Channel 4 have released this new information tonight that this Arron basically was dealing with the Russians at the time when he made the biggest ever donation to a political campaign – £8m. Why would he have hidden the truth about it? The report also shows a pic of him, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump after Trump won the 2016 Presidential election. Coincidental?

Meanwhile more news from Britain’s car manufacturing sector –

Both BMW Mini and Volkswagon have stated today at the Geneva motor show that they intend to scale back their UK operations in the event of a no deal Brexit.

And this last report also confirms the “zombie” state of UK populism whereby the Brexiters are so dead set on possibly activating a no deal as their threat against non-relenting from the EU negotiators, that they’re prepared to completely screw themselves over with their own hard won over employers and farmers. Do they honestly think that the EU can’t see through this moronic strategy?

The Brexiters are even said to have their own committee of lawyers ready to pour over whatever developments the AG Geoffrey Cox agrees with the EU.

Other Headlines of the day

May did not Understand the EU 

In a Channel 4 news interview a member of the ERG group Maurice Vickers has claimed he has not a road to Damascus style conversion – but that he is now accepting reality that he may have to back the Prime Minister’s deal.

The UK Attorney General is said to be in Brussels working on guarantees to assuage the concerns of this anti EU gang. They are actually softening. But not out of political imperative, more that they realise they’ve achieved as much as they’re going to achieve at this stage. Their sights are now set on the post 29th March stage where they hope to get a harder line PM in to finish the job.

The reality also is that neither this Brexiter ERG group, nor their constituents have experienced quite enough negative consequences from being ejected from the EU, for them to properly realise that they will eventually be the real losers.

And no wonder they get away with this tactic – one of their chief architects is this clown [below] – wading into an issue that he has no knowledge of whatsoever – the GFA, stoking up a populist vote at every turn for his own political interests. What a complete pleb.

PS. Tonight, RTE also broadcast the documentary – “Bordering on Brexit” #RTEBorderingOnBrexit –

In the end, it all comes out in the wash. Those of us who have been watching in horror as the Brexit brainwashing has been played out were wondering what sort of forces have been behind it all. We always knew there was likely Russian influence on the actual referendum itself. But now we’re also seeing a distinct US flavour to the brainwashing behind the current politics of it. On Friday last, the US Ambassador to the UK came out with a few strongly worded statements to the effect that the UK should abandon EU standards and open itself up to low grade US food imports. As blatant an intervention as it was astonishing.

And within it lies more of the truth about some of the actual forces behind the whole fiasco. It makes it clear that the US is hopeful of capitalising on British desperation around the economics of Brexit in order to be able to dump it’s food into Britain. This is obviously completely contrary to the interests of British farming as well as infuriating those who care about British food standards. Ultimately it would seem obvious that this will never “wash” politically. But if that is the tactic which the hard Brexiters are relying on in order to be able to keep food prices reasonable post Brexit, it seems to be in incredibly short sighted to be keeping their electorate in the dark about it. In other words, they’re prepared to obfuscate and confuse people, releasing contradictory misleading statements by Ministers Fox and Gove, and meanwhile the brash and tactless US Ambassador comes out with his intervention – sort of cutting to the chase and letting the cat out of the bag. It’s hard to imagine the history books looking favourably on this type of political expediency – screwing around with food quality so that the food economics around Brexit don’t cause a complete short-term political shit-storm which is what it obviously otherwise would without a trade deal with the US, heavily weighted in favour of the US farmer.

All amounting to yet more astonishing stupidity and bad judgement whether that resides in Westminster, the general UK electorate or both. Like why is the US Ambassador so confident of not drawing out a damaging back-lash against his statements? How are the British Farmers taking this lying down? The answer is, that one thing that is no longer in doubt is the depths of the dumbness that’s out there. It’s hard to imagine that the UK and possibly everywhere is engaged in an intellectual race to the bottom, where the more ridiculously flawed the political line you adopt, whether anti-semitism in the UK Labour party, whether support for Trump, whether support for Brexit, the more appealing it is to a public full of numbties.

By extension therefore, if you seek to make a case for something that has a clearly defined logic to it, such as climate change action, you have to start by neutralising the arguments of the dopes who’ll argue against you. Maybe that’s what Theresa May has been doing all these months.

From an Irish perspective, there is a sense these days that the Withdrawal Agreement vote will probably pass. There will probably be assurances given on the backstop, a cliff-edge will be avoided and the whole process will move on to the next stage. Maybe that won’t be the worst thing for Ireland. Maybe the avoidance of the Brexit shock is the thing that we need more than anything, not the avoidance of any Brexit at all. Maybe UK business’ loss is very likely to be Ireland’s gain. Maybe the punishment for their being so hell-bent on their own destruction is the loss of stability for business, which makes Ireland look more attractive, the so-called Brexit bounce. In that instance, the longer and deeper the stupidity and lack of clariy, the bigger the bounce should be in Ireland’s favour. But first the cliff edge of no deal has to be eliminated.

This bleedin muppet stands for everything that is down-right breathtakingly stupid about Brexit. A relatively unknown character over this side of the Irish Sea, it’s unnerving to think there’s an army of dullards on the Brextieer benches willing to display their obstinate stupidity to the public press for the whole world to witness. The language he uses itself points to the down-right dogged kamikaze spirit of these eejits. Whatever they get – they deserve. The reason for his resignation btw is over the PM’s decision to allow a vote on extending the article 50 date. He and his cohorts are the actual humiliation – not the EU.

