Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

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This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

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So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

TM gutted the non-Brexit bits of the cabinet.
She had the power to do that.

She had no power to reject Brexit. The country wouldn't stand for it.
Her party wouldn't - and she gave very firm promises during her leadership campaign
Read the BBC poll about 70% of the public not believing politicians would really try for Brexit
Every serious political analyst says she had to put a Brexiter as FS.
Otherwise, she would be Dead Woman Walking, powerless to achieve anything

The idea of a Remainer FS is in unicorn territory.
All of us have to accept the world as it is, not as we wish it was

After 1-2 years of the 3 Brexiteers working hard for a deal, emotions will have died down, economic effects become apparent.
So, more Leavers will probably listen. Very few are listening now.

Revoking A50 later would still be very politically damaging to her. But if the choice is economic ruin, she'll have to do it.
She'll probably have to resign though.

The sentence saying you could vote in the election if you became a member has apparently been taken off the website (but surely they can't do that retrospectively?) www.reddit.com/r/KeepCorbyn/comments/4sxtik/nec_deletes_youll_be_eligible_to_vote_in/

Given the collateral damage done to the remaining EU by Brexit, a notification that London had changed its mind would be met with very great, if somewhat exasperated relief.

Bullshit.

If we invoke Article 50 and then attempt to revoke it 2 years later, we will have the mother of all legal battles on our hands.

Our chance to change our minds comes before invoking.

Trying to revoke years down the line would be like going and taking a country-sized shite in the middle of Europe.

A British PM chose to prioritise avoiding serious public disorder in the UK and the rise of the far right parties over offending foreign governments.

A choice between 2 evils.
She chose the lesser

doinitfine The battle will be political, not legal.
If revoking A50 is ever necessary
Are you an MEP or constitutional lawyer ?
Those we quoted are.

If we invoke Article 50 and then attempt to revoke it 2 years later, we will have the mother of all legal battles on our hands.

nods
The EU will only have so much patience (remember they have to keep all their electorate happy whilst we piss out). There is only so much rope they will give us. They will give us a hand in hanging ourselves if it gets that far.

revoking a50 is NOT an option. Not unless you are crazy and its at desperation sakes (think Lib Dems win a surprise landslide majority victory and come in charging to beg the EU after a GE - again the stuff of the land of unicorns)

The Uk would be internationally humiliated.
We'd have to humbly apologise.
And TM could sack all 3 Brexiteers, maybe resign herself
Still better than going broke.
Hopefully, Davis realises we need EEA in time, though.

We got into this mess by people ignoring experts they didn't want to hear
Let's listen to experts who indicate an emergency way out, if there's no deal.

The idea of a Remainer FS is in unicorn territory.

FFS can we drop the tiresome unicorn thing.

People can disagree with you without being delusional.

By taking Brexit out of the FCO remit, yrs she could have given it to a Remainer.

Which, in fact, she did.

Boris is no more a Brexiteer than I am.

He has no credibility as someone who genuinely wants a Brexit.

So that can't be why she appointed him.

She might as well have appointed Osborne.

The week before TM became PM
Big variation between 2 polls.
Also, I'm not sure why anyone is still voting Labour.

ICM
Tories 38%
Labour 30%
UKIP 15%

Mori
Tories 36%
Labour 35%
UKIP 8%

I reckon the battle will be political too.

TM had no real choice other than to appoint a Brexit foreign team and to give them a chance to negotiate a decent deal. In some ways Boris was the best of a bad bunch (never thought I'd be saying that!). I think we are likely to see a long delay before article 50 is invoked (hedge our bets as much as we can) but the start of negotiations with both EU and non-EU countries in an attempt to put something workable together.

If those negotiations fail, it will be interesting to see what TM does - will she try to sell a bad deal to the country in the interests of keeping the Tory party together? Or will she point the finger at the then-failed Brexit team in the best interests of the country? Unless TM is truly a woman of principle (not impossible), it is likely that public opinion at the time will pay a key role.

