Gosh there's a lot of Corbyn supporters on here with money to burn. I would have thought they would be out there giving their money to the needy.
I think this article should be preserved and framed and cited in future as anexample of the utter fantasyworld inhabited by some pro Corbyn commentators.
Just to humour the author on one or two points.
The government would not fall, even if it lost a customs union vote. The government falls only if loses a vote of confidence.
In any case how on earth could Jeremy Corbyn govern on a day to day basis, let alone implement hard left socialism when he does not have the numbers to command any kind of majority?
If there were a general election, Jeremy Corbyn would almost certainly lose it on current polling (and we are assuming that the polls are not overstating Labour)
On EVERY occasion since 1945 without exception when Labour was in the lead in the polls during an election campaign, Labour has actually done worse than expected in terms of poll share as the law of self denying prophecy kicks in. This was true even of 1997 when Labour was polling nearly 50%
If that were repeated next time, given the narrowness of the Labour lead, Corbyn would lose.
I am sorry to let down the Corbyn wankathon but there are going to be a lot of red faces among the commentariat, in the Labour party, and on here when the results come through in the general election of 2022.
In which universe am I pro Corbyn?
You also think the government Chief Whip pro Corbyn when he raises the possibility of the government falling?
My other half said I looked very pale when the exit poll came in. Does the thought of Corbyn as PM not make you feel physically ill ?
Why? Which bits of the best Manifesto since 1948 make you feel physically sick?
The absolute nonsense that massively increasing corporation tax rates would cause no averse impact on the economy, on business, on enterprise and the absolute nonsense that it would raise the amount of money claimed.
All this at a time when corporation tax revenues are at record highs.
You did but that was FAKE NEWS he is not in line for immediate reinstatement. I agree with the comment in the article you linked ie
"Livingstone demonstrably did not say "Adolf Hitler was a Zionist", he said Hitler briefly shared the same aims of Zionism by wanting to expel European Jews to then Palestine. His statement is as historically accurate as the Holocaust, as Livingstone was quoting the HOLOCAUST MUSEUM! Partisan and propagandising articles like this created the anti-semitic fallacy in the first place, and is specifically attacking Livingstone because he supports Corbyn and Palestine. This whole episode is pathetic and a smear against the former London Mayor whose community and religious bridging policies facilitated the dramatic reduction in attacks against the Jewish peoples of London"
Livingstone is a Jew baiter. That is, he does not accord to Jews the same courtesies he would automatically accord to other minorities. He would, for example, never publicly accuse black Africans of being pro-slavery or of collaborating with slavers - even though it is widely known that both things happened. He would not do this because it would be hugely insensitive, equate individual actions with group actions, and imply that black Africans were in some way responsible for slavery. But for some reason, Livingstone finds it acceptable to constantly talk about Jews colluding with Hitler. Jew baiting is anti-Semitism.
Livingstone was doing this - and being heavily criticised for it - long before Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader.
So labour want a customs union but freedom for uk to have its own trade deals. Isn’t that a bit like trying to get the eu to agree to an opt out of freedom of movement ie it is totally against the core principles of the eu project and so ain’t going to happen.
That wasn't what Kier Starmer said on Marr this morning. He said we can do better deals jointly as part of the EU than we can do on our own. Common sense when you think about it.
So labour want a customs union but freedom for uk to have its own trade deals. Isn’t that a bit like trying to get the eu to agree to an opt out of freedom of movement ie it is totally against the core principles of the eu project and so ain’t going to happen.
That wasn't what Kier Starmer said on Marr this morning. He said we can do better deals jointly as part of the EU than we can do on our own. Common sense when you think about it.
Except that the EU deals are all about cheese and wine, and not about financial services.
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's problem is this: ConKIP (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) don't care about detail or practicalities. This is faith and belief, not practice and reality. They cannot and will not compromise their faith, and if May tries to force them they will write the letters and remove her. And at the end of that contest we may end up with a ConKIP MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter how much her civil servants brief that hard brexit no CU simply will not work, she has no alternative but to pursue it anyway. Because if she doesn't someone else will. I don't see how the government falls though - MPs will vote confidence in her then hand in their letters of no confidence in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
So labour want a customs union but freedom for uk to have its own trade deals. Isn’t that a bit like trying to get the eu to agree to an opt out of freedom of movement ie it is totally against the core principles of the eu project and so ain’t going to happen.
That wasn't what Kier Starmer said on Marr this morning. He said we can do better deals jointly as part of the EU than we can do on our own. Common sense when you think about it.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
Working out how to vote on this would have torn me up.
I can’t risk making Corbyn PM but I don’t want to ruin the economy.
Although Liam Fox’s intervention this morning has cleared things up some what.
Germany exports five times as much as the UK to China in goods and services. And does it from within the EU.
This is the rebuttal to Liam Fox's claim that the UK needs to be outside the EU to trade successfully with the rest of the world. And this is all that drives the Tory opposition to a Customs Union.
If May forces a vote on the Customs Union and loses it she either accepts that parliamentary vote or she holds a no confidence vote and if she loses it then yes Corbyn could become PM.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's problem is this: ConKIP (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) don't care about detail or practicalities. This is faith and belief, not practice and reality. They cannot and will not compromise their faith, and if May tries to force them they will write the letters and remove her. And at the end of that contest we may end up with a ConKIP MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter how much her civil servants brief that hard brexit no CU simply will not work, she has no alternative but to pursue it anyway. Because if she doesn't someone else will. I don't see how the government falls though - MPs will vote confidence in her then hand in their letters of no confidence in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
Isn't it interesting that all developed European nations outside the EU are outside the Customs Union?
Switzerland, Norway, Iceland etc ... not one of them have chosen to be in the Customs Union. Why do you think that is?
I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is beneficial so we should remain in the EU to shape its rules etc I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is harmful by tying our hands so we should leave it.
I do not understand the logic of saying that the customs union is good but we would be economically better off outside the European Union but still inside the Customs Union.
If you truly believe we are going to be economically better off inside the Customs Union but outside the European Union then please advocate why because that is not an argument anyone seems to have made. If you really believe that leaving the European Union is wrong and that this is the next best thing then sorry that debate was lost. If we're going to leave then do it properly, there is no point whatsoever in being tied to the Customs Union but outside the European Union. It gives us no economic advantage whatsoever.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
And then they immediately vote down any Corbyn bill. It is one thing for them to vote against May to get her out. It is another entirely for them to vote for Corbyn.
Working out how to vote on this would have torn me up.
I can’t risk making Corbyn PM but I don’t want to ruin the economy.
Although Liam Fox’s intervention this morning has cleared things up some what.
The motion itself is almost meaningless though. We could end up with a customs union on cars and car parts, planes and plane parts, wine and cheese, and almost nothing else. Any deal is subject to negotiation between the UK and the EU, even a Parliamentary vote can’t impose our will on someone else if they don’t agree to it.
That wouldn't be a Customs Union on WTO rules, which has to be "on substantially all trade". The Turkish - EU CU, which originated before the rule has a grandfathered obligation to incorporate primary agricultural products. If the UK wants to keep its sheep farmers in business it needs to stay in the CU, although there are other farmers - pork in particular - that would benefit from the barriers going up.
Not true.
According to the NFU there is no Brexit outcome in terms of CU or SM membership that leaves sheep farmers worse off than they are now s long as the level of subsidy is maintained. It is only that loss of subsidy that makes a bad Brexit for livestock farmers.
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
Isn't it interesting that all developed European nations outside the EU are outside the Customs Union?
Switzerland, Norway, Iceland etc ... not one of them have chosen to be in the Customs Union. Why do you think that is?
I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is beneficial so we should remain in the EU to shape its rules etc I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is harmful by tying our hands so we should leave it.
I do not understand the logic of saying that the customs union is good but we would be economically better off outside the European Union but still inside the Customs Union.
If you truly believe we are going to be economically better off inside the Customs Union but outside the European Union then please advocate why because that is not an argument anyone seems to have made. If you really believe that leaving the European Union is wrong and that this is the next best thing then sorry that debate was lost. If we're going to leave then do it properly, there is no point whatsoever in being tied to the Customs Union but outside the European Union. It gives us no economic advantage whatsoever.
I think we are going to suffer economically by leaving the EU, full stop, but I accept that we have to leave. We can leave the EU but stay in the Customs Union. That will cause us less economic harm than leaving the EU and the Customs Union. Staying in the Customs Union preserves all current trading flows and supply lines in their current form. That is a huge economic benefit when compared to putting them all at risk.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
How many Tories would need to abstain?
