Can some brilliant MNer please explain to me how the fracking vote brought Liz Truss down?

Thought the Irish/EU view re LT was hopeful start but quickly degenerated ie deluded ideologue as all the others? You can’t square circle but also Why put time and effort into diplomacy and fudged solutions (the only solutions available) when the Government changes every 5 minutes. Only when there is GE can they be taken seriously. I hope Baker gets the chop sharpish. Sunak needs to establish authority over the ERG v quickly.

If you listen to the RTE podcast Brexit Republic they go into how Truss put fresh air in NI protocol & Europe relations compared to predecessors. Not huge changes, but movement after long period of inertia & deadlock. Same when Truss took over from Frost as Brexit negotiator. It may simply be better personal relations: Frost was literally frosty in his personal relationships with EU diplomats. Truss has been much keener on dialogue & engaging nicely & always willing to talk & be hospitable. Simply nicer.

There was nothing I saw from LT to insinuate thawing for Dublin.

She is the "only a few Irish turnip farmers would affected by Brexit".

Nah, can't see how she personally provided anything to suggest thawing. I may have missed something. I saw waffle from Taoiseach but no direct comment from LT

Her NI minister Steve Baker has hopefully opened his eyes and sees better the complexities of NI and Ireland border.

I meant to add that the fracking vote showed up the chaos of Liz Truss. They changed their minds about the vote and it was widely reported the Chief Whip and her Deputy had resigned. Liz Truss had a meeting with them and they took back their resignations. This mess was the last act of self destruction as Liz Truss was indecisive and confused in her thinking. There was a lot of pushing and shoving regarding voting and decent Tories were very upset.

For some time government ministers refused to be questioned by the bbc. Newsnight could not get anyone. They avoided Question Time. They banned journalists from briefing meetings. Truss answered 4 questions at a press conference before she resigned. They ignore journalists snd spout what they want when they want. Johnson even tried to prorogue Parliament to avoid scrutiny.

If you live anywhere near HS2 I can assure you everyone feels they have no say at all! What planning permission? No bribes. Cannot even get on the thing. Years of construction and then noise and serious disruption of nature snd rare animals. It’s horrendous. Fracking is minor in comparison to hs2. The whitest of white elephants known to man.

I think Dublin was getting friendlier vibes from Truss than from her predecessors.

Can't say I agree with this

The issues with Chris Pincher being Deputy whip, and having access to MP's misdemeanours when Johnson knew of previous allegations of sexual assault against him was the reason so many MP's resigned & he had to go!

Thanks bare. I feel properly schooled now.

Don't forget Johnson kicked people out of the party for not voting with him on a no deal Brexit. Including Winston Churchill's grandson and Ken Clarke.

With a majority of 80 you can afford to lose a few.

supposedly under Johnson, threats to withhold public money for their constituency

How is that even supposed to work in the UK?

It's like someone read about US politics and thought, "Oh that's a good wheeze, I'll do that here."

But in the US Presidential system, the President is voted for completely separately from the states' representatives. A voter can vote for a Democrat president and a Republican congressman.

But in the UK the Prime Minister comes from the party which has the most MPs. So damaging one of your MPs' chances of holding their seat = damaging your own chance of becoming Prime Minister again.

Surely it's bonkers to threaten an MP with punishing their constituency?!

Re the Labour relevance, there are days in Parliament (about 20 a session) when opposition parties get to propose debates. Tory MPs would normally be whipped to vote against any opposition day motion (it's the Government that should have control of the order paper and proposing legislation etc), but with Labour's fracking motion, that meant Tory MPs had to vote against what was in their own manifesto - with a fracking ban - so seemingly in support of J R-Mogg who just lifted it. Mischievous but effective (Tory meltdown).

My MP is a whip. It means they are useless at being a constituency MP because they aren't allowed to influence the debate if it means going against the party line. I know this because she tells me each time I write to her about an issue I am currently concerned about and ask her to put a point forward in parliament.

There have also been allegations that they've helped cover things up in the knowledge that at some point the MP they've helped will owe them a favour/can be pressured into doing something.

Yep, if you think of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It threatening newspaper journalists with oblivion (end of access) if they print a particular story about an MP. That MP would owe you.

Not to mention the clusterfuck of ‘I did vote but my card didn’t swipe.’

I can't claim any inside knowledge, but in the past Whips have, I believe, put pressure on MPs by revealing that they know about affairs, they know someone is gay but in the closet, and so on. There have also been allegations that they've helped cover things up in the knowledge that at some point the MP they've helped will owe them a favour/can be pressured into doing something. It is all a bit grim.

I think Dublin was getting friendlier vibes from Truss than from her predecessors. It was being seen as an attempt at rapprochement.

This explanation made me laugh!

twitter.com/garius/status/1582807101105410048?s=46&t=_L8vYaHhoTbG-VRUyDzVJQ

she engaged better with Europe better than her predecessor

She what?

She made a hugely contentious issue (lots of Tory MPs are in rural constituencies with potential fracking sites) a vote of confidence. A lot of MPs, not just those whose constituencies are ripe for fracking, saw the very poor optics of voting to allow fracking and did not want to support it and were rightly angry at being told it was a vote of confidence in Liz Truss.

Add in to that the clusterfuck confusion over whether it was, or wasn't a vote of no confidence and here we are.

Thank you again to everyone that has taken the time to explain, I understand it now!

Some of the methods mentioned that Whips use to keep members in line are very dodgy. What are people doing to end up being blackmailed (plus isn’t that illegal)? 🤔

"Whips also come in three flavours: one-line whips, two-line whips, and three-line whips. A one-line whip means that you don’t have to turn up to vote if you don’t feel like it, but if you do, you must vote with the whip. A two-line whip means that you don’t have to turn up provided you have a good excuse. A three-line whip means turn up or else."

This is from the New Statesman, which I found helpful.

The other thing to remember is that fracking is unpopular with most Tory MPs. Mostly because it is deeply unpopular with the electorate and it is an issue that people will change their vote over. So by deciding it was a vote of confidence, the Tory party forced their MPs to either abstain or vote with the labour motion and lose the whip or to vote with the party but virtually guarantee that they won’t get re-elected at the next election.

There was no need to make it a three line whip. Arguably it would have been a lot less damaging to uturn on whatever it was that Rees-Mogg was suggesting when he put fracking back on the table or to just allow a free vote. Labour knew exactly what they were doing when they put this forward. They were banking on the Tories pressing the self destruct button and making it a confidence vote.

Thank you for the wonderful explanation! I finally understand it