Sam Gyima has pointed out an interesting scenario which supports what I was saying about Johnson's primary aim to be to neutralise the Brexit party and save the Conservative party, which requires a no deal Brexit.

The opposition is on to this now, so I can see the support from Labour rebels fading away now.

The scenario is, in this deal NI is safely within the EU backstop, but the rest of the country is not in a backstop as was the case with the May deal. So following the transition period which ends at the end of 2020. If there is not deal agreed for our future relationship with the EU, the default position is a no deal, or world trade rules. And if the we want to extend the transition period for another two years, we have to request it by June 2020, which is 7 months away. So all Johnson needs to do now is offer a have my cake and eat it trade deal and scupper the talks, leading to an irreversible no deal exit at the end of the period. This apparently is why the ERG is happy to back it. The whole time Johnson will be free to smear the EU as trying to control us, or trap us in some way, so the anti EU sentiment will only increase.

Thus he would make the Brexit party pointless, all their supporters will come back into the fold and he saves his party from oblivion. Brexit, deal or no deal is nothing more than collateral damage. Albeit it would inevitably benefit his wealthy backers.

I'm not saying the bankers caused the crisis, but they were heavily involved from our perspective and left the UK very exposed. I don't want to get into the debate about the financial crisis here. I mentioned it as the catalyst for the problems in the Conservative party, which has hit the country hard over the last decade leading to where we now find ourselves.

Perhaps the words short selling weren't a good choice.

I was thinking about what started all this and I put the blame firmly at the door of the Tory heartlands.
(I am generalising here) I have noticed for over 30 years now the way the privelidged middle class demographic has become money grabbing and cavalier. That it was the bankers who are dominated by patronage from this group which fuelled, or at least capitalised on the short selling which led to the banking crisis. You could see the greed and sharing out of the wealth in their luxury enclaves in the West Country, for example. Following the banking crisis the top heavy Tory party started to nose dive, instigating austerity, a harsh Protestant ethic, which strangled the less privelidged areas of the country draining all their wealth away to pay for the crisis. Of course no bankers went to gaol.

Immigrants were pushed into poorer areas generating more unrest in these areas, which fuelled the nationalist anti immigration movements in the midlands and the north. Meanwhile the right wing press were drip feeding the Tory heartlands with anti EU poison. The Tory party started to split under the strain and the infighting has led us to this point where the far right have grabbed the reigns of power.

I wonder if the Power brokers and capitalists had seen this all along, indeed planned it as they saw where the EU was going with sensible social democratic policies and anticipated laws to restrict the offshore tax evasion industry. Which is where the fat cats have been hiding their money. You can certainly see how the owners of the right wing papers have been planning and feeding this division.

Yes, its very sad. The people who will lose out are the moderate intelligentsia, including the entire establishment, who were overwhelmingly in favour of remain. Also the young, there are about 2 million younger voters who are now eligible to vote, but who were to young to vote in 2016. There is a majority for remain in this group too and they are the generation who will have to pick up the pieces.

It really is weird for people who are not in one of the two leave groupings, because it feels like everything was fine and peaceful going along as normal. Then suddenly an upper class twit stood up and said we're going to leave the EU, we need to leave, or we're in trouble. People were thinking what are they talking about, the EU is a great coalition between like minded Europeans, why would you want to put that in jeopardy? Then all these nationalist slogans start appearing and people like Nigel Farage start popping up on TV, with their anti EU rhetoric. Followed by three years of chaos, argument and division.

When the leave arguments are examined they are vacuous, there was a problem with immigration, but it was within the gift of the government to solve that without leaving. But you get the slogans shouted back at you, with no intelligent argument.

"We have to leave because we voted to leave, why did you vote to leave? Because we wanted to leave, we have to leave now because we voted to leave!"

I find it comforting. I know that there is something, that's good enough for me and if there's one something, then there must be many others, the world/universe is my oyster.