Assuming Sinn Fein don’t turn up and Lady Hermon votes against Corbyn it would need around 15/16 Tories to abstain.
That’s assuming that the SNP/LD/Plaid Cymru/Greens all back Corbyn.
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
If May forces a vote on the Customs Union and loses it she either accepts that parliamentary vote or she holds a no confidence vote and if she loses it then yes Corbyn could become PM.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
The funny thing being that even with all this other parties supporting him Corbyn still wouldn't be able to get a single bill through without the explicit support of the DUP. With every non Tory/DUP MP supporting him he still only has 314 seats. If the DUP abstain, Is there a single Tory MP who is going to support a Corbyn budget?
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
Isn't it interesting that all developed European nations outside the EU are outside the Customs Union?
Switzerland, Norway, Iceland etc ... not one of them have chosen to be in the Customs Union. Why do you think that is?
I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is beneficial so we should remain in the EU to shape its rules etc I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is harmful by tying our hands so we should leave it.
I do not understand the logic of saying that the customs union is good but we would be economically better off outside the European Union but still inside the Customs Union.
If you truly believe we are going to be economically better off inside the Customs Union but outside the European Union then please advocate why because that is not an argument anyone seems to have made. If you really believe that leaving the European Union is wrong and that this is the next best thing then sorry that debate was lost. If we're going to leave then do it properly, there is no point whatsoever in being tied to the Customs Union but outside the European Union. It gives us no economic advantage whatsoever.
I think we are going to suffer economically by leaving the EU, full stop, but I accept that we have to leave. We can leave the EU but stay in the Customs Union. That will cause us less economic harm than leaving the EU and the Customs Union. Staying in the Customs Union preserves all current trading flows and supply lines in their current form. That is a huge economic benefit when compared to putting them all at risk.
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
And then they immediately vote down any Corbyn bill. It is one thing for them to vote against May to get her out. It is another entirely for them to vote for Corbyn.
Quite.
It’s total nonsense and displays a lack of understanding.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
How many Tories would need to abstain?
Assuming Sinn Fein don’t turn up and Lady Hermon votes against Corbyn it would need around 15/16 Tories to abstain.
That’s assuming that the SNP/LD/Plaid Cymru/Greens all back Corbyn.
Hermons votes tend to be with Labour except when it comes down to confidence
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
The maths do not have to add up. After the Feb 74 election neither Con or Labour enjoyed a majority and Heath attempted to carry on with the Liberals but failed and Wilson became PM of a minority administration until the Oct 74 election.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
But Corbyn still can’t pass any legislation because Tory (and no doubt DUP) MPs won’t vote for them.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
I explain in the thread header how it happens.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
How many Tories would need to abstain?
Assuming Sinn Fein don’t turn up and Lady Hermon votes against Corbyn it would need around 15/16 Tories to abstain.
That’s assuming that the SNP/LD/Plaid Cymru/Greens all back Corbyn.
Hermons votes tend to be with Labour except when it comes down to confidence
Her husband was the former Chief Constable of the RUC during the troubles, no way she puts Corbyn and McDonnell in Downing Street.
In the context of a “government being brought down” its a non-trivial difference. TBH I think the biggest factor was “They’ve been in long enough, time to give the other lot a go (and that Mr Blair seems like a nice young man)”
Yes, and I think pubnlic opinion is drifting that way again (substitute "old" for "young") - non-political floating voters have more or less got used to the idea that Corbyn might be PM and the world wouldn't come to an end. The media have tested the "but he's an enemy of Britain" stuff to destruction and it just doesn't work. As Stevef observes (can't believe we're agreeing about anything), a minority Corbyn government depending on all odds and sods would have minimum impact on anything and show what's he's actually like - which is where we probably differ - while the Tories sorted themselves out.
I know Kelvin Hopkins well and he would not vote to prop up the Tories - he is more anti-Tory than anti-EU. And the idea that Hoey and a couple of others would vote with them does bring out my inner Trot - they'd be deselected in a heartbeat, although they could probably get away with abstaining.
Would a Corbyn government do an adequate deal with the EU? It'd be basically Norway plus agreement that nationalisation wasn't against the rules (it probably isn't). All the venom would go out of the talks because he's actually not that bothered, and we'd part on reasonably amicable terms. I don't think a second referendum or reversing Brexi would arise.
If May forces a vote on the Customs Union and loses it she either accepts that parliamentary vote or she holds a no confidence vote and if she loses it then yes Corbyn could become PM.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
The funny thing being that even with all this other parties supporting him Corbyn still wouldn't be able to get a single bill through without the explicit support of the DUP. With every non Tory/DUP MP supporting him he still only has 314 seats. If the DUP abstain, Is there a single Tory MP who is going to support a Corbyn budget?
There is no doubt the Tory Leader of the Opposition in such circumstances would be arguably the most powerful Leader of the Opposition in British History with comfortably most seats in the Commons and Corbyn the weakest PM
If May forces a vote on the Customs Union and loses it she either accepts that parliamentary vote or she holds a no confidence vote and if she loses it then yes Corbyn could become PM.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
The funny thing being that even with all this other parties supporting him Corbyn still wouldn't be able to get a single bill through without the explicit support of the DUP. With every non Tory/DUP MP supporting him he still only has 314 seats. If the DUP abstain, Is there a single Tory MP who is going to support a Corbyn budget?
There is no doubt the Tory Leader of the Opposition in such circumstances would be arguably the most powerful Leader of the Opposition in British History with comfortably most seats in the Commons and Corbyn the weakest PM
I think Clement Attlee was the most powerful Leader of the Opposition in history.
If May forces a vote on the Customs Union and loses it she either accepts that parliamentary vote or she holds a no confidence vote and if she loses it then yes Corbyn could become PM.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
The funny thing being that even with all this other parties supporting him Corbyn still wouldn't be able to get a single bill through without the explicit support of the DUP. With every non Tory/DUP MP supporting him he still only has 314 seats. If the DUP abstain, Is there a single Tory MP who is going to support a Corbyn budget?
There is no doubt the Tory Leader of the Opposition in such circumstances would be arguably the most powerful Leader of the Opposition in British History with comfortably most seats in the Commons and Corbyn the weakest PM
I think Clement Attlee was the most powerful Leader of the Opposition in history.
Churchill still had comfortably more seats than Attlee did in the Commons and Attlee was Deputy PM so effectively part of the government as well as part of the War Cabinet
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
The maths do not have to add up. After the Feb 74 election neither Con or Labour enjoyed a majority and Heath attempted to carry on with the Liberals but failed and Wilson became PM of a minority administration until the Oct 74 election.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
Who then loses every single vote in Parliament.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
Because according to the head of HMRC we are incapable of leaving the CU in less than 5 years. Both ConKIP and EU agree that we do not have 5 years. So if we leave the CU we will be incapable of processing trade. If you know better than the head of HMRC about how customs works...
Sadly ConKIP don't care about this. They believe what they believe and experts be damned - HMRC, business, their former donors, the whole lot of them. What do Honda know about car manufacturing anyway? They are in a minority in Parliament which is why the government will lose a vote on the Customs Union.
Only question then is who blinks first. I expect a confidence vote would be narrowly won by the government. If however she makes the CU vote a confidence vote I expect they would lose it. FTPA protects Tory rebels as it doesn't mean a general election, just a new Tory leader. Which is what most of them want anyway.
So labour want a customs union but freedom for uk to have its own trade deals. Isn’t that a bit like trying to get the eu to agree to an opt out of freedom of movement ie it is totally against the core principles of the eu project and so ain’t going to happen.
That wasn't what Kier Starmer said on Marr this morning. He said we can do better deals jointly as part of the EU than we can do on our own. Common sense when you think about it.
He said Britain was more likely to strike new deals if it works "jointly with the EU", adding: "We all want to do bold new trade agreements but we would be better off doing that with the EU."
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
The maths do not have to add up. After the Feb 74 election neither Con or Labour enjoyed a majority and Heath attempted to carry on with the Liberals but failed and Wilson became PM of a minority administration until the Oct 74 election.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
Who then loses every single vote in Parliament.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
Yes, Wilson had 4 more seats than Heath's Tories in February 1974 even if no majority.
The Tories currently have 56 more seats than Corbyn's Labour Party.
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
Isn't it interesting that all developed European nations outside the EU are outside the Customs Union?
Switzerland, Norway, Iceland etc ... not one of them have chosen to be in the Customs Union. Why do you think that is?
I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is beneficial so we should remain in the EU to shape its rules etc I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is harmful by tying our hands so we should leave it.
