THEY OBVIOUSLY DON’T KEEP HIM INFORMED OF THEIR DECISIONS
OH DEAR, HAVE THEY FORGOTTEN THAT UNION JACKET IS VAGUELY ASSOCIATED WITH SCOTTISH LABOUR?
THEY OBVIOUSLY DON’T KEEP HIM INFORMED OF THEIR DECISIONS
I cost nothing to run so donate to https://www.broadcastingscotland.scot/donate/
The bilingual blog about all things British
Love, theatre and ideas
British Wildlife & Photography
Why Scotland should be an independent country
Thoughts about Scotland & the world, from a new Scot
Bipartisan dialogue for the politically engaged
Impartial Everytime Always
Exploring Rhymes, Reasons, and Nuances of Our World
Mark Doran's Music Blog
Songwriter / Guitarist
This site supports Scottish Independence
A comic about history and stuff by FT
The embittered mumblings of a serial malcontent.
an irreverent look at UK politics
Exploring the Depths of Curiosity
Nature + Health
http://netbij.com
Movies, politics, comedy and more...
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
What is that nonsense about the SNP forcing GE2019? Is this a retread of the “SNP caused the election of Margaret Thatcher” bit of blame-deflection?
It’s not the first time today that I’ve come across that, and I still have no idea what they’re talking about.
LikeLiked by 2 people
No, idea. 2019 election was Johnson wanting a bigger majority than he had and wanting to ditch the DUP so they could get their deal without Northern Ireland and the GFA getting in the way.
LikeLike
That’s what I thought. It would be bad enough if the Tories had a monopoly on flat-out lies, but Labour and the LibDems are in the same bed with them.
Pass the brain bleach.
LikeLiked by 1 person
According to the breakfast news on ITV, Scottish section, only the SNP and Greens are voting against it.
We can’t have folk thinking everyone is voting against apart from the Toerags, can we?
LikeLiked by 1 person
ITV News (!?) must have forgotten that in addition to SNP and Greens, Plaid Cymru, Liberals, SDLP, Alliance and DUP are voting against the deal. Brexit seems to be solely a project belonging to the Conservative Labour Party.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it suits them to paint it as another SNP BAAAAD.
LikeLike
Yeah, Tris, that’ll be the SNP who SINGLE-HANDEDLY forced the 2019 General Election and who ALONE with those insignificant Greens VOTED FOR A NO-DEAL BREXIT.
The rotters!
LikeLiked by 1 person
As I understand it, the Liberal Democrats are also on the against side.
In fact the Noble Baroness Party are the only ones in Scotland that will vote for it. I don’t know about the Michelle Ballantyne Party, though.
LikeLike
Isn’t La Ballantyne a party of one?
Best kept that way, in my opinion.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Indeed she is.
Not quite sure what you can say about her, except URGH!
LikeLike
Murray knows that one of the main reasons his constituemts voted for him was remaining in the EU.
His problem is that his party is having to appear neutral on EU membership (abstain) because of the revolting workers in England who voted Tory in the last Westminster election and for Brexit.
He must be hoping that the Tories put off an election for a very long time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I wonder if he’s hoping to join the colonel on the red benches.
LikeLike
Ha,ha.. Freudian slip? Just heard L.B.J saying that the Brexit deal is a great deal for the ” Conservatives “. I’ll bet it is.
LikeLiked by 2 people
LOL.
I wish I know how it was going to be a great deal for them!!!
So far, I’ve not heard of anyone who is happy with it.
LikeLike
The party that helped rush through Article 50 before anybody had a clue what Brexit they wanted. The party that has failed to take any stance to protect the people against this complete clusterfeck has the cheek to complain about a party that has taken a principled stance against it the whole way through. Amazing they can abstain on the vote on welfare cuts but can’t bring themselves to do the same in Westminster about this shabby deal that benefits no one other than the disaster capitalists. I am so tired of the “Labour” party and its pathetic attempts at politics.
LikeLiked by 4 people
It’s sad, isn’t it?
Amazing that they signed that A50, set the clock ticking, and yet had no idea what they were trying to achieve.
