Meanwhile in England

More ministers have resigned today from government than have ever done before in a single day, higher than the previous record of 11 ministers quitting in September 1932.

Fourteen have left Boris Johnson's government today, and since 6pm yesterday evening when then Chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid resigned, seventeen ministers have left in total.

More junior, non-ministerial Conservative MPs have also quit, meaning several dozen members of the government have now gone.

[...]

As well as the resignations from within Mr Johnson's cabinet, several international trade envoys and parliamentary private secretaries have left their posts, while other backbench Conservative colleagues have publicly stated their lack of confidence in the prime minister.

[...]

Only Theresa May's time in charge of a Brexit-split Conservative Party saw more ministers quitting in shorter time over the first three years of governing.

[...]

Mr Johnson won a vote of no confidence from his parliamentary party in early June, but it resulted in 41.2% of his Conservative MPs voting against him. A number of MPs who said they voted for the PM at the time have since announced they would vote differently if the ballot were held again.

  Sky News

Really? A month made a change?

At Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon Boris Johnson vowed to "keep going", despite the growing calls from his colleagues for him to step down.

Definitely Britain's Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Brexit and Covid bring echoes of "The Troubles" (in reverse) to Northern Ireland

[APRIL 10] For over a week, riots have marred the streets across five cities and towns in Northern Ireland. Cars and a bus have been hijacked and burned, young people have thrown petrol bombs at police, and at least 74 officers have been injured.

The escalating unrest threatens to undermine the region's fragile peace between pro-British loyalists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom, and pro-Irish nationalists who would like Northern Ireland to be part of the Republic of Ireland.

On March 29, police officers were targeted in a petrol bomb attack in a predominately unionist area of Tullymore, in Derry/Londonderry, after an attempt to break up a crowd of approximately 40 people. For five nights, similar scenes unfolded in the city.

By Friday, April 2, the disorder spread to south Belfast, [where rioters from loyalist and nationalist communities clashed along the so-called peace line -- a gated wall separating predominately unionist and nationalist neighborhoods from one another and] where a small protest descended into an attack on police in a loyalist pocket of the Sandy Row area, where 15 police officers were left with burns, head and leg injuries.

[...]

The initial days of disorder came in the same week as authorities said they would not prosecute the leaders of nationalist party Sinn Fein for allegedly breaking coronavirus restrictions last summer when they attended a funeral for Bobby Storey, a former senior figure in the IRA, a paramilitary group who led a decadeslong campaign for an independent and reunified Ireland.Loyalist communities have accused authorities of partisan hypocrisy around that decision, saying that they had taken the decision to cancel their traditional Twelfth of July parades last summer due to Covid-19 and had missed out on events and attending funerals of loved ones because they had adhered to those restrictions.

But many analysts also point to the recent and successful police crackdown on drug gangs and criminal activity supported and run by loyalist paramilitary forces.

[...]

On Thursday evening, clashes continued on Springfield Road in Belfast, with protesters throwing stones at police vehicles on the nationalist side of the peace line.

  CNN

So, it's jealous loyalists who started rioting? Christ. The Brits have sown misery all over the planet, haven't they?

The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC), a group that includes representatives of unionist paramilitaries and which is also associated with the UPRG, said in a Friday statement that "none of their associated groups have been involved either directly or indirectly in the violence witnessed in recent days." It added that "the right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right" but that all actions taken by members of the loyalist community "should be entirely peaceful."

Like Trump (without any emphasis or sincerity) telling the insurrections to go home in peace.

The riots are unfolding amid rising anger over a specific part of the Brexit agreement. Tensions have been heightened in Northern Ireland ever since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in 2016. But there is rising anger over a specific part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement called the Northern Ireland Protocol, which has been a key point of contention.

Throughout the Brexit negotiations, all parties widely agreed that any agreement would honor the Northern Ireland peace deal, known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying in 2019 that "we will under no circumstances have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland. We will respect the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement."

The GFA marked an end to the Troubles -- a term used to describe the period of violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960s until its signing in 1998.

The peace accord also began the process of dismantling border controls between the North and the Republic of Ireland, and in 2006, the last watchtower was taken down.

But after the UK left the EU (and its single market), a new plan -- the Northern Ireland (NI) Protocol -- was implemented.

The NI Protocol aims to eliminate the need for border controls between Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the Republic of Ireland (an EU member).

[...]

Northern Ireland Justice minister Naomi Long said on Wednesday that the UK government's "dishonesty and the lack of clarity around these issues has contributed to a sense of anger in parts of our community," saying that the government downplayed the impact that Brexit would have on Northern Ireland.

