There’s a lot of confusion in the UK about how virulent the new strain is. Because at the weekend government spokesmen were saying its a lot more virulent, that it’s out of control, that it was spreading exponentially during the November lockdown. It is comments like this which may have resulted in the travel bans. There is a wide spread view that they hyped up the new variant to justify their U turn on easing restrictions over Christmas and going back into lockdown.

Also there is the possibility that they are using the new variant as a pawn in a high risk negotiation tactic in the trade deal negotiations. By goading EU countries into taking strong measures against the UK and then painting them as trying to control, or punish us and creating the image of Johnson as our saviour. This works with either a deal, or a no deal. Also it creates a smoke screen of chaos, classic divide and rule tactics.

The state of talks as of last night.
https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1341054043792261124

Talks haven’t been officially called off, so there is a small chance of something being agreed, I expect. But somehow I can’t see any way back from here. The way it was phrased when I read it was that yesterday was the deadline for any deal being implemented by 1st of January, so a period of no deal is inevitable.

There are two other possibilities, either there is some kind of extension of the transition period (being called for by all opposition leaders (nothing from Starmer yet) and Nicola Sturgeon). Or some kind of over arching bridging agreement directly from the EU leaders (not looking likely).

The sh*t show has started!
All traffic across the channel has been stopped. This is due to the emergence of a virulent strain of the virus in Kent (near the channel crossings). The part of the UK which is going to have to accommodate many thousands of stranded lorries is going into lockdown. Meanwhile parliament has gone home for Christmas and Jacob Rees Mogg has effectively prorogued parliament by introducing strict rules in debate and voting restricting remote access for MPs.

I expect the top of the Conservative party will be either turning on each other, or in a blind panic. While our supply chains are going into catastrophic crisis.

Oh and breaking news, the talks have stalled and there won’t now be a deal by 1st January, meaning we will be going into contingency plans dictated by the EU.

I see another (additional) dimension, or possibility opened by the burning of the book. Of course the act of burning a book is sacrilegious or at the very least shocking but that’s part of the style. It’s a hyperbole coding for something less shocking: the necessary distance one should take with tradition. Maybe the student wanted to write his own book, based on tradition evidently (the oral teaching of his master is seen by the student as primordial), but also radically departing here or there from tradition. Maybe he was not content with writing comments in the margins of someone else’s book.

Apologies for my late response, but it is 4 years since I looked into this and I don’t have time now to refresh my perspective on this particular teaching. However more generally one of the core aims of Zen is the freeing of the mind from human conditioning. Books condition the reader, although they also inform the reader. Rather like a koan, how to read a book and not read a book. How to clap with one hand.

Which also wouldn't make my advice wrong.

Who is to know if your advice is right, or wrong?

Yes, but if there is a breakdown over fish it could lead to a protracted period of tit for tat.
This morning Barnier is going back to the EU leaders to float the idea of giving back 25% of access, up from 18% (scaling down over 10 years). I expect he will get a frosty reception.

Meanwhile Johnson would find it a hard sell to accept anything less than 80% ( scaling down over 3 years).

Both sides are unlikely to move any further than that due to the political costs at home. Some people suggest Johnson will fold at the last second, some the the EU will.

Wise folk find either possibility very unlikely.

State of the negotiations over the last week. There seems to be a significant deadline tomorrow night Sunday 20th. If a way through doesn’t happen by then, the talks may stall.
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2020/1219/1185362-brexit-trade-talks/

This one caught me by surprise. Most of the farmers around me grow sugar beet and sell it to a large sugar factory just up the road. I was thinking that these farmers, who mostly voted leave, would be ok after brexit, as there is strong demand for sugar in the UK. But already they’ve been sold down the river following a sweetener of tariffs reductions to start the US trade deal.
https://twitter.com/DPMcBride/status/1339227869957005314

Yes, it looks that there is a way through, but I expect a lot more ping pong yet and the possibility that Johnson will fumble it at the last moment.

Ratification will feature when we reach the new year, as it is to late for full ratification now. So the contingency plans which the EU agreed yesterday will be implemented, unless an extension is agreed, which I doubt. Meaning that the terms become gradually more and more dictated by the EU. Contingency is wafer thin, so there will be a lot of chaos in January even with a deal.

