Yes, as i thought. Partial not impartial.

Whoops, yes. Thanks for the correction.

France to insist on a ‘two-year’ extension to allow Brexit re-evaluation

Ha. I knew Macron would be difficult.

France to insist on a ‘two-year’ extension to allow Brexit re-evaluation

Ha. I knew Macron would be difficult. — Michael

A massive europhile, difficult? Never!

What Republicans could learn from the Conservative Party https://wapo.st/2ZO6Saz

The Boris bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland will save the day. Maybe someone should point out to him that both ends of the bridge might soon be in the EU.

Parliament suspension ruled 'unlawful'

Will probably be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

What a rollercoaster.

Parliament should have just voted to overrule it (prorogation, that is).

In a summary of their findings, the Court of Session judges said that the suspension of Parliament was motivated by a desire to "stymy Parliament".

They added: "The Court will accordingly make an Order declaring that the Prime Minister's advice to HM the Queen and the prorogation which followed thereon was unlawful and is thus null and of no effect."

Their full judgment will be released on Friday.

"stymy Parliament".

Interesting. I've always spelt this as 'stymie'. But apparently this is OK too. Cool.

Interesting. I've always spelt this as 'stymie'. But apparently this is OK too. Cool. — StreetlightX

The actual ruling does spell it as "stymie", although "stymy" is valid too.

As I thought Johnson and Rees Mogg have committed treason.

Just working out how to upload photos, this is a cartoon I did lastnight

Hey Trump, do you want to buy this real estate? A bargain basement price.

I both love and hate your non-standard rotation.

One criticism though; the buses are missing the "£350 million" sign.

↪Punshhh I both love and hate your non-standard rotation."

I hadn't thought of that, in the EU they rotate in the other direction.

"One criticism though; the buses are missing the "£350 million" sign.

Yes, I try to keep the cartoons simple, I have a tendency to put to much information in them.

The whole idiocy is as wonderful lesson in not allowing internal tory ambition-battles to destroy our Country. Next time, if we must have one, let's send to Switzerland to discover how to organise meaningful referendums. For me, though, it would be pleasing to return to traditional British Parliamentary Democracy.

The government have published the Yellowhammer docs.

Government response to Humble Address Motion

Some important bits (will update as I read them):

6. The BDG/DfT planning assumption on reduced flow rates describes a pre-mitigation reasonable worst case flow rate that could be as low as 40% DIND via the short Channel Straits, with significant disruption lasting up to six months. Unmitigated, this will have an impact on the supply of medicines and medical supplies.

The reliance of medicines and medical products' supply chains on the short straits crossing make them particularly vulnerable to severe extended delays; three-quarters of medicines come via the short straits. Supply chains are also highly regulated and require transportation that meets strict Good Distribution Practices. This can include limits on time of transit, or mean product must be transported under temperature controlled conditions. Whilst some products can be stockpiled, others cannot due to short shelf lives - it will also not be practical to stockpile products to cover expected delays of up to six months. DHSC is developing a multi-layered approach to mitigate these risks. (DHSC)

ii. Any disruption to reduce, delay or stop supply of medicines for UK veterinary use would reduce our ability to prevent and control disease outbreaks, with potential detrimental impacts for animal health and welfare, the environment, and wider food safety/availability and zoonotic diseases which can directly impact human health.

Industry stockpiling will not be able to match the 4-12 weeks' worth of stockpiling which took place in March 2019. Air freight capacity and the special import scheme is not a financially viable mitigation to fully close risks associated with all UK veterinary medicine availability issues due to border disruption. (DEFRA)

7. Certain types of fresh food supply will decrease. Critical dependencies for the food supply chain (such as key input ingredients, chemicals and packaging) may be in shorter supply. In combination, these two factors will not cause an overall shortage of food in the UK but will reduce availability and choice of products and will increase price, which could impact vulnerable groups.

The UK growing season will have come to an end and the Agri-food supply chain will be under increased pressure at this time of year, due to preparations for Christmas, which is the busiest time of year for food retailers. Government will not be able to fully anticipate all potential impacts to the agri-food supply chain. There is a risk that panic buying will cause or exacerbate food supply disruption. (DEFRA)

ii. Public water services are likely to remain largely unaffected due to actions now being taken by water companies. The most significant single risk is a failure in the chemical supply chain. The likelihood of this occurring is considered low and the impact is likely to be localised, affecting up to 100,000's of people.