[...]

Last month, the Loyalist Communities Council said it was withdrawing its support for the GFA, also known as the Belfast Agreement.

[...]

"We should all know well that when politics fail or are perceived to be failing in Northern Ireland, then those who fill the vacuum offer destruction and despair. We cannot allow a new generation of our young people to fall victim to that path or be preyed upon by someone who prefers the shadows, to the light," [First Minister Arlene] Foster told the Northern Irish Assembly.

Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland deny they have been behind an eruption of street violence in the British-ruled province, but they have warned that politicians in London, Dublin and Brussels are playing with fire, saying they underestimate the impact Brexit is having on the sectarian balance.

The sustained nature of rioting in largely Protestant neighborhoods of Belfast and Londonderry is prompting rising alarm in government circles in Dublin and London, with fears mounting the province risks being dragged back into its dark past of sectarian violence between pro-British, mainly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Irish nationalists. Loyalists are seen as Unionist paramilitaries.

[...]

The imposition of a sea border meant a land border between the two halves of Ireland could be avoided, which would have risked sparking a violent reaction from nationalists and the paramilitary Provisional IRA. The reverse has happened — an outcome that some Unionists warned was likely.

[...]

Northern Ireland's Unionists worry the Brexit deal [Boris] Johnson struck with Brussels will in effect start peeling the province away from the U.K., and they say it affects their cultural identity.

[...]

"More than 600,000 young people have been born in Northern Ireland since the Belfast Agreement was signed," lamented Abby Wallace this week in the Irish Times, using another term for the Good Friday Agreement. "But under the broad umbrella of the 'peace generation,' not all young people have felt this peace in the same way. This is because our leaders have failed to build on the Belfast Agreement in a way which would allow all of Northern Ireland's youth to feel that we are no longer living in the past.

"More than 90 percent of Northern Ireland's young people are still educated in segregated schools," noted Wallace, a radio journalist and postgraduate politics student at Belfast's Queen's University.

  VOA News

Segregation has never worked out well. Anywhere.

"To date there has been a spectacular collective failure to understand properly the scale and nature of unionist and loyalist anger," Loyalist paramilitaries said in a joint statement last week. "Indeed, there is a complete failure to understand loyalists as people and equal citizens."

Sounds like MAGA (white nationalist) grievance.

Sinn Fein, which always saw the Good Friday Agreement as a steppingstone to eventual Irish reunification, is pushing for a so-called border poll on the future of the British-ruled province, to the increasing frustration of Northern Ireland's Unionists.

[...]

British and EU officials are now scrambling to see if they can tweak the trading arrangements to make them less intrusive, and they say they are making progress. But it remains unclear whether that will be a long-term cure.

[U]nderneath all of this is the growing fear among loyalists that Brexit will increase the likelihood of Northern Ireland’s leaving the U.K. to reunify with the Irish Republic, a member of the E.U. The controversy of the moment centers on the question of borders. As part of Brexit negotiations with the E.U., U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to avoid reimposition of the land border that separates Ireland from Northern Ireland–and, therefore, the E.U. from Britain. Instead, the two sides agreed on the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, which establishes a trade boundary in the Irish Sea.

  MSN

Unification is a terrible thing, is it not?

There is still haggling to be done over the movement of food, animals and plants across that boundary to ensure that products leaving the U.K. meet E.U. legal, regulatory and health standards. There are also outstanding questions ranging from the future of steel and aluminum tariffs to the movement of pets across the border. The E.U. had argued that an alignment of standards on the manufacture of many products would mean fewer and faster border checks, but Johnson’s government is reluctant to make commitments that make it harder for the U.K. to sign future trade deals with other countries.

All of this leaves loyalists in Northern Ireland feeling pushed to the European side and fearful of a unified Ireland, while facing product shortages as new customs processes slow the movement of goods. This surge of anger comes as the governing and staunchly loyalist Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) preps for a serious electoral challenge next year. To fend off criticism that the DUP, supporters of Brexit, is responsible for Northern Ireland’s current predicament, its leaders have demanded that the protocol be scrapped entirely. If that’s not enough to blunt criticism of the party, a fragmentation of its voting bloc could leave the Northern Ireland Assembly in the hands of nationalists led by a Sinn Fein First Minister. That’s a nightmare scenario for loyalists and a serious challenge to the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace 23 years ago.

Britain has agreed with the European Union that it will respond to the bloc's legal action over how it has introduced new trading rules for Northern Ireland by mid-May, a spokeswoman for the government said on Wednesday.

