And now for the worrying headlines. The full extent of the Brexiter deviousness is starting to be laid bare. A level which most would probably not have imagined prior to the referendum. A level which does need to be faced down by EU negotiators and Irish officials need to play their part in that – which, to be fair, they have been doing to date.

It’s not that many weeks since Tory MP Priti Patell had suggested that starvation methods should be used to force Ireland to back down on the backstop. This policy of Gove’s doesn’t appear too far removed from the same sentiment.

Letwin / Cooper Amendment

It’s taken me reviewing several online news websites over nearly an hour to be able to work out just where things are at tonight. As usual, it was the Guardian which spelt it out the clearest.

Essentially, the Moderates in the Tory Cabinet have run out of patience as have a large group of MP’s. The formation of the new Independent’s group has given them the impetus they needed to lay down their own demands as a counter-balance to the ERG group. The cause? Last week’s defeat of the Prime Minister’s amendment reiterating the House’s support for the Prime Minister’s negotiations. Because that had been defeated, the Remainers seem to have decided that enough is enough.

The upshot of all of this is that the Conservative Sir Oliver Letwin along with the Labour MP Yvette Cooper are putting forward a motion taking no deal off the table.

It all happens next week – as this article sets out, next week is the week when May must throw her whole lot in and back either the Remainers or the ERG. As for the letter May wrote saying she does not accept the Tory party leavers’ description of the Tory party saying it was an “open-hearted party” – particularly pathetic, leading to the view that she’s pathetically out of touch.

Meanwhile there was also this warning in the Journal.ie today to add to last weeks warning about food costs for the inhabitants of both these islands:

While today’s addition to the new group of Labour independents is a relatively small number of 3 Tory splitters, the prospect of there being more was confirmed by Vince Gable. If that happens it could start to have an impact on the overall outcome.

In their press conference they confirmed that the battle is over and the ERG – Anti Europe Awkward squad is calling the shots.

More than a little surprisingly, it has been reported also today that May plans to travel to a conference in Egypt this weekend to get some air time with EU leaders. Even though it is not an EU summit and Brexit is not the subject matter. It looks a little desperate – but then, that’s what she probably is.

Imagining what people will wonder about what it was like living through the run-up to Britain’s exit, it might not be obvious in the future for people to realise that Ireland is having to implement laws allowing for the fact that it’s nearest neighbour is now suddenly going to be in a different jurisdiction. The sectors which are most effected are areas like medicine, social welfare and criminal justice.

As for the UK – EU negotiations, the current Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay has now been told by Michel Barnier that the so called Malthouse compromise is dead in the water. TM is due to head to Brussels tomorrow.

That storm in a tea cup is about to blow out in the next couple of hours or overnight. The reaction from the so-called European Research Group or party within the Conservative party is expected by morning.

It’s no surprise today after yesterday’s reporting of the Honda news, but it was confirmed today that Honda is to close it’s entire Swindon factory. The nuts thing is that they won’t blame Brexit of course.

Despite this, it is important to note that there was some good news for Britain PLC today and that was that employment did reach another record high rate in the last quarter of 2018.

A turn up for these books…

If yesterday was a day of ridiculously little developments of any great significance, today was a day of more developments than possibly people can easily process.

The day started off with FF Senator Mark Daly outlining on Morning Ireland how the view that the return to a hard border in Ireland is less about “whether” there will be a return to violence in Northern Ireland, but rather the extent of the threat. And the whole morning was all about No Deal Brexit, Hard Borders and a return to violence – depressing stuff indeed.

By mid-morning, there was already an online notification announcing that 7 Labour Party members in Britain have decided to resign from Labour. It turns out, they have not formed a different party but instead are running as a group of Independents under the hashtag #ChangePolitics.

Meanwhile a group of remain supporting Tory MP’s are also said to have had a meeting at No. 10 this morning with their own demands for their party leader. They are insisting that No Deal must be taken off the table in the negotiations with the EU. Both developments significant enough in their own right.

However by this evening already there is a further earthquake with the announcement that the Honda plant in Swindon is set to announce it’s closure by 2022. This was an area which voted for Brexit. While the statement includes a mention that the decision is not related to Brexit, the uncertainty element of Brexit can not be discounted, for all their talk of Westminster being referred to as the Mother of Parliaments.