Water companies are well prepared for any disruption; they have significant stocks of all critical chemicals, extensive monitoring of their chemical supply chains (including transportation and all deliveries) and mutual agreements in place. In the event of a supply chain failure, or the need to respond rapidly to other water supply incidents, urgent action may need to be taken to make sure people continue to have access to clean water. (DEFRA)

There's a redacted section that an earlier leak provides:

Tariffs make UK petrol exports to the EU uncompetitive. Industry had plans to mitigate the impact on refinery margins and profitability, but UK government policy to set petrol import tariffs at 0% inadvertently undermines these plans. This leads to big financial losses and the closure of two refineries (which are converted to import terminals) with about 2,000 direct job losses. Resulting strike action at refineries would lead to disruptions to fuel availability for 1-2 weeks in the regions they directly supply. Government analysis of the impact of no-deal on refineries continues.

Its not very detailed, it looks like a summary to me. I wonder what point 15 is about.

Here is a more racy cartoon from the day Rees Mogg went to Balmoral.

Its not very detailed, it looks like a summary to me. I wonder what point 15 is about. — Punshhh

It must be a summary. It's way too short for the proper assessment. Interestingly a senior editor of the Sunday Times said she received a copy of this last month and it was labelled as a base assessment whereas this one says it's a worse case scenario. Did they edit this before release?

This is point 15:

Tariffs make UK petrol exports to the EU uncompetitive. Industry had plans to mitigate the impact on refinery margins and profitability, but UK government policy to set petrol import tariffs at 0% inadvertently undermines these plans. This leads to big financial losses and the closure of two refineries (which are converted to import terminals) with about 2,000 direct job losses. Resulting strike action at refineries would lead to disruptions to fuel availability for 1-2 weeks in the regions they directly supply. Government analysis of the impact of no-deal on refineries continues.

Brexit and Johnson
Prorogation means he avoids regular Parliamentary scrutiny. Important Investigative Select Committees are not held. Yesterday the cowardly PM took to Facebook.
From the satirical politics sketch:

Midway through an afternoon on which he had avoided facing 45 minutes of prime minister’s questions and a further two hours of interrogation at the liaison committee by proroguing parliament, Boris Johnson decided he would subject himself to a gruelling 14 minutes of cross-examination in “people’sPMQs” on Facebook Live. — John Crace

Talking of Facebook.This.
'Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks'.

All summer in No.10, the Prime Minister and his chief adviser Dominic Cummings laid the groundwork for an early election to fix their version of Brexit.

Both know how crucial targeted online adverts will be in that campaign, just as they were in the referendum in 2016 and in Donald Trump’s presidential election.  But how robust are the rules governing the tech giants like Facebook? — Jon Snow

Excellent 6 minutes worth. Covering constitutional crises in both UK and USA and the issue of freedom of speech.

https://www.channel4.com/news/roger-mcnamee-facebooks-business-model-of-converting-peoples-lives-into-data-is-morally-wrong

Two legal systems - two different outcomes.

A parallel case was heard by the high court in London last week with a different outcome. The judges neither rejected nor accepted the claimant’s view of the government’s ulterior motive. They declared instead that a prime minister’s agenda for prorogation was a point of political contention, so not justiciable.

This vexed matter now passes on to the supreme court. If the Scottish appeal court’s verdict prevails, prorogation will have to be undone. The prime minister will be steeped in disgrace to depths that would once have submerged the career of any politician. Even if the English high court interpretation ends up being preferred, the dishonesty of Mr Johnson’s prorogation gambit has been recorded as a matter of fact. The salient technical question is not whether he is a liar, but whether a constitutional procedure based on his lies should be invalidated.
— Editorial

If the matter of prorogation is 'not justiciable' then how can it be properly and effectively contested.
Parliament has been shut down, so where can it go...?
We wait and see.

SNP’s Joanna Cherry: ‘I would be cautiously optimistic Supreme Court will follow lead of Scottish court’

https://www.channel4.com/news/snps-joanna-cherry-i-would-be-cautiously-optimistic-supreme-court-will-follow-lead-of-scottish-court

A third legal perspective on prorogation.

Judges in Belfast have ruled that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks was lawful and would not damage the Northern Ireland peace process.