There is not a majority in the house of commons for no deal.

The shift in focus may now moving towards the post withdrawal agreement and the future relationship.

There’s also an element of shimmying on the Labour side, talking about a group of Labour and Tory MP’s abstaining [which I’m guessing would mean that at least they wouldn’t be voting against it, which would be good news for the PM] in the Meaningful Vote as long as the May’s deal was to be put to a people’s vote. With this in prospect the meaningful vote may actually be moved forward to as early as next week if she’s confident it will have the numbers. Pretty interesting politicking if it works. The downside for TM is that she may have to undertake to fall on her sword as the Brextieers may want to have a proper hardliner in No. 10 for the negotiations on the future relationship.

We’ve had our dinner, we’re supposed to be able to sit back and watch the day’s drama with regard to the Great British break off. Only one problem, it’s a vote about a vote – which is a by word for boredom itself. It’s all becoming so complex and convoluted it’s like as if even the reporters themselves are losing the will to live.

Bottom Line:  There is more reporting of talk of a softening of the position of the hard brexiters

All of this softening of positions is clearly as a result of the Independent Group.

The final development tonight is that a Labour amendment has got defeated tonight, which has forced the Labour party now is to support a second referendum.

PS – Read: Brexit’s my fault: How the word I invented could be an epitaph for the nation’s decline

“The Brexit tectonic plates are shifting in both parties” quote Faisal Islam, Sky News reporter.  He’s right.

The big votes are on 12th March. If it is accepted they will leave on 29th March.

If on the other hand the deal is rejected, on 13th March MP’s will be allowed to vote to rule out No Deal.  If they vote to reject no deal [considered to be likely], on 14th March they will be allowed to vote on a short limited extension to Article 50.

Also interesting today is this headline below from the Guardian –

The essence of the article on the British economy is –

• The economy would be 6%-9% smaller over the next 15 years than it otherwise might have been, in the event of no deal, in line with Bank of England forecasts.
• The flow of goods through Dover would be “very significantly reduced for months”.
• With 30% of food coming from the EU, prices are likely to increase and there is a risk that panic buying might create shortages.
• Only six of the 40 planned international trade agreements have been signed.

To read this article in detail, only one question comes to mind – why the fc#k are they doing this to themselves?? It beggars belief. All the cost, the hassle, the waste of time, the disruption to business, and all for what? To make some convoluted, academic argument that the EU is somehow as anti-Britain now as it was back in War time. Such bullshit.

If anything, the possible light at the end of the tunnel hinted at by today’s concessions, may even be coming too early. There hasn’t been enough real experience of real consequences as a result of this ludicrous extreme politics for people to really change their viewpoint. And after all that is the only thing that can consign this type of stupidity to the dustbin for several generations. Unless that happens, the effects of it could be hanging around for a lot longer.

All the more reason to anticipate a possible second referendum which apparently, Labour is now orientating towards if the Brexit deal is not a Labour looking Brexit.

A couple of remarkable developments today

1. Varadkar coming out with the statement that he has the hint that there will be either a delay or a deal.
2. The Labour Party in Britain coming out with a statement that it will back an amendment for a second referendum. I can’t imagine that was an easy one for Corbyn. It is thought that it will be better for Labour to back remain than a bad Tory Brexit.
3. The EU pushing for a long extension to Article 50 – TM is pushing back.

Today might have been a day for break from this usual daily slot – except for the radical development tonight which was that May has said today that there will now be “no” meaningful vote this week but will be postponed again until 12th march.

This is being flagged tonight as the step which could potentially spark massive disruption in the Tory party this week instead. So if I don’t report it tonight, the meaning of it could get lost in whatever is to follow as early as tomorrow morning – the very thing this blog is designed to mitigate [key detail getting lost in the fog of Brexit war].

Meanwhile the Guardian is exploring delaying Brexit til 2021.

The next biggest article of the day from an Irish perspective was by Colm McCarthy in today’s Sunday Independent. In it McCarthy suggests that the negotiation at the start of EU membership of the EEC was on the basis of “how much are you prepared to reduce tarriffs by, I will do the same or more”. However now the negotiation is “we will impose barriers as follows..  would you be so kind as to not retaliate too much”.

It’s starting to feel like we should be afraid – we should be very afraid.. we probably just don’t really realise it yet. But in a year or two we will know exactly how much we should have been terrified of this omni-shambles.

Hard to know if there’s any truth in this remark by Varadkar. It mightn’t make any particular difference anyway given the 3 rebel Ministers threatening to go against the PM if she fails in her meaningful vote next week. Their actions are more likely to rule out a no deal than anything the Taoiseach might say.

Anyway he’s off to Egypt for the conference between the EU and Arab states. Before a week of weeks politically.

A no deal Brexit will be a Lose, Lose, Lose outcome for Britain, The EU and Ireland – according to Simon Coveney.  He described how he will work on a piece of legislation that he hopes will never be needed.

It’s hard to argue with Arlene Foster’s hope that neighbourliness can continue after Brexit, even if the rhetoric of some of her party colleagues is anything but that. Above she is pictured with Shane Ross at the launch of across border Greenway.

As for the bedraggled poor oul Teasie, her dreams have been yet again shattered on 2 fronts today –

1.   No joy for on her trip to Egypt this weekend

2.     She has to leave within 3 months of Brexit day – say her cabinet.