[...]

The EU launched legal action against Britain in March for unilaterally changing trading arrangements for Northern Ireland that Brussels says are in breach of the Brexit divorce deal agreed with London last year.

Britain has denied that the move undermines the part of the Brexit deal that governs trade to the British province, saying it extended the grace period for checks on goods moving to Northern Ireland to ease their passage.

[...]

Since leaving the EU's single market at the end of last year, supermarkets in Northern Ireland have seen some shortages of food, and the British government has also delayed introducing checks on parcels and pets.

The difficulties stem from the terms of Britain's withdrawal agreement, which leaves Northern Ireland in the EU single market for goods and so requires checks on goods arriving there from other parts of the United Kingdom.

  MSN

The European Parliament’s ratification of the EU’s trade deal with the UK is set to move a step closer on Thursday with lawmakers poised to endorse the agreement, despite tensions over new trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.

[...]

MEPs put the ratification process on ice earlier this year in protest at unilateral British moves that the EU said violated the two sides’ Northern Ireland protocol.

[...]

Brussels and London have both emphasised the need to apply the protocol, part of the UK’s 2019 Brexit treaty, in a way that minimises the risk of further stoking sectarian tensions that boiled over into eight consecutive nights of rioting in Belfast this month.

[...]

It is widely expected that the final vote will take place this month, as the assembly has now completed detailed scrutiny of the 1,246 page text, and failure to vote it through would force the EU to ask the UK for a further extension of provisional application of the deal, which provides for tariff-free, quota-free trade on most goods.

[...]

Brussels still has legal action under way against the UK for its decision earlier this year to unilaterally extend grace periods for some of the protocols’ requirements for ensuring food safety. Britain and the EU agreed this week that London would have until mid-May to respond to the EU’s objections.

  Financial Times

Good luck to all you Irish. I have a feeling Boris Johnson (and all of England, to be honest) doesn't care for the Irish loyalists any more than Trump cares for his base.

Remember Brexit?

Maybe they finally have their deal.

The fast-track ratification of the post-Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the European Union got underway on Christmas Day as ambassadors from the bloc’s 27 nations started assessing the accord that takes effect in a week.

[...]

They are set to reconvene again on Monday and have informed lawmakers at the European Parliament that they intend to take a decision on the preliminary application of the deal within days.

  AP

Fare thee well

Respected again

The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei will build part of the country's next generation 5G mobile networks.

Why it matters: The United States along with numerous Conservative MPs have repeatedly warned the U.K. that Huawei is a national security risk, claiming that China could use its equipment for espionage. It's a sign the U.S. campaign against Huawei is faltering as allies open their markets.

[...]

A senior Trump administration official told Axios' Jonathan Swan, "The United States is disappointed by the U.K.'s decision. There is no safe option for untrusted vendors to control any part of a 5G network."

  Axios

Also, trade deals are easy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday in London that he was optimistic that a bilateral deal with Britain could be reached as soon as this year.

But Mnuchin gave up no ground after a second meeting with his UK counterpart, Sajid Javid. Javid has insisted that Britain will proceed with a unilateral digital services tax, despite a U.S. threat to levy retaliatory tariffs on British-made autos.

[...]

Mnuchin raised the threat of car tariffs after Javid’s pledge to proceed with the digital services tax. If officials “just arbitrarily put taxes on our digital companies, we’ll consider arbitrarily putting taxes on car companies,” Mnuchin said.

British officials struck back.

“Let me be absolutely clear, UK tax policy is a matter for the UK chancellor, it’s not a matter for the U.S., it’s not a matter for the EU, it’s not a matter for anybody else,” Trade Minister Liz Truss said.

[...]

The divide highlights the challenges ahead as the Trump administration seeks a new bilateral agreement with Britain, part of a broader push to rebalance relations with nearly all its major trading partners.

[...]

The goodwill and special relationship the two countries have enjoyed for decades may not count for much, experts say.

“Trump is not going to be doing Johnson any favors,” said Amanda Sloat, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington. “He’s not going to give him a trade deal without major concessions.”

Even before the digital tax issue arose, the Trump administration threatened to tax foreign car imports.

[...]

Stiff U.S. trade demands include increased access for U.S. farm goods, concessions that will be difficult for Britain’s entrenched natural food culture to swallow.

The United States also wants Britain to change the way its National Health Service prices drugs and allow in more U.S. pharmaceuticals, which could prove politically unpopular for Johnson’s government.

[...]

Reaching a meaningful deal will be “exceedingly difficult,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “There are very deep-rooted issues on which the United States and the UK are diametrically opposed.”