The high court decision follows a landmark ruling by Scottish judges on Wednesday that said the prime minister acted illegally in proroguing parliament in order to stifle debate in the Commons.

The Belfast case, involving three cases, turned on partially different legal issues to the cases heard in London and Edinburgh. — Owen Bowcott

Edit to add.
Correction from Guardian Live:

'Here is our latest story on the judgment from the high court in Belfast on Brexit. I’ve corrected the earlier post on this (see 11.38am) because it said the prorogation legal challenge was thrown out.

In fact, it was the argument that a no-deal Brexit would undermine the Good Friday agreement that was rejected.
A claim about prorogation being unlawful was excluded on the grounds that it is being decided in the cases in England and Wales.'

If the matter of prorogation is 'not justiciable' then how can it be properly and effectively contested. — Amity

If it's not justiciable then short of a violent rebellion, what stops a malicious government from proroguing Parliament indefinitely? For the sake of democracy the judiciary must be able to rule on whether or not its intention and length are lawful.

If it's not justiciable then short of a violent rebellion, what stops a malicious government from proroguing Parliament indefinitely? For the sake of democracy the judiciary must be able to rule on whether or not its intention and length are lawful. — Michael

I would hope there are other means other than violence. That would play into their hands.
Joanna Cherry ( in the Channel 4 interview ) remarks that the action to shut down Parliament so as to avoid scrutiny of the damaging effects of Brexit is more like that of a fascist dictatorship.

There is another aspect being played out.
Johnson is angling for 'the People v Parliament' where he is at one with the 'People'.
Next up, will it be 'the People v the Courts' ?

'We spoke to former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption and asked him whether we are now facing a constitutional crisis.' From:

https://www.channel4.com/news/lord-sumption-we-havent-yet-got-to-the-people-against-the-courts-maybe-well-get-there-one-day

If we insist on non-British set-ups like referendums to settle tory squabbles, we'll into non-British politics like assassinations and Civil War (which we gave up for voting). The tories have always hated the UK and democracy and, fair play, have never made any secret about that. The fault lies with the mugs who believe whatever their masters tell 'em.

If it's not justiciable then short of a violent rebellion, what stops a malicious government from proroguing Parliament indefinitely? For the sake of democracy the judiciary must be able to rule on whether or not its intention and length are lawful.

It looks like this has not been tested before and so the Supreme Court will have to set precedent. I expect it will rule that the executive will have to be accountable to the judiciary, as otherwise a prime minister can silence the very parliament he or she is accountable to at will, exposing a gaping hole in our constitution. Normally the time this would take would not be at issue. But in this case, it is the longest prorogation in peacetime for hundreds of years, at the same time that the clock is running down for a massive constitutional change. I would trust that Dominic Grieve will win the day on this one. Particularly in the light of the ruling on Monday that the government must provide all the correspondence relating to prorogation by last Wednesday( now expired), which the government has failed to do.

It looks like this has not been tested before and so the Supreme Court will have to set precedent. I expect it will rule that the executive will have to be accountable to the judiciary, as otherwise a prime minister can silence the very parliament he or she is accountable to at will, exposing a gaping hole in our constitution — Punshhh

Well, at least the Scottish Parliament is still open for business.

'Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish government’s copy of the Yellowhammer no-deal Brexit scenario plans was marked “base scenario”, disputing claims by Michael Gove that the documents were a worst case scenario.

Sturgeon told first minister’s questions at Holyrood it was “completely outrageous” that the UK government was contemplating a situation where medicines would be in short supply. She said it was essential that Westminster was urgently reconvened, to allow MPs to question ministers on Brexit and the Yellowhammer forecasts.

The first minister told MSPs:
The question for the prime minister and the government is why on earth parliament is still suspended - if any government needed scrutiny, it’s this one.'

A Bridge connecting Scotland and Ireland. Majorly big distraction. Totally taking the piss.
Why is he getting away with all this utter bullshit ? Another huge waste of time, money and resources.

Johnson originally floated this idea in an interview with the Sunday Times last year. At the time his proposal was considered fanciful, but this week Channel 4 News revealed that government officials have been asked to produce a paper on the costs and benefits of such a plan.

The original Sunday Times story about Johnson’s proposal provoked a memorable letter to the paper from a retired offshore engineer who said the idea was “about as feasible as building a bridge to the moon”