Brexit.

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Wales may do the same if it means their restored Assembly can apply for EU status. This will happen relatively quickly as well if at all. The long term damage will take a few years to play out.

I really doubt it, because the majority of the constitutioncies in Wales voted for leave in 2016. So while they maybe warming up a little for the idea of remaining, I don't really feel there so much sympathy for leaving the kingdom.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

If Brexit, deal or hard, Scotland will quickly vote independence and their Parliament will reclaim authority currently reserved in Westminster. It’ll be a smooth transition because the Commons will be a shambles and happy to hand off any responsibility possible. Scotland will then apply for EU membership.

Wales may do the same if it means their restored Assembly can apply for EU status. This will happen relatively quickly as well if at all. The long term damage will take a few years to play out.

A hard border will eventually be established in Ireland and NI will become a war zone. I don’t say this lightly. It’s a terrifying prospect. Loyalist will find their cause ultimately abandoned because England will have become destitute and powerless. The island may eventually unify but it’ll be at a great and terrible cost.

IANHS

I may have misunderstood something here, but you seem to envisage a set of circumstances in which there's a hard border between the RoI and Northern Ireland and, nevertheless, both Scotland and Wales both want to join the EU as independent nations despite the fact that this, too, will presumably necessitate hard borders between them and England, too.

 

[Khamon]

I really doubt it, because the majority of the constitutioncies in Wales voted for leave in 2016. So while they maybe warming up a little for the idea of remaining, I don't really feel there so much sympathy for leaving the kingdom.

I agree that it’s highly unlikely Wales will pull the trigger.

I may have misunderstood something here, but you seem to envisage a set of circumstances in which there's a hard border between the RoI and Northern Ireland and, nevertheless, both Scotland and Wales both want to join the EU as independent nations despite the fact that this, too, will presumably necessitate hard borders between them and England, too.

The events are separated by a notable period of time. And these are the simplistic predictions of an American armchair historian. I am not Hari Seldon.

My impression is that Scotland will accept a hard border to rejoin the EU sans England. They may not be but the recent push for independence causes me to think they may be. And I see that happening within a very few years.

The hard border in Ireland will be avoided as long as possible, several years, maybe a decade. But it’s inevitable and it will be catasrophic to the people there. My personal hope is a second referendum that results in remain for the sake of Irish friends and British artist friends who work regularly throughout the EU.

 

[detrius]

Honestly, I think if Scotland becomes independent, everything becomes possible, including the complete dissolution of the UK.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Excellent article by Matthew Parris in Friday's Times (Evernote link because £wall): MPs must be brave and tell us we were wrong

Let them try this simple thought experiment. The UK does not have to hold a referendum before entering or dissolving a major international treaty. So imagine our government had been minded to leave the EU with no referendum. Having negotiated draft terms, they now present parliament with essentially Mrs May’s proposals. These are (remind yourself) that unless or until we can work out something better, we remain an economic satellite of the EU, unable to strike our own trade deals, but losing our place on European decision-making councils, our membership of its trans-national projects and institutions. “Here’s my plan,” says the PM to parliament. “Shall we proceed?”

Do you imagine a single MP in any party would vote for it? Would a single newspaper, a single media commentator, a single think tank or research body, recommend acceptance? Of course not. All sides would throw up their hands in horror of such a mad idea.

So it’s all about the 2016 referendum, isn’t it? MPs are being asked to approve a huge change for our country in 2019 that they would never have dreamed of touching, were it not for a referendum in 2016. Fair enough, but be honest about it: we’re doing it because the voters asked us to. We do not, however, believe the voters reached the right decision.

Why does this era have such difficulty in saying that last sentence? Surely the whole idea of representative rather than “direct” democracy is to provide counterbalance against a sometimes faulty popular judgment.

Everybody knows that the people can sometimes reach the wrong conclusion because we know that we ourselves sometimes do so. Who doubts that popular opinion in the 1930s was wrong to favour appeasing Germany? Who doubts that in the 1950s the public were wrong to cheer on politicians towards the Suez debacle? The public, for a while, have been wrong about many great issues: slavery, hanging, flogging, the imprisonment of homosexuals. So if you believe in democracy you should believe in so much that must come with it: persuasion; a little foot-dragging; re-thinking; give and take on both sides. Politics negotiates with popular opinion: it doesn’t just take dictation.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

So, Trump will be moving to the UK?

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

So, Trump will be moving to the UK?

He already owns there two golf courses, in Turnberry and Aberdeen. At least his neighbours in Aberdeen dislike him.

 

[Lucifer]

He already owns there two golf courses, in Turnberry and Aberdeen. At least his neighbours in Aberdeen dislike him.

Nae cunt in Scotland likes Trump. except for that prick Count Dankula.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

It's possible for there to be more than one dumpster on fire.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

 

[Veritable Quandry]

It's possible for there to be more than one dumpster on fire.

But we have THE BEST dumpster fire!

 

[Kara Spengler]

But we have THE BEST dumpster fire!

Well, I would be willing to give them donnie for their ability to say they had the most FUed place on earth.

 

[detrius]

 

[Tigger]

I'd just come here to post a link to a guardian story about Seaborne Freight.

So...2 year old company with no trading history, no staff, no ships, operating out of a port that's been mothballed, a company with £66 of capital that only exists on paper but will get to keep some of the £14,000,000 it's been paid even if everything fails. I wonder which MP is friends with the company director? Or did they choose this company just so they could say they weren't only using European firms?

No-deal Brexit ferry company owns no ships and has never run Channel service

Seaborne was established two years ago and has been in negotiations about running freight ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend, but no services are currently running. Narrow berths in the port mean there are few suitable commercial vessels available.

Would anyone care to accept a wager that says Seaborne Freight will never have any ships running any services?

 

[Tigger]

Being curious I just went and looked at their records in companies house. The company address for Seaborne Freight - 59 Mansell Street, London, England, E1 8AN, is shared with a number of other organisations, a couple of public health related organisations and something called Campbell Johnson Clarke Law, a law form specialising in shipping. 7 of the listed officers give that address as their correspondence address and one gives theirs as Curtis House, 34 Third Avenue, Hove, England, BN3 2PD, which appears to be a set of rentable serviced offices.

They have literally no business, but claim £35,000 of assets and over £400,000 of debts falling due this year

This feels about as solid and dependable as an Aaron Banks company that gives out millions of pounds of political donations.

Listed officers of the company

Their last set of accounts

 

[Kara Spengler]

Grr to youtube. I watch their vids all the time and thought they just had stopped uploading over the holidays.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

That reminds me so much of the Trump administration giving a contract for repairing the Puerto Rico electrical grid to a two year old company with only two employees.

Why did Puerto Rico award a $300 million contract to a tiny Montana company?

As The Washington Post reported on Monday, the largest government contract awarded so far in the relief effort has gone to Whitefish Energy, a two-year-old company based in Montana. Whitefish had only two full-time employees when Maria struck a month ago, but now has been entrusted with a $300 million contract to “repair and reconstruct large portions of the island’s electrical infrastructure.”

It's the SAME dumpster fire.

 

[Tigger]

Oh hey, turns out that one of the officers of the company (Lord Ralph Lucas) is a back bench Tory peer. Also note that normal government procurement procedures have not been followed for these contracts due to the short time frame.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Kara Spengler]

Can we start a gofundme for James Vietch to reply?