I do not understand the logic of saying that the customs union is good but we would be economically better off outside the European Union but still inside the Customs Union.
If you truly believe we are going to be economicallye the European Union. It gives us no economic advantage whatsoever.
I think we are going to suffer economically by leaving the EU, full stop, but I accept that we have to leave. We can leave the EU but stay in the Customs Union. That will cause us less economic harm than leaving the EU and the Customs Union. Staying in the Customs Union preserves all current trading flows and supply lines in their current form. That is a huge economic benefit when compared to putting them all at risk.
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
Because being in the Customs Union preserves all current supply lines and trade flows. Putting those at risk for trade deals that, at best, will take years to agree while marginally improving our current trade with countries which are far smaller export markets for us than the EU27 makes absolutely no sense to me.
If May forces a vote on the Customs Union and loses it she either accepts that parliamentary vote or she holds a no confidence vote and if she loses it then yes Corbyn could become PM.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
The funny thing being that even with all this other parties supporting him Corbyn still wouldn't be able to get a single bill through without the explicit support of the DUP. With every non Tory/DUP MP supporting him he still only has 314 seats. If the DUP abstain, Is there a single Tory MP who is going to support a Corbyn budget?
There is no doubt the Tory Leader of the Opposition in such circumstances would be arguably the most powerful Leader of the Opposition in British History with comfortably most seats in the Commons and Corbyn the weakest PM
In numbers maybe. But the numbers don't matter. The narrative matters. If the May government falls because of a failure of support from its own party, the Conservatives will be in a deep crisis. They'll have failed the 'couldn't run a whelk stall test'. Corbyn meanwhile will have yet again confounded his critics. There are simply no precedents for what he would have achieved.
I don't think any of this will happen though. Even in its current below par form it must still have some survival instincts intact somewhere.
Frank Field arguing quite strongly with Stella Creasy over the Customs Union on the Sunday Politics now, showing the divisions on this are not just on the Tory side
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
The customs union did not lose the vote. That's the problem inherited from Cameron's deeply flawed referendum. We voted to leave the EU -- but not to do anything else in particular, like join or leave a customs union, control immigration or even spend £350 million on the NHS. None of those supplementary questions were on the ballot. And that is why the government is split.
David Cameron should have nailed down what Brexit meant before the referendum, and Theresa May should have done so before triggering Article 50 (and again before calling an election she claimed was to give her a mandate on Brexit). They did not -- so any claims that we voted for X or against Y are simply wrong. I do not know who is the worst ever British Prime Minister but I've narrowed it down to those two.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
The maths do not have to add up. After the Feb 74 election neither Con or Labour enjoyed a majority and Heath attempted to carry on with the Liberals but failed and Wilson became PM of a minority administration until the Oct 74 election.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
Who then loses every single vote in Parliament.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
Indeed and I think the scenario unlikely. However with the foot in the door and actually holding the office of Prime Minister over a summer recess and not appearing to the voters as the devil with horns at the door of 10 Downing Street.
The Feb-Oct 74 would act as a template for an attempt at a majority government. As I say an unlikely situation but worthy of keeping Conservative PBers in a acute state of nervous nelly-dom ....
Livingstone is a Jew baiter. That is, he does not accord to Jews the same courtesies he would automatically accord to other minorities. He would, for example, never publicly accuse black Africans of being pro-slavery or of collaborating with slavers - even though it is widely known that both things happened. He would not do this because it would be hugely insensitive, equate individual actions with group actions, and imply that black Africans were in some way responsible for slavery. But for some reason, Livingstone finds it acceptable to constantly talk about Jews colluding with Hitler. Jew baiting is anti-Semitism.
Livingstone was doing this - and being heavily criticised for it - long before Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader.
Yes, I think that's a fair summary which helps clear it up in my own mind, and a subset of his more general tendency of enjoying winding people up (which I don't especially mind in general, but should not be applied to historical target groups for persecution). I'd prefer it if he wasn't readmitted, although it's awkward if he is on solid legal grounds to challenge exclusion as he claims (I rather doubt it - most clubs can decide who they want to be members).
We had a similar issue in the local CLP, and voted unanimously to invite the Jewish Labour Movement to send a speaker to discuss where the borderline should be between being critical of Israel or Zionism (which we all agree should be a legit subject for discussion) and making Jewish members feel got at (which clearly is not).
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
Rules of origin. You need to demonstrate at the border that the product and its inputs are mostly British and the same in reverse for EU products. The red tape costs are often more than the default duties that are payable on non national goods. It puts paid to any industries with cross border supply chains. RoO complicate third party trade as well.
Edit In answer to the first part of your question there are no sound economic reasons for being out of the EU. Democracy trumps sound economic reasons.
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
The maths do not have to add up. After the Feb 74 election neither Con or Labour enjoyed a majority and Heath attempted to carry on with the Liberals but failed and Wilson became PM of a minority administration until the Oct 74 election.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
Who then loses every single vote in Parliament.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
Indeed and I think the scenario unlikely. However with the foot in the door and actually holding the office of Prime Minister over a summer recess and not appearing to the voters as the devil with horns at the door of 10 Downing Street.
The Feb-Oct 74 would act as a template for an attempt at a majority government. As I say an unlikely situation but worthy of keeping Conservative PBers in a acute state of nervous nelly-dom ....
Wilson had been PM already from 1964 to 1970, in October 1974 he won a majority of just 3, 5 years later Thatcher won the 1979 general election and the Tories were in power for 18 years after that given the awful record of the 1974-1979 Labour government and high taxes, high inflation and strikes.
There are far worse potential nightmares for Tories than that!
Frank Field arguing quite strongly with Stella Creasy over the Customs Union on the Sunday Politics now, showing the divisions on this are not just on the Tory side
Labour is not negotiating Brexit with the EU. Unless TSE is right about Corbyn heading a minority government for about a fortnight, Labour's position is irrelevant. When the next election does come, Labour will claim they'd have got a better deal than the Tories, and that is all that matters. It might even be true, for some definitions of "better".
Frank Field arguing quite strongly with Stella Creasy over the Customs Union on the Sunday Politics now, showing the divisions on this are not just on the Tory side
This is issue has always split both parties. It isn't left versus right. It is sensible versus silly.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
I do not remember the Liberals supporting the Wilson Government, Mr Tyndall. I think you are re-writing history a bit with that one.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
You know what I mean! The party was at war with itself, thanks to the Eurosceptics, and that war hardly helped Major fight off the media assault on his government. If that very uncivil war had not happened, then Major still might not have won in 1997, but Labour would not have won such a stonking majority. Or perhaps there might have been another 1992-style surprise.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
The problem for this theory is that the EUsceptics were shown to be correct in the 1990s.
The ERM was bad for the UK economy and leaving it led to improvement while joining the Euro would likely have been disastrous.
It was the EU headbangers such as Clarke and Heseltine who were willing to damage the Conservative party and the UK in pursuit of their ideological beleifs.
In other news, saw a snippet of Sky and the very interesting, perhaps concerning, news that China's almost certain to ditch the two term limit on presidencies. Xi Jinping's early actions include beefing up the military and ending the decades-long internal non-aggression pact amongst top ranking Communist officials on corruption charges, to prevent bloodletting. He's not nominated an heir and now seems likely to continue on, perhaps making China less one party and more one man.
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's problem is this: ConKIP (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) don't care about detail or practicalities. This is faith and belief, not practice and reality. They cannot and will not compromise their faith, and if May tries to force them they will write the letters and remove her. And at the end of that contest we may end up with a ConKIP MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter how much her civil servants brief that hard brexit no CU simply will not work, she has no alternative but to pursue it anyway. Because if she doesn't someone else will. I don't see how the government falls though - MPs will vote confidence in her then hand in their letters of no confidence in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
As we know, government experts have conducted a study analysing all sectors import and export trade, country by country, assuming a) we stay in the SM and CU and b) we leave the SM and CU.
The result is that the benefit of leaving the SM and CU is about 0.5% pa of GDP after 15 years and the cost is ten times that at about 5% pa of GDP. The analysis might be wrong in details but the summation is unlikely to be out by an order of magnitude!
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
The customs union did not lose the vote. That's the problem inherited from Cameron's deeply flawed referendum. We voted to leave the EU -- but not to do anything else in particular, like join or leave a customs union, control immigration or even spend £350 million on the NHS. None of those supplementary questions were on the ballot. And that is why the government is split.
