EU can check out any time you like

Yup, it’s another Brexit entry.

So, last Thursday, the Cooper – Bowles bill went to the Lords.  There was a lot of filibustering.  This led to a lot of cloture (I.E. shut the fuck up) motions.  Sadly, the filibustering worked and the bill was delayed until Monday.  (For some reason, the Lords do not sit on a Friday.)

Meanwhile, in the Commons, business was suspended for the weekend due to a severe leak in the chamber.  When I say severe, I mean bad enough that it could very clearly be heard on TV.

So, on Monday, the bill finished going through the Lords.  Back to the Commons for votes on the Lords amendments.  One of them passed, which meant that Theresa May no longer had to get the agreement of the Commons to any extension.  There were a few Commons amendments, all of which were shot down.  (One was backed by the Government, which gave them a new record defeat.  For those keeping track, that means the current Government has 4 of the 6 biggest commons defeats in history.  The other two led to the downfall of that Government.)

Now, the Cooper – Bowles bill doesn’t actually really do anything.  But, as proof of concept, it worked.  Assuming that the Lords don’t filibuster, it shows that legislation can get through Parliament and get Royal Assent in just two days.  This may be useful in the future.

Tuesday, May went on her travels to France and Germany to ask for their support.  While all this is going on, talks continued between the Tories and Labour about finding a way to get the WA through Parliament.  If it’s even allowed back for a vote.

Wednesday, the EU council met.  May made her pitch for an extension to the end of June (as dictated by Cooper – Bowles).  Then, she was left in a room by herself for five and a half hours while the rest of the EU talked over dinner.  Eventually a deal emerged.  A deal that, apparently, Emanuel Macron pushed heavily for.

We have an extension until October 31.  And if you don’t think that Halloween related jokes haven;t already been made, you haven’t been paying attention.  But, there’s going to be a check on things at the end of June and we might leave earlier.

So, that’s where things stand at the moment.  We won’t crash out on Friday and May still has to deal with the fact that the EU won’t change the WA and the DUP and ERG don’t like the backstop.

Quick bit about Assange.  First of all, if you have to stay somewhere for asylum reasons, probably not a good idea to piss them off.  As for extradition?  Well, first he may have to serve a jail term on the failure to surrender charge, which he’s been convicted of.  The US has formally asked for his extradition.  As things stand, it won’t happen because we do not extradite if the death penalty is available.  However, if the US promises not to seek the death penalty, it may happen.

Then there’s Sweden.  You may have heard that the dropped the rape charge.  what actually happened is that they dropped the investigation as the next stage involved formally telling him of the charges and they couldn’t do that while he was in the embassy.  Now he’s out of there, they could resume the investigation and the European Arrest Warrant.  He’ll be extradited to there and then the whole US thing is their problem.

Will