  Reuters

How long will Johnson last if he gives in to Trump's demands?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More about Brexit

From an Intercept email:

On Thursday, Britain elected the most right-wing government in decades. The Conservative Party won 365 out of 650 seats, giving Boris Johnson the strongest Tory majority since 1987 and, in his words, “a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done.” While the American public digests what to make of the Labour Party’s crushing loss (what might it mean for 2020), U.S. business interests are surely celebrating. Johnson has promised a withdrawal by January 31, 2020 — and U.S. industry groups, from pork to pharma, are eyeing the negotiations as a Trojan horse for corporations to seize more power and gut consumer protections.

British voters think Brexit will simply restore national sovereignty, limit migration, and restore local control, writes Lee Fang. In fact, corporate lobbyists now see a “historic opportunity” to use Johnson’s proposed swift exit from the European Union to forge bilateral trade deals. One of the greatest risks of Tory leadership is to the U.K.’s National Health Service. The NHS is already outsourcing an unprecedented level of patient care to private health care firms, many of which are owned by U.S. corporations. As Brexit moves forward, health care executives hope to “capture” more and more of the British market.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Changing Ireland, Scotland and Brexit's effect on them

The problem of a split Ireland with the southern republic staying in the EU and the UK northern Ireland leaving with Brexit, thereby creating an effective trade border between the two, may not be a problem at all in the very near future.

For the first time in its history, Northern Ireland has elected more Irish-identifying nationalists than pro-British unionists. Across the water, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has demanded an independence referendum after winning a nationalist landslide.

[...]

In a repeat of the Brexit referendum, the results in England and Wales diverge strongly from Remain-voting Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Brexit heartlands have delivered the biggest mandate in a generation to a Conservative leader who looks close to a caricature of an English Tory toff, and whose appeal does not carry far north of Hadrian's Wall.

[...]

Northern Ireland was carved out of the old Irish province of Ulster a century ago as a home for the two-thirds majority within it who still supported a union with Britain. But over the decades, Catholics — who skew Irish-identifying and nationalist — have steadily increased in number while unionist-leaning Protestants have dwindled. Now, while a firm majority of pensioners are Protestant, a majority of school children are Catholic. The balance is forecast to tip as soon as 2021. The Good Friday peace deal provides for unification with the republic to the south into a united Ireland if a majority is in favor of it.

  Politico

Very interesting.

DUP leader Arlene Foster explicitly blamed demographic change as she conceded defeat for the party in North Belfast.

[...]

The DUP's loss of North Belfast could hardly be more symbolic. The seat had always been unionist.

[...]

Until this election it was held by Nigel Dodds. Socially conservative, against same-sex marriage and abortion, the DUP's deputy leader and leader in Westminster was deeply suspicious of the potential for Boris Johnson's Brexit Deal to economically differentiate Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom.

His challenger was Sinn Féin's John Finucane, a 39-year-old lawyer and Lord Mayor of Belfast. It was a battle heavy with history: Finucane is the son of a solicitor who was murdered at the family dinner table by loyalist paramilitaries working in collusion with British state forces, in one of the most notorious murders of the conflict.

[...]

West Belfast is a Sinn Féin stronghold, and losing South Belfast and North Belfast leaves unionists just one MP in the city: Gavin Robinson of East Belfast, who was re-elected with the cross-community Alliance Party not far behind him.

[...]

The cross-community and anti-Brexit Alliance Party won its first seat ever outside of Belfast, unexpectedly taking the traditionally unionist seat of North Down from retiring incumbent.

[...]

"There was a Brexit effect. The most pro-Remain parties made the biggest gains," said Matthew O'Toole, who was a spokesman in Downing Street during the Brexit referendum and now writes and commentates on Brexit and current affairs. "It signals how Northern Ireland is changing ... nationalists and unionists are going to have to persuade this middle ground who are less interested in identity."

Or maybe the middle ground will become the future.

The sight of triumphant SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon [in Scotland] shaking her fists in victory will rattle unionists from Bangor to Belleek.

[...]

The Scottish National Party's landslide — 48 of 59 Scottish seats and 45 percent of the Scottish vote — and renewed mandate for a second independence referendum will rattle unionists across the Irish Sea.

"Unionists will be looking across the water and thinking if Scotland is going to go, then the Union is going to go," said Sarah Creighton, a unionist commentator. "That vote coming through in Scotland is going to make a lot of people nervous."

[Boris] Johnson's decisive majority enables his party to return to its default position toward Northern Ireland's unionists: ignoring them.