According to the man who drew up the A50 procedures (an English Lord), it would supposed to be signed after things were settles in the UK. They should have known what they wanted, laid it all all, and had negotiation teams ready to start with the EU.
They might have held a few of the cards had that been the case.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some Munguinites may recall me saying that I had it from an Inside Source that the UK side behaved in exactly the same way over the Good Friday Agreement: they would come in with some new crackpot idea every week or so, and the Irish at first thought that this was some Machiavellian and devious plot to somehow screw them over, but they soon realized it was simply that the UK side simply had no idea what they wanted, what they were doing, and didn’t care very much about the legal aspects of it all.
It must be painful for smart civil servants to have to do what they’re told to by the buffoons and charlatans holding elected office, even when they’re not somehow on the take as well and defrauding the public purse with their cronyism and nepotism. I seem to recall that a few of them resigned at various points over the Brexit negotiations, and I don’t recall anyone doing that over the Good Friday Agreement. I see that as a sign that things are even worse with the Brexit negotiations than they were with the GFA: the Westminster regime is suffering from all gangrene in all its limbs caused by raging infections of incompetence, bad faith, greed, self-interest, self-dealing, self-entitlement, lack of humanity … served with lashings of sheer stupidity.
When it comes time for those charged with negotiating our independence to sit down with their Westminster counterparts, I am sure they will find out very soon just what dealing with those people entails. Well, I’m pretty sure they know already: the Scottish Government trying to negotiate with its Westminster counterparts immediately brings to mend the old saying about bashing one’s head against a brick wall – if the brick wall deigns to turn up at all.
“Thick as a brick” often comes to mind too. No idea why.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Garret Fitzgerald was very funny in his Reflections on the Irish State that, rather than being Machiavellian through years of imperial experience, the British were clueless headless chickens with no strategy in sight. They replied on former colonial subjects crediting them with far more gumption than they had.
LikeLiked by 2 people
They were certainly good a bluster and bluff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just saw a tweet from Andrew Adonis, asking if anyone thought that Mr Johnson has actually read the agreement.
I find it hard to believe that he’d get past half way down Page 1 of a document that size, and by the time he got to the bottom of that page all the words would be blurring into a squiggly mess.
He’s lied about everything, and as Jake’s article points out, taken control away from MPs and given in to the likes of Patel, Gove and Handcock.
Get me out of here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My view is that the SNP should be pushing voting for the BEST deal, the one that used to exist.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well, I reckon they are, Dave.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jason Hunter pointing out on Twitter that Theresa May says that this deal covers trade in goods which is good for the EU but doesn’t include trade in services which is bad for the UK.
Sounds like a win-win for the EU.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think that’s pretty much what Johnnie Foreigner thinks too:
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/eu-affairs/147594/post-brexit-trade-agreement-with-huge-hole
LikeLike
“The outcome of this trade negotiation is what happens with most trade deals: The larger party gets what it wants and the smaller party rolls over.” A high price for the UK and its citizens to pay for exiting the EU and regaining its sovereignty.
M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times
Maybe if some of his loyal band of lordship hopefuls had read that first they wouldn’t have voted for it.
Idiots.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Richard Murphy’s post today,
It is with regret that Parliament will pass law today having no idea what it is, what it might do, and who is accountable for what.
I’m seeing that BA are selling off hardly used Boeing 747 aircraft very cheap.
Thinking it’s such a great bargain I’ll buy a couple.
Oh Hell, have you seen the parking charges.
Sounds like a rushed decision that will be regretted by the 3 nations, Northern Ireland gets the cake and eating it deal.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ahhh… THAT’s who got that deal!
I expect that they held all the cards…
LikeLike
I hear that Alister Jack is calling Scottish fishermen liars on STV news.
I knew he was stupid, but for heaven’s sake…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fishermen, how many sold off their share of the catch to another EU counties fishermen to make a quick buck.
LikeLike
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52420116
Here’s you answer.
Not many in Scotland to be fair. But more than 50% of England and Welsh fishing is owned by other countries.
Iceland, Netherlands and Spain, mainly.
LikeLike
What seems to be upsetting a lot of people is not so much the “deal” such as it is, but the small print of the legislation.