David Cameron should have nailed down what Brexit meant before the referendum, and Theresa May should have done so before triggering Article 50 (and again before calling an election she claimed was to give her a mandate on Brexit). They did not -- so any claims that we voted for X or against Y are simply wrong. I do not know who is the worst ever British Prime Minister but I've narrowed it down to those two.
I'd vote Cameron. May at least started off well with the Brexit means Brexit line. If she had followed that up with coming up with a plan and sticking to it regardless, we'd at least have avoided uncertainty. Although intellectually I can see how she is to blame for the subsequent drift, my gut feeling is that she has been let down by her own side.
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's problem is this: ConKIP (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) don't care about detail or practicalities. This is faith and belief, not practice and reality. They cannot and will not compromise their faith, and if May tries to force them they will write the letters and remove her. And at the end of that contest we may end up with a ConKIP MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter how much her civil servants brief that hard brexit no CU simply will not work, she has no alternative but to pursue it anyway. Because if she doesn't someone else will. I don't see how the government falls though - MPs will vote confidence in her then hand in their letters of no confidence in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
As we know, government experts have conducted a study analysing all sectors import and export trade, country by country, assuming a) we stay in the SM and CU and b) we leave the SM and CU.
The result is that the benefit of leaving the SM and CU is about 0.5% pa of GDP after 15 years and the cost is ten times that at about 5% pa of GDP. The analysis might be wrong in details but the summation is unlikely to be out by an order of magnitude!
Conflating the CU and the SM in your post makes it meaningless.
Frank Field arguing quite strongly with Stella Creasy over the Customs Union on the Sunday Politics now, showing the divisions on this are not just on the Tory side
Labour is not negotiating Brexit with the EU. Unless TSE is right about Corbyn heading a minority government for about a fortnight, Labour's position is irrelevant. When the next election does come, Labour will claim they'd have got a better deal than the Tories, and that is all that matters. It might even be true, for some definitions of "better".
In a hung Parliament though where Labour MPs vote is crucial for determining what Brexit will look like
This is yet again nonsense from TSE. The government falls on a vote of confidence not the loss of a vote on a customs union. He is also forgetting the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
The maths do not have to add up. After the Feb 74 election neither Con or Labour enjoyed a majority and Heath attempted to carry on with the Liberals but failed and Wilson became PM of a minority administration until the Oct 74 election.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
Who then loses every single vote in Parliament.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
Indeed and I think the scenario unlikely. However with the foot in the door and actually holding the office of Prime Minister over a summer recess and not appearing to the voters as the devil with horns at the door of 10 Downing Street.
The Feb-Oct 74 would act as a template for an attempt at a majority government. As I say an unlikely situation but worthy of keeping Conservative PBers in a acute state of nervous nelly-dom ....
It’s quite interesting to compare the scenario of Feb 74, as described by Wikipedia and the situation today.
Frank Field arguing quite strongly with Stella Creasy over the Customs Union on the Sunday Politics now, showing the divisions on this are not just on the Tory side
This is issue has always split both parties. It isn't left versus right. It is sensible versus silly.
Perhaps but Field v Creasy etc is just as vociferous as the likes of Rees-Mogg v Soubry
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
I do not remember the Liberals supporting the Wilson Government, Mr Tyndall. I think you are re-writing history a bit with that one.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government.
I find the Europhobes who are foaming at the mouth over Soubry, Clarke etc to be hilarious. They are getting some of their own medicine and not liking it.
It's a shame that it'll be so bad for the country. But the antics of the 'bastards' in he 1990s was bad for the country as well, and set a precedent in the party.
I'd vote for a Soubry-style Conservative party over a JRM-style one any day. Leaving aside the EU, she seems solid Tory. And I bet I'm not alone in that.
(Note: I am not saying that Soubry would want to be leader; just that someone of her ilk (leaving aside the EU views) might be quite electable).
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government.
I find the Europhobes who are foaming at the mouth over Soubry, Clarke etc to be hilarious. They are getting some of their own medicine and not liking it.
It's a shame that it'll be so bad for the country. But the antics of the 'bastards' in he 1990s was bad for the country as well, and set a precedent in the party.
I'd vote for a Soubry-style Conservative party over a JRM-style one any day. Leaving aside the EU, she seems solid Tory. And I bet I'm not alone in that.
(Note: I am not saying that Soubry would want to be leader; just that someone of her ilk (leaving aside the EU views) might be quite electable).
I believe Anna Soubry was originally a member of the SDP - so her Tory credentials are not particularly strong!
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I'm thinking Biden might actually run. He's the best chance the Dems have, despite his age. (born 1942, he'd be 78 at inauguration).
Agreed, Biden is the only Democrat who outperforms the generic Democrat total on that poll and would be ideal to win back the rustbelt states the Democrats have to win back from Trump to take the Electoral College. Don't forget Trump will be 75 in 2020 too so on that basis his age would be less of an issue.
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
May will lose the vote, but it won’t matter; it won’t be binding on the government. It won’t become a confidence vote; May will simply take it into consideration.
And it’s a matter of semantics anyway: the government wants a customs *arrangement* with the EU post transition, which I’d imagine would start by mirroring the existing customs union completely, and then diverge on new classes of goods (bots and drones and things).
We would be free to sign new deals, although what those deals would look like given our near complete alignment with the EU for most goods is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps others have a better idea. Turkey presumably has its own bilateral trade deals despite a similar arrangement?
Labours policy is not completely dissimilar. They just use the term “*a* customs union” and are a bit more honest that future trade deals are very likely to come in conjunction with the EU rather than bilaterally. And it is true that Liam Fox has admitted this morning he is getting nowhere fast.
The many frothers on here and in the ERG are half right and half wrong. They are right that a Brexit alongside a permanent customs union is the worst kind of Brexit as it sacrifices considerable sovereignty and the ability to have an independent trade policy. But they are wrong to think we can just exit a customs union (or parallel arrangement) tomorrow; not if we don’t want to sacrifice our industrial base and Northern Ireland.
This all feels like a phoney war to me, including Tusk’s comments (Turkey, Switzerland, and Canada are all - in different ways - surely “cherry picking”?).
Now if Corbyn promised a referendum on the deal, *that* would be game changer. But if I were him, I’d wait till summer. He needs to wait and see how the government’s position resolves so he can position himself just a fag paper more Remain-y.
Politics is screwed. If this was a Sunday night ITV drama, the plot would be seen as too far fetched.
May - Judy Dench (Tom Baker should Dame Judy be unavailable) Corbyn - Sir Ian McKellern McDonnell - Nicholas Lyndhurst Abbott - Rhianna Boris - Matt Lucas Gove - Rowan Atkinson Starmer - Idris Elba
May will lose the vote, but it won’t matter; it won’t be binding on the government. It won’t become a confidence vote; May will simply take it into consideration.
And it’s a matter of semantics anyway: the government wants a customs *arrangement* with the EU post transition, which I’d imagine would start by mirroring the existing customs union completely, and then diverge on new classes of goods (bots and drones and things).
We would be free to sign new deals, although what those deals would look like given our near complete alignment with the EU for most goods is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps others have a better idea. Turkey presumably has its own bilateral trade deals despite a similar arrangement?
Labours policy is not completely dissimilar. They just use the term “*a* customs union” and are a bit more honest that future trade deals are very likely to come in conjunction with the EU rather than bilaterally. And it is true that Liam Fox has admitted this morning he is getting nowhere fast.
The many frothers on here and in the ERG are half right and half wrong. They are right that a Brexit alongside a permanent customs union is the worst kind of Brexit as it sacrifices considerable sovereignty and the ability to have an independent trade policy. But they are wrong to think we can just exit a customs union (or parallel arrangement) tomorrow; not if we don’t want to sacrifice our industrial base and Northern Ireland.
This all feels like a phoney war to me, including Tusk’s comments (Turkey, Switzerland, and Canada are all - in different ways - surely “cherry picking”?).
Now if Corbyn promised a referendum on the deal, *that* would be game changer. But if I were him, I’d wait till summer. He needs to wait and see how the government’s position resolves so he can position himself just a fag paper more Remain-y.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
You know what I mean! The party was at war with itself, thanks to the Eurosceptics, and that war hardly helped Major fight off the media assault on his government. If that very uncivil war had not happened, then Major still might not have won in 1997, but Labour would not have won such a stonking majority. Or perhaps there might have been another 1992-style surprise.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
Just suppose there was a by-election in a safe labour seat, Blair stood and won!
That's the funny thing: go back twenty years, and Major was being vilified and Blair canonised. Now, Major is much more warmly received, even amongst many Labour people, whilst Blair is hated by many on all sides. ANd especially by many Labourites (see BJO's post below).