Within the space of a year, the DUP has gone from having the power to disrupt international negotiations by threatening a veto, to waiting in line to ask the prime minister nicely and hoping he grants them the favor.

Within the space of a year, the DUP has gone from having the power to disrupt international negotiations by threatening a veto, to waiting in line to ask the prime minister nicely and hoping he grants them the favor.

Living in interesting times.

What happened to us in 2016 has also been happening to Britain

Collusion with Russia to interfere in elections.

The idea that Russia was involved in Brexit is not new, and I've kind of brushed it off just like I did when the stories about the Trump campaign and Russia were first circulating. Eventually, one story or another sealed it for me and I started to really believe. This is the one that convinces me it's also true of Britain and Brexit.

Downing Street has effectively blocked the publication of a potentially explosive parliamentary report on the security threat that Russia poses to the UK until after the general election.

The 50-page document from the intelligence and security committee (ISC) examines allegations that Kremlin-sponsored activity distorted the result of the 2016 EU referendum, but has to be cleared by No 10 before it can be released.

Downing Street indicated on Monday that it would not approve publication before parliament is dissolved on Tuesday evening, meaning that it cannot now appear before the election on 12 December.

[...]

A final draft of the Russian dossier, the product of 18 months work, was sent to Downing Street on 17 October and was originally intended for publication today. Political approval had expected by the end of last week.

[...]

The committee’s chairman, Dominic Grieve, said the decision to prevent publication before the election was “jaw-dropping” and that he could not understand on what basis it had been made.

“The protocols are quite clear. If the prime minister has a good reason for preventing publication he should explain to the committee what it is, and do it within 10 days of him receiving the report. If not it should be published,” he said.

  The Guardian

Making the reason quite clear.

As Sarah Kendzior noted long ago, "We have a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government."

Will they just do this till the end of time?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile in Britain

Members of the British parliament on Tuesday gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson a rowdy response at a parliamentary meeting in which Johnson's Conservative Party lost its majority in the governing body.

"Britain is on the verge...of taking back control of our trade policy and restoring our independent seat in the [World Trade Organization] for the first time in 46 years," Johnson said, which was met with shouts from members of parliament (MPs).

The criticism follows an attempt by Johnson to suspend parliament as he aims to limit its ability to block a no-deal Brexit.

During Tuesday's meeting, MP Phillip Lee, who was a Conservative, crossed the House to join the Liberal Democrats, which stripped the prime minister of his majority.

[...]

Queen Elizabeth II last week granted Johnson's request to suspend parliament and the royal court said in a statement that the body would "prorogued" between Sept. 9 and Oct. 14, which would give lawmakers just 17 days to negotiate a Brexit deal before the Oct. 31 deadline for the country's exit from the European Union.

Johnson, a leading advocate for leaving the EU, became prime minister through a conservative party election last month after Theresa May stepped down.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Brits have taken their cue from the bind we're in

MPs have easily passed a backbench amendment which seeks to block any attempt by a future government to prorogue parliament to ensure a no-deal Brexit, in what is likely to be seen as a pre-emptive strike against Boris Johnson’s authority.

  Guardian

They mean to put the hobbles on Johnson BEFORE he gets hold of the reins. Wise.

One of those to support the measure was culture, media and sport minister Margot James, who resigned from her post to do so.

[...]

Johnson, the clear favourite to be declared winner of the Conservative leadership contest against Jeremy Hunt next week, and thus replace Theresa May as prime minister, has repeatedly refused to rule out using prorogation to ensure a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

[...]

When the bill was first considered by the Commons MPs passed by a single vote an earlier amendment by Grieve intended to make it more difficult for a future government to prorogue, or suspend, parliament to prevent MPs blocking no deal.

Wouldn't Trump just love to suspend Congress?  Will somebody please explain the urgency to Nancy Pelosi?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The upper crust: horders and money-launderers

A US congressional report in 2013 estimated there were 3,500 free ports across 135 countries, hosting tax-free zones spanning from car production to fine art storage.

One of those zones, and a potential model for the UK’s post-Brexit future, can be found at the end of a motorway, in a warehouse backing on to Luxembourg airport.

This is no ordinary warehouse: Le Freeport is a maximum security centre for the super-rich to store art, fine wine, vintage cars and other treasures. Roughly the size of three football pitches, Le Freeport has four bullion chambers, space for 750,000 bottles of wine, and airport landing bays designed for armoured vehicles.

The squat four-storey building is designed to look like a jewellery box, not an obvious feature to the casual viewer looking through the barbed wire fence and metal gates.