I am not so convinced about the numbers in parliament, the DUP's 10 votes are gone and I doubt there will be more than 5 Labour rebels. This deal is far worse for Labour as it leads to a greater divergence from the EU than May's deal did, leading to a Singapore like destination. I can't see Labour rebels wanting to be blamed for pushing that over the line. Also Tory rebels like David Gauke, or Dominic Grieve are not going to be happy.

Also there may be some spartans who think it's a betrayal in the other direction. It will be interesting to watch how the support builds, or wanes over the next couple of days.

Everyone's a winner then

Yes, well except for the English, but who cares about them. I'm ok, I will have Scottish citizenship.

Nail hit on head.

Quite a few MP's are saying tonight that cutting off NI permanently like this is the death nail for the Union. There will be no way to stop Scotland following next in line. I expect there are a lot of MP's not happy with this dogs dinner. Whether voters don't care about NI or not, MP's do, as they will be culpable and will have to clear up the mess. Unless of course they are banking on reunification with Ireland soon. Maybe that's the answer, but then it's Scotland next.
If so, the Tory's are finished as they will be known as the government which brought about the end of the Union as a result of infighting.

Not so fast, a lot of the swing votes were waiting to see what the DUP say. Also what they've agreed over NI is a dog's dinner, we will have to see what the swing voters and particularly the Labour rebels think about it. A border pole in Stormont every 4 years, who would agree to that?

Yes the DUP have a siege, or bunker mentality, as was pointed out by an Irish political commentator on R4 yesterday. Once the're dug in they hold their ground while the bombs drop around them.

Any other players that can replace the lost DUP votes?

Not easily, there is the ERG( the hard brexiters in the Conservative party) who were following the lead of the DUP, so they will give less support now. There are the Conservative rebels who were expelled from the party a few weeks ago, again their support will drain away now. There are the Labour rebels (brexiters), who will again follow the lead of the DUP, so they will fade away now.

Apart from these groups who were hanging on the DUP's response, there is no one. Except possibly Sinn Fein, but that's extremely unlikely because they don't sit in the House of Commons as a protest against British rule in NI. So if the DUP don't turn, it's over.

Yes, without the DUP they don't have the votes. Johnson has 48hrs to bring them round, but they are the most Stubborn political grouping ever known, so I can't see him succeeding. Even if he showers them with money.

Norman Smith (BBC correspondent) has just said that the problem is that the Stormont vote on rolling over the arrangements with the EU or customs, every 4 years. A major concession from the EU agreed over the last couple of days, is not acceptable to the DUP. The problem being that it would require a simple majority in the Northern Ireland assembly (Stormont) in this vote in order to veto the arrangements. This is because the DUP will be in a minority in Northern Ireland, so they have lost their control over the process.

Not to mention that such a vote would amount to a referendum about the unification of Ireland every 4 years forever. Talk about a recipe for disaster around the border.

Surprise surprise, all bets are off.

Now it's the struggle over the Benn act.

The Permanent First Cause has no direction able to be put into it, so it really can't know anything. Its supposed nebluous nature, then, being not anything in particular is a superposition of all possible paths, as like towards a multiverse, which seems to be the cleanest solution, not requiring an intelligence that really shouldn't be there since that violates the fundamental art by having parts in a system.

This is speculation, I think you are speculating in the right direction, but none of it can be confirmed. Particularly the bit in bold, we really can't say this.

Christianity, the biggest and meanest :-) western religion has spiritual texts called the Bible,and the ideology taught in those are God worshirp, and such. I don't know if it is possible to separate god worship and ideology in W religions in to god worship and something else than god worship.

In eastern religions, you can tell me anything possible, or even impossible, because I don't know them.

I wasn't referring to Christianity, but even there, there is a large body of spiritual teaching and it's not all about worship.

In reference to Eastern religions, there is the system of Yoga in Hinduism and meditation on Nirvana in Bhuddism and a vast body of work about spiritual personal development.

This is the first time someone called me wise. I am being myself in the world.

You're babbling at bit here.