Blair is yesterday's man. I'm far from sure he has anything of value to offer the country.
The government would fall over the idea of a customs union by definition at a time when the Conservative party was sufficiently split over the subject that party loyalties no longer held sufficient sway to cause MPs to toe the government line. In those circumstances, the Conservatives would need some time and space to sort themselves out, and they could not obviously do that in government. Nor would a general election assist them at a time when they could not unite.
So they would presumably go into opposition. That would mean that Jeremy Corbyn would become Prime Minister. The Conservatives would need to abstain to the extent necessary (and no further) to permit him to remain in that role. He presumably would put forward his populist measures and dare the Conservatives to oppose them, then call a general election when he thought he could win one. That might be very shortly after taking over the role, though I suspect he would quite like to demonstrate to the public that Jeremy Corbyn could be a feasible Prime Minister before the election if possible.
The circumstances postulated are extreme. Theresa May has to decide how determined the mutineers are and if she concludes they are immovable, whether she is willing to accept a customs union. My guess is that she will conclude they are movable if a confidence motion is called. I further guess that she is right, but if she (and I) are wrong, Britain will see Prime Minister Corbyn.
That's the same argument that was made for not leaving the EU and that lost the vote. The economic reason for leaving the EU was to be able to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals, but that's gone if we go for the Customs Union.
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
The customs union did not lose the vote. That's the problem inherited from Cameron's deeply flawed referendum. We voted to leave the EU -- but not to do anything else in particular, like join or leave a customs union, control immigration or even spend £350 million on the NHS. None of those supplementary questions were on the ballot. And that is why the government is split.
David Cameron should have nailed down what Brexit meant before the referendum, and Theresa May should have done so before triggering Article 50 (and again before calling an election she claimed was to give her a mandate on Brexit). They did not -- so any claims that we voted for X or against Y are simply wrong. I do not know who is the worst ever British Prime Minister but I've narrowed it down to those two.
Cameron could hardly 'nail down what Brexit meant' when he was on the other side of the referendum. People seem to have forgotten that Cameron wasn't some neutral figure above the fray he was the leading figure for remaining in the EU. How could he have got a consensus on what leave meant And why should a committed Remainer have been allowed to define it? It would rightly have been seen as a stitch up. The truth is that the referendum exposed the absolute recklessness and danger to the country of a government holding a national vote when it wanted the status quo. If a Leave supporting government had held the referendum it could have set out it's post-Brexit vision. However the vote was never done in the national interest anyway. It was a way of solving a party political problem within the Conservative party for which everyone who voted Tory in 2015 has some complicity, most obviously David Cameron who has created this mess and left it to others to clear up. We can of course debate whether the new administration is making the mess even bigger.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
You know what I mean! The party was at war with itself, thanks to the Eurosceptics, and that war hardly helped Major fight off the media assault on his government. If that very uncivil war had not happened, then Major still might not have won in 1997, but Labour would not have won such a stonking majority. Or perhaps there might have been another 1992-style surprise.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
Just suppose there was a by-election in a safe labour seat, Blair stood and won!
That's the funny thing: go back twenty years, and Major was being vilified and Blair canonised. Now, Major is much more warmly received, even amongst many Labour people, whilst Blair is hated by many on all sides. ANd especially by many Labourites (see BJO's post below).
Blair is yesterday's man. I'm far from sure he has anything of value to offer the country.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
I do not remember the Liberals supporting the Wilson Government, Mr Tyndall. I think you are re-writing history a bit with that one.
The Lib-Lab pact was with the Govt. elected in October 1974 under Harold Wilson. The PM at the time of the pact was James Callaghan, but with no intervening general election.
I don't understand the arguments against a customs union. HMRC need 5 years to be ready for not being in a customs union. And we don't have 5 years. How do "no customs union" advocates imagine the border will operate? And why do you know better than HMRC?
May's problem is this: ConKIP (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) don't care about detail or practicalities. This is faith and belief, not practice and reality. They cannot and will not compromise their faith, and if May tries to force them they will write the letters and remove her. And at the end of that contest we may end up with a ConKIP MP where the faith becomes policy.
No matter how much her civil servants brief that hard brexit no CU simply will not work, she has no alternative but to pursue it anyway. Because if she doesn't someone else will. I don't see how the government falls though - MPs will vote confidence in her then hand in their letters of no confidence in her.
The only practical reason that I can see to be in favour of leaving the Customs Union is because you believe that the damage such a departure would cause would be less than the benefits that being able to negotiate trade deals with other countries would bring. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that in the real world this would happen - even in the long term.
As we know, government experts have conducted a study analysing all sectors import and export trade, country by country, assuming a) we stay in the SM and CU and b) we leave the SM and CU.
The result is that the benefit of leaving the SM and CU is about 0.5% pa of GDP after 15 years and the cost is ten times that at about 5% pa of GDP. The analysis might be wrong in details but the summation is unlikely to be out by an order of magnitude!
Conflating the CU and the SM in your post makes it meaningless.
Leaving the SM and CU is government policy. It enables FTAs with the rest of the world. The analysis shows this worth about 0.5% a of GDP after 15 years. This includes 0.2% from a favourable FTA with the US. This is not meaningless. It shows the paucity of the case for FTAs which is driving the case for being out of the CU.
I remember hearing Barbara Castle making exactly this point in the 1975 referendum campaign. (I was still at school but I had a pocket money job at the venue the meeting was held in and sneaked in to listen.) It's a very good argument and had me anti-EU for decades. The trouble is apart from a few religious types, the odd very idealistic socialist and extreme libertarians nobody votes for other people's interests.
May will lose the vote, but it won’t matter; it won’t be binding on the government. It won’t become a confidence vote; May will simply take it into consideration.
And it’s a matter of semantics anyway: the government wants a customs *arrangement* with the EU post transition, which I’d imagine would start by mirroring the existing customs union completely, and then diverge on new classes of goods (bots and drones and things).
We would be free to sign new deals, although what those deals would look like given our near complete alignment with the EU for most goods is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps others have a better idea. Turkey presumably has its own bilateral trade deals despite a similar arrangement?
Labours policy is not completely dissimilar. They just use the term “*a* customs union” and are a bit more honest that future trade deals are very likely to come in conjunction with the EU rather than bilaterally. And it is true that Liam Fox has admitted this morning he is getting nowhere fast.
The many frothers on here and in the ERG are half right and half wrong. They are right that a Brexit alongside a permanent customs union is the worst kind of Brexit as it sacrifices considerable sovereignty and the ability to have an independent trade policy. But they are wrong to think we can just exit a customs union (or parallel arrangement) tomorrow; not if we don’t want to sacrifice our industrial base and Northern Ireland.
This all feels like a phoney war to me, including Tusk’s comments (Turkey, Switzerland, and Canada are all - in different ways - surely “cherry picking”?).
Now if Corbyn promised a referendum on the deal, *that* would be game changer. But if I were him, I’d wait till summer. He needs to wait and see how the government’s position resolves so he can position himself just a fag paper more Remain-y.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
You know what I mean! The party was at war with itself, thanks to the Eurosceptics, and that war hardly helped Major fight off the media assault on his government. If that very uncivil war had not happened, then Major still might not have won in 1997, but Labour would not have won such a stonking majority. Or perhaps there might have been another 1992-style surprise.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
Just suppose there was a by-election in a safe labour seat, Blair stood and won!
That's the funny thing: go back twenty years, and Major was being vilified and Blair canonised. Now, Major is much more warmly received, even amongst many Labour people, whilst Blair is hated by many on all sides. ANd especially by many Labourites (see BJO's post below).
Blair is yesterday's man. I'm far from sure he has anything of value to offer the country.
I believe Anna Soubry was originally a member of the SDP - so her Tory credentials are not particularly strong!
She denies it. Besides, it was decades ago - Nick Palmer was once a committed Communist (or so I understand), became a loyalist centrist Labour under Blair, and now is a firm hard-left Corbynista.
People undergo political journeys, and parties evolve. The modern Conservative Party is worlds apart from the one that ran the country in the early 1980s.
If only because that government was at least competent!
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I'm thinking Biden might actually run. He's the best chance the Dems have, despite his age. (born 1942, he'd be 78 at inauguration).
Agreed, Biden is the only Democrat who outperforms the generic Democrat total on that poll and would be ideal to win back the rustbelt states the Democrats have to win back from Trump to take the Electoral College. Don't forget Trump will be 75 in 2020 too so on that basis his age would be less of an issue.
