I see the EU Remainers' PROJECT FEAR is alive and well.

I was thrilled for them DJ, as I have followed it very closely. The Ashington man's sister for one had worked and campaigned relentlessly. Some good news for a change.

Whether or not we have intimate understanding of what the FO is doing there is not reason why we should not put pressure on them if nothing appears to be happening. It is too easy for a person to become another number in these big organisations. By showing their personality and the details of the case, often prompted by a large number of people signing a petition, the 'number' becomes a person again. One thing that cannot help is the sort of complacency that believes these departments will always do the right thing.

The FO is like a swan (well, perhaps that is not a good analogy at the moment) - serene on the surface with all the paddling going on below the surface.
I agree that Boris does not present as a serene swan but it is FO officials who do do all the work and negotiations.

djen I am sure you know full well how much work went on behind the scenes before Saddam Hussein's hostages were released. and how delicate those negotiations probably were.

Organisations are led from the top and they are seen by others, in this case other countries, by how the 'top' presents itself. I am quite sure many others are doing the work but it is Boris we see.

In the case of the FO, simply because the work is carried on under changes of government they can get stuck in their ways and what their job actually is. I do not think it does any harm to shake things up with some simple people power occasionally. They work for us not the other way round. Why do people act in such a subservient way with these bodies?

Actually, I have felt great deal of sympathy for the staff of the FO who have been landed with Boris the buffoon as their 'head'. They must have been frustrated by his blundering comments which have likely put all their hard work in Iran back to where they started. I do believe in democracy though, and I do think that petitions are taken notice of, social media has a huge effect on how we express our opinion, and unlike a couple of posters, I do think it is important to express dissatisfaction/anger/frustration at things which are being done on our behalf, I am not just going to sit back and assume that as I have cast my vote then all is well. Also, getting back to the deliberate inflammatory point of this post, all because a MINORITY of the British electorate voted to leave the EU, I am not going to roll over, accept it and shut up, and I do wonder why it is the so called winning side who are so aggressive, so keen to get this all over with, is it because they are starting to realise what an absolute clusterf**k it is going to be? I am not a fanatical EU supporter, I weighed up both sides, tried to dismiss the nonsense, lies and scaremongering churned out by both sides, and decided, that on balance, we were better off staying in the EU. I haven't changed my mind, and I refuse to be dismissed as an irritating irrelevance who needs'to get over it'. As many have said when there is a Parliamentary election, the 'losing' party does not just accept it, shrug their shoulders and go away for 5 years, they stay, they agree with some things, they argue against others. It is called democracy.

Strange thing is, the one's who 'won' seem to be blaming those of us who 'lost' for the fact that brexit seems to be going pear shaped .

Yes isn't it Tegan. When I watch QT, it is always someone who voted to leave who is hysterical and shouting about why hasn't it happened yet?

Yes; we're supposed to be 'doing our bit for England' to help it work. But, quite frankly, even if I wanted to, I don't know what it is I should be doing. Even if I stopped campaigning to #StopBrexit everything would still be totally shambolic. And yet the people who think we should be doing whateveritis for England don't feel any responsibility/compassion for the people of Ireland .

day6 as the GNer who started this interesting thread, what is your opinion on today's report that David Davis has withheld information from the House of Commons Brexit Select Committee, passing them documents which are redacted in places? These documents are details of the effects of and plans for 58 different areas and industries, post Brexit. Now, a cynical person would suspect this withholding of information is because some of it is bad news, surely if it was all sunshine and rainbows it would have been shared far and wide?

day6 as the GNer who started this interesting thread, what is your opinion on today's report that David Davis has withheld information from the House of Commons Brexit Select Committee, passing them documents which are redacted in places? These documents are details of the effects of and plans for 58 different areas and industries, post Brexit. Now, a cynical person would suspect this withholding of information is because some of it is bad news, surely if it was all sunshine and rainbows it would have been shared far and wide?

Sorry about duplication of post! Laptop/internet problems

Sorry about duplication of post! Laptop/internet problems

If there is sensitive information on the documents ( to be put before the Select Committee and also others, such as the devolved administrations) then of course it shoukd be redacted.The EU has said that that it’s own will be very much secret, in order to negotiate well, and ours must be too!
Whatever information is on these documents will be leaked before you can say Jack Robinson.

