The text that's taken months of officials' blood, sweat and tears has been agreed, at least at a technical level.
Now a paper's being drafted to present to the Cabinet tomorrow ready for the government's hoped-for next step - political approval from Theresa May's team, even though many of them have deep reservations.
Remember in the last 24 hours some of them have been warning privately that what's on the table is just not acceptable, and will never get through Parliament. Some even believe the prime minister ought to walk away.
But the government machine is now cranking into action. With a text ready, their long-planned rollout can begin.
The BBC's chief political correspondent Vicki Young said some ministers had "deep concerns" about the shape of the likely agreement, which critics say could leave the UK trapped in a customs agreement with the EU.
She said they would have to decide whether they could support it, and if not, whether to resign from cabinet.
Leading Brexiteers have already condemned the draft agreement, Boris Johnson saying it would see the UK remain in the customs union and "large parts" of the single market.
He told the BBC it was "utterly unacceptable to anyone who believes in democracy". "Am I going to vote against it. The answer is yes," he added.
And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said "given the shambolic nature of the negotiations, this is unlikely to be the good deal for the country".
'Failure to deliver'
Both the UK and EU want to schedule a special summit of European leaders at the end of November to sign off the reportedly 500 page withdrawal deal and the much shorter outline declaration of their future relationship.
Brussels has insisted it would only agree to put the wheels in motion for the summit if agreement can be reached on the issue of the Irish border.
Ambassadors from the remaining 27 EU states will meet in Brussels on Wednesday.
If a deal is agreed with the EU, Mrs May then needs to persuade her party - and the rest of Parliament - to support it in a key Commons vote.
Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said if details of the text reported by Irish broadcaster RTE were true, the UK would become a "vassal state" with Northern Ireland "being ruled from Dublin".
Such an agreement "failed to deliver on Brexit" and the cabinet should reject it, he told the BBC.
"I think what we know of this deal is deeply unsatisfactory," he said. "There seems to be growing opposition to these very poor proposals."
Meanwhile, following pressure from all sides of the Commons, ministers have agreed to provide MPs with a legal assessment of the implications for the UK of the Irish backstop and other controversial aspects of any deal.
Cabinet Office minister David Lidington said Attorney General Geoffrey Cox would make a statement to MPs and take questions ahead of the final vote on any Brexit deal.
MPs, he said, would get to see "a full reasoned position statement laying out the government's both political and also legal position on the proposed withdrawal agreement".
The Democratic Unionists' Westminster leader Nigel Dodds said he was pleased Parliament had "asserted its will" as it was imperative that all parties to the deal were clear in what way and for how long it would "legally bind" the UK.
Chequers minus it is. Whatever happened to no deal being better than a bad deal.
We should have been far more aggressive in negotiations with Brussels. They all but stated immediately after the referendum that they were going to bumrape us for having the temerity to leave, so we should have told them that unless and until they got serious, we'd basically go full on tax haven mode and steal all their big companies - and funnel money and support to Eurosceptics in Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, and Hungary.
Have you ever wondered if some part of the country is beyond hope?
I mean there is this shithole called Batley, it has a bi-election going on basically between a woman called "Kim Leadbeater" (does not what it says on the tin), a old Musrat apologist called George Galloway and some Tory who is letting the former eat themselves .
Honestly the town seems such a mess I wonder if we should just give up and start again
Batley was also where a teacher was fired for showing Mohammed cartoons because the kids staged a protest about it, and the school caved like a bunch of fucking cowardly pukes.
He was then forced into hiding as a result.
Apparently there's this leaflet being handed out in the constituency. It looks and smells fake, like it's someone trying to discredit them surreptitiously, but the fact I had to stop and think and that it's not actually all that far from what Labour actually believe right now made me think it might be real.
Batley was also where a teacher was fired for showing Mohammed cartoons because the kids staged a protest about it, and the school caved like a bunch of fucking cowardly pukes.
He was then forced into hiding as a result.
Apparently there's this leaflet being handed out in the constituency. It looks and smells fake, like it's someone trying to discredit them surreptitiously, but the fact I had to stop and think and that it's not actually all that far from what Labour actually believe right now made me think it might be real.
Batley was also where a teacher was fired for showing Mohammed cartoons because the kids staged a protest about it, and the school caved like a bunch of fucking cowardly pukes.
He was then forced into hiding as a result.
Apparently there's this leaflet being handed out in the constituency. It looks and smells fake, like it's someone trying to discredit them surreptitiously, but the fact I had to stop and think and that it's not actually all that far from what Labour actually believe right now made me think it might be real.
Labour taking a strong stance on Palestine and Kashmir - totally local issues that the people of Batley and Spen will feel they have a big stake in.
