Article 50 trigger 29th March

Interesting comment from Richard Murphy this morning. He seems to have the same worry that I do about the danger of civil disturbance when the currently angry Brexiters find they've achieved nothing.

I fear our politicians chosen to negotiate Brexit are woefully inadequate for the task given to them. But that may be a minor concern when those who thought they were regaining control can’t spot the difference when Brexit has happened. What then? And how will that anger be managed? That’s what really worries me. And have no doubt that there is deliberately fuelled anger already driving these emotions. That will not be going away. It will only get worse. Life in 2019 may not be fun.
www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/03/30/how-good-are-the-tories-at-anger-management/

Not quite so straight forward as your post suggests anya

Much cannot be carried over in what would appear a logical order, often leaving some laws "behind" with the executive tempted to make the decision rather than consulting parliament as sovereign.

The bill will bring all EU laws onto the UK books. This means that as we trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, laws and regulations made over the past 40 years while the UK was part of the EU will continue to apply. Specifically the bill will:

* repeal the European Communities Act 1972, which provides legal authority for EU law to have effect as national law in the UK
*'transfer all EU laws currently in force onto the UK statute book

EU law covers areas such as environmental regulation, workers’ rights, and the regulation of financial services. Without the Great Repeal Bill, when the UK leaves the EU all these rules and regulations would no longer have legal standing in the UK, creating a ‘black hole’ in the UK statute book and leading to uncertainty and confusion. By carrying EU laws over into UK law, the Government plans to provide for what David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, has called ‘a calm and orderly exit’ from the EU, while giving the Government and Parliament time to review, amend or scrap these laws in future.

Supreme irony if Henry VIII powers used in Great Repeal Bill.

Lets hope the lawyers and people like Miller are keeping watch

The UK isn't in a 'mess'

This is the kind of sweeping, inaccurate statement that makes your case look stupid.

Another article by the same 'Conservative Home' columnist:

www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2016/10/garvan-walshe-the-government-is-making-the-same-five-strategic-mistakes-on-brexit-that-we-made-in-iraq.html

How Britain broke its taboo on blaming immigrants and why that makes Brexit harder
Out of all proportion to its real effects, immigration now determines British politics, exercising political gravity inordinate to its size.
It has caused the Conservative government to aim for a hard Brexit, souring relations with Europe and threatening permanent and irreversible damage to trade. It has paralysed a Labour Party torn between its young urban, multi-ethnic and white ageing post-industrial voters.
This wasn't always the case. In 2005, when I was the foreign policy man at the Conservative Research Department, the Tories ran a general election campaign notorious for its anti-immigrant tone. "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" ran the slogan, beneath the text in looped handwriting script "It's not racist to impose limits on immigration".
We were roundly and rightly defeated, a defeat that galvanised the party into picking the self-consciously modernising outside chance David Cameron as its next leader. What's happened? Have the British people become more hostile to immigration?
Not really, opinion of whether immigration is too high, too low or about right is remarkably stable, though people's beliefs about its importance has followed immigration volumes. But a taboo has been broken.
The urge to divert blame to outsiders is among the most powerful social forces known, and more powerful still in democracies, when foreigners don't have the vote. It's always destructive. At best it diverts us from looking for the real cause of our problems, its worst effects should be too well known to bear repeating. Political systems impose norms against invoking it for good reasons.
That poster from the 2005 election was a failed attempt to break that norm. It failed, as post-election focus groups showed, because we weren't trusted to make the assertion that immigration controls aren't racist. Just as only a Tory home secretary, as it happens the current prime minister, can get away with cutting the police budget, only the Left, guardians of anti-racism, can break the immigration taboo.
The argument begins with pedantic equivocation; it's not racist to object to Eastern European immigration because Poles are white. That reminds me of the Islamist extremist from Manchester University who explained that she couldn't possibly be anti-Semitic because she, an Arab, was herself a Semite.
It continues with a series of falsehoods about Eastern European immigrants: that they are taking British jobs (they are not), depressing wages (on average they don't), putting pressure on the NHS (utter nonsense, because they are young and able-bodied), taking resources from the native population (rubbish - from 2004 to 2014 they paid net £8bn to the exchequer; the native population paid net minus £671bn), are out of work scrounging on benefits (false), are taking in-work benefits at a disproportionate rate (also false, and inconsistent with the idea that they are stealing jobs and top-up benefits for working people).
This may not be racism because the immigrants in question were white, but if they had a different skin colour we'd have no difficulty giving this prejudice the name it deserves.
Facts, as we should all know by now, are not the issue. People's beliefs about immigration express their fear that their situation is to be undermined, or that they are being taken advantage of by members loyal to another tribe. The taboo served to prevent politically influential leaders from amplifying and giving legitimacy to those destructive instincts.
Gordon Brown broke the taboo when he said he wanted "British jobs for British workers" in a conference speech in 2007. Now it hasn't so much been broken as inverted. The new victims of the system aren't ethnic minorities living in major cities, but the white working class living outside them.
There's a lot of evidence that they indeed suffer disproportionately. They attain inferior educational outcomes, less social mobility and often lower pay. They're isolated from many of the benefits globalisation provided the educated and internationally minded. A lot of them indeed feel neglected by the system that they feel has imposed a diverse and open society upon them. And they are particularly worried about immigration.
This has provided a reason, authorised by a Left unable to convey to them how their lives might be improved, to retreat into caring for their prejudices. Now the received view has transformed: it isn't pandering to racism to suggest policy conforms to their views, but rightful concern for the left behind.
Social mobility has replaced racial superiority as the motivating cause, so people aren't stopped by the taboo against racism from expressing anti-immigrant feelings. Anyone who points out the truth - that these are attitudes based on fear of and generalisations about other groups of people - opens themselves up to attacks that they are privileged and out of touch.
There's nothing as dangerous in Britain's oppositional system as a political consensus. Bad enough when, as with the Iraq War or the financial crisis, it was the consensus of informed experts. Much worse when it derives from ignorance and prejudice about the very foreigners Britain has to persuade to offer good Brexit terms.
____________________________________
Garvan Walshe is a former national and international security policy adviser to the Conservative Party, and a columnist for Conservative Home.

