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wolfpawn · 4 years

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I Hate You, I Love you, Chapter 153

Chapter Summary - Danielle accompanies Tom to Ben's award presentation where she and Tom enjoy their friends' company and discuss minor differences between Britain and Ireland.

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Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long. This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

Right, little things that need explaining.

Taoiseach is the Irish for Prime Minister. Our one is gay, yes and half immigrant Indian but is leading the right-wing party which thankfully is only centre right and not extreme right (little mercies) and is an utterly classist wanker so yeah, not the loveliest man for those reasons, not his sexuality or race.

We democratically voted for gay marriage rights, being the first country to do so by popular vote in the world a few years ago.

We also repealed an amendment this year (yes, you can repeal amendments for those who are obsessed with such things) that held the life of the unborn as the same as the mother's and will mean elective abortion facilities in Ireland.

We have the lowest divorce rates in Europe and no, it's not in any way related to Catholicism.

And yes, Irish engagements are between 1 and 2 years normally.

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1 @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly @salempoe @wolfsmom1 @black-ninja-blade

Danielle laughed into her hand as Tom made a comment regarding Benedict's incapability to say the word 'penguin’ correctly. Sophie was in a similar state, but Ben gave a warning glare as he chuckled at his friend's words.

The South Bank Sky Awards had nominated Ben for the Outstanding Achievement Award and Tom was the one to present him with it, leading to a fortnight of Tom writing and rewriting a few sentences to say while presenting it. Danielle knew the speech as well as he did in the end and the prompt cards were all but redundant, but still, Tom kept them with him, as though he felt to have them is to guarantee he would not need them.

It had been Ben that had asked Danielle if she would go before even Tom had a chance to ask her. That startled Danielle slightly but she accepted and as a result, she and Tom were photographed as they had been at events before but there was something different to this event, the media had more access to Tom and his significant other, the woman they so desperately wanted to know more of than they had ever had before. To many media outlets, it was the confirmation of the statement that it was as pure as they wanted it to be. The internet's boyfriend, a prince charming, picking the girl next door (literally) over the glamorous and gorgeous pop princess. The fact that a meeting of minds is so much more important and makes for a more true relationship. Others wanted to see if there were cracks in the relationship, if it was all for show, after all, Taylor had a solid boyfriend and was happy, so to them, Tom had to show the same and this woman, this ordinary and in their opinion, boring and blood-sucking woman, was nothing more than a tender rub at his ego, even after almost two years. No matter what the reason, the unbridled access to the pair for the evening meant that it was a new experience for Danielle, one that Tom, Ben and Sophie wanted to assist her through.

When Tom read his speech, she felt the camera on herself as well as on Ben and Sophie for their reactions, she laughed, both at Tom's words and Ben's reaction, she acted, as best she could, as though they were in each others company as they had done many times before and that the wider world was not watching.

Overall, the evening was a pleasant affair. When Danielle went to the bathroom, Tom spoke on with their friends, knowing that she was fine. Upon her return, he noted a slightly bigger smile on her face. “Everything alright?”

“I got a text from Siobhan, Laura and Evan got engaged.” She informed him. “I'll have to send them a card and gift.”

“Okay, that's….which cousin is that? Is that the one with the baby?”

“Yes…why? You can't say her name, can you?”

“No one can.” Tom scoffed. “It's an impossible name.”

“Is it an Irish name? It can't be harder than Saoirse, I remember working with her on Atonement, the first time I saw her name, I thought someone sneezed on a keyboard.” Ben commented.

“Write that name down.” Tom requested. “See if Ben and Sophie get it, they won't.”

Danielle laughed and did as requested, then handed it to Ben who just stared at it. “I…. that's harder than Saoirse.” He conceded as he handed it to Sophie who just tried to sound it out to herself. “I bet it's something normal or different sounding to its spelling, isn't it?”

“Key-lin.” Danielle sounded out.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ben exclaimed. “That makes no sense, how is the child ever supposed to say that?”

“Your opinion on words doesn't count, you can't even say penguin.” Danielle dismissed, earning laughs from Tom and Sophie as Ben stared at her.

“Wow, she went for the jugular.” Sophie laughed.

“Unbelievable.” Ben scowled.

Tom rubbed Danielle's hand as she looked somewhat apologetically at Ben, though there was a slight smile to it also. On feeling Tom rub her, she urged to face him again, smiling brightly. “So, when's the wedding?”

“They'll be looking at venues soon, they'll probably choose Galway for the wedding, the norm is the bride's parish in Ireland. It'll be a while yet, their hoping for the few days between Christmas and New Year's. I've been warned to try and plan to be free.”

“So a few months?” Danielle gave him a peculiar look. “What?”

“You would have more chance of seeing Santa than getting a Christmas time wedding venue in Ireland six months out, it's next Christmas, in 2019.” She laughed.

“Isn't that a little long?” Sophie thought back to her own wedding, recalling her mother asking her to consider doing it sooner, instead of her and Ben insisting on doing it on Valentine's Day.

“No. It's the norm for Irish engagements to be between a year and two years long. I had noticed you lot tend to rush things along a bit.”

“Well, we like to marry before we have to use zimmer frames to get down the aisle of the church.” Ben chuckled.

“Ah yeah, joke all you want. You lot are in the top ten for the highest divorce rates in the world and we have the lowest in Europe.” Danielle retorted smugly.

“I...that can't be right.” Sophie took out her phone and checked. “They do.” She declared having gotten her answer. “The Republic of Ireland have the lowest divorce rates...wow. Is it hard to get a divorce there?”

“Not an overnight thing but not too difficult, no. We just have long relationships and long engagements and if you haven't decided to split up or murder one another in that time, it lasts usually. Either that or we are way too complacent for our own good.” Danielle shrugged.

