gdp's Comments

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Richard Ekins, Stephen Laws and Guglielmo Verdirame: How the UK can escape the backstop

Tue, 4 Dec 2018 17:05:31 +0000

Thank you - that is a valuable and leaned interpretation. It gives a lot for those making decisions to ponder over. Ultimately the vote in the House of Common will be a political decision and based more on rhetoric than a cold legal analysis. It is likely that without the backstop the Withdrawal Agreement would be approved, more so if there were an assurance that there will be close auditing of the British right to participation in the budgeted projects to which the British taxpayer is being forced to contribute.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The legal advice row - and how the tensions between a Leave result, Remain MPs and weak government i

Tue, 4 Dec 2018 14:00:20 +0000

Erm, no. That is not the case. Legal opinions are confidential. It is evidence which is meant to be open, and even that is limited.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The legal advice row - and how the tensions between a Leave result, Remain MPs and weak government i

Tue, 4 Dec 2018 13:57:38 +0000

The Attorney General gave a confidential opinion to the Crown, not to the House of Commons, and like any barrister he has a duty of confidentiality. That duty is fundamental to the legal relationship as it permits frank matters to be spoken and frank opinions to be given. The House of Commons has no right to demand disclosure of that opinion any more than they could demand to open the files of a private person. If the Attorney General were to disclose his opinion without the consent of the Government, then the Bar Council might take action against him in his professional capacity. If the House of Commons wants its own lawyer, they can hire one. It has plenty in its ranks already though, and each one capable of giving an opinion on the Withdrawal Agreement. The article talks of sovereignty, but sovereignty belongs to the Queen in Parliament, not to one House. The House is persuasive, but may not command. It can summon witnesses like a court, but may not cast aside privilege, any more than any other court can. Parliament can only exercise sovereignty by passing an Act.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Nicky Morgan: The only credible alternative plan is Norway Plus. And that may well be what Parliamen

Mon, 3 Dec 2018 11:18:37 +0000

Norway Plus is the Backstop but applied to the whole of the United Kingdom and made permanent. It would leave us unable to make our own rules and seriously hampered in signing any meaningful overseas deals. It would a slight improvement on staying in, but like deciding to sail into the ocean only to stay within sight of the port No. Not your way, not Norway, but our way.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Gove comes out to bat for the Prime Minister

Sun, 2 Dec 2018 23:44:51 +0000

If Michael Gove is right that it is not in EU’s interests for the backstop to remain, then that is to say that neither side wants it, and it can be disposed of in either of two ways. It may instead be that someone is being disingenuous, or that the Commission is insisting on the backstop either as a juvenile punishment or, more logically, to keep the Irish government aboard, in which case the Sage of Aberdeen is right but the backstop may endure nevertheless. From the perspective of Parliamentary mood (as far as I can tell from all I read), it is only the backstop which is stopping the agreement from being approved by the Commons.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Gove comes out to bat for the Prime Minister

Sun, 2 Dec 2018 20:42:27 +0000

If the Backstop is hated by both sides, then there is an obvious solution, though I doubt the European Commission would admit it. The House of Commons is to be asked to approve the Withdrawal Agreement, but they seem very unlikely to do so; but were they asked to approve such an agreement without the Backstop protocol then that would be another matter entirely. I would enjoy the sight of Keir Starmer being humiliated.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Starmer - If the Government won’t publish its legal advice, we’ll take it to court

Sun, 2 Dec 2018 11:47:50 +0000

Keir Starmer has, and I regret having to say this, been acting as the European Commission's voluntary agent since he was appointed. He should not so easily use the word "contempt" as it describes to closely how he is seen. Starmer is a lawyer, and he will know (a) that legal advice is confidential, (b) that a motion of the Commons is of no legal effect, (c) what that advice would have been anyway. It is a procedure to embarrass the Government (and would do so - I know what the advice would be too, and it includes things that must remain unspoken - which Starmer must also realise). This has gone beyond political games. It now involves the upsetting of international relations, damming Britain's negotiating position and leaving us in an even worse position. There are ways to make a successful Brexit and gain all the prosperity that promises, but not if we have Keir Starmer reading out al the cards in the Government's hand before it has played them.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The number of Tory MPs who oppose the deal stands at 82. Leigh may vote against after all.

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 16:02:45 +0000

Yup, so the tactic of getting it through by ensuring that everyone is bored and disgusted with both sides is well on track.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Hath not a Muslim eyes?

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 17:27:29 +0000

It was Jordan Peterson, no less, on Question Time the other week who said that if you have hate-speech laws, you should look at whom you are handing power to as judges of those laws. However here we are not looking at laws (yet) only how to define a term. (A very silly term in my opinion; "anti-Mohammedan prejudice" would be a better one.) We have settled on a definition of anti-Semitism because we know where it leads. We have seen it beginning with crude caricatures, progressing through social stigma, legal exclusion, to broken windows and ultimately to scenes that are seared in our nightmares. It is an ancient evil born of wanting someone to hate, which uses caricatures which are not even representative of a section of the targeted group - libels involving imagined conspiracies. It is the sight of those ideas being dragged up from the depths which has put a focus on anti-Semitism and the need to fight that monster, yet again. Prejudice against members of other groups has its own characteristics and more care must be taken, to ensure that the focus is on protecting individuals and families, not protecting a philosophy.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Hath not a Muslim eyes?