No, TM couldn't ignore immigration, which is why I'm interested in her recent comments that immigration is unlikely to fall and how people will react. Remainers have been saying that all along. In any case, the nationalities of immigrant, about which people have the most negative view are Rumanian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Somalian. The UK has always had control over immigration from three of those countries and Brexit will make no difference at all. People have an overall positive view of most of the rest.

It's difficult to know how many people there are with racist or xenophobic attitudes, because most people won't admit it in a poll. Most attitudinal surveys suggest that about 20% of people have an attitude which is somewhat racist. Racism isn't in itself illegal, unless covered by specific laws, such as the Equality Act. My personal impression is that 20% could be about right, judging by casual remarks people make.

Something that all the post-referendum surveys have shown is that there is no single reason that people voted as they did, but there are definite trends in all the surveys/polls. There is a very strong correlation between the way people voted and their general cultural values and whether they could be described as authoritarian or liberal, which cuts across political parties.

Cultural values also correlate strongly with age, which is probably why there was a definite trend for older people to vote Leave and younger people to vote Remain. The strongest link was between those who believe in the death penalty and those who don't! The NatCen link I posted above shows the dividing lines very clearly.

Quite right DJ. I meant over half were leavers! Apologies.
DD yes, we do have racists here and I'm sure they all voted leave but I can't believe they made up more than Avery small proportion of the total leave vote.
Mazie it's always been very clear that immigration was a huge issue for the leavers, and DDs figures bear that out. TM could hardly ignore that.

Fitzy, your post does not make sense.
If over half those who voted were remainers, we would not be in this mess.

Two articles/reports about why people voted Leave:

whatukthinks.org/eu/a-divided-country-applies-to-leave/

natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/understanding-the-leave-vote/

(They both use a range of reliable sources.)

Concern about immigration doesn't make somebody a racist, but it's quite clear from many of the comments on social media that some of the people who voted for Brexit are racist. It's difficult to know how many, because analysis of social media comments shows that "bots" were used by both sides, but mainly Leave. Apparently, 9% of all social media comments came from only 1% of sources/posters. Leave was/is more vocal, but it might only be a relatively small number of people posting the comments.

Incidentally, 88% of those who said immigration was their top priority voted Leave, while only 15% who said the economy was their top priority voted Leave. 66% of all voters thought that Brexit would lead to a fall in immigration. From what May & Co are now saying, it would appear they're going to be disappointed.

I know that immigration being a concern doesn't make someone a racist. And I was not expressing a personal opinion. But I have read an awful lot of Remainers' comments and blogs over the past few months and the impression I get is that some of them associate Leaver voters with racists. It's not fair, but it's happened.

Why would May be ignoring the referendum if she didn't take account of immigration? I didn't see 'Do you support freedom of movement?' on the ballot paper. She made an assumption, gave it more weight than anything else, and ran with it. She's certainly ignoring all those who voted Leave in protest over austerity...