“It's not some “Catholic” thing, is it?” Ben asked curiously.

“Well, we were the first country to vote via referendum for gay marriage and it won quite comfortably, our Taoiseach is gay, and in May anti-abortion laws were voted to be overturned, that's not exactly very “Catholic”, is it?” Danielle explained. “Catholic Ireland is dead and gone.”

“You're Catholic though, right?” Sophie asked, having definitely heard Danielle refer to Catholicism before.

“My parents had me christened, I had to do the whole white communion dress thing, yes but outside of family masses, I haven't set foot in a church since my dad died. I am as about as devout a Catholic as I am vegan. I may interact with elements of the idea, but eating some broccoli doesn't constitute my being such, same as my Catholicism, an occasional mass means shite all. I couldn't remember a rosary if I tried, bar the ten Hail Mary's part.” She scoffed.

Tom listened carefully to her words, recalling that bar going to Ireland for her parents’ masses, he had noticed Danielle did indeed ignore most aspects of Catholicism, bar swearing using the name of God and whatnot. “So that's the norm for Irish people, waiting a whole year?”

“Yes, apart from saving for weddings being expensive, you won't get your choice of venue or band if you leave it too long either. Anywhere worth its salt is booked solid several months to a year in advance, and with the time Laura is looking at, don't be surprised if it is changed to the Spring or 2020 if they want Christmas and can't get it.” She shrugged.

Tom simply thought over her words before looking to Ben who seemed to be studying his reaction to them.

#i hate you i love you #chapter 153 #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fic #wolfpawn

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earlgreyandadderall-blog · 6 years

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Resurrection - A Response to “Ireland: An Obituary” by John Waters

In his article for First Things, which describes itself as “America’s most influential journal for religion and public life,” John Waters casts the vote to repeal the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution on May 25th as the death of his country. On that day, he writes, “history seemed to have gone into reverse: the Resurrection behind, Calvary in front. On Friday, the Irish people climbed Calvary backwards, in the name of progress.” I knew from that first line that the Ireland he knows and the Ireland I know must be two very different places. Like most Irish women at home and abroad, I went to sleep the night of May 25th, when exit polls showed that the referendum had passed with 68% of the vote, scarcely allowing myself to believe that I would wake up in a world where Irish women were free. The next morning, though I may have been curled up under my blankets half a world a way in Canada, I felt as though I was with the thousands of women at Dublin Castle who were weeping in joy and relief as the results were made official, alternating between chants of “Yes!” and “Savita,” the name of an Indian immigrant who died of septic shock as a complication of miscarriage in 2012, after being denied an abortion five days earlier and being told “this is a Catholic country,” before breaking into a tearful chorus of Amhran na bhFiann, the national anthem. I spent the next forty-eight hours crying off and on, and I’d be lying if I said the teary spells have stopped completely, almost five days later. Before I go on, I want to make my opinion on this matter perfectly clear. I am Catholic. Abortion is not an easy topic for me, and I do believe that on some level, it involves the taking of a life. In Canada, the country that sectarian oppression led my family to before I was born, abortion is legal for any reason up to birth. I do not agree with that at all. But in Ireland, the 8th amendment created the opposite extreme- in making the life of the mother and the life of the fetus equal in all respects, women could not even have a termination for medical reasons unless her death was imminent. I say that because a potentially life-threatening situation, such as a lengthy miscarriage, which can lead to sepsis, was not enough to merit a termination- you had to actually be experiencing sepsis in order to be allowed an abortion. This is what killed Savita Halappanavar, the catalyst for this referendum. Personally, I believe that abortion should be allowed if the pregnancy poses risk to the health, including mental health, of the mother; if the baby is diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality such as anencephaly; and in cases of rape and incest. However, because I do not believe that anyone should be forced to disclose that they have been a victim of rape or incest in order to access health care, I believe that there should be a period in the first trimester during which abortion can be accessed upon request. The 8th amendment, however, went beyond prohibiting abortion in all cases. The law undermined the agency of women carrying wanted pregnancies to term, as it prevented women from accessing any sort of health care that may hurt the baby. I read one story of a women who was denied chemotherapy and ultimately died, only for her baby to die three days later. In short, the 8th amendment was a draconian law that shames any nation that considers itself modern. With that in mind, I invite you to take my hand and dive into dissecting Waters’ article. I decided to write this response on a whim at one in the morning, because a lot of things have made me really angry in the last few days, but nothing as much as this article. Let me tell you why.