The interior is said to be luxurious, with chic rooms for wealthy clients to arrange sales or simply contemplate their treasures within the confines of the thick walls.

[...]

The draw for super-rich clients is not having to pay import taxes, VAT or capital gains tax on anything stored or sold within its confines. Promoters say clients benefit from lower insurance premiums and the easy access to the airport tarmac.

[...]

“In 2015, the government decided to evaluate the free port in Luxembourg and came to the conclusion that there were indeed money-laundering risks,” said Djuna Bernard, co-president of Luxembourg’s Green party in a statement.

[...]

Since 2015 the three logistics firms licensed to work in Le Freeport have been obliged to keep records of the beneficial owner of property stored in the warehouse. Luxembourg customs officers inspect everything that arrives through the doors.

[...]

The European parliament thinks Le Freeport remains a money-laundering risk.

[...]

Luxembourg’s Indirect Tax Office (AED) found Le Freeport to be “high risk in relation to money laundering”, according to evidence collected by the European parliament.

[...]

Companies working at Le Freeport also say strict laws have cost them clients.

The unexpected introduction of anti-money-laundering rules put Le Freeport at a “competitive disadvantage”, one Freeport logistics operator told the European parliament. “Clients like their privacy and are thus reluctant to provide their data. The same goes for merchants and dealers,” said the operator, who estimated Luxembourg’s tougher rules cost them up to 30 clients, who went to rivals with “more discretion”.

[...]

There are dozens of free ports inside the European Union, but all have to abide by EU law, including an update of anti-money-laundering rules that comes into force in 2020, obliging free ports to carry out due diligence on clients.

  The Guardian

Leaving a rich possibility for less scrupulous governments. The rich don't like being told what to do. But can they trust the security in third world countries? I foresee a dilemma for the one percent.

After Brexit or a Brexit transition period, the UK would no longer be obliged to follow EU anti-money-laundering rules.

Saved by the Brexit.

Not just the Scots

Now some Welsh would like out.

Thousands have demonstrated in Cardiff to call for an independent Wales in what organisers said was the first such march in Welsh history.

Some protesters said they had been lifelong supporters of independence, while others said they were converted by Brexit and austerity. A recent poll for ITV Wales showed that 12% of people support self-government.

  Guardian

Your president is exhausting

Say what?



I'm afraid I don't get that.  Why would you let anyone breathe then?  Or is he saying that you have to let them breathe before it's too late and they bite you?  It's a bit muddled.  Which is not strange coming from a muddled brain.

If the EU is being tough on Britain, it's because they can't afford to have member countries pulling out.  The whole purpose of the union is for strength, and trade is one of the areas that is strengthened.  Perhaps he would be okay with New York or Texas pulling out of the union here.



Great news!

Christ, if he can't get more than 55% approval on a Fox poll of 1,000 people, he truly is in trouble.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  It wasn't even THAT high.  The actual number was 43%!  The 55% was his disapproval rating.  Fox News' Lou Dobbs program "accidentally" showed the graphic in error.   (It apparently wasn't a Fox News poll; just one they used to create a graphic.)



UPDATE 6:30 pm:



If you're waiting for him to take it down, I hope you've got plenty of food and water.

Jesus, can just anybody get an op-ed published in the Telegraph?

This family is a plague on the earth.

Brexit, Trump & Russia

UK journalist Carole Callwalladr is interviewed by Andrea Chalupa on this week's installment of Gaslit Nation about the connection between Trump, Russia and Brexit. I'll just point out that both Nigel Farage, who was a hard right rabble rouser in the Brexit campaign, and Steve Bannon, hard right rabble rouser in the Trump campaign, are both touring and rabble rousing in Europe right now.

Have a listen. It's very interesting.

But, remember folks, it's not Russia.  It's capitalist Russian oligarch-mob-Kremlin operations. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The world notices

From The (UK) Guardian:

Recall the fury of the leave crowd when Barack Obama dared puncture the Anglosphere fantasy by warning that a post-Brexit Britain would, in fact, be at “the back of the queue” for a trade agreement with the US, prompting Boris Johnson to reach for his racist dog-whistle and remind British voters that Obama was “part-Kenyan”. Recall too the needy relief of those same Brexiters when Michael Gove interviewed the newly elected Donald Trump and extracted a not-quite-promise that Britain and the US would “get something done very quickly”.

