The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

People in Northern Ireland vote along sectarian lines and literally no scandal exists that will change our minds about the tribes to which we swear fealty - if anything, the appearance of bringing that billion pound bribe home will only make the DUP more popular here.

[Hawkmumbler]

I refuse to bring this up in the RIP thread but....

Mugabe can fucking burn in hell.

[Dandontdare]

People in Northern Ireland vote along sectarian lines

You're over-qualified to be NI secretary with that level of expertise: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/07/karen-bradley-admits-not-understanding-northern-irish-politics

and there may be a glimmer of hope...https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/25/northern-ireland-unionism-nationalism-tribalism

[IndigoPrime]

Well, Sinn Fein have inferred they’d potentially stand down to fuck the DUP and let in more pro-EU candidates. A possible in for more Alliance seats? Here’s hoping.

[Rately]

Well, Sinn Fein have inferred they’d potentially stand down to fuck the DUP and let in more pro-EU candidates. A possible in for more Alliance seats? Here’s hoping.

More Alliance representatives can only be a good thing.

The country needs more Naomi Longs.

[Professor Bear]

SF voters won't vote for centrists any more than the DUP's base would vote for a party that abandoned their pro-union founding principles in favor of union-skepticism.

The only realistic option would be standing Labour candidates and harking back to the solid the party did the Shinners in 1918.  A callback like that is a gift if your aim is to appeal to the fenian vote.

[Funt Solo]

Scottish judges rule Parliament suspension is unlawful: good olde Scotch Law, providing rulings on all matters pertaining to Bourbon since afore ye 12th century, no?

I'm fully expecting the Supreme Court of Albion to diss the ruling, but it's still nice to see some arse being kicked.

[Jim_Campbell]

There we go. Yellowhammer. Remember that this ISN’T the WORST CASE no-deal Brexit scenario.

Food shortages, medicine shortages, fuel shortages, ‘localised’ disruption to water supplies, severe impact on the care sector, police resources strained due to anticipated civil unrest.‬ And a redacted paragraph for good measure.

[TordelBack]

They don't care, Jim. They're taking back control. Taking it back from Parliament. Taking it back from the Law. Taking it back from the Courts. And then apparently handing it to a cabal of hedge-fund managers, via their bumbling lackeys.

[Professor Bear]

There we go. Yellowhammer. Remember that this ISN’T the WORST CASE no-deal Brexit scenario.

Those who saw the original document describe the current report as identical, the only difference apart from the redacted elements being that the term "baseline scenario" has been removed.

The redacted paragraph comes in the middle of discussion of civil unrest and the possibility of police forces being overly-stretched, so I can't imagine what the redacted section could possibly have been about, but I will say that I and most of my family survived soldiers on the streets, and I imagine so will most of Britain.

edit: actually, according to those in the know, it's not martial law-related, it's just a thing about there being no petrol for 2 weeks and a minimum of 2000 British jobs being lost overnight.

[JOE SOAP]

There we go. Yellowhammer. Remember that this ISN’T the WORST CASE no-deal Brexit scenario.

Food shortages, medicine shortages, fuel shortages, ‘localised’ disruption to water supplies, severe impact on the care sector, police resources strained due to anticipated civil unrest.‬ And a redacted paragraph for good measure.

They should've just got Hibernia to do a new run of The Tower King.

[sheridan]

There we go. Yellowhammer. Remember that this ISN’T the WORST CASE no-deal Brexit scenario.

edit: actually, according to those in the know, it's not martial law-related, it's just a thing about there being no petrol for 2 weeks and a minimum of 2000 British jobs being lost overnight.

Well, we've already lost about a quarter of a million jobs - that's a conservative estimate - others put it around the 400,000 mark.

[shaolin_monkey]

Then there’s the UK citizens working in the EU and being paid in Sterling and basically seeing a drop in income of around 15-20% due to Sterling versus the Euro.

It’s a fucking shambles all round.

Goddam Russians, Aaron Banks, Cambridge Analytica, and all the other dirty money from shady foreign entities that weaponised Facebook data to completely screw our democracy!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum

[Professor Bear]

As is always worth pointing out, foreign interference in UK elections is not exceptional but the standard.

Germane to that, here's an interesting article by South Africa's Daily Maverick detailing how the UK security services turned the Guardian into their sock puppet to the point that independent journalists and human rights organisations no longer bring sensitive stories to the paper because they no longer trust it.

[Jim_Campbell]

edit: actually, according to those in the know, it's not martial law-related, it's just a thing about there being no petrol for 2 weeks and a minimum of 2000 British jobs being lost overnight.

Redacted para apparently reads: "15. Facing EU tariffs makes petrol exports to the EU uncompetitive. Industry had plans to mitigate the impact on refinery margins and profitability but UK Government policy to set petrol import tariffs at 0% inadvertently undermines these plans. This leads to significant financial losses and announcement of two refinery closures (and transition to import terminals) and direct job losses (about 2000)."

Can’t imagine why they redacted a paragraph that basically says “And we managed to take this clusterfuck and make it even worse, directly costing 2000 people their jobs”…