Waters opens with “If you would like to visit a place where the symptoms of the sickness of our time are found near their furthest limits, come to Ireland. Here you will see a civilization in freefall, seeking with every breath to deny the existence of a higher authority, a people that has now sentenced itself not to look upon the Cross of Christ lest it be haunted by His rage and sorrow.” From the get-go, he is casting Ireland as some sort of hellish wasteland of sin more akin to Las Vegas than to a country where the Angelus is still broadcast on national TV and every single person I’ve ever met went to a Catholic school. As the western world goes, Ireland is behind the times, and certainly one of the most pious countries among its peers. I’m not saying Ireland has the same levels of religiosity as it did even 50 years ago, but 85% of its citizens identify as Catholic, and the handprint of the Church is all over its laws. In 2009, the Dáil (Parliament) passed a law implementing a €25,000 fine for blasphemy, and children must be baptized Catholic to be admitted into school- that’s the kind of fundamentalism we use to justify bombing Muslim countries. So is Ireland shaking off some of the influence of the Church? Absolutely, and thank God for that. But is it “a civilization in freefall, seeking with every breath to deny the existence of a higher authority?” Absolutely not. Could not be farther from it. A later paragraph begins with “For the first time in history, a nation has voted to strip the right to life from the unborn.” Is this true? Technically, but only because Ireland is the only country (to my knowledge) to ever have had the legal equality of the life of the mother and her unborn child enshrined in their constitution. That in and of itself ought to tell you something about Irish society- that abortion laws had to be changed by referendum rather than by legislation because an absolute ban was literally enshrined in the constitution. He continues: “The tenor of the contest has been so nauseating that the deepest parts of my psyche had begun to anticipate this outcome. It was little things: the frivolity of the Yes side: “Run for Repeal”; “Spinning for Repeal”; “Walk your Dog for Repeal”; “Farmers for Yes”; “Grandparents for Repeal,” which ought to have been “Grandparents for Not Having Grandchildren.” This, like the same-sex marriage referendum in 2015, was a carnival referendum: Yessers chanting for Repeal, drinking to Repeal, grinning for the cameras as they went door-to-door on the canvass of death.” Apparently, Waters has a problem with the fact that Irish people live normal lives, and don’t just spend their hours alternatively praying the rosary and making babies, as borderline-Orientalist caricatures from Americans would have you believe. What hurts me the most about this - this denial of normalcy, of modernity, the eschewing of activities such as spin class or walking your dog as something somehow out of reach of the constantly-praying people of the Emerald Isle - is that it comes from an Irishman. Growing up in Canada, I’ve grown used to foreigners, especially Catholics, having this mythologized idea of Irish society, as though time stopped for us in 1849. And I’ve grown used to other Catholics going into hysterics when we step out of line from this fantasy. But seeing someone who describes Ireland as the only home he’s ever known perpetuating the infantilizing and, frankly, almost racist idea that Irish people aren’t, for lack of a better word, normal- I can’t lie, it hurt. This, for me, has been the crux of the issue as I’ve debated the referendum results with non-Irish Catholics, or (even worse) Catholics of some vague and distant Irish descent, who maybe had a great-great-great grandparent come over on the coffin ships during the Great Hunger. There are 500,000 people of Irish descent in Canada, which makes up 15% of our population; likewise, in the US there are 33 million people who claim Irish descent, which makes up 10.5% of their population and dwarfs the all-island population of Ireland, which is about 6 million. Most of these people, however, are descendants of people who came during the Great Hunger or shortly thereafter. First generation Irish-Canadians (or Irish-Americans) like myself are extremely rare. Because of this, though Irish culture is very strong and certainly privileged in North America, there are few people here with an actual connection to contemporary Ireland. For this reason, the image of Ireland that’s held by “Irish” Catholics here is not realistic. Not only is Ireland imagined as a place where having 10 children is considered the average and no one has heard of birth control, but they think we actually like it that way. Catholics in North America treat Ireland as a dollhouse; a plaything. Of course, when you base your admiration and connection to a country on nothing but its (imagined) religiosity, you’re apt to want to dissociate yourself from it entirely if its people step out of line. I kid you not- I saw a fully Canadian girl proclaim in light of the passing of the referendum “Today I am not Irish.” Sweetie, relax. You never were. Furthermore, it does not escape me that these attitudes carry a distinct air of colonialism, which is problematic when you consider the fact that many North Americans look at Ireland as a country that only became (mostly) free because the Brits took pity on us and handed us the 26 counties to shut us up. So it’s bad enough to hear this from people who have never set foot in Ireland, but from someone who lived their his whole life? I felt betrayed. Heartbroken. And like I needed to say something. Like I needed to get the truth about Ireland’s tumultuous and oppressive relationship with the Catholic Church out to as many people as I could. In that moment I felt it became my duty to show the truth that every woman in Ireland knows to the world.

I can only hope that Waters was purposely misleading his American audience and didn’t actually believe what he said when he wrote “The spiritual reconstruction of Ireland that took place after the Famines of the 1840s placed mothers at its center: the moral instruments by which Irish families were to be brought back to the straight and narrow. Women were placed on a pedestal, their actions or demands immune from questioning by mere men. Add two dashes of feminism and you have an unassailable cultural force, which has now attained its apotheosis. “Trust women,” one of the many fatuous Yes slogans demanded. Trust women to kill their own children?” Excuse me... WHAT? Placed mothers at its center, immune from questioning by mere men?? I think I need to give you folks a hard dose of truth here. As everyone knows, England occupied and oppressed the people of Ireland for 800 years (and is still occupying and oppressing the people of the North - tiocfaidh ár lá). But what many people don’t know is that, throughout the last hundred years of British rule, the Catholic Church, seen by so many as the vehicle for Ireland’s resistance, was available to the highest bidder, which was the colonial administration every time. During the Great Hunger, which was not in fact a famine but a purposely orchestrated genocide, the Church was more than happy to let the people of Ireland starve, with nothing in the way of help besides promises that you would spend eternity in Hell if you accepted a bowl of soup from the Quakers. When Ireland won independence for the 26 counties in 1921, its dreams of self-determination were dashed by the Church, which quickly stepped into England’s place of controlling every aspect of our lives. No one had to carry this burden more than Irish mothers. From the 18th century until 1996, women considered “fallen” were put into Magdalene laundries- homes run by nuns, ostensibly with the intention of rehabilitating these girls into better Catholics. After the 1920s, the laundries took a turn from bad to disgusting, essentially becoming prison labour camps for all sorts of women- disabled women, petty criminals, and girls who were considered “loose,” but mostly unwed mothers. Here, these women were forced to perform hard physical labour up until and immediately following birth. Their children were taken from them immediately and sold to American families. Many of these women and children never saw each other again. Unable to see their babies, women endured the torture of not being able to express their breast milk, and were beaten for crying or complaining. The babies who died were buried in mass graves on unconsecrated ground. At one Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co. Galway, 796 babies were discovered buried inside a septic tank. The Bon Secours Home in Tuam operated from 1925 to 1961- this is not something out of pre-Industrial history. This happened within my parents’ lifetime. The domination of the Church in all areas of life meant that up until the 1980s c-sections were not performed in Ireland. Instead, difficult labours were handled with symphysiotomies- essentially the surgical breaking of the mother’s pelvis. This was done widely throughout Ireland and without consent. Women often were not told that it had been done until after their babies were delivered. So much for women’s “actions or demands immune from questioning by mere men.” Ireland, I am proud to say, has come a long way in the last few decades. In 1980, condoms became legal, and within my lifetime, the last Magdalene laundry closed and divorce, gay marriage, and emergency contraception were decriminalized. But the 8th amendment, inserted into the constitution in 1983, remained a major roadblock to women’s liberation. I wish I could say that I am sure that the people who wrote the 8th amendment did so innocently, without realizing how many women would die because of it and how many families it would traumatize, but looking at Ireland’s history, I can’t say I have that much faith that our institutions care about women. Savita Halappanavar is the most high profile case of the damage caused by the 8th amendment, but she is far from the only one. The lead-up to the referendum was defined by stories like hers, some from women who were lucky to survive, and some from the families of women who weren’t. Another famous story is that of Miss P, a pregnant woman who in 2014 was declared clinically braindead, but whose doctors refused to unplug her from life support because it would kill her baby. Her family, having just lost their daughter, wife, and mother, was forced to appeal to Ireland’s High Court so that she could be removed from life support and die and be buried with dignity. The court ultimately ruled in the family’s favour, but only because her baby had no prospect of surviving- not because using a brain dead woman as a baby incubator is fundamentally wrong and disgusting. Another section of stories that particularly touched me were those of families who received the devastating diagnosis of fatal foetal anomaly. One woman, after discovering that her baby had anencephaly (the absence of a major portion of the brain and skull), was told by her doctor “it’s going to be a long 20 weeks.” Many of these women and families made the decision to travel to England for a termination- a lonely and harrowing experience, which more often than not involved getting back on a plane the next day or even that night, still bleeding from the procedure and receiving their baby’s ashes in the mail three weeks later.