I think pissing off foreign governments who have our bollicks in their hands is more dangeroys than the aupoosed disorder that wpuld have happenes if a Remainer had been given FCO devoid of Brexit and foreign trade.

These arguments are starting to remind me of the "oh, we had to do x, y, z, because otherwuse the Real/Continuity IRA/UDA/INLA/UFF will magically come out and start bombings again.

There is no reason to think there will be any riots if Borus hadn't been given that job.

That is fanciful nonsense.

We got into this mess by people ignoring experts they didn't want to hear

Let's listen to experts who indicate an emergency way out, if there's no deal.

But not the ones who indicate that there is no emergency way out?

That sounds a lot like repeating the first mistake.

We cannot rely on being able to recoke Article 50.

Counting on that would be extremely foolhardy.

If we invoke, we have to be able to actually leave.

All that stuff about Momentum and Jon Lansman is very interesting.

Bathroom yy about the Guardian. I think a lot of BTLers there wouldn't know what to do with themselves if there wasn't a place to moan about the coverage of Jeremy Corbyn.

Strongly Agree with doinitfine on the revoking of art 50. It would be madness to rely on being able to revoke without it been explicitly permitted even if there was broad general agreement about it but given the mixed bag of views it would be very risky ImO

What else could TM have reasonably done with Bozo though? I sense a long game being played here: not quite keeping her enemies closer, but I think he would have been more of a hindrance to her on the back benches, free to spout off in his newspaper columns without having to get his hands dirty doing actual work. And with his enormous charisma and slipperyness, he'd surely be biding his time until the general public had forgiven and forgotten Brexit and were ready to give him another chance. For some reason he's Teflon coated, hence why Eddie Mar etc who have pointed out what he's like haven't dented his public appeal.

I get why lots of people are aghast at the idea of him being FS and that it could be a bit like having a younger Prince Philip going around insulting foreigners and dragging the UK into disrepute. Yet, BJ is clearly an extremely ambitious man, so unless he's put somewhere like the FO where he's forced to be accountable, how else would you handle him?

Maybe it was an unwise choice , but I can't hold it against her.

Thanks so much for these excellent threads, RedToothbrush.

Has everyone seen this? Seems significant

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/15/theresa-may-nicola-sturgeon-holyrood-article-50-decision?CMP=ShareAndroidAppp_Tweet

Just catching up and completely behind...

Prof Minford said that outside the EU “it seems likely that we would mostly eliminate manufacturing, leaving mainly industries such as design, marketing and high-tech. But this shouldn’t scare us”.

If it's that easy to replace manufacturing with hi-tech industries, why aren't they already flourishing in economically depressed parts of the UK?

Woah. Rumours of a coup attempt in Turkey...
WOAH.

BBC News (World) ‏@BBCWorld
Turkish military blocks Istanbul bridges

Brexit might be the least of our worries at this rate.

Just to say these threads are my lifeline to sanity.

I work in a 50/50 office so can't really say what I really think without upsetting the leavers - bad for office morale !

Yes, arborea. One is reminded of teachers' tactic of giving the naughtiest kid something super-responsible to do to stop them disrupting the class.

Motherof4 I did an extensive Google !
tbh, I'm on another forum with a eurocrat, who posted the MEP opinion link plus his own expert opinion
In the EU, when the law is unclear, then politics decides.

Relying on revoke would be daft, because it relies on political support.
Most experts say it's an emergency fallback only.
It's just that even achieving EEA is difficult, especially if Davis leaves that option until too late.
If we eat humble pie, the 27 would probably accept, because they would be badly affected by a UK crash
They won't give allow us to cherrypick terms of a deal, but allowing us back costs them nothing and saves everyone.

Many Tory members still like Boris, bafflin

Military coup being reported in Turkey. Quick, where's Boris? He was always Europe's biggest fan of closer links with Turkey. Book him on the first flight to Ankara .

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2686500-Rumours-of-a-coup-in-Turkey? Turkey Thread.