In contrast to Starmer's reported comments in the @guardian interview, Labour clearly do have ambitions to improve the Brexit deal. They're laying 9 amendments today on issues including SIS II, economic impact, employment and environmental standards and Erasmus.

Thread 👇👇 /1

None of them will pass - the Tories have an 80 seat majority - but that's not the point. They reflect Labour's starting position on improving the deal and deepening our relationship with the EU - a welcome sign of things to come.

Amendments follow 👇 /2
1. Economic impact assessments
'The Secretary of State must publish biannual economic impact assessments setting out the impact of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement on all sectors of the economy in UK nations and English regions, together with the Government’s response'

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2. Access to the Schengen Information System - SIS II

Asking for the Govt to negotiate access to SIS II within six months, or an equivalent system is access is refused.

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3. Proposed divergence on employment and environmental standards

Requiring the Govt to report on any alteration to UK employment or environmental standards which would trigger the rebalancing mechanism deal, and to hold a Parliamentary debate.

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4. Erasmus

Requiring the Govt to negotiate participation in Erasmus.

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5. Performers’ and artists’ permits

Requiring the Govt to negotiate a mechanism for performing artists and support staff to display or perform their work in European Union member states.

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6. Trade and Cooperation Agreement Partnership Council: duty to report to Parliament

Requiring the Govt to report on the activities of the Partnership Council twice a year.

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7. Support and information for businesses

Requiring the Govt to within the next month pass a report containing the Government’s plans for the provision of support for (a) business and (b) jobs to facilitate the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

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The above are all proposed by Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, Paul Blomfield and other leading Labour MPs. Then there are two more from Ian Murray as follows.

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8. Power of devolved governments to join Erasmus+ programme
Granting the right of devolved Govts to join Erasmus.

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9. Access to EU financial services markets

Requiring the Govt by the end of Feb 2021 to set out proposals to allow the financial services sector full access to EU markets. Proposals must aim to achieve access to EU markets as close to a passporting regime as possible.

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This goes far beyond 'the deal is fine let's move on', which is the headline from the Guardian interview. Either Starmer's been misreported or he chose to play down the extent to which Labour wants to amend and improve the deal.

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This should provide encouragement to those of us who are aghast at the severity and inadequacy of Johnson's Brexit, and who hope and expect Labour to not only rebuild our relationship with Europe once in power, but make the case for doing so as damage kicks in from next week.
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More from Government

The Government is making the same mistakes as it did in the first wave. Except with knowledge.

A thread.


The Government's strategy at the beginning of the pandemic was to 'cocoon' the vulnerable (e.g. those in care homes). This was a 'herd immunity' strategy. This interview is from


This strategy failed. It is impossible to 'cocoon' the vulnerable, as Covid is passed from younger people to older, more vulnerable people.

We can see this playing out through heatmaps. e.g. these heatmaps from the second


The Government then decided to change its strategy to 'preventing a second wave that overwhelms the NHS'. This was announced on 8 June in Parliament.

This is not the same as 'preventing a second wave'.

https://t.co/DPWiJbCKRm


The Academy of Medical Scientists published a report on 14 July 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' commissioned by the Chief Scientific Adviser that set out what needed to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe over the winter
I don't normally do threads like this but I did want to provide some deeper thoughts on the below and why having a video game based on a real world war crime from the same people that received CIA funding isn't the best idea.

This will go pretty in depth FYI.


The core reason why I'm doing this thread is because:

1. It's clear the developers are marketing the game a certain way.

2. This is based on something that actually happened, a war crime no less. I don't have issues with shooter games in general ofc.

Firstly, It's important to acknowledge that the Iraq war was an illegal war, based on lies, a desire for regime change and control of resources in the region.

These were lies that people believed and still believe to this day.

It's also important to mention that the action taken by these aggressors is the reason there was a battle in Fallujah in the first place. People became resistance fighters because they were left with nothing but death and destruction all around them after the illegal invasion.

This is where one of the first red flags comes up.

The game is very much from an American point of view, as shown in the description.

When it mentions Iraqi civilians, it doesn't talk about them as victims, but mentions them as being pro US, fighting alongside them.

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