Waters begins to wrap up his article by stating about the image of Ireland as the Land of Saints and Scholars, “We now know it to be a legend long past its use-by date. The Irish of today are more likely to be among the looters and book-burners, the barbarians who value nothing but what is expedient.” He is both right and wrong. Ireland is indeed no longer a land of saints and scholars- but why should it be? That was a title given to us based on our history before the year 1000 AD. No other country in the world is expected to stagnate as Ireland is expected to. No one chides France for no longer being a country of crusaders, or China for abandoning its emperor. It’s worth noting that the Land of Saints and Scholars is a title given to us by foreigners, not by us ourselves. No country is single-faceted. Ireland was never just a land of saints and scholars; we are, and always have been, like every other country, a dynamic place. A changing place. A living place. Where Waters is wrong is his second sentence- looters, book-burners, barbarians. The only people who ought to be ashamed to call themselves Irish, the only people who disgrace their ancestors, are those who speak of their own people in this way. Book-burners? Trinity College Dublin is one of the top universities in Europe, where anyone can go and view the immaculately preserved Book of Kells. Barbarians? In the last 100 years, Ireland has invented the defibrillator, the ejection seat, the nickel-zinc battery, and radiotherapy. Does finally shaking off the oppressive shackles of the Church make us, and us women in particular, book-burning barbarians? Is Ireland’s worth based entirely on the degree of control held over it by Catholicism? Ireland is doubtlessly changing, but anyone who thinks that that change is for the worse rather than the better needs to check up on their history. There is a reason that Irish women from Dublin Castle to the Midlands to the Aran Islands and from Ontario to New York to Australia greeted the 26th of May with tears in our eyes and joy in our hearts. Those who attempt to make this referendum about abortion on demand and attempt to paint us as celebrating the death of our children are being willfully ignorant to the fact that this referendum was centred heavily not on abortion on demand but on women like Savita Halappanavar, who came to our country seeking a better life only to die too young because of the stranglehold the Church has on our society. Waters mocks the slogan “Trust women,” but that is really what this was all about. For 200 years, Irish women have been entirely robbed of our agency and our voice. Like Taoiseach (a word that I, unlike Waters, am not embarrassed to utter) Varadkar made clear, this week Ireland spoke loud and clear, telling the world that we are a compassionate country, that we are a dynamic country, and that most importantly, we are a country that trusts women. According to Waters, this referendum was a backwards walk from the Resurrection towards Cavalry, from life towards death. He could not be more wrong. The promise of the Resurrection brings to us a new day, a new dawn, a future where we are free from the shackles that previously held us down. In my eyes, and in the eyes of the vast majority of Irish men and women alike, May 25th was the beginning of a new Ireland. We turned our back on centuries of pain, suffering, and death, and took our first steps towards the light of compassion. May 25th was not a backward walk to Calvary- May 25th was a Resurrection.

For Savita. I’m sorry we let you down.

Here’s the link to the original article: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/05/ireland-an-obituary

#8th amendment #repeal the 8th #together4yes #repealed the 8th #savita #savita halappanavar #ireland #irish politics #first things #catholic #táformná #abortion #pro-choice #pro-life #feminism #timesup #futureisfemale

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courtneytincher · 5 years

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Boris Johnson Denies Lying to Queen Over Suspension: Brexit Update