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
I’ve just put a couple of beers on Biden at 22, to win the 2020 election.
The Dems need to find someone from the next generation who can talk about jobs rather than bathrooms, and I’ve not seen that person yet. The old man might be the best chance to unite a very very divided country.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
You know what I mean! The party was at war with itself, thanks to the Eurosceptics, and that war hardly helped Major fight off the media assault on his government. If that very uncivil war had not happened, then Major still might not have won in 1997, but Labour would not have won such a stonking majority. Or perhaps there might have been another 1992-style surprise.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
Just suppose there was a by-election in a safe labour seat, Blair stood and won!
That's the funny thing: go back twenty years, and Major was being vilified and Blair canonised. Now, Major is much more warmly received, even amongst many Labour people, whilst Blair is hated by many on all sides. ANd especially by many Labourites (see BJO's post below).
Blair is yesterday's man. I'm far from sure he has anything of value to offer the country.
God Blair so pathetic, out of all the recent PMs we’ve had I think he’s got to be the most insincere and narcissistic.
Blair seems never to have met a tyrant or kleptocrat (let’s put Kushner in the latter basket) he won’t suck up to in order to make a deal.
He justifies it presumably on the grounds that there are always common causes and maybe he feels he can persuade said tyrant of doing something for the greater good.
But it’s an odious sight.
The definitive Blair biography - yet to be written I think - will be fascinating.
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I'm thinking Biden might actually run. He's the best chance the Dems have, despite his age. (born 1942, he'd be 78 at inauguration).
Agreed, Biden is the only Democrat who outperforms the generic Democrat total on that poll and would be ideal to win back the rustbelt states the Democrats have to win back from Trump to take the Electoral College. Don't forget Trump will be 75 in 2020 too so on that basis his age would be less of an issue.
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
I’ve just put a couple of beers on Biden at 22, to win the 2020 election.
The Dems need to find someone from the next generation who can talk about jobs rather than bathrooms, and I’ve not seen that person yet. The old man might be the best chance to unite a very very divided country.
That's my thinking too. If he agreed it was for a single term it might gain him the nomination (while the younger ones wait their turn and develop their proposition) as well as giving reassurance about his age.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
Just suppose there was a by-election in a safe labour seat, Blair stood and won!
That's the funny thing: go back twenty years, and Major was being vilified and Blair canonised. Now, Major is much more warmly received, even amongst many Labour people, whilst Blair is hated by many on all sides. ANd especially by many Labourites (see BJO's post below).
Blair is yesterday's man. I'm far from sure he has anything of value to offer the country.
God Blair so pathetic, out of all the recent PMs we’ve had I think he’s got to be the most insincere and narcissistic.
Blair seems never to have met a tyrant or kleptocrat (let’s put Kushner in the latter basket) he won’t suck up to in order to make a deal.
He justifies it presumably on the grounds that there are always common causes and maybe he feels he can persuade said tyrant of doing something for the greater good.
But it’s an odious sight.
The definitive Blair biography - yet to be written I think - will be fascinating.
It’s not really a biography, but have you read Tom Bowers’ book on Blair? It’s very good.
One thing I’m interested in is what happened to Blair in the 1980s - he appears to have gone from an admirer of Michael Foot at the start of the decade to an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.
Gosh there's a lot of Corbyn supporters on here with money to burn. I would have thought they would be out there giving their money to the needy.
I think this article should be preserved and framed and cited in future as anexample of the utter fantasyworld inhabited by some pro Corbyn commentators.
Just to humour the author on one or two points.
The government would not fall, even if it lost a customs union vote. The government falls only if loses a vote of confidence.
In any case how on earth could Jeremy Corbyn govern on a day to day basis, let alone implement hard left socialism when he does not have the numbers to command any kind of majority?
If there were a general election, Jeremy Corbyn would almost certainly lose it on current polling (and we are assuming that the polls are not overstating Labour)
On EVERY occasion since 1945 without exception when Labour was in the lead in the polls during an election campaign, Labour has actually done worse than expected in terms of poll share as the law of self denying prophecy kicks in. This was true even of 1997 when Labour was polling nearly 50%
If that were repeated next time, given the narrowness of the Labour lead, Corbyn would lose.
I am sorry to let down the Corbyn wankathon but there are going to be a lot of red faces among the commentariat, in the Labour party, and on here when the results come through in the general election of 2022.
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I'm thinking Biden might actually run. He's the best chance the Dems have, despite his age. (born 1942, he'd be 78 at inauguration).
Agreed, Biden is the only Democrat who outperforms the generic Democrat total on that poll and would be ideal to win back the rustbelt states the Democrats have to win back from Trump to take the Electoral College. Don't forget Trump will be 75 in 2020 too so on that basis his age would be less of an issue.
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
I’ve just put a couple of beers on Biden at 22, to win the 2020 election.
The Dems need to find someone from the next generation who can talk about jobs rather than bathrooms, and I’ve not seen that person yet. The old man might be the best chance to unite a very very divided country.
Biden is clearly the best Democratic candidate to win the 2020 general election and beat Trump yes but getting past Warren, Sanders etc in the Democratic primaries will be his biggest problem
The government would fall over the idea of a customs union by definition at a time when the Conservative party was sufficiently split over the subject that party loyalties no longer held sufficient sway to cause MPs to toe the government line. In those circumstances, the Conservatives would need some time and space to sort themselves out, and they could not obviously do that in government. Nor would a general election assist them at a time when they could not unite.
So they would presumably go into opposition.
If May loses this vote and then resigns, wouldn’t there be another Conservative leadership contest? I don’t follow at all why Conservative MPs would abstain on Corbyn.
May could remain as PM while waiting for her successor. Her successor could either try to carry on or call an election.
To be honest I’m not even sure Corbyn would want to be PM without another election. He wouldn’t be able to do anything... I think he’d rather fight an election.
Mr. Slackbladder, that may very well be the intention of those seeking to keep us in the customs union. Get us a deal that they can take to the country claiming to be worse than the status quo, then ask for referendum 2.
Ostensibly, it seems a strange cause to be prepared to bring down the government (and end one's political career) over. (Snip)
Tell that to the Eurosceptic 'bastards' who helped bring down Major's government. .
Major’s second government served its full term.
That majority Labour government was, I believe, bad for the country, and we are still living with its effects today.
One thing's for sure: Conservatives must be thanking their lucky stars that someone like Corbyn is at the helm of Labour, rather than another Blair. It's their only hope, and a poor hope at that.
Just suppose there was a by-election in a safe labour seat, Blair stood and won!
God Blair so pathetic, out of all the recent PMs we’ve had I think he’s got to be the most insincere and narcissistic.
Blair seems never to have met a tyrant or kleptocrat (let’s put Kushner in the latter basket) he won’t suck up to in order to make a deal.
He justifies it presumably on the grounds that there are always common causes and maybe he feels he can persuade said tyrant of doing something for the greater good.
But it’s an odious sight.
The definitive Blair biography - yet to be written I think - will be fascinating.
It’s not really a biography, but have you read Tom Bowers’ book on Blair? It’s very good.
One thing I’m interested in is what happened to Blair in the 1980s - he appears to have gone from an admirer of Michael Foot at the start of the decade to an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.
I haven’t, no. Maybe I’m a bit snobbish, but I think Blair - the outstanding European politician of his generation - needs a Caro, not a Bowers.
As for Michael Foot, I’m not convinced Blair had particularly fixed views until the mid 80s. Kinnock’s fight to save the party was the seminal period for him, I think.
Corbyn would rather look after rich French farmers than poor African farmers.
Corbyn won't back staying in the EU customs union but a theoretical customs Union - a sort of cake and eat it Customs union with little detail.
Possibly one which supports African farmers and protects kittens too?
In a sense 'a customs union' could be spun as to whatever you want it to be - as the precise detail would need to be negotiated as Turkey did as a non EU member outside the single market which has a customs union with the EU.
In reality it means the EU will dictate our trade policy with third countries - and presumably we will have little say over it.
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I'm thinking Biden might actually run. He's the best chance the Dems have, despite his age. (born 1942, he'd be 78 at inauguration).
Agreed, Biden is the only Democrat who outperforms the generic Democrat total on that poll and would be ideal to win back the rustbelt states the Democrats have to win back from Trump to take the Electoral College. Don't forget Trump will be 75 in 2020 too so on that basis his age would be less of an issue.
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
I’ve just put a couple of beers on Biden at 22, to win the 2020 election.
The Dems need to find someone from the next generation who can talk about jobs rather than bathrooms, and I’ve not seen that person yet. The old man might be the best chance to unite a very very divided country.