For example, many hauliers are not planning to send any lorries come January.

I sense that the government is getting worried about the chaos of no deal and are looking for a way out. There’s a small chance that the EU might find a way to help them out, but it’s not looking good.

The EU wants to force the UK

This is where the problem with sovereignty comes in. The EU is not doing this, the UK is free to adopt its own terms for the interaction it has with other countries. But when it agrees trade deals with those countries it negotiates a set of common terms, which it agrees to abide by.

I agree that some of it could be interpreted as political issues, but they all have affects on trade. Trade deals are very complex because they involve all the ramifications of various standards, regulations, state aid etc.

There is a particular problem evidenced in this negotiation caused by the hostile dishonest, caniving approach by one party, the UK. As a result there is very little trust and the EU, understandably wants every term legally binding. Particularly while the UK government states that it seeks to diverge from the terms when expedient to its own interests.

As one commentator said today, the level playing field is only problematic to a country which intends to lower standards, to deregulate, to diverge. If that country was intending to maintain high standards maintain good regulations and be cooperative with its partners, the level playing field would be no problem at all. There is a sliding scale here which has implications for trade.

I don't know either, but there are Tory donors to think of, the tabloids and Farige. All of whom are rabid dogs, radicalised.

I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

I know, but Johnson will be toast, unless he can somehow put the ERG etc on the naughty step. I suspect they have him in a headlock, so they would take him down with them.

Is he a turkey who would vote for Christmas?

Quite.

Interesting interpretation here, suggesting that Johnson is hiding behind the bluster and looking for an opportunity to fold.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/boris-johnson-fold-brexit-negotiations-level-playing-field

Yes, although I would point out that the climb down will have to come from the UK side, because it is they who are not happy with the rules as laid out by the members of the market they are seeking access to. These rules are simple and practical trading terms, whereas the UK position is conflating some vague notion of sovereignty with these conditions, thereby falsely concluding that by agreeing to these rules, the UK will become trapped or enslaved somehow by the EU. This is entirely unreasonable, illogical and stupid.

Following the bad smell last week (Johnson insulting Von der Leyen and Barnier over dinner), things are smelling rosier now. The mood music is that a deal is beginning to form, both sides have moved a little on level playing field. No mention of fish, as folk say it was never about fish (I doubt that myself). The important development though is that it is now to late for ratification, so some kind of delay process is going to happen along with the contingency plans which the EU had put in place in preparation for no deal. This will be a bare bones set of arrangements to keep planes in the air and lorries moving. Anything agreed in the meantime can be ratified in the new year, although it would take a few months. The EU is talking of 6 months for this to play out.

The upshot of this is that Johnson has now lost control, he has played his last card (unless he has a card hidden up his sleeve with a fish on it). As this process pans out, it will be the EU spoon feeding the UK towards something sensible and the UK will become less and less able to dictate terms.

Expect at some point Johnson to throw a fish out of the Pram when the rabid dogs bite back, but the UK is now powerless and adrift in relation to the EU. And the boil hasn’t been lanced.

The brexiters in the Tory party are a cult with all the warped ideology, (I was there during the eighties and nineties, I saw the ideology spawn and grow within the party). It shouldn’t be a surprise that Johnson has lost any common sense he might have had. It’s a cult with some very wealthy an influential backers. He will have to keep his base happy, or they will turn on him and spit him out. This includes pandering to the right wing mags who can sway the red wall. So he can only go for the hardest clean break Brexit. But it’s an express train about to run out of track, he is doomed just as surely as are the Tory party themselves. The people will not forgive them when they start to feel the pain, it’s the miners strike and the pole tax all rolled into one and then some. With Scottish independence as the cherry on the top.

As before the UK and the EU can’t square the circle. I remember the look on Johnson’s and Gove’s faces the morning after the referendum. You could see in those faces that they were lost and dumbfounded, as to what they were to do next and what they were going to have to spend the next few years trying to deliver. Between then and now the Conservative party has been going around in circles, fighting amongst themselves, becoming more and more chaotic, to the point now where the Prime Minister has humiliated himself in front of the EU leaders professing cakism.