This week we got a double glimpse into what that “something” might be – and it wasn’t pretty. Most lurid was the sight of Donald Trump, international negotiator. His uselessness in this regard was already evident from his first meeting with Kim Jong-un in June, when North Korea’s leader bagged several major US concessions while Trump got precisely nothing. But the collapse of Wednesday’s meeting in Hanoi demonstrated again the mercurial instability of this US president, the lack of preparedness and basic statecraft by his team and the sheer unpredictability of doing business with Trump’s Washington.

Hanoi offered several warning signs for future UK trade negotiators, all of them blinking red. The obvious one is that Trump is prepared to walk away from talks that don’t go his way. Another is that, notwithstanding the failure in Vietnam, Trump maintains a clear, expressed preference for dictators over democrats. On Thursday he praised Kim as “very sharp” and “a real leader” – approbation he has never extended to, say, Angela Merkel.

[...]

I took part in a sobering conversation with two former US state department officials who have had close dealings with the current administration. They made clear that Team Trump does not operate like any of its predecessors, barely drawing on the institutional wisdom of the US government machine, working instead in tight, secretive huddles open only to Trump loyalists.

What’s more, Trump can hardly be said to empower those who conduct trade negotiations on his behalf. Witness this week’s jaw-dropping video of a meeting in which Trump publicly contradicted, and hugely undermined, the US trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, in front of representatives of the Chinese government. Lighthizer said that a memorandum of understanding was a “binding agreement”; Trump said no, such a document “doesn’t mean very much” to him. He didn’t like the term at all. There and then Lighthizer and the Chinese team agreed to call their text something else, which made Trump much happier.

All of which brings us to our second glimpse of the kind of deal a post-Brexit UK might expect from the US. On Thursday Lighthizer released Washington’s “negotiating objectives”, starting with “comprehensive market access for US agricultural goods in the UK”. Translation: they want the right to fill our supermarkets with their chlorinated chicken.

  Guardian

To be sure, the US has always shoved our unwelcome agricultural Frankenstein shit down Europe's throat in trade deals.

There’s language in there that takes aim at the NHS [the UK's National Health Service], specifically at the health service’s power as a bulk purchaser to set prices, paying less for drugs than big pharma would like. The US demand for “procedural fairness” may well be an attempt to break that power, forcing the NHS – and everyone else – to pay more for medicine.

Some of these are demands any US administration would make, but others are Trump innovations. Note the US insistence that, on services, Britain take down all existing barriers to American exporters, while the US be allowed to maintain barriers that keep out British exporters. As Sam Lowe, trade analyst at the Centre for European Reform, puts it: “It’s a laughably one-sided demand.”

More striking is the US attempt to restrict Britain’s ability to sign a deal with a non-market economy such as China. So much for taking back control. If the UK were to sign up to these demands, we’d simply be trading one set of restraints on our sovereignty – restraints agreed by us and 27 other nations in Brussels – for another, dictated by Donald Trump in Washington.

[...]

Right now, we are part of a bloc big enough to stand up to the demands of an America First Trump administration. After Brexit, we will be a single medium-sized economy standing alone, with much less ability to say no.

[...]

[The idea of Brexit trading benefits] didn’t stack up in June 2016, but it is even more absurd now – abandoning the largest ever free trade area, right where we live, for a dictator-coddling would-be autocrat thousands of miles away, who sees us not as a trusted ally but as prey.

[...]

Leaving Europe would always have been a mistake. Leaving Europe for the tender mercies of Donald Trump is insane.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It ain't over till the fat lady sings

Clarification 8/6: That title is not any comment on Brittany Kaiser. It's a quote attributed to Casey Stengel about calling a game before it'a actually ended.

A director of the controversial data company Cambridge Analytica, who appeared with Arron Banks at the launch of the Leave.EU campaign, has been subpoenaed by the US investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

A spokesman for Brittany Kaiser, former business development director for Cambridge Analytica – which collapsed after the Observer revealed details of its misuse of Facebook data – confirmed that she had been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller, and was cooperating fully with his investigation.

He added that she was assisting other US congressional and legal investigations into the company’s activities and had voluntarily turned over documents and data.

[...]

Damian Collins, chairman of parliament’s inquiry into fake news, said it was “no surprise” that Kaiser was under scrutiny by Mueller because “her work connected her to WikiLeaks, Cambridge Analytica and [its parent company] SCL, the Trump campaign, Leave.EU and Arron Banks”.

He said it was now vital Britain had its own inquiry into foreign interference: “We should not be leaving this to the Americans.”

  Guardian

Not if you want to get to the truth of the matter.