Mazie there is little doubt that immigration was a key issue for many remainers. But that doesn't make them racists. Over half those who voted were remainers. If you choose to "taint them by association" that's your business but to my mind that does you no credit. As to TMs negotiating stance, she would be ignoring the referendum if she didn't take account of the immigration issue.

I'm afraid, Luckygirl that, however undeserving of it they may be, Leave voters will, for a long time, be tainted with racism by association. For while many Leave voters weren't racist it is pretty clear that racists voted Leave. And as our revered Head Girl has made immigration a key issue in her approach to Brexit the taint is going to be hard to shift.

Thanks WW. I'll read it properly in the morning when my mind is a bit straighter.

There is actually a goods train now, Maizie, all the way from China. It didn't seem to have many containers, and I still think by ship would be cheaper.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-keep-european-citizenship-free-movement-passport-article-50-european-parliament-leaked-a7656281.html

For all those who still want to be Europeans.

Well said Luckygirl although we didn't vote from fear at what we saw around us, no doubt some did.

Magpie,

If you were all properly informed then i wouldn't need to say anything. You and many others have blamed the EU for everything that has gone wrong when actually they have brought us 50 years of peace. Is that not enough?
Couldn't you just thank those that started it? It is unique in the world.

As far as I know I have not said anything negative about the UK- there is enough on GN without my starting.
I didn't like Ms May's speech but a lot of people didn't. It was too emotional with not enough facts. Anyone with a knowledge of psychology can see that she is trying to damp down her own inner thoughts and feeling the strain of doing something she doesn't believe in.

As my GS would say 'What a mess!'

If we label leave voters as racists we will finish up with a self-fulfilling prophesy - just as treating a child as naughty results in them being naughty.

You need to understand your "enemy" to make progress - to listen and be willing to learn from them rather than dismissing them.

I am as disgusted by racist thuggery as most decent people, but they are not the sum total of leave voters.

"social justice, environmental protection and a belief in open, free and tolerant societies" - I think these are the values that the majority of British people hold dear - nothing has changed.

The fears result from the fallacy that all the leave voters are racist thugs - they are not.

There is a group of people who were once moderates who have moved to the right because they are afraid - and fear breeds aggression.

My own brother, who is the epitome of kindness and who worked with and managed many people of various nationalities during his career, lives in the south east and he has become unhappy about what he sees happening around him and so voted leave. It is that sort of fear that needs to be addressed. He subscribes to the values above - no question about it.

The crux of the matter is that the EU simply went too far and raised fears among decent moderate folk like my brother. The EU is flawed and that is why people voted leave, and not out of hatred.

Your posts to me are as usual, nonsense durhamjen and as such will be ignored from now on or reported if necessary.

That was a good blog, dj. Though I probably think so because I've used a lot of his arguments myself over the past few months

Changing the subject altogether, though, I've been thinking about the constantly repeated mantra 'We want to be free to trade with the rest of the world'. Considering just about everything you can buy these days has a 'Made in China' label on it I'm wondering how these Chinese goods got here if it wasn't through trade.

I appreciate that some UK companies have production facilities in China but I'm sure they don't account for the huge amount of Chinese goods in UK shops. Do you think that they smuggle them in? After all, those gigantic container ships must be so easy to hide... I can just see those strings of pack ponies laden with electrical goods, clothes and toys wending their way at dark of night through the coastal counties of the UK...

"As a fervent European and WeMove’s UK & Brexit campaigner, I wanted to send you an email written from my heart about what Article 50 means -- for people in the UK, for the rest of Europe, and importantly, what we can do about it.

This will be the first time in our union’s history that Europe is getting smaller, not bigger. With Britain’s exit from the EU, the next two years will mean that the values we as a community hold dear, such as social justice, environmental protection and a belief in open, free and tolerant societies are open for renegotiation.

Our community will stand ready to fight for a Brexit deal that respects and protects our core values. We must not allow a future Brexit deal to undercut worker’s rights. We must not allow Brexit to roll back laws that protect our environment, and we must not allow Brexit to result in a Europe that is insular and scared of the future. "

From www.wemove.eu

In two years time we'll probably find out we have a worse deal than that sorted by Cameron.

No concessions would have been good enough for the right wing tory eurosceptics and UKIP. Who were really the only people Cameron was interested in placating.

The concessions he got were fine if you look at them in the context of negotiating i.e you start with an extreme demand and negotiate down to the position that is probably more or less what you wanted to achieve in the first place.