The emperor has no clothes.

I’m not so optimistic, but let’s see what happens tonight. Will Boris hand her the shit hamburger, or roll over to have his tummy tickled.

So he may cave when the experts spell it out to him what a shitshow no deal is. I can go with that. But it will throw a lit match into the dead wood of his party.
Breaking news, Honda has shut down production due to importation delays. The show is already starting. I heard of three or four other stories like this today.

I get what you’re saying about Johnson’s strategy, but I take a more pessimistic view, in reference to getting a deal. EU member states are moving in the direction of no deal, to cut Johnson loose as toxic.
https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1336403947163164673

Also Johnson will have to swallow the whole package from the EU, I can’t see him doing that. Although I can see him having a complete about turn in a few days time when the experts remind him how damaging and counterproductive no deal will be.

So they'll eat shit burgers and say how delicious the cake is, cakism.

I doubt they can smuggle it past the rabid dogs, but will the right wing rags throw those dogs under the bus, or support them to the hilt? Perhaps it's Murdock who gets to decide, rather than Blojo.

Looks like he's going to be dining with Ursula in Brussels, I hope he doesn't take one of those tasty burgers with him.

Well I would say that's the optimistic perspective. For me it's more like the politics before the First World War. We just need someone to approach someone with a poison tipped umbrella and its game over.

Johnson has just taken a bite of the shit, but the're kicking the can down the road on the Northern Ireland issue. We may be back to 50:50, but I expect pushback from France and Co, tomorrow.

The talks are definitely breaking down. Following a briefing of European leaders over the last couple of days by Barnier, they are expressing concern that Barnier could go to far in attempts to try and get something agreed. Many have said that if the deal is not water tight on the level playing field they will veto any deal during ratification. France is getting tougher on fish for pressing internal reasons and due to a lack of trust that the UK would try to stick his them up on fish.

This is what dampened optimism yesterday with the UK now accusing the EU of bringing new demands to the table, for once they are right. Suggests Johnson lost his rag during call with Von der Layen.

There is talk of the ERG buoyed by the sight of no deal, going for ripping up the Withdrawl agreement next so as to pay none of the agreed outstanding payments to the EU for ongoing projects and commitments.

The EU is feeling more cautious now as they realise that they are negotiating with entirely unreliable actors, who will say anything to get a concession and then backtrack later. They will not be bullied. There will be lots of shouting now.

Following Johnson's phone call with von der Leyen the mood is down beat. The talks can't go anywhere now and the Internal market bill comes back to the commons on Monday.

We're going over the cliff edge.

Yes it's a perfect storm and very scary. We just have to hope we can avoid economic collapse. The one bit of positivity which there may be is that the people who brought this about will feel the pain and have to own it and that it breaks the stranglehold of the Tory's who have been hollowing out the country for a generation.

I'm hoping the government collapses by about the end of January and Starmer can step into the breach.

Well really the deadline is 10.59pm GMT 31st December, but it's not that simple, I've heard talk of crashing the deadline and softening up the other side with a bit of cold hard reality for a few months and then restart next spring, or summer.

The problem we are all going to have to face, is that Johnson and the government is disingenuous and can't be trusted to honour any agreement. So the EU is looking for cast iron legal text of sanction when Johnson reneges. Even with that and it happens the relations will continue to sour.

The talks are frenetic as both sides think that the deadline is the end of Sunday, in two days time. Rumours are flying around about concessions, breakthroughs and the sides moving farther apart rather than closer. So in reality it's headless chickens running around in circles.

Johnson might have a bit of a compromise in mind on the level playing field in state aid, but it's not going to be enough and only if the UK gets all the fish. Yesterday France came down solidly behind protecting their fisheries. Macron is under intense pressure from the right wing in France not to buckle on this point and he has elections in the summer.

If they don't reach an agreement by Sunday the UK parliament is to bring back the internal market bill, the bill to break the withdrawal agreement and a finance statement which will drive a wedge through any trust on Tuesday.

So no one can see anything close to a deal at this stage, while tempers are rising and a breakdown in talks is imminent.