But seriously, are you really yourself in the world? Or are you simply a culturally conditioned persona, believing a collection of pieces of information given you by imperfect people in your environment?

it looks as though everyone is hanging on the word of the DUP tonight. If the DUP say yes, the ERG, some Tory rebels, some Labour rebels will follow and the EU may make a final tiny concession to push it over the line. If the DUP say no, then all bets are off. And we all know what they are going to say.

Interestingly the deal he is bringing back is essentially the same deal which was about to be agreed in December 2018. When Theresa May told the EU negotiators that she had forgotten to pass it by the DUP and had to rush back and eat humble pie in front of Arlene Foster.

The DUP are in the driving seat again, which of course means they have no chance of agreeing the deal. The reverend Ian Paisley must be spinning in his grave.

I wasn't thinking of faith at all. In my mystical practice there is no faith, belief, or worship. Rather it is a process like yoga of being myself, which involves the body and mind in a developmental process. So the intellect, thinking, is pivotal in this, but not in isolation.

Or in other words wisdom is not about being really clever and using logic, but being yourself in the world.

Information is both Subject and Object, both Noun and Verb, both Matter and Energy. Information, according to current physics, is the essence of everything in the world. Or as the link below says : Information is the only thing that exists. So we, subjects and objects, exist within Information.

I don't disagree with what you are trying to say about information, but I want to make a semantic distinction, as it is conflating two different kinds of "information". You use the word enformation, I would agree with this and will point out that information as subject is a particular conscious knowing in a mind. This is a different thing to your, subjects and objects existing within information.

The enformation you are referring to is rather a quality of objects, such objects are not carrying information, but qualitative states. They are not carrying information, subjective knowing of things by a mind. The qualitative states they are carrying are not known, at any point, and there are no minds involved.

Yes, I see that, but I also see the pips squeaking in both directions for the Labour rebels. I don't think it can be assumed that Johnson will sway them, it will be going into the lions den for most of them. Corbyn will be impressing it on them that if they hold their nerve just a little longer Boris will crash and burn and 5 years of socialism will be instigated, they can make the necessary reforms that they all want and we still may leave the EU. Or they sell their souls for a bargain basement Trump deal and poverty stricken gnashing of teeth in their constituency's for a decade. What would you choose.
Also I expect some Tory rebels to continue to rebel, as it has now gone beyond the pale and this would not be the end of the shenanigans, but merely the start of a decade of them.

There is talk this morning of a massive bung for the DUP. Someone should have told him that you don't play fast and loose/lose with the DUP and get away with it. Also there is a get out clause for many MPs, they will back the deal if there is a second referendum tacked on.

Thanks, I am a bit dyslexic, so occasionally get into a rut like that. I find it hard to believe that is how to spell lose, but it must be right, I've checked it. Please do correct me when it happens.

It might be that he has turned the ERG, but I don't think he will turn the Spartans, or all the Labour rebels and the 21 rebel Tory's are not buying it at the moment. There is suspicion going round that it is a trick, another trap. That if Parliament doesn't endorse the deal Johnson will call a confidence vote, or take it as one, in the government, which he will loose and trigger an election. Or that if they vote it through, the Benn act falls and Johnson doesn't need to request an extension, leaving the only option for the opposition a confidence vote and the triggering of a general election before the end of the month.

Yes, which is what he's lining up Super Saturday for. The big show down in Parliament with thousands of protesters from both sides clashing on the streets outside. The people against parliament.

Michel Barnier has given Johnson an ultimatum, to provide a full legal text to the EU by midnight tonight(15/10/2019). Which boils down to accepting a customs border down the Irish Sea. He is finished now, there is no way back from this.

Coincidentally a report came out this morning that Johnson acted recklessly with over 50 million pounds of public money on the garden bridge project ( the Boris Bridge) while he was London Mayor.

I don't see a difference between eastern and western Gods, but rather the cultural interpretation and narrative by which they are referred to. But I was not referring to Gods, I was referring to the spiritual texts and ideology taught in those religions.