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 13:17:19 +0000

The Report does not actually suggest a definition, as I read it. It is long on studies and reporting on others' definitions, but does not set anything out of its own, for all the talk of a "working definition". If I have just not seen it though, do correct me. One plea: please, no pseudo-psychiatric words with '-phobia' in them.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : B.O.Bs v P.A.Ms

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 10:30:47 +0000

I'd never want commentators aboard a vessel preparing to leave port. Once the decision is made to weigh anchor, they would then argue about whether the provisions are right, whether the tender should drag behind or be hauled aboard, and then others insist that actually when we reach the open sea we must never leave sight of the harbour, just in case. In the meantime, the tide is ebbing and the bar is beginning to show beneath the surface. The harbourmaster watches and chuckles at the disorder and takes advantage, insisting that the vessel may not pass the outer harbour before 20:20 and a customs office must permanently sit on deck and watch the orange crates until he is satisfied that the captain can be trusted with them. This then provokes some of the crew to say that they might as well have stayed in harbour (which was what the harbourmaster's spies aboard were hoping for). The tide is still ebbing and the sand of the bar is clearly visible. The captain should then conclude that the best course is to warp the vessel out of the harbour, overladen with unnecessary provisions as she may be, with the tender and even the anchor dragging, just to get outside. Then when outside the harbourmaster's control and the sail fills, the surplus weight can be dropped overboard and the customs officer be made to walk the plank.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: May - "They want a good deal done that fulfills the vote"

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 14:32:35 +0000

The deal with the backstop protocol cut out, and no extension to the transition period would be teeth-grinding but liveable-with. Mrs May has said that the backstop might never be brought into effect: very well, get that sorted out. It was the backstop which caused the recent resignations, which has deprived the Government of a majority and which might collapse the confidence-and-supply agreement with the DUP, and even lose confidence from certain Conservative MPs. If we could be sure that the backstop would never come into play, then sign the thing. If there is no certainty, then do not ask the Commons to approve a deal with the protocol still within it.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Foster days DUP would review confidence and supply agreement if May's deal passes

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 13:36:28 +0000

There is no majority in the Commons for a motion approving the deal put on the table. There might indeed be more Conservatives in the Commons in agreement with the DUP than there are DUP members in the Commons. If there were a motion to approve the deal but excising the backstop protocol, and disapproving any extension of the Transition Period, then that would sail through.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Nick Hargrave: If we join the EEA, others might follow - thus creating a Europe-wide, non-federalist

Sat, 24 Nov 2018 11:51:39 +0000

If you are looking at Norway, then night does not follow day, though by the late summer a sort of twilight follows it.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Nabil Najjar: The Government must take a tougher line to protect British nationals abroad

Fri, 23 Nov 2018 14:25:14 +0000

Quite apart from what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ought to do, and the shocking behaviour of the Abu Dhabi court system, it is a lesson for those of us in the liberal West that foreign countries, even some former British protectorates, do not see things the way we do. They do not necessarily see the distinction between carrying out research on a state's armed forces for academic purposes, and spying, which is to say carrying out research on a state's armed forces for other reasons.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: May – “I'm confident that on Sunday we'll be able to agree a deal which works for the who

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 17:28:56 +0000

Speak for yourself: I have family in Gibraltar.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The leaked draft of the Political Declaration on the Future Relationship: link to full text

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 17:26:14 +0000

Politics is warfare continued by other means.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The leaked draft of the Political Declaration on the Future Relationship: link to full text

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 17:20:41 +0000

That is the withdrawal agreement, not the political declaration. The withdrawal agreement is the one which would impose vassalage upon us and put an axe through the United Kingdom. The political declaration is the short document about future co-operation to produce tariff-free trading. If the two sides can come up with the free trade deal which the political declaration talks about, then the back-stop protocol is torn up and the withdrawal agreement becomes only bad, not repulsive. If. Mrs May assures us that the backstop is temporary and might never in fact be called upon, and I have no doubt that she means it. In the same way, William Pitt the Younger assured the nation that income tax was a temporary wartime expedient. There is at least a nuclear option out of the backstop (if not out of income tax).

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The leaked draft of the Political Declaration on the Future Relationship: link to full text

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 15:54:15 +0000

Why the fuss? It's what we've wanted all this time: Britain is free and independent and we want a zero-tariff, free trade deal with the European Union in which British and foreign businesses can trade on non-discriminatory terms in each other's territories. We will discuss regulatory co-operation, just as the EU does with the United States already, but there is nothing binding. We will discuss law-enforcement and intelligence sharing, as we do currently and with the Anglosphere. We can discuss fishing, but have no need to concede anything. There is a lot of distrust out there, understandably seeing what has happened before and been said before, but this is not one of those things: the non-binding political declaration is exactly what we have always said that we want.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : "It brings back control of our borders, our money and our laws." The Prime Minister's Downing Street

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 13:53:46 +0000

Such cynicism! I did say "If".