Westministenders. Boris we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Constitutional Crisis?

[RedToothBrush]

Its twelve days to go until the end of the HoC 2016 calendar and we can already tell that everyone is wishing it was Christmas already. Poor Theresa though, she doesn’t get to play with toys on the last day of term. Instead she has a grilling on the lack of spending on health and social care spending by a commons select committee.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks will calm down a little though as thoughts turn elsewhere.

The A50 case has come to an end. There is no way of telling which way the judges will go but the decision to appeal may yet haunt the government as it will bring the issue of devolution to a head, whether they win or lose. The ruling is due in mid January.

Win and they are going to have to amend the Devolution Acts and potentially impose Brexit on people with certain national identities who voted against it. This is profoundly undemocratic and a betrayal of the principles of Devolution and the expectations of the will of the people.
Lose and they could face a full blown constitutional crisis, with NI or Scotland or both having a veto over Brexit, and the government effectively unable to trigger a50 in line with our constitutional requirement. Which is again, potentially profoundly undemocratic and against the referendum and the expectations of the will of the people.

It was a scenario that predictable and avoidable at several junctions yet the government under Cameron and May ploughed on regardless. It a scenario that we are now locked into, due to deciding to use the courts rather than just go through parliament.

It could also massively restrict the power of the executive under the Royal Prerogative. Ironically this is something that David Davis has campaigned for, for years so I guess he gets a victory however the decision goes.
So the chances of some kind of crisis with regard to our constitutional makeup and the union seem inevitable in the new year.

The government despite a defeat in Richmond Park continues to lean right and characterise anyone with concerns as unpatriotic or not honourable. This is the last resort of the desperate.

They have however, conceded to Labour that they will publish a report on their Brexit plans before a50 is triggered. In return Labour have promised that they will let a50 be triggered by the end of March. Is this a good thing? It remains to be seen. In some ways this is a blinder for Labour.

They are pro-Brexit but anti-lack of plan in theory. This only works if the plan actually has substance. If there is no substance in the plan and its nothing more than empty words then they face having to go back on a commons vote committing them to a deal with the Conservatives. It could therefore be a trap for them. It marginalises the none English Nationalist voices too. Voices that are important and deserve to be heard. Voices that if they are not listened to, will have consequences.

What will the Sleaford and North Hykenham (yep again) by election bring?

A vote of confidence in the government, a new ever growing and rising fear of UKIP or something else. How will this colour the start to the New Year?

I don’t know. 2016 has apparently been the year of gin as people turn to the drink to cope. Everything is now Brexitty and Red, White and Blue.
But whose’s? Britain’s? The USA’s? Russia’s? Or France’s?

We look forward to, or more to the point we fear what 2017 could bring. A feeling we have not felt to this degree in many years. A General Election with a UKIP breakthrough. The end of peace in NI. A repeat of the age old betrayal of Scotland’s by the English. The Welsh damned to irrelevance and marginalisation. Brexit vettoed and the subsequent political fallout. The end of the NHS. A bonfire of rights. A new Italian PM and possibly new Eurozone economic crisis. Fillon or Le Pen and at last a real victory for the far right in Europe. The chance of Merkel’s Last Stand. Putin’s partnership with Assad and a new genocide we are powerless to stop. Erdogan pulling the plug on the EU door and unleashing a new wave of refugees onto European shores. The horror of ISIS both within the West and within the Middle East. Trump’s neo-fascism and rise of a New World Order. There is something in there for everyone to dread.

Which will it be? Probably something we have not yet foreseen such are these times.

Act 2 of Brexit in Westminstenders land is bound to be just as dramatic and of course, we leave 2016 in true soap fashion on a real cliff hanger.

All the more reason to enjoy the holiday period and break whatever your politics.

I'm not bored of brexit- and I'd be surprised if anyone who frequents these threads is.

The situation is unpresidented ;) what we have is the political class held hostage by the 'will of the people'. Politics or economics/head or heart- we have to brexit politically but as nearly every economist, academic, scientist, journalist, business person knows it will be a disaster economically and socially.

But that's where we are- tbh, no plan or solution is going to touch the sides -

(unless, unless we pretend to leave, tell everyone we've left but do nothing- that might work ;))

its a weird situation to see a first world nation shaft themselves in this way- it is fascinating and sad.

The whole fake news/post truth phenomena has antecedents in Aesop (admittedly a Johnny Foreigner, but nobodies perfect).

Maybe people who are using such tricks to further their aim should read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

One day, those that deploy fake news, and denounce truth will need us to believe them and their experts.

unpresidented bigly

I don't want to stop hearing about Brexit. I want to know what on earth the government plans to do. I don't see how they can just get on with it because nobody knows what Brexit means.

As per the video you posted, at the moment anyone can blame anything on Brexit, whether good or bad, but because Cameron called the referendum in the first place and because of Farage's campaign, any clear path forward has been blown away.

Looking at immigration, what immigration needs to be controlled? Why? How? When? Most importantly what consequences is the public prepared to put up with in order to control immigration? These questions should have been addressed during the referendum, but Farage isn't going to answer them because he neither knows nor cares about the answers.

People voted remain and leave because they want more protection of worker's rights, and people voted remain and leave because they want more free trade. It's a complete mess.

Fundamentally, if Brexit really was all Farage, every single MP has a duty to vote against it.

