the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

the latest Sarkar vs. Piers clip making the rounds is wonderful

I've been away the last week, has much been going on?

just the same, Neil.

Terrible stench in the London air these last few hours.

Plus, Murdoch cleared to buy all of Sky (subject to being gazumped by Comcast somehow).

Bercow lightly intervenes on a conversation Raab is having with someone as Starmer speaks. "I didn't say anything," Starmer says, "because I assumed the sec of state was being briefed on the contents of the white paper."

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) July 12, 2018

Love that whole thread

fuck sake

raab c brexit indeed

Curious manner from Raab. He seems mostly nervous, and then occasionally angry and snide, almost hateful.

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) July 12, 2018

Curious indeed, nervousness is so out of character for him.

lol

WORLD EXCL: Donald Trump warns Theresa May her soft Brexit blueprint will "kill" any future trade deal with the US. Full @POTUS interview with @TheSun from 11pm.

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) July 12, 2018

Trump tells me: "If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal".

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) July 12, 2018

Trump also reveals to me PM ignored his advice on Brexit negotiations: “I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t listen to me".

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) July 12, 2018

Did his method involve multiple bankruptcies and Russian funding, by chance?

Great stuff, this is what we want.

When the most successful POTUS ever gives you advice on governing you'd be crazy not to listen

lol everything’s fucked

Don’t worry, help is at hand. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2018/jul/12/a-no-deal-brexit-survival-guide-what-food-to-stockpile

Jared O'Mara has quit Labour

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/12/jared-omara-quits-labour-saying-he-was-made-to-feel-like-a-criminal

So he's sorry but not that sorry

This trip's going to go brilliantly pic.twitter.com/GrXSagxOtZ

— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) July 12, 2018

Looking forward to Theresa coming on the march tomorrow.

sorry for lolling @ ‘trump lets rip’

it feels like that orange twat's helicopters have been circling tottenham for hours

maybe he's looking for the pengest munch.

Trump versus Scottish insults is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen today. pic.twitter.com/60wUjTXz1w

— Pádraig Belton (@PadraigBelton) July 12, 2018

obligatory Trump content ... ning ning ning ... I don't even see him!

Loool

White House just issued this. pic.twitter.com/sXNLLMpR58

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) July 13, 2018

but her email

Not quite sure what the Sun thinks its doing with that front page - even putting all other concerns aside I can't help but get the feeling that explicitly linking hard Brexit with Trump is likely to be seriously counterproductive for Leave.

Andrew Neil & Guido Fawkes both claiming that the lines Trump is spouting came from Farage, the Sun is denying this.

Speaking to their core constituency I guess. I think they probably realise they don't have much political influence outside of the meathead right nowadays so why not keep spinning the narrative? Trump definitely has his fanbase over here, same as in the US.

Choppers (I saw three) seem to be just rushing backwards and forwards over Seven Sisters now - I'm not sure why they'd be here for Trump?

charles striking

Great to see Steve Bannon being fawned over by Piers Morgan on morning tv.

Searching for Corbz, he must be eliminated. (xxp)

'I was fine with separating children from parents, I was fine with banning muslims from entering the US, I was fine with kicking transgender people out of the armed forces, but in attacking the WTO, Trump has gone too far'
Cleggmania at its besthttps://t.co/95RHNHveob

— Toby Moses (@tobymoses) July 12, 2018

Presented with the choice of continuing to trade with our most important partner or angling for a deal with an actual monster who wants to privatise the NHS and sell us chlorinated chicken, you'd hope that a fair proportion of leave voters would lean towards the former. The important thing is killing the fiction that you can have both - which Trump has effectively done.

Are you sure about that? His actions are meat and drink to the kind of people who’ll love the Muslim mayor and the female PM being put in their place.

Presented with the choice of continuing to trade with our most important partner or angling for a deal with an actual monster who wants to privatise the NHS and sell us chlorinated chicken, you'd hope that a fair proportion of leave voters would lean towards the former.

hope died somewhere between June 24 and November 8 2016, maaaan.