Still gotta hand it to the people who mocked up the fake leaflet - the "Will you join him?" was a very nice touch. Nothing else about it looks genuine though. If it was genuine, they'd focus way more on what they aim to achieve by taking the knee (while keeping it in as vague terms as possible), something in the vein of 'tackling instritutional racism, white supremacy,' etc.
Also, they probably would have used the official Black Lives Matter logo - the one where 'Lives' is written in highlighted with a dark background. The one that looks a bit like a-- hang on, I'll just show it:
...which as I was going to say, it looks an awful lot like the 'Parental Advisory' sticker, holy shit.
...which, by extension, was the inspiration for the Straight Outta Compton title:
Am I fucking crazy, or did BLM copy this? Like, an legit ancestral link between a gangsta rap movie and the fucking BLM logo? SOC came out in 2015 (holy fuck, I didn't realise it was six years ago), shortly before the first election year that put BLM on the map. But apparently BLM is even older - founded in 2013.
But this isn't the only logo design they've ever used. I can find non-highlighted variants around. So I guess it's still possible they used a different one for a while until the movement blew up in 2016 (or shortly before it). So does anyone have evidence of the highlighted 'Lives' appearing in BLM iconography before 2015?
Also, while searching for that article, I stumbled across this cursed video of Leadbeater debating George Galloway. And holy fuck – Kim Leadbeater sounds like she's being played by Jodie Whittaker (and for those who haven't seen the most recent Doctor Who, that's NOT a compliment), while Galloway's views are nakedly anti-troon.
I'm surprised a person can publicly express these views and still be considered to be on the left, but I suppose he only needs to win votes from Muslims who think trans and non-binary are Haram.
Honestly, I think a good triple punch of dropping 50KT nukes onto London, Birmingham and Coventry would incinerate a lot of the countries issues in a day. Not all of them mind you; the Immortan Steve's warband would deal with that though.
Labour taking a strong stance on Palestine and Kashmir - totally local issues that the people of Batley and Spen will feel they have a big stake in.
Still gotta hand it to the people who mocked up the fake leaflet - the "Will you join him?" was a very nice touch. Nothing else about it looks genuine though. If it was genuine, they'd focus way more on what they aim to achieve by taking the knee (while keeping it in as vague terms as possible), something in the vein of 'tackling instritutional racism, white supremacy,' etc.
Also, they probably would have used the official Black Lives Matter logo - the one where 'Lives' is written in highlighted with a dark background. The one that looks a bit like a-- hang on, I'll just show it:
Am I fucking crazy, or did BLM copy this? Like, an legit ancestral link between a gangsta rap movie and the fucking BLM logo? SOC came out in 2015 (holy fuck, I didn't realise it was six years ago), shortly before the first election year that put BLM on the map. But apparently BLM is even older - founded in 2013.
But this isn't the only logo design they've ever used. I can find non-highlighted variants around. So I guess it's still possible they used a different one for a while until the movement blew up in 2016 (or shortly before it). So does anyone have evidence of the highlighted 'Lives' appearing in BLM iconography before 2015?
Also, while searching for that article, I stumbled across this cursed video of Leadbeater debating George Galloway. And holy fuck – Kim Leadbeater sounds like she's being played by Jodie Whittaker (and for those who haven't seen the most recent Doctor Who, that's NOT a compliment), while Galloway's views are nakedly anti-troon.
I'm surprised a person can publicly express these views and still be considered to be on the left, but I suppose he only needs to win votes from Muslims who think trans and non-binary are Haram.
Galloway is a carpetbagging, clout-chasing windbag, who's sole modus operandi for the past 20 years has been exploiting sectarian divisions among Muslims so that he can reap the rewards of his own self-promotion. He doesn't care about being a representative for the people of Batley and Spen, anymore than he cared about being a representative for the people of Bradford before that. Running for election is purely an exercise in publicity for Galloway, and he's practically admitted in prior interviews that he has little to no interest in the actual job of being an MP.
I'm not a Labour supporter, but I'm happy to learn that Kim Leadbeater has won the by-election. She's the only major candidate who's actually local to the area, and the only one, so far, who's shown any decency. Her defense of troons is a bit cringe, but I'd still choose that over a toadying rabble rouser like Galloway, who once again, appears to be rejecting the result of a democratic election.
Is George Galloway and his cult worthy of a thread at this point? There so many stupid egotistical things George has done and will continue to do so till he draws his last breath.
I was a bit miffed this morning too, seeing the result. But I thought about it a bit more and this is actually the best result in a way.
As shown in the graph, Labour's fortunes aren't "reversing" by any means. Their support is actually going down.
However, a lot of the absolute nutter communist side of the Labour party we're sharpening their knives, counting on a loss in Batley & Spen as a cassus belli for ousting Starmer and replacing him with a continuity Corbyn candidate.