Separately a report from the Financial Times shows how the Japanese almost withdrew from talks with the UK on trade, due to a high-handed letter from Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and International Trade secretary, Liam Fox. The article also explains how the Australians, while sympathetic to the UK on concluding a trade deal by the end of the year, nonetheless poured cold water on the idea of the UK joining the Trans-Pacific regional trading bloc. Imagine the recklessness of them not already being members of that bloc, if they had expected to be, before they had agitated to leave the EU without a deal.**

Simon Coveney was in Brussels again today to meet Michel Barnier. The Guardian in the UK has reported today however that he has been making some waves of his own today by confronting the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt about pressure being brought to bear on Ireland from the UK.

Lastly [and on any other normal day it’s likely this story would have dominated the airwaves far more] an almost hidden story today was of how MP’s are calling for a Government investigation into Russian interference in the Brexit referendum. The fact that this is even a possibility should be as big a story as the Mueller investigation in the US, yet it keeps getting quashed in the UK for some incredible reason.

** It’s looking increasingly like the crux of the whole issue of the political insistence on Brexit is this perceived High-Handedness which the British don’t seem to perceive as being anything other than normal, and which other Diplomats are finding unworkable – not least our own Tanaiste and Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. The closer the date gets, the more exasperated that major employers become with the UK, the more desperate their advances become on the trade front and the less successful the outcomes for them. What remains astonishing is that their electorate have still not pushed back.

As the mainstream media sticks to it’s policy of giving equal amounts of air time to both sides of any debate, there is still no sign of one side pulling away and winning over people from the other side.

The PM and no.10 are still clinging to the line that she’ll talk to the leaders of all 27 countries, she’ll meet with Jean-Claude Juncker, bla bla bla. The Eurosceptic wing of her party are threatening to oppose anything other than a complete removal of the Irish Backstop.

And for her part, Merkel is reported to have said to Varadkar back in January the refusal of the Irish Government to countenance a hard border in a no deal scenario is actually boosting the hard brexiteers. She probably has a point.

On both sides of the Commons, the potential for split parties is all over the media. Also a leaked WhatsApp message from within the ERG that the May’s negotiation with the EU is a complete waste of time.

The countdown to the 27th of this month, 10 days from now, promises to be possibly the most momentous and historic 10 days in British history.  We are by now, less than 1,000 hours to Brexit.

“Politics is war without bloodshed, War is politics with Bloodshed” – Chairman Mao

18.02.19 An odd development from yesterday which was omitted but which says it all about the Prime Minister’s position, was a letter she wrote to Tory MP’s:

• Eurosceptic MP’s accused by their own Tory colleagues of treachery
• History will judge us all for the parts we have played in this process

Today – the calm after the storm of last night – there were precious little reportable developments. But the pressure is piling on – some of it Brexit-related on the Tory side, some of it anti-semitism related on the Labour side.

Not that the pressure is particularly likely yet to have any overall influence on the British electorate, but it’s interesting how the British tech sector is sounding warnings against a no-deal.

They’ll be welcome to come to Ireland.

Lastly, after a crazy week (as billed) when I think most people are glad to have just made it to a weekend, the Conversation UK perhaps  have best coined the Brexiters’ psychology in their article this morning – below. This account [at last] possibly really does get to the very heart of why these clowns still seem to command such popularity with the British electorate. It is all still delusional nonetheless.

After months now of strange goings on in the House of Commons, with many dismissing the current political deadlock as not a particularly big deal, finally this evening [after yet another Government defeat in Westminster] there is starting to be something more resembling an element of shrill disquiet from many quarters.  Prompting the thought of dystopian nightmare concepts such as that above from the HandMaid’s Tale now suddenly seeming all the less far-fetched and scarily all the more possible.

There are central figures such as the Conservatives Anna Soubry starting to come out extremely strongly  – almost panicky – against members of her own party who have allowed the process to come to this – in her view in a ridiculous game of brinkmanship.

The possibility is now that some of the front bench of this Tory Government may resign. Apart from the fact that there are no legal implications to today’s vote, the politics are said to be highly significant. Essentially the motion had been designed to reiterate support for the PM’s approach to negotiating with the EU for concessions on the Backstop. Instead of that she has lost the vote and is now even less likely to convince the EU that if they make any concessions to her that she can get those concessions and the Withdrawal deal through the house. The vote she took on today is seen as a mis-step by TM.

Even before that vote result was known – Simon Coveney at a sitting of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs had said it was incredible that the UK had allowed the Brexit process to get to where it now is at. Here is the BBC’s coverage of the same story.

