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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The great Brexiters gamble – go with TMay’s deal or risking Brexit not happening at all
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I suspect that no deal is now unstoppable if they call her bluff.
There's also the reaction within the Conservative Party to this - would there be a majority in Parliament for a motion NOT to seek a delay?
A delay to kick the can further is pointless, why would anyone do this?
Unless either the HoC or EU backs down, well, you get the idea.......
I think Theresa May would also prefer no deal to a lengthy delay.
There is a small chance that she would delay for the purpose of holding a public vote (whether via a general election or a referendum) to win public support for the Withdrawal Agreement. It would be consistent with the stated reason for her holding the election in 2017. But I don't think that is likely either.
This looks to me like either an empty threat to try and pull the ERG into line, or wishful thinking on the part of anti-no dealers.
FWIW I still believe the hysteria about no deal Brexit is completely overdone and any very short term problems would prove to be exactly that. But it is unnecessary damage and the longer term consequences for our future relationship with the EU are sub optimal so we should avoid it if we can.
What is causing damage is the never ending uncertainty. If we really end up waiting till March for a deal the difference between no deal and deal will be much smaller than it should be. Politicians are making a self indulgent arse of this. They need to do the deal and do it now.
I think we need to individually examine MPs that changed their votes between Cooper-Boles I and Spelman. I doubt for example my MP John Mann will go for the Cooper-Boles II amendment even though he voted for Spelman.
While I am sure that Theresa would prefer to pass the Withdrawal Agreement without relying on Labour votes, I think the surest path to passing the Withdrawal Agreement is with some fudge on the Customs Union in the political declaration that allows Corbyn to claim he's won a great victory to force May to accept a 'Labour' Brexit and May to claim that she has stuck to her red lines.
Agreeing this sort of deal with May is the only way that Corbyn escapes the pressure of having to back a People's Vote as no deal approaches. But with a delay the pressure on Corbyn recedes.
https://twitter.com/propertyspot/status/1095610368330731523?s=21
Implied probability of leaving without a deal on March 29th is 24%.
As for the politics, the problem for may who oppose the Deal are that aspects of it would, in their eyes, weaken us economically and in terms of making future trading arrangements. The critique seems to be it would leave us in a vassal State situation so contend hurried implementation of May's WA might cause us longer term problems.
Anyone have any idea of anything we could do in the next few weeks to help get inflation back up to its target level?
But the fact that the political declaration is just that works both ways. If we don't like the outcome of the FTA negotiations we can walk away and, bluntly, what are the EU going to do about it, even in respect of the backstop? It is all up for grabs still and much will depend on the quality of leadership we have going into the next, more important, phase.
I personally have lost all confidence in May being able to do that work with any competence. I want her gone as soon as possible after the WA is implemented. Finding a more competent replacement is trickier but we must do better than this.
I agree with you about Brexit hysteria too, Remainers seem to be doubling down on the hellfire and brimstone rhetoric about hard Brexit, I honestly think they would gain more traction by being more realistic.
I also agree about uncertainty being the biggest issues, it's not the outcome that is the biggest problem for business, it's the fact that with about 7 weeks to go they don't know which plan needs to be implemented.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6698171/I-scrape-mould-jam-eat-whats-underneath-admits-PM.html
In the past the choice was made by MPs, who had been through both selection and election processes and who knew the candidates strengths and weaknesses from personal experience and who could, and often did, ignore the views of extremists in their constituencies. This system kept the extremist loonies in check. But now they have taken over and are destroying everything in their path.
The second question to consider is the order in which groups of MPs start panicking. That may make a big difference to the ultimate outcome.
https://twitter.com/amberdebotton/status/1095621540597645313
I’m normally a gentle soul but can I join in too, pretty please?
Nick is very typical of a large number of Labour members. He likes Corbyn on a personal level. He sees qualities in him that he admires: mild, well mannered, not bothered about money, loyal to his friends, very concerned about social justice at home and abroad. In many ways, he is exactly how Labour members would like to see themselves. And because of that they just do not see all the baggage that Corbyn brings: his reliance on the advice of people who have spent their adult lives fighting the Labour party, his long friendships with anti-Semites and various apologists for terror, his automatic support for anti-Western regimes of any kind and his assumption that wealth creation just happens and does not need to be incentivised. Corbyn genuinely does make a lot of Labour members feel good about themselves. To the vast majority of voters this is totally inexplicable, of course - but Labour members, like Tory members, are nothing like the vast majority of voters.
What all this means is that for the membership having Jeremy Corbyn in charge is far more important than winning a general election. It's totemic. But here's the thing - because a lot of it is actually personal to Corbyn, it would be wrong to assume that this affection will automatically transfer to the next person the far left offers up for leadership. It will have to be earned. If it isn't, I suspect the next leader - who is a long way off (way past the next election whatever the result) - may be more mainstream.
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As Stereotomy says, the polling suggests that people really liked the 2017 manifesto, but Southam is right all the same - it wasn't especially left-wing in most respects, and someone like EdM could certainly have led on it. That said, people believe that JC would be left-wing (whether you like him or not, absolutely nobody thinks he's a secret centrist), and that gave leeway to have a fairly moderate programme without annoying the left. As Harold Wilson said, Labour is best run from the left for that reason.
On some details I disagree with Southam's analysis - I'm convinced that being consistently critical of Israel is nothing to do with anti-semitism. I'm not a big fan of the great western alliance anyway, least of all with Trump leading it. And I'm a latter-day non-interventionist, after seeing the mess I helped create in Iraq. So for me and many members, most of JC's foreign policy is a plus, not something to overlook..
But yes, if JC decided to move on I'd look at all contenders with a reasonably open mind, and that's quite common among members (though note that this is weaker than it would otherwise be because people like Southam have dropped out). I'd tend to exclude anyone who has been actively briefing against JC, but someone like Starmer would certainly be worth looking at.