If you want a sober commentary check out @tconnellyRTE, #TonyConnelly.

I'm inclined to agree, although I think it is is highly unpredictable in the short term. It will depend on the fortunes of the Conservative party, who are burning a lot of bridges and have little support from the young. Along with how it plays out with Scotland. Scotland may be knocking at the EU's door in only a few years time.

Their heart was not in it. Hence they never invested much cultural and political capital in it.

I have to agree, although there is a sizeable proportion of the UK population who does value the EU. Everyone I know, for example, except a few older folk. I would hazard a guess that over 20% of the population, it could be higher. The problem which lead to Brexit is that the ruling party, is constituted of ideological fanatics due to their anachronistic schooling, who despised membership of the EU from the beginning. The mass of the population was largely indifferent and was happy with the status quo.

Going back to why we joined in the 70's, it was a move to save our economy, as the sick man of Europe, we were in a desperate state and membership provided a well needed lifeline.

I have to agree with everything you say. It's about the privelidged classes maintaining their iron grip on the ordinary man/woman. Cracking the whip to keep them in their place, the place where they diligently work hard to generate the profits for their betters to cream it off.
The rot set in with Blair because he was not one of them (ideologically). He endangered the project with his welcoming in of the workers from the new Eastern European members of the EU. This was then compounded by the financial crisis of 2008. Leaving the rump of the privelidged dangerously exposed. Their grip of the reigns has been slipping ever since, to the extent that they are now desperate.

This is evidenced in the possibility that Corbyn could have won the election a year ago. The Tory's took a huge sigh of relief when they won and dodged that calamity. Now they will have to reassert their iron grip. They are well equipped with the means of whipping the prolls and the prolls lap it up and buckle down again.

They are doomed to failure though and the Tory's are now imploding, they will lash out any way they can as they sink. The problem is as can be observed in the polls and when one talks to the younger generation, that they have no political support amongst the young and are not portraying themselves in a good light at the moment. Indeed, it has become a horror show, guaranteed to put off any young voter.

Once Scotland leaves the Union, all hope will be lost, for the privelidged classes.

That’s a good question.

One which I have many answers to, but few can be blamed for the act of Brexit itself, we may have to wait for the historians to give an answer. To me it goes back to William the Conquerer, although it probably goes back a lot further and has something to do with fish.

A good update from someone with his finger on the pulse. The rollercoaster (ghost train) is loaded up now and ready to roll. I expect it will set off just as Parliament goes into festive recess, they don't return until 7th January, so they will miss the starting gun.
https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2020/11/zenos-brexit.html

Interesting link in there to George Mombiot about the role of disaster capitalism.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/24/brexit-capitalism

The basic issue with panpsychism is its ignorance of life as a prerequisite for any psychism. Dead people don't talk much. There must be a reason for that...
— Olivier5

The two do seem to be closely related.

I think you're onto something there.

Consciousness can be equated with living. Perhaps only living things, beings, are in complex realities, where there appears to be material.

Btw, tr45h LOSES GEORGIA AGAIN. :victory: :mask:

Nice, we can put out the trash can now.

And that's before we get into the conflicts of interest in the EHRC. Who refused to investigate Bojo's party for islamophobia despite being presented with much stronger evidence that it was happening.

Quite, anti-semitism is a reliable dog whistle because of the holocaust, it's so easy to slam Labour with it because all the conspiracy theories around Jews controlling the western world. Corbyn was an easy target because of his back catalogue of activism.

Our establishment is also endemically anti-socialist. Which would effortlessly convert anti EU smears into resentment and distrust. The EU's social democratic politics is viewed as a retrograde step, a straight jacket, or trap in which the UK's exceptionalism will become ensnared.

Now the right wing populism is in the ascendant riding this wave of resentment and distrust, the obese rump of the Tory ruling classes is exposed any figleaf of wealth creation usually employed has been ripped off by the pandemic and we see the naked beast of Tory privelidge and twattery writ large. Helplessly/blindly steering us over the precipice. The epitome of which is our very own Blojo, with the absurdity of working class folk seeing him as "one of them", " one of us", across the land.