Last night in a conversation with a local farmer, it appears that sector had originally expected a second referendum, something they have now all but given up hope of. Many of them now highly concerned about the effects of Brexit.

The very real threat of “no deal” has seemed to edge closer with even many significant stories about Brexit not even maintaining much momentum because there are so many fresh developments, with increasingly eerie twists and turns daily – one of the strangest being this one:

Placeholder – Prime Time show tonight discussion on Brexit

What can possibly be the benefit of having Bertie Ahern addressing a 13 strong Brexit committee? Has the whole of the UK political system lost it’s reason? Not that Ahern hasn’t been a good forceful spokesman for issues to do with and strong defender of the Peace Process. But how is it that they’re spending time on this naval gazing with less than 45 days to go? The conversation itself was far too polite and nothing like as forthright as it needed to be.

The EU has accused Britain as only “pretending to be negotiating”.

Not surprisingly, Mary Lou McDonald is now screaming about a referendum on a United Ireland which is strangely starting to look like an inevitable solution to the problem. And while I have no sympathy for Britons who didn’t do enough to avoid Brexit by not going out and voting against it, I now find myself not having sympathy for those for whom the prospect of a United Ireland might be an unwelcome development because they didn’t do enough to stop the DUP from blocking proper negotiation.

In fact if anything, this along with a new Scottish referendum could be yet another instrument to focus minds.

Ford also again today warning against a no deal Brexit.

Because I write this blog, I hold the luxury of being able to pick whatever topic I like on any given evening. Tonight, it’s the obscure ramblings of Guardian columnist Rafael Behr which caught my attention.

His article argues that two party politics in Britain is soon coming to an end.

While his theory may be as much wishful thinking on his part as it is a carefully considered hypotheses, it certainly looks likely that the outcomes of this whole Brexit chapter of British politics could indeed be tectonic – whether a complete disruption to the historic 2-party system, a break-up of the United Kindom itself,  or a complete collapse of the British economy; or a combination of all 3. On the latter – even in Ireland we are seeing clear signs that jobs have already migrated here as a result of the uncertainty caused by Brexit. Most of these processes are irreversible whichever way the Brexit itself goes at this point and this has to be costing people on the ground in the UK – already. Yet we’re not hearing about that – yet.

Another possibility is that she [the PM] has something up her sleeve – a massive trade deal say with the US for example? It could be possible. One way or another, we will look back on this very week and will either wonder what was going through the heads of the UK negotiators at this point as they bluffed, or we will consider how cleverly they played their cards as they eventually forced the EU to blink, however unlikely that may seem now. The whole story,  is a tantalizing piece of political theatre in the making, right before our eyes.

The Prime Minister’s request to MP’s in the Commons that they “hold their nerve” seems ill-judged in the face of the EU’s insistence that it is Britain who must make concessions first. Nevertheless the timeline now is roughly this – that she has 2 more weeks to try to extract a concession out of Brussels. Then a meaningful vote will take place on 27th February. If she has failed to extract a deal by then, prominent Tory back-benchers are in talks with Labour back-benchers to agree on a motion opposing “no deal” and this will be voted on by March 15th.

It all amounts to the biggest game of Poker in History. The prize for the EU is not just showing the British who’s boss, but also to halt the rise of populism itself across Europe and even the world. The prize for the British is to reassert it’s old empire as a global figure. The possibility of course is that there will be no winners. But one thing is for certain and that is that wishful thinking alone will not win it out for either side – only cold hard negotiation to the end. And at the moment it’s looking increasingly to be advantage EU. But history itself has shown – never write off the Brits.

FFS – Like no progress. This is certainly high risk strategy. Today there’s been actually little or nothing to report.

TM has actually ruled out doing the deal with Labour under pressure from her own MP’s. Meanwhile the view is that Corbyn is highly unlikely to vote for her deal, but both are posturing their co-operation with one another in order to be seen to do whatever is possible to be moving the situation forward. What a careless approach from both of them.

No progress. While manufacturers across the country are certainly hitting planning stage for the actual date of Brexit. Astonishing. Practically criminal.

Meanwhile Sky News is today suggesting her strategy is to try to court some of the Labour MP’s who have “Leave” constituencies to back her deal – the maths in that instance being described as “tight” at best, therefore making the whole thing a completely risky strategy.

On the EU side, they have not lost sight, despite all of the echo chamber sounds coming from Barmy Britain – that it is they who must make the concessions and not the EU.