Biden is clearly the best Democratic candidate to win the 2020 general election and beat Trump yes but getting past Warren, Sanders etc in the Democratic primaries will be his biggest problem
I think Sanders won’t stand, but yes there will be Warren, Kamala Harris and a bunch of others competing with Biden for the nomination.
It’s an interesting conundrum for the Dems, they’re likely to be trying to unseat a President who’s overseen massive infrastructure spending, tax cuts and job creation. They’re going to need to reach out way beyond their coastal base to the swing states, yet so far they give every impression of doubling down on the identity politics that failed them last time out under Hillary.
I’ve suggested before that the Dems should run their primaries a year early in 2019, giving their candidate a year as a British-style LotO who’s on the news every night opposing Trump’s policies. Provided they can choose someone who’s as clean as a whistle, that’s probably their best strategy.
It’s not really a biography, but have you read Tom Bowers’ book on Blair? It’s very good.
One thing I’m interested in is what happened to Blair in the 1980s - he appears to have gone from an admirer of Michael Foot at the start of the decade to an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.
I think it's common for political views to change as we grow older - certainly, it can sometimes be harmful for them not to change.
It'd be possible to be a bit of a left-wing firebrand in your youth, and then two things happen: you experience more of the world and realise that there is much more nuance than the simple one you had been living in, and you realise that your views are seen as somewhat extreme and are utterly unelectable.
Therefore, as a good, moral person, you shift. The opposition might be right to do change A, but they're doing it the wrong way, or for the wrong reasons. You can take their policies as you're on the side of good, and they're not. And you cannot change anything if you are not in power, so best make yourself electable, and then you can do things for the right reasons. This results in you being remarkably similar to your opponents, except with a smug air of moral superiority.
The same goes for all ends of the political spectrum.
Besides, it's possible to 'admire' both Foot and Thatcher in different ways.
I see the latest PPP generic House ballot poll has the Democratic lead down a bit to 8%, 49% to 41%.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
I'm thinking Biden might actually run. He's the best chance the Dems have, despite his age. (born 1942, he'd be 78 at inauguration).
Agreed, Biden is the only Democrat who outperforms the generic Democrat total on that poll and would be ideal to win back the rustbelt states the Democrats have to win back from Trump to take the Electoral College. Don't forget Trump will be 75 in 2020 too so on that basis his age would be less of an issue.
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
I’ve just put a couple of beers on Biden at 22, to win the 2020 election.
The Dems need to find someone from the next generation who can talk about jobs rather than bathrooms, and I’ve not seen that person yet. The old man might be the best chance to unite a very very divided country.
Biden is clearly the best Democratic candidate to win the 2020 general election and beat Trump yes but getting past Warren, Sanders etc in the Democratic primaries will be his biggest problem
I'm on Biden. I can see a joint ticket with Kennedy III.
Gosh there's a lot of Corbyn supporters on here with money to burn. I would have thought they would be out there giving their money to the needy.
I think this article should be preserved and framed and cited in future as anexample of the utter fantasyworld inhabited by some pro Corbyn commentators.
Just to humour the author on one or two points.
The government would not fall, even if it lost a customs union vote. The government falls only if loses a vote of confidence.
In any case how on earth could Jeremy Corbyn govern on a day to day basis, let alone implement hard left socialism when he does not have the numbers to command any kind of majority?
If there were a general election, Jeremy Corbyn would almost certainly lose it on current polling (and we are assuming that the polls are not overstating Labour)
On EVERY occasion since 1945 without exception when Labour was in the lead in the polls during an election campaign, Labour has actually done worse than expected in terms of poll share as the law of self denying prophecy kicks in. This was true even of 1997 when Labour was polling nearly 50%
If that were repeated next time, given the narrowness of the Labour lead, Corbyn would lose.
I am sorry to let down the Corbyn wankathon but there are going to be a lot of red faces among the commentariat, in the Labour party, and on here when the results come through in the general election of 2022.
Not true in 1964 actually.
May could make the "a customs union" vote an issue of no confidence. Hodges reminded us this morning that Major did this.
The government would fall over the idea of a customs union by definition at a time when the Conservative party was sufficiently split over the subject that party loyalties no longer held sufficient sway to cause MPs to toe the government line. In those circumstances, the Conservatives would need some time and space to sort themselves out, and they could not obviously do that in government. Nor would a general election assist them at a time when they could not unite.
So they would presumably go into opposition.
If May loses this vote and then resigns, wouldn’t there be another Conservative leadership contest? I don’t follow at all why Conservative MPs would abstain on Corbyn.
May could remain as PM while waiting for her successor. Her successor could either try to carry on or call an election.
To be honest I’m not even sure Corbyn would want to be PM without another election. He wouldn’t be able to do anything... I think he’d rather fight an election.
If Theresa May loses this vote, she need not resign. She could hold a separate vote of confidence which I expect she would win. (The amendment would, however, remain on the statute books.) That looks quite likely, don't you think?
If the Conservatives get to the point where some of their own MPs can't support their own government on a vote of confidence on EU policy, the stakes are much higher. A mere leadership contest isn't going to sort that out. Scores will need to be settled, punishment beatings handed out. As I said, this is extreme.
It is possible that Theresa May would see losing this vote as a trigger for her resignation. I don't really see why. Perhaps more likely, other MPs lose patience with her and get out the Quink for a letter to Mr Brady. And then I agree with you as to how this would play out.
Comments
All this at a time when corporation tax revenues are at record highs.
Livingstone was doing this - and being heavily criticised for it - long before Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43186005
Guess when Mike’s holiday begins ?
And I’m at a complete loss as to how he thinks Corbyn becomes PM without a GE. THe parliamentary maths simply doesn’t add up.
This is the rebuttal to Liam Fox's claim that the UK needs to be outside the EU to trade successfully with the rest of the world. And this is all that drives the Tory opposition to a Customs Union.
However while that would be a disaster for the country in many respects it could be a gift for the Tory Party. A new Tory leader of the opposition facing a PM Corbyn propped up by the LDs, SNP and Sinn Fein and maybe without having even won a general election and forced to deal with Brexit would be in an ideal position to capitalise
Switzerland, Norway, Iceland etc ... not one of them have chosen to be in the Customs Union. Why do you think that is?
I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is beneficial so we should remain in the EU to shape its rules etc
I can understand the logic of saying that a customs union is harmful by tying our hands so we should leave it.
I do not understand the logic of saying that the customs union is good but we would be economically better off outside the European Union but still inside the Customs Union.
If you truly believe we are going to be economically better off inside the Customs Union but outside the European Union then please advocate why because that is not an argument anyone seems to have made. If you really believe that leaving the European Union is wrong and that this is the next best thing then sorry that debate was lost. If we're going to leave then do it properly, there is no point whatsoever in being tied to the Customs Union but outside the European Union. It gives us no economic advantage whatsoever.
Enough Tories abstain in a vote of confidence making Corbyn PM.
There’s a 14 day window following the Tories losing their vote of confidence for it to happen.
Best to avoid deliberate attempts to give him an aneurysm especially when you have briefed in advance.
Although next GE may just do that.
That’s assuming that the SNP/LD/Plaid Cymru/Greens all back Corbyn.
On hypothetical 2020 contests Biden leads Trump 51% to 42%, Sanders leads Trump by 48% to 44%, Joe Kennedy leads Trump 46% to 43% but Trump ties Warren on 44% each and Harris on 43% each and leads Gilibrand 43% to 42%
https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/polls/democrats-lead-8-points-generic-house-ballot-nationally/
Can you give a single sound economic reason why we should be out of the EU but in the Customs Union?
How much has the Governments position moved since then?
Quite.
It’s total nonsense and displays a lack of understanding.
It is constitutionally possible for the Queen to invite Corbyn to become Prime Minister of a minority government.
But Corbyn still can’t pass any legislation because Tory (and no doubt DUP) MPs won’t vote for them.
Sorry, but you’re talking nonsense.
K
I know Kelvin Hopkins well and he would not vote to prop up the Tories - he is more anti-Tory than anti-EU. And the idea that Hoey and a couple of others would vote with them does bring out my inner Trot - they'd be deselected in a heartbeat, although they could probably get away with abstaining.
Would a Corbyn government do an adequate deal with the EU? It'd be basically Norway plus agreement that nationalisation wasn't against the rules (it probably isn't). All the venom would go out of the talks because he's actually not that bothered, and we'd part on reasonably amicable terms. I don't think a second referendum or reversing Brexi would arise.
