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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Supreme Sacrifice. The Article 50 case moves to the next level
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Supreme Sacrifice. The Article 50 case moves to the next level
The government got given a gut punch by the High Court in the Article 50 case. Its proxies in the press had a meltdown and the government shamefully declined to distance itself from the barrage launched at the judges. (Shamefully and stupidly, as we shall see shortly.) But now the caravan moves on to the Supreme Court where both sides get another bite at the cherry. Will they get a different result?
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10:24PM
scotslass said:
Hertsmere_Pubgoer
Are you really so ignorant about the SNP.
They are the most open and rational of all about their strategy. They would not vote for a second referendum. They virtually alone in the Commons opposed the first one!
They will not vote for article 50. Why should they? Every single one of their constituencies voted remain as did the country they represent decisively.
Their First Minister has laid out their terms clearly - single market for Scotland, equal treatment for Europeans in Scotland and no removal of rights of workers and citizens currently guaranteed by European laws.
"That was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Scottish National Party."
No it is just stating what their position is. You can be confident that they will not take instruction from Tim Farron.
It would require a new General Election with plenty of deselections of Tory MP's who refuse to support Brexit, a very messy affair with lots of potencial for UKIP to exploit it.
I can see the case why Pro-EU people support blocking Brexit through Parliament against the wishes of the voters, but that will end up with an even larger share of Anti-EU MP's in a new election who in the end will pass Brexit anyway.
If OGH, TSE and other Remainers don't like dealing with Theresa May, how would they like dealing with Nigel Farage ?
There is always worse you know.
Furthermore there is an absolute majority in the HOC for A50 no matter how Farron tries to frustrate the process.
An robustly independent and free press is part of that system of checks and balances.
The government should have put a one paragraph bill through parliament immediately after the referendum. Every day the government delays increases the chance that MPs can walk away from the decision.
It is imperative to bind MPs to the will of the people. This is why circumventing parliament was a strategic error, and one that dramatically increase the risk that Brexit will end up not happening.
Some sections of the legal profession have a ludicrously exaggerated opinion of their own righteousness.
A parliamentary vote sniffs out traitors. Once article 50 is invoked we're leaving. Anything else is bullshit.
It's also right & proper that every legal objection be thoroughly put to the test, so that when A50 is eventually served, we know it is being done legally.
I'm even in favour of all the lies purveyed by each side of the referendum campaign being brought to court for exposure.
What the outcome will be, who can guess; but the UK's involvement with the EU has been based on lies ever since we joined. Maybe if all the lies were exposed & cleared out of the way, we could make a properly reasoned decision on the matter.
Myself, I'm inclined to think the only way to do that is to leave, wait until the EU arrives at its destination of USE, and then see if that's a comfortable fit with the UK or rUK.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/11/more-than-80-mps-join-lib-dem-plot-to-force-government-to-hold-a/
I voted Remain but I am not sure another referendum will do much good. What if the voters reject it again it could be even worse. As we have seen with Trump the voters around the world are in no mood to accept more of the same. Indeed, I was surprised by the new PM's stance on Brexit but given a similar set of economic and social circumstances have propelled Trump into the POTUS on reflection I think Brexit is going to have to happen whether we like it or the consequences.
I cannot even start to imagine the print media's lust for vengeance on any MP who tries to vote down A50.
"Clinton actually overperformed FiveThirtyEight’s adjusted polling average in 11 states and the District of Columbia. The problem is that these states were California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington. Since all of these states except for Nevada and perhaps New Mexico were already solidly blue, that only helped Clinton to run up the popular vote margin in states whose electoral votes she was already assured of. That’s especially true of Calfornia, where Clinton both beat her polls by more than 5 percentage points and substantially improved on Barack Obama’s performance from 2012."
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37852628
That's very easy to answer. Here's the postcard:
Negotiating this Brexit malarkey with 27 other countries is hard enough as it is, but now a bunch of grandstanders want to put their oars in! It wouldn't matter so much if they agreed amongst themselves, but since they don't it'll be a bloody mess if they get their way, with dozens of mutually exclusive amendments! Still, mustn't grumble, the weather's lovely. Wish you were here. Love, Theresa
https://twitter.com/griph/status/796539192721506304
The pound has been the best performing currency this week and is not far from the Euro exchange rate I achieved in the summer when I went to Italy.
All good for the UK
There are 2 possible answers in my view :
firstly that they believe that only the hardest of Hard Brexits is actually possible & they dont think that would get through Parliament. Perhaps they think that The Economic damage will be forgotten by 2020 ? Perhaps they just arent thinking that far ahead ?
secondly, the plan is actually Soft Brexit, ie the same as now only with no control. If they were to admit that their own Backbenches would revolt, egged on by The Press.
I dont find either explanation fully satisfying since both simply delay the explosions by a few months.
Perhaps there is no answer & The Government are just running with no idea of a destination.
