, Red 3 and 40, Blue 1 and 2, Green 3 and Orange B are available for purchase and do not require labelling. The UK banned these food dyes following a 2007 double-blind study that found eating artificially coloured food appeared to increase children’s hyperactivity.
It’s all smoke an mirrors. Some Brexiteers had seen the backstop as a cunning ploy by the nasty Europeans to keep the UK in permanent vassalage to them by forcing the UK to stay in the customs union indefinitely and made a big song and dance about this. In other words, they accused the EU of bad faith. As in fact this was not the EU’s intention it was no real problem for them to confirm this, which they have done. In any event, if they had blatantly used the threat of refusing to allow the UK to leave the customs to extract a better final trading arrangement — which would be a case of bad faith — the withdrawal agreement already provided for the UK to appeal to an arbitration panel about this and presumably win if it was that blatant. The most that the documents that May has brought back from Strasburg do is to give more prominence to what was already there. I suppose that getting the EU to confirm in a further legal document that they will not negotiate a new trade agreement with the UK in bad faith might make the UK’s bargaining position slightly less weak. The EU, however, don’t think they have conceded anything meaningful. In other words, this was an opening exchange in these negotiations.
So EU elections may after all take place if this Brexit delay goes ahead.
Shall we have a token candidate standing under our registered name World Socialist Party (EU)?
What to do in the event of a referendum, general election or Euroelections provoked by the Brexit shambles is already on the agenda of the EC and Conference.
In the event of a general election, South Wales branch would contest a seat in Cardiff. In the event of Euroelections we could contest the South East and/or Wales region, both of which we did last time (these elections are based on proportional representation of party lists). As to a referendum, that would depend on the question, but the most likely one would be to confirm whatever deal is agreed.
In the meantime we will be leafletting (with our “Identity” leaflet) this pro-referendum march next Saturday as many on it will be protesting as much against xenophobia as against leaving the EU.
The discussion amongst international law lawyers about how to get out of the “backstop” is very revealing. It confirms what we have always said that, in the end, treaties are just scraps of paper that any state can get out of if and when it wants.
One of them, with the perhaps appropriate name of Pannick, says that what the UK would need to do to get out of the backstop would be to invoke Article 62 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties by claiming that “a fundamental change of circumstances” had occurred:
Some MPs have suggested looking into whether the backstop could be solved by using Article 62 of the Vienna Convention – which would allow the UK to withdraw from any treaty if there had been “a fundamental change of circumstances… which was not foreseen by the parties”.
In a letter to the Times, cross-bench peer and QC Lord Pannick said the UK would be “entitled to terminate the withdrawal agreement” under this clause – although he questioned whether it would be “wise politically”.
Evidently this Article is the let-out clause that is always in the small print of all legal documents. Any lawyer worth their salt should be able to come up with some specious argument about how circumstances had changed and that this was not foreseen. After all, that’s their trade.
Watching the debates in Parliament (as you can on the BBC Parliament channel), it is striking how much of the procedure is similar in many respects ours, e.g. on motions and amendments to them, with an original motion if amended becoming the new “main” motion (what we call the “substantive” resolution — actually “main” is clearer).
There are differences of course, in particular that it is not the chairperson of our conferences who decides what motions are voted on (that’s decided by a standing orders committee) as the Speaker does and “points of order” which are not really points of order, i.e. of procedure, are not tolerated. Our procedures were borrowed from those of smallish craft unions rather than Parliament but Parliament’s are more or less democratic.
There is even provision in our procedures for the meeting to overrule the chairperson. Clause 16 of our Conference Standing Orders reads:
… the ruling of the Chair shall be binding, unless challenged by one of the following Resolutions; ‘That Comrade X leave the chair” or “That the Chair is directed to rule that …”
If I understood what the pundits were saying last night Parliamentary procedures also provide for MPs to move a Vote of Direction to the Speaker. Whether or not this will be used to overcome “Bercow’s Bombshell” remains to be seen. I doubt, though, that anyone will move “That Comrade Bercow leave the chair”
I remember at one point being directed to Citrine’s ‘The Art of Chairmanship’ as a guide rather than Erskine May, but the general principles are comparable and sound ones.
Can’t resist this to show what amount of shit Brexit has put us in.
One of the UK’s major toilet paper importers has been stockpiling 3.5m rolls or 600 tonnes in warehouses.
Did anybody else notice that when that “stupid woman” made her populist appeal to “the nation” last night the union jack rags behind her were arranged to look like the English one, which was also the favourite of the National Front and the BNP on their marches? No wonder some MPs are now in fear of their life. A provincial clergyman’s daughter as a rival to Tommy Robinson, what next?
“A provincial clergyman’s daughter as a rival to Tommy Robinson, what next?”
More like a rival to the provincial grocer’s/Methodist preacher’s daughter I would have thought.
The front page of today’s Sun compares her to Wolfie Smith of the Tooting Popular Front proclaiming “Power to the People”.
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