The idea being that one can answer the questions about Gods through spiritual, or mystical practice, while you cannot answer them through intellectual reasoning on its own.

For example spiritual and mystical practices involve the principle of self reorientation, in which the self ( the part of you which does the thinking, this is an oversimplification) forms a kind of narrative between the body and mind through a reorientation of the person and the person's sense of identity and presence in the world.

The idea being that the mind is informed by the body( the world) and that without the body, the mind would be empty, so everything in the mind is derived from the body and so the body is the source of the information in the mind and all the mind needs to do to understand the body is sort and integrate that information in the right way.

This is a different approach to understanding, than the approach of reason in isolation.

Information is subject, not object. We exist in an object.

I would concede that it is debatable whether a no deal Brexit is putting the country in peril. I could point out how it would be if you like, but I will mention the break up of the Union for now and leave it at that. Remember that in many ways our public services are already teetering on the edge and the large number of people who are a couple of wage checks away from repossession, or homelessness.

I agree with your assessment of the Brexiter credo, however I would put that down to the editors of the Sun and the Daily Mail. Along with a rump of toffs in the Tory party. So it is not really a valid credo, rather the result of scaremongering and an outdated bulldog spirit sentiment. As for the motivation of the toffs, I think sir Bill Cash illustrates the problem. As far as he is concerned the German government has a stranglehold over any decision made in the EU parliament and it is only allowed through once hard nosed, hardline German power brokers give it the nod and that our sovereignty is at peril if we remain in the EU.

I would suggest that the numbers of Brexiters who still hold to this credo has eroded over the summer and it does not need to erode much to have lost its mandate.

In addition I just wanted to mention the democratic principle you mention. I agree with your point, but in my opinion there is a mis understanding of democracy in the minds of the people you refer to. I think I have already pointed this out a few posts back, but I will repeat it, as it is an important issue in the division which has developed in the country.

There is a sacred principle in the minds of the people in our country, the principle of democracy. Which they are taught about in school and that the UK is the last bastion, the defender of democracy due to our history etc. But many of the people who hold this view, as I have done myself, don't realise the inadequacies of democracy and that in this country it is exercised, fundamentally, as a system of representative parliament with an executive which is accountable to that parliament, which is regularly changed by a democratic process.

The way in which the democratic principle is exercised in this system is the way in which the executive is changed, or endorsed at regular intervals by a public vote.

At no point is the public asked for their view on any particular issue and carrying out a referendum is a different exercise to our decomcracy, it is legally, only an advisory exercise and a difficult way in which to conduct constitutional change. I lay the blame and cause of all this turmoil over the last few years at the door of David Cameron's government and the folly they entered into in this exercise.

Quite, the pantomime antics of yesterday were a sight to behold. With widow Twanky guffawing at the despatch box to howls of laughter. It was more like a braying donkey than a prime Minister delivering his Queens speech.

I don't know if what I'm suggesting can help in the dilemma necessarily. But for me it allowed me to progress past the intellectual realisation of 'I don't know'.

I followed the thought process of realising that I am a body as well as a mind and that that body might also be God and I am unwittingly being God carrying out my purpose. There are many ways in which such insights can be approached, used and developed into schools of thought and practice. Personally I contemplate insights from studying eastern religions and my personal journey in creative ways.

I would say though that in this process the existence, or not of God, tends to become irrelevant.

‘God’ cannot be shown or known, so ‘God’ is but wished for and hoped for, which is called ‘faith’, in short. ‘No God’ is also an unknown. The positions are not necessarily equiprobable.

You have come up with some interesting thoughts on 'God' and 'no God'. But from the position of someone who has given this a lot of thought in the past, I would say you can't achieve anything definitive with these thoughts. You will always end up with a don't know, anything other than that achieved through logic, would be deluding yourself. I realised a long time ago that if one is to answer this question a different approach to thinking on its own is required.