Mould on jam does have fairly deep roots, so scrape deeply. Mould is not poisonous though, think of blue cheese.
Maybe you could argue that it is only the fear of who the Party members would elect in a leadership ballot now that saved May in the confidence vote in December.
And because Theresa May similarly triggered Article 50 before defining Brexit.
There is the possibility that rather than panic they are so frozen with fear and cowardice that they do nothing. And so no deal happens because that is what will happen unless..... and that unless never comes.
MPs seem to me to be paralysed, willing to talk, willing to wound but afraid to strike. I don’t even think it is the backstop any more, if it ever was. It’s a combination of hatred of May’s secretive and authoritarian way of governing, the distateful need to appease the DUP and, indeed, think about Ireland’s needs at all (something the British have never been very good at), the Brexiteers’ realisation that this is not as easy as they thought and the realisation by everyone else that they are trapped into doing something they don’t believe in and they think wrong. Rather than admit this and speak up and take action which would put them in the firing line, they mutter and moan and complain and talk about alternative universes. But they are - basically - pulling the duvet over their heads and hoping that it will all go away.
And if it doesn’t, they hope that they won’t individually be blamed - that, like the Assyrians, they can fold up their tents and creep away into the night.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1095636842647617536
And do you really think that Harold Wilson would have been content to have the party led by a man, one of whose closest advisers was a member of another party - the Communist Party - until very recently?
This is a great clip, full of micro-delights:
- the bloated gammon blink of the interviewer
- the bizarre way Jones pronounces Merkel as if referring to some kind of feminine hygiene product
- the slight edge of disgust or mockery in his voice as he utters the word “Frenchman”.
Digby Jones is poor British productivity in a fatsuit.
https://labourlist.org/2016/06/corbyn-article-50-has-to-be-invoked-now/
Time for a coffee and a step outside. The weather is warming up and spring feels near. Hooray!
PS Mould is very dangerous for dogs.
I'm sure I am not alone.
She has utterly failed in basic political tradecraft.
The only outcome at this stage which right royally fucks the party is “No Deal” which of course would contaminate the party for a generation - think Poll Tax on steroids.
All other outcomes, including May’s Deal, Corbyn’s Deal, Extend could be sold to the Party. Even Revoke (we need a tea break to think) could be managed with sufficient consideration.
Like Rottenborough, Mr Foremain, and Cyclefree, I am from the PB wing that is apoplectic with rage at both May’s Tories *and* Corbyn’s Labour.
But that doesn't alter the fact that she is right that there's no alternative to the EU's deal. Crashing out is unthinkable, revocation would be a democratic outrage, and the EU won't budge. It really is as simple as that, and therefore the entire crisis - and it really is a crisis - is caused by MPs refusing, for contradictory and in some cases entirely cynical reasons, to ratify the deal which would avert the crisis. Yes, sure, if she had been defter and more skilled at stroking their egos and making them feel loved, she might have got more support from them. But they are not children, and this is a real-life crisis in which they should forget about whether they feel loved and just get on with ending the uncertainty and taking 'no deal' off the table in the only way available.
But they’d lose the 4 or 5 after that.
As a former Communist myself (like Denis Healey, who IIRC Wilson worked with without evident qualms) I'm the wrong person to grumble about other former Communists being involved - it really depends what they're like, and that applies to non-Communists too. I'd be appalled if Corbyn was being advised by Arthur Scargill, say.
My views are pretty irrelevant these days, unless one thinks that Waverley Borough Council is potentially critically affected by my possible election to it. But with variations they're probably reasonably widely shared among members.
The fact she is still trying to force her will is depressing beyond measure.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/02/nick-boles-deselection-will-affect-more-just-future-tories
Is he likely to be really at risk, or will the Powers That Be intervene?
It required accepting the results of the ref.
Reaching out for cross-party consensus.
Seeking the closest possible ties with the EU.
Reassuring Remainers.
Using the rhetoric of healing, not division.
And keeping hold of the UK’s *only* leverage: timing.
In the utter vacuum of leadership, the ERGers were given license to define increasingly more extreme Brexits. May piled on with divisive words of her own. She let Davis and Johnson indulge in their fantasies. And then she exercised Article 50, unilaterally defined her red lines, and the rest is history.
This is May’s wholly-owned crisis.
Looked at in one way, all PMs and Leaders from 1997 have been “disastrous failures”, with the possible exception of Michael Howard!
I don’t have a problem with a former Communist turning to Labour, especially when it was a long time ago a la Healey and you. You both supported and worked for the Labour party.
But Corbyn is being advised by Andrew Murray, who was a Communist party member for 40 years and only stopped being a member in 2016. That seems to me to be different and very concerning.
It’s not a question of making MPs feel loved or stroking their egos. She utterly failed to take account of anyone’s views other than her own - or rather whoever wrote her speeches for her in June 2016 and later to the Tory conference.
And a second referendum to get people’s consent or not to this deal is not a democratic outrage. It is an obvious option. It is one she has ruled out. Why? Because she cares more about sticking to a date (talk about focusing on the unimportant) and because she is a bully who thinks that getting her own way is the only thing that matters. A deal that she bullies Parliament into accepting out of fear will not stick. It simply means that the arguments will continue elsewhere and the lack of real consent to what she is doing will continue to poison British politics.
However after that she made little or no attempt to consider the views of anyone except the ERG and the DUP, assuming that the bulk of the Tories would follow their Leader.
The operative provisions of the entire act read as follows -
Power to notify withdrawal from the EU
(1)The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.
(2)This section has effect despite any provision made by or under the European Communities Act 1972 or any other enactment.