(Bloomberg) -- Follow @Brexit, sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, and tell us your Brexit story. Boris Johnson denied lying to the Queen over his suspension of Parliament after it was ruled unlawful by a Scottish court, just one of a series of recent political and legal setbacks to his “do or die” plan to leave the European Union on Oct. 31. EU negotiator Michel Barnier also warned there would be no point reopening formal talks, it was reported.But there was some respite from Belfast, where a court ruled on Thursday that leaving the EU without a divorce agreement, which Johnson has not ruled out doing, wouldn’t violate the peace accord in Northern Ireland. In Hungary, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto urged the bloc to take Johnson more seriously.Key Developments:Johnson denied lying to the Queen over Parliament suspensionA Belfast court ruled that a no-deal Brexit would not break the Good Friday peace accordGovernment published no-deal Brexit planning documents late Wednesday ahead of Parliament-imposed deadline: U.K. Warns of Protests, Chaotic Border Scenes in No-Deal BrexitDefence Secretary Ben Wallace said the government is working to mitigate no-deal Brexit risksHungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Bloomberg he wants the EU to take Johnson more seriouslySpeaker Bercow Calls for U.K. Constitution (20:22 p.m)John Bercow, who has been a thorn in the side of the government as Speaker of the House of Commons, suggested he would allow MPs to use parliamentary proceedings to ensure Prime Minister Boris Johnson upholds the anti-no deal law passed last week by MPs.Speaking publicly for the first time since announcing he’d step down Oct. 31, Bercow also said the U.K. might need a U.S.-style constitution to prevent future governments seeking to override laws passed by Parliament.A “Parliamentary Powers Act might be introduced to entrench the authority of the House of Commons and ensure that the rule of law is never distorted or perverted by executive malpractice,” he said at the annual Bingham Lecture.Barnier Says no Grounds to Restart Talks (4:50 p.m.)The European Commission’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, told Members of the European Parliament that there are insufficient grounds for reopening official negotiations, the Guardian reported.Barnier told leaders of the Parliament that Johnson hasn’t yet offered any legally and credible proposals for alternatives to the Northern Ireland backstop, the newspaper cited him as saying in a private briefing.Another Day, Another Court Challenge (4 p.m.)The legal challenges to Johnson are piling up. After the Scottish Court of Sessions ruled on Wednesday that his suspension of Parliament is unlawful, the prime minister faces a new challenge in the same court.Ecotricity Group Ltd. founder Dale Vince – a donor to the opposition Labour Party – is filing papers seeking an immediate order that the premier should comply with the law passed last week by Parliament, compelling him to seek a Brexit delay if he hasn’t secured a deal by Oct. 19.Vince has teamed up with Jolyon Maugham, the lawyer who spearheaded Wednesday’s case, and has been a legal thorn in the government’s side throughout the Brexit process. If the injunction is granted, and Johnson doesn’t write the letter seeking to extend negotiations, Vince said he’ll ask the court to sign and send the letter to the EU itself.Letwin: MPs Want Brexit Resolved Before Election (3:45 p.m.)In an interview with the Evening Standard, Oliver Letwin -- who was expelled from the parliamentary Conservative Party for rebelling over a no-deal Brexit -- said the majority of MPs want Brexit resolved before a general election, even if it means calling a referendum.“That means either you get a deal and get it in place, which is relatively quick, or you have a deal followed by a referendum, which is relatively long,” Letwin said. “Elections are decided on the basis of all sorts of concerns that people have about whom they want to have govern them. The Brexit issue is a different kind of issue.”Hungary Urges EU to Take Johnson Seriously (1 p.m.)Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the European Union must take Boris Johnson seriously, telling Bloomberg several key member states want Brexit “to end, one way or another.” He left the door open to potentially vetoing any U.K. request for an extension.“We don’t want the EU institutions to approach this question in a condescending way, but as a fair negotiating partner,” Szijjarto said in an interview. “If the British decided that they want to leave, then the result should be the closest co-operation when they do so.”The possibility of Hungary choosing to veto an extension has been mooted since Parliament voted last week to force Johnson to apply to the EU for a delay until Jan. 31 if he is unable to secure a new divorce deal by Oct. 19. A veto from an EU nation could allow him to comply with the new law, while also ensuring the U.K. leaves the EU on Oct. 31 as he has promised.“If there is such a request, we’ll make our own decision,” Szijjarto said. “A few large Western European member states really want to put an end to this, and want it to be decided one way or another,” he added, “so probably it won’t be our decision that will be key.”Significant Gaps Remain on Brexit, Ireland Says (12:30 p.m.)Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the European Union would react positively to a change to the U.K.’s approach on Brexit as “significant gaps” remain between the two sides.“I think the EU will respond positively if it’s realistic, to try and find a middle ground position that can work for the U.K., but certainly meets the reasonable and honest demands of the EU and of Ireland,” Coveney told reporters in Cork on Thursday.Johnson ‘Hopeful’ of Deal With EU (11:20 a.m.)In his TV interview, Boris Johnson said he’s “very hopeful” of securing a deal with his European counterparts at an Oct. 17-18 summit in Brussels and that he’s “working very hard” to secure one.