Are you sure about that? His actions are meat and drink to the kind of people who’ll love the Muslim mayor and the female PM being put in their place.

But that's a sub-set of a sub-set of a sub-set. A fair proportion of leave voters don't lean right / Tory in the first place, add softer capital-C Conservative voters and the harder-right elderly who are going to be repelled by Trump's vulgarity, if nothing else, and idk if the Transatlanic alliance is going to look that attractive to many people beyond UKIP and the Raab/Johnson-style accelerationists. They aren't the majority of the Tory party in parliament and i'm not sure they're the majority of the grass roots either.

Yeah but that’s not how it’s panning out is it? It’s the subset that’s driving the whole hard Brexit approach - a position that has no majority in Parliament or among the general public. Why is it even being discussed as a real option? Because this subset is being pandered to, as though they could possibly be appeased.

from the grauniad's liveblog

When the American president travels, a pool reporter from the White House press corps is always with him, filing a pool report for the press generally. These describe what he is doing in minute-by-minute detail. Some of the information is quite mundane, but in the light of the huge interest in Trump, I will be quoting them today. Here is the one about Trump leaving the US embassy.

POTUS. is accompanied by aides including John Kelly, John Bolton and Stephen Miller for at least this portion of the trip. The aides boarded another chopper as Woody Johnson, US ambassador to Britain, lifted off with POTUS in in Marine One at 9:01 am.

Before boarding, POTUS paused before your pool, pointed to the pool, fiddled with his suit jacket, and did a fist pump or two.

jesus christ

C'mon, one, or two. Decide.

FAKE NEWS

I totally believe those lines came from Farage fwiw. I doubt Trump has many reasons to care about the specific flavour of Brexit, or Brexit at all really.

Why is it even being discussed as a real option? Because this subset is being pandered to, as though they could possibly be appeased.

A lot will depend on whether or not May is able to ride this out, she's clearly banking on the fact that the headbangers don't exist in sufficient numbers to prevent the Chequers deal, and that there is very limited appetite among Tory MPs for suddenly seizing control of the wheel - and that calculation seems to be holding for now. Most Tory MPs probably know that jumping on this particular bandwagon is a recipe for career oblivion, which is why Gove, Fox etc are still in their positions. Clearly Murdoch has decided May needs to go, but his influence isn't what it

The fact that Gove is still there is significant, for sure.

Yep, when it looks like Trump's backing probably backfired on Marine le Pen, Gove would be bonkers to throw his lot in with him.

They also know that the public is highly unlikely to thank them for suddenly plunging the country into further uncertainty with the cliff edge approaching, especially as there's no majority for what they want in the first place - either within Parliament or the country. A putative Boris Johnson-led government wouldn't be able to get its Brexit legislation through Parliament and they know it.

The government only got above 40% last year with most UKIP votes breaking in their favour. The fairly persistent painting of labour as too interested in foreigners/minorities/hostile to women is done with a point - none of these people have the slightest interest in taking any responsibility for their actions if they can shift the blame to ready scapegoats.

Like I know where you’re coming from but when Steve Bannon is being soft-pedalled on breakfast tv to millions of people, and when you look at some of the ties between all these groups, they’re not going to care about the normal standards of doing things.

Lest we forget May, who is now being bashed as a traitor/appeaser/too soft appeared on tv just over a year ago promising to rip up human rights law to get at terrorists.

There is still no version of Brexit that includes a solution for Ireland, is there?

Not without burning the confidence and supply agreement.

just caught some hilarious BBC spin on the wireless:"..the atmosphere at Blenheim Palace was very cordial and the discussion was a very productive one.."

Also, British attitudes to migration have actually been improving since the referendum. The proportion of people who see migration as being positive for the UK - both economically and culturally - has been going up over the last few years. Then again, this is how backlashes work isn't it?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhvF0BDXkAEJonH.jpg