In August, Sam Patten, a US political consultant who had worked for Cambridge Analytica on campaigns in the US and abroad, struck a plea deal with Mueller after admitting he had failed to register as a foreign agent for a Ukrainian oligarch.

He became a subject of the special counsel’s inquiry because of work done with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, in Ukraine. He had also set up a business with Konstantin Kilimnik, a key figure who Mueller has alleged has ties to Russian intelligence and who is facing charges of obstruction of justice. [Kaiser, however, is the first person connected directly to both the Brexit and Trump campaigns known to have been questioned by Mueller.

The news came to light in a new Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, which premiered at the Sundance film festival last month and is expected to be released later this spring. Film-makers followed Kaiser for months after she approached the Guardian, including moments after she received the subpoena. She claims the summons came after the Guardian revealed she had visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while still a Cambridge Analytica employee in February 2017, three months after the US election.

[...]

In the film, Kaiser says that she has gone from being a cooperating witness to a subject of investigation because of her contact with Assange.

In October 2017, it was revealed that Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, had contacted Assange in August 2016 to try to obtain emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign – which indictments from Mueller’s team say were obtained by Russian military intelligence – to use in Donald Trump’s campaign.

[...]

Patten and Kaiser were involved in a controversial election campaign in Nigeria in January 2015, which former Cambridge Analytica employees say had “unsettling” parallels to the US presidential election.

The Guardian revealed that the data firm had worked alongside a team of unidentified Israeli intelligence operatives on the campaign.

Ah yes, the Israeli connection. I imagine there will be several countries interested in the information in Mueller's eventual report - assuming there is one.



UPDATE 8/6:

Color me skeptical

Russian authorities and major internet providers are planning to disconnect the country from the internet as part of a planned experiment, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reported last week.

The reason for the experiment is to gather insight and provide feedback and modifications to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament in December 2018.

A first draft of the law mandated that Russian internet providers should ensure the independence of the Russian internet space (Runet) in the case of foreign aggression to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet.

  ZDNet

So....is that what they're planning on doing to other countries? I still wonder about that three-day period at the end of December when we had 9-11 systems down at the same time in 37 states and electrical explosions in two at the same time.

In addition, Russian telecom firms would also have to install "technical means" to re-route all Russian internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, Russia's telecom watchdog.

Roskomnazor will inspect the traffic to block prohibited content and make sure traffic between Russian users stays inside the country, and is not re-routed uselessly through servers abroad, where it could be intercepted.

A date for the test has not been revealed, but it's supposed to take place before April 1, the deadline for submitting amendments to the law --known as the Digital Economy National Program.

[...]

RBK reported that all internet providers agreed with the law's goals, but disagreed with its technical implementation, which they believe will cause major disruptions to Russian internet traffic.

Yes, I think that's definitely going to happen. I believe the government knows that.

Ongoing discussions are in regards to finding the proper technical methods to disconnect Russia from the internet with minimal downtime to consumers and government agencies.

[...]

The Russian government has been working on this project for years. In 2017, Russian officials said they plan to route 95 percent of all internet traffic locally by 2020.

[...]

Russia's response comes as NATO countries announced several times that they were mulling a stronger response to cyber attacks, of which Russia is constantly accused of carrying out.

[...]

The end goal is for Russian authorities to implement a web traffic filtering system like China's Great Firewall, but also have a fully working country-wide intranet in case the country needs to disconnect.

Is the timing of this connected in any way to Trump's declaration regarding the possibility of shutting down the government or declaring a national emergency this week? Or is that purely coincidental?

"In case the country needs to disconnect." And we don't even have a program to secure our elections from cyber attack. What would we do if we needed to disconnect to protect our infrastructure?

Somebody across the pond is worried about the timing of this test. And we've been told that Russia has been involved in the Brexit fiasco as well as our own election.



Conspiracy theory?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Brexit woes continue

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and work and pensions minister Esther McVey both resigned Thursday, according to multiple news outlets, as did at least two junior ministers.

The departures come less than 24 hours after May announced that her Cabinet endorsed her Brexit deal following a lengthy meeting earlier this week.

The U.K. is set to leave the EU on March 29, leaving less than five months for negotiators to reach a deal.

  The Hill

They've had two years.

The departures indicate a significant blow to May’s authority, and many have speculated that Raab’s resignation means he is gearing up to challenge her leadership. Raab is the second Brexit secretary to resign in the last five months, after David Davis.

Opposition to the draft deal from pro-Brexit politicians are largely tied to the proposal of a “backstop,” which would establish a customs union between the U.K. and the EU.

EU leaders are prepared to sign off on the draft deal later this month.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.