“We can see the rough area of landing space of how you could do it,” Johnson said. “It will be tough, it will be hard, but I think we can get there.”Crucially, Johnson said, if the U.K. can’t secure a deal, then “we will be ready to come out on Oct. 31, deal or no deal.”Johnson Wins in Belfast Court (11:15 a.m.)A Northern Irish court ruled that a no-deal Brexit wouldn’t violate the Good Friday peace accord, handing Johnson a legal victory in one of a string of cases related to his plans to leave the European Union.Judge Bernard McCloskey issued a ruling Thursday in Belfast. The case is set to be immediately appealed to a higher court in Northern Ireland before moving to the U.K. Supreme Court next week.Johnson Denies Lying to Queen (11:10 a.m.)Boris Johnson said he “absolutely” didn’t lie to the Queen when he asked her to suspend or prorogue Parliament, because the government needs a new session to put forward its agenda.“There’s a huge number of things that we want to get on with and do,” Johnson said in pooled television interview. “We need a Queen’s speech, we need to get on with these.”Commenting on the release of the Operation Yellowhammer document setting out projected outcomes of a no-deal Brexit, he stressed it’s “a worst-case scenario.”The document was “written by planners to make sure that we do everything we need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “If we have to come out on Oct. 31 with no deal, we will be ready. The ports will be ready and the farming communities will be ready.”EU Parliament Open to N. Ireland-Only Backstop (10:30 a.m.)The European Parliament has signaled the European Union’s willingness to change the contentious Irish border backstop in the Brexit deal to make it apply solely to Northern Ireland rather than the whole U.K.According to the text of a resolution that EU lawmakers will vote on next week seen by Bloomberg, the parliament “expresses its readiness to revert to a Northern Ireland-only backstop but stresses that it will not give consent to a withdrawal agreement without a backstop.”While the parliament doesn’t have any formal role in the negotiations with the U.K., it does have a full veto over the final deal. In the resolution, it says it won’t hold a vote until after the U.K. Parliament has approved the agreement.The EU has, in recent days, signaled that British negotiators seem to be moving toward accepting a Northern Ireland-only backstop. This would keep the province aligned to the EU’s customs union and single-market rules to prevent a hard border with the Irish Republic. In the current deal, rejected three times by British MPs, the whole U.K. would remain in a customs union.Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday denied he was ready to accept a Northern Ireland-only backstop, saying it wouldn’t work for the U.K.Rudd Wants All 21 Tory Rebels Readmitted (8:50 a.m.)Former Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd, who quit Johnson’s government and the Parliamentary Conservative Party at the weekend, said she would wait to see how the 21 Tory MPs expelled from the party last week are treated before deciding if she would rejoin.Rudd was responding to reports that some of the rebels have been offered a way back into the party. She said she’d been struck at the effective organization of the group of MPs, who were expelled for voting for legislation to block a no-deal Brexit, and said they should all be allowed back.“The group needs to be considered as a whole to be brought back,” she told BBC Radio. “I will wait and see on what terms other people choose to stay out.”Rudd described the expulsion of the lawmakers as an “act of political vandalism” in her resignation letter and said on Thursday that their vote against the government was no more “egregious” than the repeated votes of hard-line Brexiteers against Theresa May’s Brexit agreement.Wallace: Yellowhammer is a ‘Living Document’ (8:20 a.m.)Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the government is working to mitigate the risks exposed in the Yellowhammer planning document released on Wednesday, and will publish an updated version showing progress soon.“We’re spending the money on doing lots of things to mitigate those assumptions,” Wallace told BBC Radio 4. “We should consider it as ‘this is what would happen if we didn’t do anything about it.”’Describing it as a “living document,” he said there would be further versions. “Our job as a government is to say to people what could happen and then say what we’re doing about it,” he said.Labour: Yellowhammer Shows ‘Catastrophe’ for U.K. (Earlier)Andy McDonald, transport spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, said the government’s Yellowhammer planning documents show that a no-deal split from the EU would be “a catastrophe for our country.”“This is more like emergency planning for a war or a natural disaster,” McDonald told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday. Boris Johnson is “driving the ship onto the rocks,” he said, “and he’ll have a lifeboat but working people will not.”People on low incomes would be “disproportionately affected” by higher food and fuel prices after a no-deal Brexit, the government warned in the paper.Grieve: Court Will Tell More on Parliament Suspension (Earlier)Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who led Parliament’s efforts to force the government to publish its decision-making process behind Boris Johnson‘s suspension of Parliament, expects more details to be revealed when the Court of Session in Scotland publishes its full judgment on Friday.The court ruled on Wednesday that Johnson had acted unlawfully when he advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament.No-Deal Brexit minister Michael Gove refused to release documents relating to the decision on Wednesday evening. Publishing communications between Johnson’s advisers would be “unreasonable and disproportionate,” he said in a letter to Grieve.“The government’s reasons for proroguing Parliament have turned out to be entirely bogus,” Grieve told BBC Radio 4. “It’s very serious when a government comes out and deliberately sets out to mislead the public about its motives.”Earlier:U.K. Warns of Protests, Chaotic Border Scenes in No-Deal BrexitBrexit Is Making English Civil War Comparisons Hard to DismissU.K.’s Leadsom to Meet Businesses to Assess Brexit PreparednessYellowhammer Details Reveal Worst-Case Scenario: Brexit Bulletin\--With assistance from Ian Wishart, Zoltan Simon, Peter Flanagan and Dara Doyle.To contact the reporters on this story: Thomas Penny in London at [email protected];Alex Morales in London at [email protected];Marton Eder in Budapest at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at [email protected], Stuart Biggs, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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gyrlversion · 5 years