If there is sensitive information on the documents ( to be put before the Select Committee and also others, such as the devolved administrations) then of course it shoukd be redacted.The EU has said that that it’s own will be very much secret, in order to negotiate well, and ours must be too!
Whatever information is on these documents will be leaked before you can say Jack Robinson.

Grrrr, GN gremlins again, everything in duplicate.

Grrrr, GN gremlins again, everything in duplicate.

Boris should resign.
He repeated the £350 million a week lie yesterday even thoough he knew it was a lie.
Misleading parliament is a resigning or sacking case.

infacts.org/boris-misled-mps-350m-resign/

Boris should resign.
He repeated the £350 million a week lie yesterday even thoough he knew it was a lie.
Misleading parliament is a resigning or sacking case.

infacts.org/boris-misled-mps-350m-resign/

If we say that the Committees may not see the report because we don't trust them what is the point of them. It is quite insulting and done for only one reason; the Tory government (and some of their supporters) do not understand democracy. It is Parliamentary democracy, not government democracy. If you have a big enough majority that may make it easier for the government but it is still Parliament not the Tories. One Tory who has been interviewed and seems to understand this is JRM although it is fairly obvious others do too.

Why shout about bringing back democracy when you don't understand or perhaps don't accept how that democracy works. 'The people have spoken' and they didn't want the Tories to have the power, the wanted a more varied Parliament to have it.

Jalima, you chose the wrong example there.
The foreign office allowed the plane to land in Kuwait knowing that Saddam Hussain had invaded and was responsible for the hostages being taken in the first place.
The plane only stopped for refuelling and letting off some SAS soldiers, who were also caught and held as hostages.
What a waste.

If there is sensitive information on the documents ( to be put before the Select Committee and also others, such as the devolved administrations) then of course it shoukd be redacted.

The Select Committee requested, and the motion for the documents' release was passed unamended, the full, unexpurgated papers. That is what they should have got. I doubt if there is any 'sensitive' material in them which could affect negotiations as the EU are well aware of thje implications of our leaving and will be well aware of the implications of the varied 'leaving' scenarios which are available. I strongly suspect that the only 'sensitive' material will be the size of the bribes that have been offered to sectors such as car manufacturing to persuade them to stay in the UK post Brexit.

This whole episode makes me wonder exactly what it takes to get the Leavers mad at the sheer bloody incompetence of this government and at their lying. 58 'detailed sectoral analyses' were claimed by Davis; which had been read, well, not in their entirety but in summary, by people who needed to read them, like hinmself and the PM. Then, suddenly, when forced by Parliament to produce them, he claimed that they didn't really exist in quite the form that people thought they did, (leading a good many very suspicious people to think that they probably didn't exist at all) and that they couldn't be produced straight away, they'd need 3 weeks (in which to write them?). And when these documents are finally produced they don't cover 58 sectors, are very slight (2 lever arch files full) and are redacted. This is so utterly contemptuous of Parliament and of democracy.

The government is utterly, utterly, corrupt.

The EU has said that that it’s own will be very much secret,

The EU published its detailed Impact Assessment way back in the spring of this year. It is available on the internet for anyone to read.

Please link me to the source of your assertion that the EU intends to 'keep its own secret'. lemon

Loads here from the EU lemon. Not secret at all:

twitter.com/EPinUK/status/935513355598561280

Not only that, but why would the EU want to keep its impact assessment secret?
WE are leaving THEM. They don't need to keep anything secret.

The EU are keeping secret their negotiating tactics ( Daily Politics today) and of course they are,who can blame them!
It’s not just the select committee who sees the documents as the devolved governments will as well.The SNP won’t be slow to leak it, neither will others, perhaps on the select committee who are opposed to Brexit.Everything gets leaked now.
Parliament did agree that anything that may be detrimental to our negotiations need not be included in the assessments.

If Parliament thinks that the government is in ‘contempt’ then they will call them on it.
It doesn’t sound, so far, that they will.