Has it occurred to you that you are not just a mind, you have a body to? And the important thing about your body is that it is independent of your mind, your reasoning. So you are a reasoning being, but you are also an agent operating, interacting in a place of existence. An interaction which can continue almost entirely in the absence of your thinking and experiencing 'realities', which you thinking is only aware of remotely, through your senses etc. An interaction which may be very different, or more subtle than your mind is aware of.

This realisation gives one an extra tool, besides one's thinking alone.

Trump is not worried about the Islamic State prisoners being held by the Kurds, being released now. Because he says they will go back Europe where they came from and blow themselves up there so Americans dont need to worry now, because Europe will take the flack and we know what he thinks about Europe these days.

The New Boris Empire, lol


Just heard that there is a group of 60 Tory MPs saying they won't campaign on a no deal Brexit in a general election, including I think 5 cabinet resignations being threatened.

No. to the extent that there was a promise to respect the result, not respecting the result is breaking the promise. That would be a good thing, but it would be breaking the promise. Let's not resort to gobbledygook

Yes, I don't deny that, however what was the promise to do? Let's say Johnson declared war on Let's say Luxembourg today, I wouldn't put it past him. Giving the reason that this is how to respect the will of the people, there is no other way to do it because Luxembourg was planning, indeed collaborating to thwart the will of the people, right from the beginning. The ends don't justify the means. Lord Sumption said following the Supreme Court judgement,"the ends don't justify the means, if they were to, that would be tyranny".

Presumably the promise was for parliament to carry out the will of the people with due care to the country and if unknowingly carrying it out were to put the country in peril, to refrain from doing that and to find another solution.

I would suggest that Parliament's duty is firstly to the Crown and secondly to the people and that parliament would hold an oath to the Crown to have a duty of care to the country, first and foremost.

I don't think that screwing the promise of the first referendum is betraying the promise. Rather it would be Parliament, or the government accepting that there isn't a way of leaving without causing damage to the country, be it an economic catastrophe, or a fracturing of the Good Friday agreement and that parliament has a duty of care to the wellbeing of the country. It would be acting in the country's best interest by cancelling Brexit, or coming to a soft Brexit accommodation.

My suggestion would be that the government should revoke and have a border Pole in Northern Ireland. Then try and work something out after they have decided what they want to do.

Yes, the EU has rejected the proposals, it was widely understood that they were never going to be sufficient, but rather a "sham"(according to Cummings). You suggest if Johnson were to negotiate with no deal on the table, there might be some leverage. But I disagree, this is because the EU's red lines are and never were negotiable. They said that right after the referendum, and it ought to have been obvious to Brit's that it would be so ( although I can't say that I had that understanding myself). It is, certainly in hindsight, if not before, a tragic misunderstanding of how the EU is constituted, or what sort of an agreement that was being entered into in this case. The entire notion that some sort of negotiating leverage was an important means to getting a good deal was entirely for the domestic audience in the UK, or more pertinently, the Tory party talking to its own navel.

I agree that Johnson is weakened by him not delivering his promise and that the Brexit party will wipe the floor with him in the election. He knows this and will now have to neutralise the Brexit party by running on a no deal ticket in the election. The problem is I don't think Brexit party support will trust him and he will loose his moderate support. I can't see him winning a majority.

I was thinking of a Halloween party, as Halloween is looming over the horizon. I wish I were manufacturing rubber pitch forks, I'd make a killing. Suppose we'll have to settle for tridents and pointy tails.

The blame game has started. Downing Street briefed this morning that in a phone call with Angela Merkel lastnight, she had said that a deal was overwhelmingly unlikely. So No10 says it's pulling the talks due to EU intransigence. It's emerged that No10 threatened to pull security arrangements with the EU lastnight, thus undermining NATO.

There are firey exchanges in parliament. There is a major leak from No10 this morning assumed to be from Cummings to James Forsyth of the Spectator magazine, ranting about the betrayal and claiming that they will bypass the Benn Act and are going to push through a no deal. It is a good read.
Here it is,
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/how-number-10-view-the-state-of-the-negotiations/