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Jacob Rees-Mogg says Mays deal is better than no Brexit

Jaco Rees-Mogg today signalled he could finally back the Prime Minister after admitting a ‘bad deal is better than staying in the EU’ – but up to 30 arch-Brexiteer Tories are still refusing to budge.

Theresa May is expected to postpone the third Commons vote on her deal this week unless she can convince 75 MPs from the DUP, Tories and Labour to change their minds.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has repeatedly defied the PM, is softening and insisted Mrs May’s deal was better than staying in the EU for months or years, ‘however bad it is’.

Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC: ‘I genuinely haven’t made up my mind. There is a hierarchy. No deal is better than Mrs May’s deal, but Mrs May’s deal is better than not leaving. I don’t think we will get another chance to leave the European Union. Delay is denial. The thought that if you get two years for something better is hopelessly optimistic.’

But today more than 20 Brexiteers promised to oppose Theresa May’s Brexit deal to hold out for No Deal while Boris Johnson did not sign their letter but also urged MPs to vote it down claiming it gives the EU an ‘indefinite means of blackmail’ against the UK.

In a letter to the Telegraph the Tories including Lucy Allan MP (Con) Crispin Blunt said ‘No Deal will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed. It is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices – but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other.’

Jaco Rees-Mogg today signalled he could back the Prime Ministers after admitting a ‘bad deal is better than staying in the EU’

Mrs May faces an uphill battle to win a vote – if it happens – and needs to convince 75 MPs to change sides

Downing Street has said ministers will want to be sure there is a ‘realistic prospect’ of success before deciding to call a third ‘meaningful vote’ this week on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that if the deal was passed by the Commons she would go to the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday to ask for a short ‘technical’ extension to the Article 50 withdrawal process.

Which Tory MPs have signalled they will vote against the deal AGAIN?

Boris Johnson

Owen Paterson

Priti Patel

John Redwood

Adam Afriyie

Lucy Allan

Crispin Blunt

Peter Bone

Andrew Bridgen

Richard Drax

Mark Francoix

Marcus Fysj

Chris Green

Adam Holloway

Philip Hollobone

Ranil Jayawardena

Andrea Jenkyns

David Jones

Julian Lewis

Craig Mackinlay

Sheryll Murray

Andrew Rosindell

Ross Thomson

Michael Tomlinson

Anne-Marie Trevelyan

If there is no Commons vote for the deal, the spokesman said she would ask for a longer delay which would mean Britain holding elections to the European Parliament.

The spokesman said that if a vote was to be held before Mrs May goes to Brussels, the Government will have to table a motion by the end of business on Tuesday at the latest.

Mrs May has been scrambling for support for the deal – particularly from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – in the hope of bringing it back before Parliament ahead of an EU summit on Thursday.

But it is thought the Prime Minister could delay the crucial vote for another week unless she is confident of avoiding a third humiliating defeat on the package, which MPs rejected by 230 votes in January and 149 last week.

She has warned that if her deal is not approved, the UK will have to seek a lengthy extension to negotiations, potentially losing Brexit altogether.

Mr Rees-Mogg said he would wait to see what the DUP decided before finally making up his mind which way to vote.

However, he said that Brexit supporters would need to weigh up whether, if the deal was defeated again, it would actually lead to a no-deal break – as they would prefer – or whether it would see Britain trapped in the EU.

‘Mrs May’s deal, however bad it is, means that we are legally outside the European Union,’ he said.

‘We have got as close to leaving as we will ever get under these circumstances. If it is thwarted now, no-one is ever going to allow us another chance to have a vote.

‘The whole weight of British establishment opinion will prevent that ever happening again.’

He added: ‘As long as people think we can get to no deal, they will vote the deal down. That is my position.’

Theresa May is seen arriving at Downing Street this morning as her deal hangs in the balance and she could delay it. Boris Johnson dealt a heavy blow to her hopes of winning in the Commons after he refused to back it today

Earlier, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson called on Mrs May to postpone another vote on her deal, warning it would be ‘absurd’ to bring it back to the Commons without first securing change from Brussels.

Brexit: What happens next?

What happened last week?

MPs twice rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal. They also voted against leaving with no deal, and now voted in favour of a delay.

What will happen next?

MPs have supported a delay, so May will have to request an extension to Article 50 from the EU.

Could Brexit be delayed?

If other member states agree to it, Brexit will be postponed, but May has said that this should be for no longer than three months.

If, however, MPs do not support her deal, she warned that the extension could be far longer.

Could Brexit be stopped?

May has warned this is a possibility. While she will not revoke Article 50 herself, she has warned political chaos could see the Government replaced by Jeremy Corbyn or another pro-Remain administration.

Will the Prime Minister face a motion of no confidence?

It is possible. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he will only call another vote of no confidence if he has a chance of winning – but in January Mrs May precipitated one herself.

Will May just resign after a second defeat?

Unlikely but not impossible. Defeat would be another monumental blow to the PM’s political authority.

Will there be a general election?

There are mounting calls for one. Tory MP Charles Walker said yesterday if the House could not pass the deal, the current Parliament probably needs to be replaced so a new Government can be formed to tackle Brexit.

One of the advantages of an election is it would be much quicker to organise and resolve than a second referendum.

Could there be a second referendum on Brexit?

There are mounting demands for a new public vote – but probably not currently a majority in the Commons for it.

A new referendum would take at least six months to organise and run. This could be optimistic as there is no consensus over what the question might be.

He said that as it stood, the Northern Ireland backstop – under which the UK remains in a customs union until both sides agree a trade deal – gave the EU ‘an indefinite means of blackmail’.

‘Unless we have some change – and at present, in the immortal phrase, nothing has changed – it is hard to ask anyone who believes in Brexit to change their mind,’ he said.

Mrs May’s hopes of rallying Conservative MPs behind her were dealt a further blow by a letter to The Daily Telegraph from 23 Leave-backing backbenchers arguing for a no-deal exit.

”No deal’ will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed,’ wrote the Tory MPs, including former ministers Owen Paterson, Sir John Redwood and David Jones.

‘Our moral course is clear: it is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices, but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other.’

However, the Prime Minister received a boost from former chancellor Lord Lamont, who urged fellow Brexiteers to focus on the ‘prize’ of leaving the EU and back her deal.

Writing in the Daily Mail, he said that ‘history will not understand if it is Conservative MPs who prevent us claiming our self-government’.

Negotiations with the DUP were expected to continue on Monday, although Downing Street said a formal meeting has not been scheduled.

The 10 DUP MPs are viewed by Downing Street as pivotal, not just for the votes they provide but the influence of their stance on Conservative Eurosceptics.

DUP MLA Jim Wells told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We still have a huge difficulty with the backstop, because we see it as a waiting room for constitutional change.

‘We could find ourselves locked in there forever in effect, and once you get in you can never get out. We have to have a mechanism where we can escape the backstop.’

Mr Wells said a proposed ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ that any changes to Northern Ireland’s relationship with the EU would be mirrored by the rest of the UK might prove ‘unenforceable’.