Wilson may have had a minority Government but with the Liberals supporting him he had an 18 seat majority. Corbyn would not have a majority even if every single possible party bar the Tories and DUP supported him.
Sadly ConKIP don't care about this. They believe what they believe and experts be damned - HMRC, business, their former donors, the whole lot of them. What do Honda know about car manufacturing anyway? They are in a minority in Parliament which is why the government will lose a vote on the Customs Union.
Only question then is who blinks first. I expect a confidence vote would be narrowly won by the government. If however she makes the CU vote a confidence vote I expect they would lose it. FTPA protects Tory rebels as it doesn't mean a general election, just a new Tory leader. Which is what most of them want anyway.
From your link
The Tories currently have 56 more seats than Corbyn's Labour Party.
I don't think any of this will happen though. Even in its current below par form it must still have some survival instincts intact somewhere.
David Cameron should have nailed down what Brexit meant before the referendum, and Theresa May should have done so before triggering Article 50 (and again before calling an election she claimed was to give her a mandate on Brexit). They did not -- so any claims that we voted for X or against Y are simply wrong. I do not know who is the worst ever British Prime Minister but I've narrowed it down to those two.
The Feb-Oct 74 would act as a template for an attempt at a majority government. As I say an unlikely situation but worthy of keeping Conservative PBers in a acute state of nervous nelly-dom ....
We had a similar issue in the local CLP, and voted unanimously to invite the Jewish Labour Movement to send a speaker to discuss where the borderline should be between being critical of Israel or Zionism (which we all agree should be a legit subject for discussion) and making Jewish members feel got at (which clearly is not).
Edit In answer to the first part of your question there are no sound economic reasons for being out of the EU. Democracy trumps sound economic reasons.
There are far worse potential nightmares for Tories than that!
The ERM was bad for the UK economy and leaving it led to improvement while joining the Euro would likely have been disastrous.
It was the EU headbangers such as Clarke and Heseltine who were willing to damage the Conservative party and the UK in pursuit of their ideological beleifs.
That's highly significant.
Anyway, I must be off.
The result is that the benefit of leaving the SM and CU is about 0.5% pa of GDP after 15 years and the cost is ten times that at about 5% pa of GDP. The analysis might be wrong in details but the summation is unlikely to be out by an order of magnitude!
His challenge will be beating the the likes of Warren and Sanders etc in the primaries but on that poll if it is Trump v Warren then Trump wins as Trump ties her on this poll in the popular vote and in 2016 he lost the popular vote by 2% to Hillary but still won the Electoral College.
May will lose the vote, but it won’t matter; it won’t be binding on the government. It won’t become a confidence vote; May will simply take it into consideration.
And it’s a matter of semantics anyway: the government wants a customs *arrangement* with the EU post transition, which I’d imagine would start by mirroring the existing customs union completely, and then diverge on new classes of goods (bots and drones and things).
We would be free to sign new deals, although what those deals would look like given our near complete alignment with the EU for most goods is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps others have a better idea. Turkey presumably has its own bilateral trade deals despite a similar arrangement?
Labours policy is not completely dissimilar. They just use the term “*a* customs union” and are a bit more honest that future trade deals are very likely to come in conjunction with the EU rather than bilaterally. And it is true that Liam Fox has admitted this morning he is getting nowhere fast.
The many frothers on here and in the ERG are half right and half wrong. They are right that a Brexit alongside a permanent customs union is the worst kind of Brexit as it sacrifices considerable sovereignty and the ability to have an independent trade policy. But they are wrong to think we can just exit a customs union (or parallel arrangement) tomorrow; not if we don’t want to sacrifice our industrial base and Northern Ireland.
This all feels like a phoney war to me, including Tusk’s comments (Turkey, Switzerland, and Canada are all - in different ways - surely “cherry picking”?).
Now if Corbyn promised a referendum on the deal, *that* would be game changer. But if I were him, I’d wait till summer. He needs to wait and see how the government’s position resolves so he can position himself just a fag paper more Remain-y.
Corbyn - Sir Ian McKellern
McDonnell - Nicholas Lyndhurst
Abbott - Rhianna
Boris - Matt Lucas
Gove - Rowan Atkinson
Starmer - Idris Elba
Title: A BAD IDEA POORLY EXECUTED
https://twitter.com/isabelhardman/status/967701045928439808
So they would presumably go into opposition. That would mean that Jeremy Corbyn would become Prime Minister. The Conservatives would need to abstain to the extent necessary (and no further) to permit him to remain in that role. He presumably would put forward his populist measures and dare the Conservatives to oppose them, then call a general election when he thought he could win one. That might be very shortly after taking over the role, though I suspect he would quite like to demonstrate to the public that Jeremy Corbyn could be a feasible Prime Minister before the election if possible.
The circumstances postulated are extreme. Theresa May has to decide how determined the mutineers are and if she concludes they are immovable, whether she is willing to accept a customs union. My guess is that she will conclude they are movable if a confidence motion is called. I further guess that she is right, but if she (and I) are wrong, Britain will see Prime Minister Corbyn.
Blair then and now, in a nutshell. Lying his head off and desperate to lick the POTUS' arse.
But I’m a Remainer.
My personal pref goes:
1. Remain > 2. EFTA > 3. FTA (no customs union) > 4. “No deal” / WTO > 5. FTA (perm. customs union)
4 and 5 would be disastrous. So I’m hoping Labour really are just proposing a variant of 3 rather than 5.
People undergo political journeys, and parties evolve. The modern Conservative Party is worlds apart from the one that ran the country in the early 1980s.
If only because that government was at least competent!
The Dems need to find someone from the next generation who can talk about jobs rather than bathrooms, and I’ve not seen that person yet. The old man might be the best chance to unite a very very divided country.
Corbyn would rather look after rich French farmers than poor African farmers.
He justifies it presumably on the grounds that there are always common causes and maybe he feels he can persuade said tyrant of doing something for the greater good.
But it’s an odious sight.
The definitive Blair biography - yet to be written I think - will be fascinating.
One thing I’m interested in is what happened to Blair in the 1980s - he appears to have gone from an admirer of Michael Foot at the start of the decade to an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.
I don’t follow at all why Conservative MPs would abstain on Corbyn.
May could remain as PM while waiting for her successor.
Her successor could either try to carry on or call an election.
To be honest I’m not even sure Corbyn would want to be PM without another election. He wouldn’t be able to do anything... I think he’d rather fight an election.
As for Michael Foot, I’m not convinced Blair had particularly fixed views until the mid 80s. Kinnock’s fight to save the party was the seminal period for him, I think.
Possibly one which supports African farmers and protects kittens too?
In a sense 'a customs union' could be spun as to whatever you want it to be - as the precise detail would need to be negotiated as Turkey did as a non EU member outside the single market which has a customs union with the EU.
In reality it means the EU will dictate our trade policy with third countries - and presumably we will have little say over it.
It’s an interesting conundrum for the Dems, they’re likely to be trying to unseat a President who’s overseen massive infrastructure spending, tax cuts and job creation. They’re going to need to reach out way beyond their coastal base to the swing states, yet so far they give every impression of doubling down on the identity politics that failed them last time out under Hillary.
I’ve suggested before that the Dems should run their primaries a year early in 2019, giving their candidate a year as a British-style LotO who’s on the news every night opposing Trump’s policies. Provided they can choose someone who’s as clean as a whistle, that’s probably their best strategy.
It'd be possible to be a bit of a left-wing firebrand in your youth, and then two things happen: you experience more of the world and realise that there is much more nuance than the simple one you had been living in, and you realise that your views are seen as somewhat extreme and are utterly unelectable.
Therefore, as a good, moral person, you shift. The opposition might be right to do change A, but they're doing it the wrong way, or for the wrong reasons. You can take their policies as you're on the side of good, and they're not. And you cannot change anything if you are not in power, so best make yourself electable, and then you can do things for the right reasons. This results in you being remarkably similar to your opponents, except with a smug air of moral superiority.
The same goes for all ends of the political spectrum.
Besides, it's possible to 'admire' both Foot and Thatcher in different ways.
If the Conservatives get to the point where some of their own MPs can't support their own government on a vote of confidence on EU policy, the stakes are much higher. A mere leadership contest isn't going to sort that out. Scores will need to be settled, punishment beatings handed out. As I said, this is extreme.
It is possible that Theresa May would see losing this vote as a trigger for her resignation. I don't really see why. Perhaps more likely, other MPs lose patience with her and get out the Quink for a letter to Mr Brady. And then I agree with you as to how this would play out.