Has Boris been outmanoeuvred?

[CommanderShepard]

From a guardian comment:

If Boris Johnson looked downbeat yesterday, that is because he realises that he has lost.

Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.

With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.

How?

Throughout the campaign, Cameron had repeatedly said that a vote for leave would lead to triggering Article 50 straight away. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the image was clear: he would be giving that notice under Article 50 the morning after a vote to leave. Whether that was scaremongering or not is a bit moot now but, in the midst of the sentimental nautical references of his speech yesterday, he quietly abandoned that position and handed the responsibility over to his successor.

And as the day wore on, the enormity of that step started to sink in: the markets, Sterling, Scotland, the Irish border, the Gibraltar border, the frontier at Calais, the need to continue compliance with all EU regulations for a free market, re-issuing passports, Brits abroad, EU citizens in Britain, the mountain of legistlation to be torn up and rewritten ... the list grew and grew.

The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction.

The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50?

Who will want to have the responsibility of all those ramifications and consequences on his/her head and shoulders?

Boris Johnson knew this yesterday, when he emerged subdued from his home and was even more subdued at the press conference. He has been out-maneouvered and check-mated.

If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.

When Boris Johnson said there was no need to trigger Article 50 straight away, what he really meant to say was "never". When Michael Gove went on and on about "informal negotiations" ... why? why not the formal ones straight away? ... he also meant not triggering the formal departure. They both know what a formal demarche would mean: an irreversible step that neither of them is prepared to take.

All that remains is for someone to have the guts to stand up and say that Brexit is unachievable in reality without an enormous amount of pain and destruction, that cannot be borne. And David Cameron has put the onus of making that statement on the heads of the people who led the Brexit campaign.

The queen couldn't publicly get involved in any way, it could focus attention on the royal family too much in a way they wouldn't like. I've already seen comments about a referendum on whether to keep them or not.
However privately getting Cameron, Boris, Gove and Corbyn together in a locked room with a pack of snarling corgis while being lectured on pulling their thumbs out of their arses would possibly work...

But they didn't want it majestic!!!
That's the whole point!
They thought it would help their careers to appease the eu sceptic portion of their party
It has back.fired MASSIVELY

If the reports that the Queen favoured Brexit are true, she's really just shit in her own chips. She'll reign over the break up of the UK now.

Yes, DC SHOULD deal with the fallout. He has stated he will remain PM until October. Until then, he should be doing the job to the best of his ability (we won't go into how abysmal that is!) for the country, regardless of his personal feelings. If he cannot do that, he needs to make arrangements to step down immediately so someone else can take over. Unless of course it's Osborne, as that man should not be PM under any circumstances.

I think there is a case for the Scottish Parliament to put a halt to this madness. Boris will be relieved. Nicola will be his new best mate.

Maybe Boris has fucked off to Edinburgh with Gove.

Interesting thread except for Diana.

that's an interesting point, liney. Nicola Sturgeon wouldn't have just blurted out that hey, maybe we can save this. i wonder if there ARE crisis talks in Edinburgh...

I completely agree with comments that DC opened the door for all this shitola and think history books will quite rightly show him for what he has been....
But I don't think it could be tenable he stays, any decision or negotiation he made with EU now about exit would be called under suspicion... Plus he knows any trade agreements etc made by him will mean he gets blamed for ever more by Johnson/Gove/media for all bad repercussions.
The October timetable for stepping down only comes from realistic timeline for Tory leadership context and vote at conference no?
I think he would have gone immediately with two fingers up, if he'd had the chance. Notable the only time he choked up in his speech was when talking about himself at the end I agree he'll be completely checked out, put a Brexit steering team in place and leave them to it until October....

Johnson - is he playing cricket again today or what? It's going to be a shocker for him a full-time job isn't it?

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/boris-johnson-boasts-i-can-drink-an-awful-lot-at-lunch-just-like-my-icon-winston-churchill-9793478.html

What's the wisdom of SNP ignoring a UK referendum, then having indyref and expecting it to be followed. Maybe it's lack of coffee, but none of these people are actually covered in glory, are they? Definitely mixed messages all over the place.

There are some very charitable views of DC's actions here. He handed Boris some kind of nuclear shirty stick.

Of course he did. But Boris held out his hand and asked for it, didn't he?

There are some Tories who have come out of this looking like reasonable and honourable people but they are mostly back-benchers not seeking office, or not MPs.

I meant shitty obviously - my phone thinks I swear too much. I think Bozo misjudged quite how much shit would be on the stick.

Nicola - it's all taking a pretty interesting turn.

coldcanary found the solution for the constitutional crisis I think:

"coldcanary
The queen couldn't publicly get involved in any way...
However privately getting Cameron, Boris, Gove and Corbyn together in a locked room with a pack of snarling corgis while being lectured on pulling their thumbs out of their arses would possibly work..."

Just wanted to pop on and say how much I'm enjoying this thread. Generally can't stand DC and he is as much at fault for calling this referendum as Gove and BJ for campaigning Leave. I do derive quite a lot of some satisfaction from seeing him fucking off and leaving them to cope with the shitstorm however.

Boris demanded the shitty stick

"Oh pwease let me play with it, pwease pwease - I'll be good, I won't drop it, I won't give it away to that German Shepherd. PWEASE".

Really interesting thread - I think the EU will need to make an example of us to stop dominoes toppling, however I really don't think the Bullingdon Boys say this coming up on their horizon this fast.

Interesting names in the hat so far - Nicky Morgan can't debate/negotiate to save a paper bag; Hunt is rhyming slang for a very good reason; Bodge & Gove are probably looking to back away whilst DC rides his little piggy out of dodge cackling wildly!
Worrying times

Been out for a few hours.