By clinging on to a very meagre win here (I think around 300 votes in it), Sir Kier probably can't be replaced before the next election in 2023/24. That's exactly what the Tories want - an opposition lead by a posho former barrister that most of the disaffected youth probably can't even tell apart from BoJo and his plummy mates. Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar et al must be fucking raging this morning. Tories will probably be in power until circa 2030 thanks to Leadbeater's narrow win today.
Is George Galloway and his cult worthy of a thread at this point? There so many stupid egotistical things George has done and will continue to do so till he draws his last breath.
Nool has said before that Galloway would fall under the ban on making threads on politicians - whilst other lolcows have stood for office (Wu, Loomer, Sargon et al), Galloway was an MP and junior shadow minister, and he's a politician first, lolcow second - but he's definitely a lolcow. I do think that the ban on politicians is correct, because it would result in politispergs making dozens of threads on politicians they don't like that would be boring and unfunny. There have been at least three threads attempted on Diane Abbott, for example. Diane Abbott is a grifting, incompetent, hypocritical shitsack for sure, but she's not funny, just aggravating. I'm ok with sacrificing a Galloway thread if I don't have to wade through page after page of Diane Abbott threads, let alone the kind of people those threads would attract to the site.
Maybe he could have a thread in A&N, the way the "Squad" do?
I was a bit miffed this morning too, seeing the result. But I thought about it a bit more and this is actually the best result in a way.
As shown in the graph, Labour's fortunes aren't "reversing" by any means. Their support is actually going down.
However, a lot of the absolute nutter communist side of the Labour party we're sharpening their knives, counting on a loss in Batley & Spen as a cassus belli for ousting Starmer and replacing him with a continuity Corbyn candidate.
By clinging on to a very meagre win here (I think around 300 votes in it), Sir Kier probably can't be replaced before the next election in 2023/24. That's exactly what the Tories want - an opposition lead by a posho former barrister that most of the disaffected youth probably can't even tell apart from BoJo and his plummy mates. Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar et al must be fucking raging this morning. Tories will probably be in power until circa 2030 thanks to Leadbeater's narrow win today.
General rule of thumb of Tory PM's is a good ten years or so, provided the Tories can "regenerate" inbetween. Sometimes this is a single period of Labour Government followed by another 10+ years of Tory Rule but we're reaching levels now of "right to rule" that shouldn't be possible compared to the idiotic doldrums of Labour.
Bare in mind that the current Tory Party, and its makeup, are vastly different to the one of only a couple of years ago, with the Tories going from 80% Remain to 80% Leave in that time and a GE inbetween.
Keeping Stammer limping on is far better for the Tories than replacement with another Corbyn who, for all his faults, energised a bunch of Yoof voters and got them out doing stuff, even if the end result was mostly stacking votes in already deep red seats.
Batley and Spen is technically a swing seat, going from a modest Tory Majority to a larger Labour one from 97 onwards. Its in that mid-tier range of seats that could flip if people get pissed off enough, that semi-comfortable 5-6k majority that make up the majority of seats in Parliament.
That has now been whittled down, much like Ed Balls' Morley and Outwood which was seen as solidly Labour it's now a knife-edge seat, and come the next GE it will be a proper fight between Labour and Tories as Galloway et al who stood won't be there next time around (Bi-elections bring the weirdos out of the woodwork due to the national media spotlight). Just 323 votes could've flipped the seat, and a similar results would see another 20 or so Labour seats fall if the same result was applied to seats with smaller majorities being defended by Labour.
Bear in mind though that the presence of so many fringe candidates probably benefited the Tories. The "natural" Tory vote are by and large happy with the Tories, whereas "natural" Labour voters are not happy with Starmer or Labour in general and more likely to vote for fringe candidates (notably Galloway, who has a much higher profile than most). A decade ago I'd said that in a GE they'd go back to Labour because a GE is more about keeping the Tories out of government than expressing their displeasure at the Labour leadership, but these days you never know.
That Starmer called the Batley and Spen by-election a sign that "Labour is back" is pretty desperate. Holding onto a seat by a wafer thin-majority when you are the main opposition party is a failure, just not as embarrassing a failure as losing the seat altogether. As others have shown with the voting graphs, they haven't been able to address Labour's falling vote in the slightest and they're still in the middle of a catastrophe.
'Plan B' is going ahead. No one's going to follow it due to the story being spun that the Government had a party last Christmas and video was released of aides having a laugh about it calling it a 'cheese and wine night'
'Plan B' is going ahead. No one's going to follow it due to the story being spun that the Government had a party last Christmas and video was released of aides having a laugh about it calling it a 'cheese and wine night'
They are all mocking us and taking us for mugs. Which is fair, people voted for this shower of spastics.
But if there's anyone still buying into the bullshit here, I suggest you familiarise yourself with and read the Government reports on this and actually read the stats and figures. Think about them, read them through and have a fucking word with yourself.