“The Bill implementing the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is an exercise in the Government taking power from Parliament”
“Ministers have indeed “taken back control” – not from “Europe”, but from Parliament. Britain’s parliamentary democracy emerged out of a 300-year struggle between Parliament and the Executive. It is the cavaliers, not the parliamentarians, who will be laughing tonight.”
https://westcountrybylines.co.uk/todays-travesty-of-democracy-when-parliament-is-robbed-of-control-so-are-we
Some of us in Scotland have been warning about this for some time.
We know that to preserve their precious Union they are going to restrict the powers of the Scottish Parliament.
Those who value a parliamentary democracy in England are now waking up to the fact that its happening to them too.
We need out. We need out NOW and FAST.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Excellent piece, Jake. Quite scary to see what little democracy we had disappear.
As ever I really liked Femi’s piece.
LikeLike
Cassandra agrees with you, Jake, and needless to say, so do I.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Scottish Tories remind me increasingly of the Western European Communist parties of the 50’s to 70’, able to do policy U turns every time the wind changed in Moscow.
The Baroness and Mundell claimed before the EU Referendum that a Leave win would be a disaster for Scotland but then it became a great opportunity a day or two after the result. At least Maurice Thorez’s lot had the nous to raid libraries and cut out embarrassing material from papers and periodicals.
Will they convince farmers and fishermen that their misfortunes are the responsibility of the the SNP not voting for this rotten deal?Don’t think so, somehow.
LikeLiked by 1 person
PS I predict that Bojo and co will renege on this deal as soon as they can get into negotiations with Biden’s people. And I also believe that the EU suspect this as well, hence the elaborate structure of committees and the range of potential sanctions embodied in the deal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope Biden tells him to p*** off.
LikeLike
I’m sure that Biden would recognize the Tongue-tied Tousled Toff’s threats to deliberately and simultaneously blow up international law and the Good Friday Agreement as a truly Trumpian piece of dangerously inept and ineptly dangerous brinkmanship even if Biden himself weren’t of Irish extraction.
“You don’t have to be an all-seeing prophet to know that the Westminster regime can’t be trusted nearly as far as anyone can throw a bargepole with a long spoon”, says Cassandra. And, “It’s just as well that no one sane has ever invited any of them to organize a symposium in a winery”.
Her English goes a bit peculiar and takes on a slight Ancient Greek flavour at times when she’s been been at the Kalamata olives agai… what? Well, that’s what is says on the amphora, anyway.
LikeLike
Maybe you should get her to have a word with Mr Boris de Pfeffel ?
LikeLike
Cassandra says the idea of her having a word with the LBJ is a “non-starter” – if she had her way, she’d spend all our substance on the gee-gees – talk about addictive personality – because it’s not a racing certainty but a dead cert that de Pfeffel simply wouldn’t listen, and that he wouldn’t listen, straight out of the gate, because not only is Cassandra dead, Greek and Fated not to be believed, she’s also a woman and gay. It would be impossibly hard going because not only is Cassandra the opposite of rich and the opposite of a donor to the Tory Party, she declares that the only worthwhile thing the Tories have done in the past six decades was Operation Arse, which proves that nowadays they couldn’t organize a symposium in a winery.
The exception being that they did take the UK into the then Common Market back in 1973 – sans referendum as Cassandra is quick to point out – though if they’d taken her advice they would have done so a couple of decades earlier and been founder members of that as well as founder members of the United Nations, because it was a Good Thing, even if Cassandra herself operates by metempsychosis rather than Freedom of Movement.
She doesn’t blame the Tories for loon pants, or the mullet, which Cassandra calls the “Hunnic look”, as those were just the gods’ little joke on humankind, which is notoriously credulous, lacking in taste, susceptible to peer pressure, prone to bad hairstyles, and easily led. As proven conclusively by the sorry sagas of Donald John Trump and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, whose lust for power and hubris are overweening; their ability to wield it properly, nugatory; and their coiffures, implausible.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe the first thing that leaders should do is learn how to use a comb?
But at least you made me laugh, Ed. Don’t feel a lot like it today!
LikeLike
They’ll have a bloody good try though, won’t they?
LikeLiked by 1 person