Has anyone seen Gideon yet?

I'm not sure David Cameron or George Osborne did work their socks of during the campaign. The problem was they went into it having delivered two budgets full of cuts. What they should have done were appeasement budgets, hitting the very baby boomers that has put them into this mess in the first place.

Everyone agrees you can't hold a referendum mid term as that is when the gov is most unpopular. But I think that even after only a year in, the gov were in mid term crisis with the general public.

Cameron should have held the referendum in 2019, and stuck firmly to this date.

So what this referendum result has triggered in terms of political crises so far is:

• Vacuum at the head of the UK Govt and Conservative Party, all gone awol
• Labour Party also trying to get rid of its leader
• Scottish First Minister finding legal reasons to veto Brexit in order to trigger another bid for independence
• Similar constitutional crisis to erupt in Northern Ireland
• Populists in other EU countries jumping at their chance for a protest vote that could threaten the future of the EU
• EU federalists banding together in Berlin to do the opposite and deepen EU political cooperation, possibly with 2-speed Europe

All of this was predictable, and yet none of this was planned for by the people who called for this vote.

Good thing it's the weekend so the markets can't jump around as each Pandora's box is opened one by one.

Anyone else seen about the legality of Scotland democratically blocking an exit from the EU.

Nicola Sturgeon is investigating.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36633244

She has a mandate to the Scottish people to do the best thing for the them. Democratically.

This is real politics isn't it? In the sense of, you can do this, or you can do that, but either way has ramifications and either way could work against you.

The polls screwed it up. I mean, they didn't predict the result. But also, they miscalled the election, so many thought that Labour might actually win. So what happens? You get the Tory press saying, vote Conservative as it's the only way to keep Milliband out.

Except what happened is you got the Lib Dems out, no Coalition Govt anymore, DC bold enough to go one further and fulfil his pledge to hold a referendum which could not have happened with a coalition govt.

Another result is the Lab party is screwed as you have Milliband's new voting scheme afoot.

But yeah sidelining the Lib Dems has not worked well, I don't think most people wanted a full on Tory Govt but you can't vote for a Coalition so now we've got all this.

It did seem to me that Johnson's oratory for Leave was below par so maybe he's changed his mind but couldn't pull out after dithering, so sort of hoped it wouldn't happen. Ditto Corbyn, he was half-hearted but I can't really see that sharing a platform with DC would have helped ensure he stay if the result had been the same. It might have just alienated his core voters.

on Sturgeon, re-posted from another thread since it's also about Boris beign outmanoeuvred:

If Nicola Sturgeon vetoes Brexit (through a Scottish Parliament vote that gives no consent to the repeal of the European Communities Act as it applies to Scotland), she gives Boris or whoever is the next PM an "out".

She will also use the momentum to call for an independence referendum.

Boris or whoever can then placate/reward her with anything she asks for. But what does she want, apart from independence? A Conservative Government would sooner lose all access to the Single Market, than lose Scotland.

So Sturgeon is hardly Boris's "get out of jail free" card. His party will not forgive the break-up of the United Kingdom.

Ach, see I saw lots of interviews with Leave voters quoting johnson's "Independence Day" line... I think he grabbed the news cycle and the headlines, don't get me wrong I don't think he had substance behind his words when questioned but I think this referendum was hardest he's worked in his life....

And I feel the media are utterly out of sync as they focus on London political class and social media (skewed) and polls are out because Tory voters in last election and Leave voters don't admit it in public, it's become guilty secret.

I'm strongly against all the name calling (stupid, racist, fascists, idiots) of people in the opposite voting camp, remain camp needs to LISTEN to why people voted leave, not tell them they're stupid and wrong

And Johnson - I know he was previously a London and media fave but open question, do you really think he plays well enough in rest of country to get elected in a General Election? Would a well timed stint on "Have I got news for you" mean he's back in business?

But if NS vetoes Brexit doesn't that drastically reduce her chances of winning indyref2?

This thread has moved on a bit overnight!

@RedToothBrush

I think Corbyn's position depends greatly on whether the hope is still to prevent Brexit, either via some kind of negotiated deal/fudge or via a fresh referendum (unlikely imo), in which case he is not the man for the job (he has already said he thinks Art. 50 should be invoked without delay); or whether the Labour party is ready to say, OK, Brexit is happening, we need a leader who can negotiate our way through the smoking ruins and appeal to both Brexiters and Remainers over the coming time. In that event, Corbyn is a great option. It is recognised that he was Eurosceptic himself but he didn't form part of the appalling official Leave campaign. He has a great understanding of the impact on ordinary people both of the Tories' austerity project which led to this point, and of the post-Brexit fallout which is already occurring. Post GE, I think he could do a good job of healing divisions and reclaiming the core Labour vote. The challenge is getting him through a GE successfully, given the orchestrated hostility of the right-wing media. I think this coup is premature, as I would have liked a clearer idea about the general Westminster temperature regarding Art. 50 before taking a view on Corbyn. Fortunately that will be much clearer by the time we come to elect, assuming a contest ensues.

This is why I do think a Lib - Lab pact is a better solution.

Yes, DP and I were talking about this this morning. For the Libdems this is the most extraordinary opportunity to reincarnate after what looked like political oblivion. Given the dividedness of the Labour party, I think some kind of new SDP-style merger may be on the cards, or a lot of defections to the Libdems. I am watching developments with interest - in fact it's a struggle to get anything else done atm!

Still nothing from BJ or Osborne, which is extraordinary.

Can I say how much I enjoy and agree with pretty much all your posts Red.

NS doesn't want indyref2 right now, with oil at $50.

But she has had a clear signal that the Scottish people want to stay in the EU. If she can block brexit (I doubt it, we'll see) then it's two birds with one stone.