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.

Yes, I occasionally veer this way, but obviously I feel bad for those who voted for Remain who are going to feel that pain.

Likewise, also I am conflicted because I will qualify for a Scottish passport should Scotland leave the Union. So part of me looks for that as a way out.

You may be right there, but somehow I doubt by compromise he means any from the UK side. The lead negotiator David Frost threatened to resign the other day when the moderates started considering making real compromise to get a deal over the line, in Downing Street, following the Biden win. Frost is quite a hard Brexiter. There was definitely a stand off of some sort in Downing St, Cummings and Cain either jumped, or were pushed during the same episode.

Perhaps the moderates have won, it would put Frost in a difficult position.

Johnson is between a rock and a hard place. He would like to capitulate and reach a compromise with the EU, but he is hostage to the ERG and the perception that the amount of sovereignty that would need to be given away at the last minute to reach the paper thin deal, is to much to countenance. Better to cut free with a no deal and have pure untarnished sovereignty, no matter what the chaos that will ensue.

While there are a growing number who think that the Brexiters should be given their holy grail (clean break Brexit) and be made to own it. As that is the only way to lance the boil.

Implode is more appropriate and the ERG will attack the corpse like rabid dogs. In the meantime, a paper thin deal might, or might not be agreed.

Its scary, when I first heard that laugh, I was worried. Some people have gone down a deep rabbit hole. So deep they might even pull the rest of us down behind them.

Over the last few days when I see a right wing comment on Twitter, usually about how great Brexit is, or f**k the EU and I click on their profile, I see post after post from the anti-vax movement. It's really spreading now.

↪Where's the contradiction? There's a difference between targeting a legitimate target and accepting collateral damage and purposefully targeting civilians.

Perhaps it's an apparent contradiction, someone says there is little accuracy in the targeting of bombs and another says the bombs are only aimed at certain targets, which can't be done if there is little accuracy in the targeting of the bombs.

Again it's debatable whether Churchill can be labelled a war criminal. War is war, particular strategies in real time are complicated with many factors being considered. The real criminal in any war is usually the one who starts it, or insights it in the first place.

You've contradicted what the book review said about how inaccurate the targeting of the bombs was. In cities like Sheffield civilian areas were in amongst the industrial areas, it would have been impossible to target that accurately. Anyway I said that it wasn't helpful comparing who did or didn't do this or that. One would have to start getting history books out.

Rats leaving a sinking ship. He was the only brains in the whole outfit.

Which bit is a fairy tale, the destruction I pointed out, or the myths about Hitler?

the oligarchs are still around.

There are quite a few oligarchs in London, where they have infiltrated the social circles of the Conservative party, have made large donations and may even have compromised leading politicians. Some people think there may have been some involvement in Brexit. Indeed we have had a report into this which pointed the finger at Russian interference in the referendum and the Conservative party. Which was largely redacted by government representatives. And is regarded as a whitewash.

I don't think we're going to get very far trading bombing intensity, or targets. It was a complex situation. I'm not well read on the 2nd world war, but it is common knowledge in the UK that the Germans carpet bombed a number of city centres in the UK. Notable examples were Coventry and Sheffield along with a great deal of bombing in the centre of London. They took out the docks in London resulting in a massive firestorm. Also Hitler had singled out buildings of special architectural merit which were not to be bombed as they were to be important buildings for use by The Third Reich following the invasion. Hitler may have sought an alliance with the UK in the beginning, but he was clearly delusional and a megalomaniac by the time he got into power.

But it'd be a huge gamble, and massively destabilising to the country. So again they might not do anything other than sow doubts this time around.

Yes, he is a wacko though, so who knows.

Yes I see the points you make, but Olivier5 is right there is a large armed militia "standing by" amongst his base. Also most of those 70 million will go along with it because the've already drunk the coolaid and believe the rhetoric that the Democrats are literally steeling the election from under their noses. All that Trump requires is enough conflict somewhere in order to spin it into a national emergency and exercise emergency powers to postpone the transfer of powers indefinitely. He only needs to do that long enough that the integrity of the genuine election is cast in doubt and he can dismiss it as an aberration. Those 70 million would lap it up.

He's up to something, he's replaced most of the civilian leadership in the pentagon in the last 24 hrs. There are lots of rumours going around, my preference is to trigger emergency powers due to civil disobedience, insurgence, or war. So that he can claim that the transfer of powers is postponed indefinitely.

Unfortunately its human nature to become complacent when one is in a position of privelidge. This is what the political class did, they were complacent in the face of the global economic changes.

Yes, the same in the UK. Labour had to become Tory light to win power back in 1997. During the successful days of the 1980/90's capitalism was king, politics drifted to the right, thinking things could only get better.

Then globalisation started to bite.

Its the same in the UK and numerous other western countries have problems as a result of globalisation. It wasn't those elites you refer to who caused, or brought about this state of affairs and they certainty didn't want to. It's the combination of globalisation and free market capitalism. The political elites proved incapable of preventing it. The countries who faired better through this period are the more social democratic countries, where the wealth is circulated through the population more and exploitative capitalism is more difficult, or is regulated.

Electing figures like Trump and Boris Johnson isn't the answer and is a retrograde destructive step, like self harm. It allowed duplicitous populism to exploite the struggling populous. Neither side of the political divide can put it right without finding a wealthy alternative to the industries which were hollowed out by the globalisation.

The answer has been found now and Biden and Johnson can see it, green industries, the green economy. It could begin to turn things around in the US and might just give Johnson a life line out of the black hole he has dug for himself. (Many in the UK wish he would bury himself in that hole, metaphorically speaking)

Interesting article on how the political class failed to rescue the Brexit debacle. To the stent that we now have looney government with absolute power trashing the country. Good job we haven't got a Trump to make it worse. Oh hang on that's what we've got, UK Trump, Johnson.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/who-killed-soft-brexit-eu-european-union-no-deal

Great speech from Biden today, who's already setting up his team to mitigate Covid. Meanwhile Trump announces a press conference in a car park located between a crematorium and a dildo shop so the world can watch Guliani ranting about dead people and a film of someone burning a piece of paper with lighter fuel is beamed around the world's news channels!

It's insane!

It rained here for the first time since April too

It has barely stopped raining here for two months, I can barely remember what sunshine is like. We do get lots of rainbows though. I've been at the end of one on more than one occasion recently.