Guardian speaks for Thatcher, the Nation, Scotland and International Law

So much in the press. I can hardly keep up. The day job is a bit pressing at the moment as well. Never mind. First this 

Brexit bill criticised as 'eye-watering' breach of international law

Downing Street defends bill after outcry from Brussels, legal experts and some Tory MPs

• Johnson has undermined trust, says EU

 [It is] a move that has shocked Brussels, threatens to provoke a rebellion by Conservative MPs and caused Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, to warn there will be “absolutely no chance” of a US-UK trade deal if it presses ahead with the move.

The plans have prompted such concerns that the European commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič will travel to London on Thursday for an “extraordinary” meeting with cabinet minister Michael Gove of the joint committee set up to implement the withdrawal agreement.

Gosh, things must be bad if none other than an EC VP has to travel to London.

At home a powerful coalition seems to be emerging:

Nancy Pelosi [as above]...The veteran Tory MP for North Thanet, Sir Roger Gale, said he would not support the move....Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence select committee, said he was disturbed by the plans...Northern Ireland’s most senior judge...Ursula von der Leyen, condemned the bill...Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said he would be registering his “complete opposition”...One Irish source...Catherine Barnard, a professor of European law at Cambridge University, [who probably stands to lose a lot of her subject?]...Steve Peers, a professor of law at the University of Essex [is he Irish?] ...One [Irish?] observer [who] wondered if the attempt to place the powers in Westminster was not “revenge” for the supreme court decision to rule last September that prorogation of parliament was unlawful.

 Most significantly of all:

The former prime minister Sir John Major [not even Irish] said breaking international law would come with a price that could never be recovered.

The Graun editorial has this

The logic is hard to fathom. It makes sense only in the context of a Brexit project that can never be completed to the perfect satisfaction of the Conservative party....the latest stage in the quest for an immaculate separation from Europe. Every vestige of EU influence over the territory of the UK must be purged

Perhaps Mr Johnson did not understand that policy [in the text of WA, which is crystal clear to the Graun editor]  Perhaps he never intended to honour it. Either way, he now wants to legislate a fantasy version of what he wished he had signed into reality.

What's not to understand?  

The Graun abandons logic and sense to climb aboard its hobby horse and set off, huffing and puffing:

It is a sinister constitutional absurdity, quite aside from the bad faith it shows with regard to Brexit negotiations, and the damage it does to the nation’s reputation as a trustworthy trading partner. It depletes any moral authority that the UK might summon as a democratic state criticising the action of authoritarian regimes.

 Even more world-threatening:

That shift repatriates powers from Brussels to Westminster, and the devolved administrations want them to trickle further down to Edinburgh and Cardiff. Mr Johnson does not. On the contrary, the bill reinforces Westminster authority in ways that trample the spirit of devolution and tamper with its legal foundations. Nationalists see it as a power grab [really? Unlike them]

And the answer? Let's pretend we are back in the 19th Century...

Parliament must now limit the rest [of the damage]

And, most telling of all, this from none other than M Kettle:

In her memoirs, Margaret Thatcher identified the rule of law as the foundational underpinning of commercial confidence in any society.... She extended this to upholding the obligations of international treaties too...if that veneration means anything, there is no way those MPs should vote for the United Kingdom internal market bill that Boris Johnson published on Wednesday. ...Johnson and Cummings may prefer to fight the mother of all battles over Brexit because, in the end, that is the reason why this government exists. If so, the many remaining Thatcherites on the Conservative benches should reflect on what that means. For Thatcherism has now been conclusively hijacked by Johnson and Cummings. They will never get it back again.

It's partly personal caddishness, of course. If only they were more like Mrs Thatcher!

Cummings and Johnson, after all, did not get where they are today by respecting either conventions or foreigners....No 10 believes that shifting the political conversation from Covid to Brexit works to its advantage....The clock is ticking in the EU talks [Oh! That's a good new metaphor!]. If Johnson wants a deal, he will feel he has to present it to leavers as a triumph snatched from the EU against the odds....Welcome to Johnson’s and Cummings’ world, in which the government actively seeks disorder and law-breaking

 The clincher that will make even these swine see sense?

a no-deal exit would turbo-charge Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign to take Scotland out of the UK. 

Is she running such a campaign then? Why weren't we told?