And he denied that the DUP was taking part in a financial ‘auction’ for its support, insisting that ‘money is not being discussed on the table at the moment’.

Mr Wells estimated that as many as 30 Tory MPs will never vote for Mrs May’s deal, meaning that a third defeat was ‘inevitable’ with or without DUP support.

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sheminecrafts · 6 years

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Facebook rolls out checks for UK political ads

Facebook has announced it rolled out a system of checks on political ads run on its platform in the UK which requires advertisers to verify their identity and location to try to make it harder for foreign actors to meddle in domestic elections and referenda.

This follows similar rollouts of political ad transparency tools in the U.S. and Brazil.

From today, Facebook said it will record and display information about who paid for political ads to run on its platform in the UK within an Ad library — including retaining the ad itself — for “up to seven years”.

It will also badge these ads with a “Paid for by” disclaimer.

So had the company had this system up and running during the UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum, the Canadian data firm AIQ would, presumably, have had to pass its political advertiser verification process, and display “Paid for by” Vote Leave/BeLeave/Veterans for Britain badges on scores of pro-Brexit ads… If it didn’t just get barred for not being based in the UK in the first place.

(How extensively Facebook will be checking up on political advertisers’ ‘paid for by’ claims is one pertinent question to ask, and we have asked; otherwise this looks mostly like a badging exercise — which requires other doing the work to check/police claims… ).

Ditto during Ireland’s referendum earlier this year, on overturning a constitutional ban on abortion. In that instance Facebook decided to suspend all foreign-funded ads a few weeks before the vote because it did not yet have a political ad check system in place.

In the UK, the new requirement on political advertisers applies to “all advertisers wanting to run ads in the UK that reference political figures, political parties, elections, legislation before Parliament and past referenda that are the subject of national debate”, Facebook said.

“We see this as an important part of ensuring electoral integrity and helping people understand who they are engaging with,” said Richard Allan, VP of global public policy, and Rob Leathern, director of product management in a blog post announcing the launch. “We recognise that this is going to be a significant change for people who use our service to publish this type of ad. While the vast majority of ads on Facebook are run by legitimate organisations, we know that there are bad actors that try to misuse our platform. By having people verify who they are, we believe it will help prevent abuse.”

UK lawmakers have been highly critical of Facebook’s response to their attempts to investigate how social media ads were used and mis-used during the UK’s 2016 EU referendum.

This summer the parliamentary committee that has been investigating online disinformation called for a levy on social media to ‘defend democracy’. And earlier this year Facebook told the same committee it would roll out an authentication process for political advertisers in time for the UK’s local elections, in May 2019 — with CTO Mike Schroepfer telling MPs the company believes “radical transparency” can fix concern about the societal and democratic impacts of divisive social media ads.

In response, MPs quizzed Schroepfer on whether Facebook’s political ad transparency tool would be so radical as to include “targeting data” in the disclosures — i.e. “will I understand not just who the advertiser was and what other adverts they’d run but why they’d chose to advertise to me”.

The Facebook CTO’s response in April suggested the company did not plan to go that far. And, indeed, Facebook says now that the details it will disclose in the Ad library are only: “A range of the ad’s budget and number of people reached, and the other ads that Page is running.”

So not, seemingly, any actual targeting data: Aka the specific reasons a particular user is seeing a particular political ad. Which could help Facebook users contextualize political ads and be wiser to attempts to manipulate their opinion, as well as generally better understand how their personal information is being used (and potentially misused).

It’s true that Facebook does already provide some data about broad-brush targeting, with a per-ad option users can click to get a response on ‘why am I seeing this?’. But the targeting categories the company serves via this feature are so broad and lacking in comprehensiveness as to be selectively uninformative and thus pretty useless at very best.

Indeed, the results have even been accused of being misleading.

If Facebook was required by law to rip away its adtech modesty curtain entirely there’s a risk, for its business model, that users would get horribly creeped out by the full bore view of the lidless eye in the digital wall spying on them to target ads.

So while Schroepfer teased UK MPs with “radical transparency” the reality, six months on, is something a whole lot more dilute and incremental.

Facebook itself appears to be conceding as much, and trying to manage expectations, when it writes: “We believe that increased transparency will lead to increased accountability and responsibility over time — not just for Facebook but for advertisers as well.”

So it remains to be seen whether UK lawmakers will be satisfied with this tidbit. Or call for blood, as they set themselves to the task of regulating social media.

The other issue is how comprehensively (or otherwise) Facebook will police its own political ad checks.

Its operational historical is replete with content identification and moderation failures. Which doesn’t exactly bode well for the company to robustly control malicious attempts to skew public opinion — especially when the advertisers in question are simultaneously trying to pour money into its coffers.

So it also remains to be seen how many divisive political ads will simply slip under its radar — i.e. via the non-political, non-verified standard route, and get distributed anyway. Not least because there is also the trickiness of identifying a political ad (vs a non-political ad).

Malicious political ads paid for by Kremlin-backed entities didn’t always look like malicious political ads. Some of the propaganda Russia was spreading via Facebook in the US targeted at voters included seemingly entirely apolitical and benign messages aimed at boosting support among certain identity-based groups, for example. And those sorts of ads would not appear to fit Facebook’s definition of a ‘political ad’ here.

In general, the company also looks to be relying on everyone else to do the grunt-work policing for it — as per its usual playbook.

“If you see an ad which you believe has political content and isn’t labeled, please report it by tapping the three dots at the top right-hand corner of the ad,” it writes. “We will review the ad, and if it falls under our political advertising policy, we’ll take it down and add it to the Ad Library. The advertiser will then be prevented from running ads related to politics until they complete our authorisation process and we’ll follow up to let you know what happened to the ad you reported.”

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theinvinciblenoob · 6 years

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