Life is not a conspiracy theory.
As for the negotiations being compromised, well, we all have to take a chance of that. To those who wish to stay in the EU, it may look better to risk the worst Brexit possible rather than give up & just let Brexit happen.
Amendments and resolutions in parliament won't change this, but they could close off some possible negotiated and advantageous outcomes.
If it can't happen legally - e.g. if MPs must vote A50 through and they refuse to do so - the government will have to tackle that situation through whatever means seems best to them.
If it comes to a GE with the Conservatives offering a manifesto commitment to A50/Brexit and (perhaps) Labour offering Remain, it will offer a very interesting insight into the way Leave/Remain has cut across the left/right divide of politics.
We could see people who would otherwise never vote for Mr Corbyn electing him PM if they believed he would keep the UK in the EU.
Just maybe a mistake, human error.
Although my personal opinion is it was impossible against a judiciary that sucks off the nipple of th EU.
For anyone out there wanting to sue me note the words "my personal opinion"
As for Labour winning the the next election on a REMAIN argument, LEAVE won the referendum by a landslide when you look at the result constituency by constituency.
What's much more likely to happen is that those the public perceive to be thwarting the will of the British people to leave the EU (Labour and Lib-Dems) will be punished.
You may well finish up with UKIP winning 40 seats and holding the balance of power in a hung parliament thus paving the way for a Con-UKIP government and the hardest of Brexit's possible.
As for what was the point of the referendum, it was offered in relatively good faith. But if the then government did not see fit to make contingency plans for a Leave result, it could easily be that they missed such a basic factor.
If our courts decide that there is no legal route to Brexit then the government will need either to accept that the UK is chained to the EU by our own domestic law, or change the law so that the UK can leave legally.
If it's the make-up of parliament (the MPs' convictions) that's blocking a legal route to Brexit, then again we are left with the need for a GE to change the make-up of parliament.
I voted Leave. If Mr Corbyn was the only party leader to be offering A50 in the manifesto at a GE, would I be willing to see him as PM in order to leave?
It's a hard question to answer, but I think the answer is Yes, I would.
I disagree with Alistair M on plenty, but on that he is entirely correct. And too many people know that, making the hysteria intentional distraction fodder. What was worst was Theresa May joining in while pretending she wasn't - a spokesman said it was nonsense the government had attacked judicial independence, but the write up in the same Telegraph article stated May was warning politicians 'and judges' not to thwart Brexit, proving the lie from the spokesman.
The point about the irrevocableness of the process post article 50 declaration is a difficult one to try to step back from I think. Separately, May has staked a lot on setting an end date for when we trigger, and its hard to see that being slipped - while it would be nonsense to suggest a date she plucked from thin air is a date we cannot go beyond, that we cannot delay further the triggering, it would be damaging for her, and if we were to start approaching a year from the referendum and we hadn't formally started to leave, I think that would be difficult all around.
The government is of course 'confident' of winning the appeal, but who knows on that score, they were confident of winning initially, so their confidence can be entirely misplaced. Certainly while I was pretty convinced by the argument of the judges I've seen enough argument against it to think they instead could be wrong, which I can certainly accept - it seems appropriate that such a power should be for parliament, in the absence of a binding referendum, but if the law says otherwise, it is what it is.
As for the final question, why not involve parliament, I don't give much credence to the idea they are afraid parliament won't do it. Yes, that is possible and it is certainly what the claimants want, but as you say the Tories have a majority (in the Commons - isn't it less than majority in the Lords, given the Crossbenchers?), and most Labour MPs aren't likely to simply not trigger, even if they want to frustrate the government's general approach. No, it seems more likely to be the worry about our intended position being messed with by parliament muddling it up, with a bit of good old governments just wanting to control things.
Yes, the referendum was not binding, it does not technically need to happen, but we've all seen how committed the Tories now are on it, and how Labour steps back when it looks like they might be lukewarm on it - there is too much at stake for them politically to ignore the referendum, even if they can legally do so. But they cannot do it without consequence, and do we really think they will collectively accept risking those consequences?
Honestly, I think it a good thing the process is being challenged now, beforehand. The political weather is still very much to ensure Brexit will happen, and it is hard to see how that will change, and getting the procedural and legal questions resolved now will prevent the possibility of arguments about it later.
Establishing and following the proper process, being challenged when you prove later you were correct all along, it is frustrating. But it is important to be able to challenge such things, to ensure power is not abused through lack of ability to challenge. The answer is to stay on track, adjust tack if required, and if the goal is important enough you'll make sure you get there.
What would be awkward would be an election fought on a hard brexit soft brexit line
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-most-common-job-in-your-state-2015-02-12
Have the driverless vehicles got that part covered, too?
Out on the road, the task is much harder, because things like pesky humans get in the way and companies don't control the infrastructure.
Don't these poor darlings realize that we have a free press or do they want to control that as well?