Except we come back to the issue that many Leave voting areas, e.g. Sunderland, parts of Wales, Cornwall, are areas of low immigration, and high immigration occurred in some Remain areas like London. Something doesn't add up here. It can't be immigrants taking their jobs, or depressing wages if there are hardly any locally.

Yep. The problem with the argument Burnham et al are making is that there wasn't any correlation between amount of immigration in an area and the way it voted. Leave voting areas included those you mention and also areas of significant EE presence such as Boston. Equally, Remain voting areas include London, Manchester, Fermanagh and Gwynedd. Nobody in their right mind would suggest the two latter had anything in common with the two former wrt experience of immigration.

That's not to say that people working in/looking for lower skilled roles didn't vote Leave because they were worried about the impact of immigration on their job prospects. Lots did. It's just that rather a lot of them were demonstrably wrong.

Re: Farage. All we have to do is examine his CV:

UKIP leadership
Led a successful campaign to leave EU with fantastic PR skills and looking good while holding a pint.
No management skills, party is in total disarray, no succession planning, financial irregularities.

MEP
No contribution to EU debate. Represented English people permanently drunk, disparaging everyone and everything, trying to shag his way through every available woman in Brussels.

Investment banking
Worked for his Dad's and mates's businesses getting so drunk by lunchtime that they were better off him not doing any work in the afternoon. (See interview in the FT)

A CV like that would not get you into a call centre in the North East.

It rather makes a mockery out of the "elite" narrative too. The party at the Ritz was just the icing on the cake with that one, as has been Trumps appointments of lobbyists and GS alumni.

as has been Trumps appointments of lobbyists and GS alumni.

And don't forget the six people who donated almost $12 million to Trump's campaign and have been rewarded with positions in his cabinet:

www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/---Six-donors-Trump-appointed-gave-almost-12-million-with-their-families-to-campaign-party.html

There would be no brexit without Farage because he brought in the racist vote. He made it ok to be 'soft racist' ('I'm not racist but...).

All those crackpot looney hard Right Tories - raab, truss, fuller, redwood, Rees mogg, boles, fox etc etc have effectively made a Faustian pact with the Crowd, in order to get what they want - but school boy history tells us - eg Russian revolution, French Revolution, etc that when a band of intellectuals harness the Crowd in order to get what they want, things don't usually end well. It's a road to brutish totalitarian cronyism IMHO.

This small band of trusty, slightly mad right wing 'thinkers' (Britannia unchained, policy exchange etc) want a completely free market and despise workers, unions etc, while the Crowd want to be protected from change that they find threatening. Irreconcilable objectives - it has to end in tears.

That's the thing isn't it, on both sides of the atlantic the people have been encouraged to vote for something that isn't in their interests.

There would be no brexit without Farage because he brought in the racist vote. He made it ok to be 'soft racist' ('I'm not racist but...).

Back to the racist Leavers again?!

Plenty of racist Remainers too.

Plenty of racist Remainers too.

I am sure there must be some, but please name one, who has the same prominence as Farage. OK, you could have Theresa May. Name another, if possible.

I thinkng Farage's influence is massively overstated by pretty much everyone especially the BBC. Let's not forget that the official leave campaign went to some lengths to disassociate themselves from him. And he nearly lost the campaign with his disgusting poster.

Farage is an opportunist who is very good at claiming credit for things that are not his doing. I guess the one thing that he did succeed in doing was to embolden the tory eurosceptics, but let's not forget that the Tory right has been disproportionately influential for decades.

This wasn't a campaign that was won by Farage, but one that was lost, by Cameron. I would be prepared to bet that the majority of leave voters voted leave despite, not because of, Farage. Only the hardcore racist vote (perhaps 15% of voters) is really influenced by Farage.

The official leave campaign started off stepping away from him, but he was very much a big part of the campaign by the end and got lots of publicity. Will Self had it right when he called Farrage and Trump "grubby little opportunists", its all they are, they certainly won't be putting policies together to heal the rifts they have exposed.

In the eye a lot of voters, I would hesitate a guess that of those who would not normally bother to vote, many would not even realise that there was more than one Leave camp. Farage and to a lesser extent Johnson, were the most prominent figureheads for Leave.

Yes that was rather unclear unless you were following closely.

we have to brexit politically but as nearly every economist, academic, scientist, journalist, business person knows it will be a disaster economically and socially.

I think we need to be careful that we are not persuading ourselves too easily that we need to brexit politically. The mandate is not strong, despite what some Leavers are saying.

With apologies if this has been posted already, it's worth reading AC Grayling's latest letter to MPs on this subject:

Dear MP,

You are a representative of your constituents, and – as one who deliberates and votes on legislation affecting the whole country – of the interests of the whole country too.

On December 7, 2016 you chose not to be a representative of the interests of the whole country, but instead to be a representative of 17 million of the UK’s 65m population. You did this by voting for the Government’s amendment demanding a trigger of Article 50 by the end of March 2017, (a) against the better judgment of the majority of sitting MPs who campaigned for Remain in the summer of 2016, yourself probably included unless you are one of the admirable 89 who stood up and were counted, or the fewer than 89 hard-line Brexiters who are trying to steal the country from its own people, and (b) without knowing anything about what a Brexit would involve for the economy, the rights of citizens, the future of our young people, and Europe itself.

You have gone along with UKIP and the Tory Right, the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Sun and Rupert Murdoch, in supporting their vision of our country, a vision they persuaded 17m out of our population of 65m to vote for.

If you are follower of facts, which alas is not something that can be taken for granted in these palmy days it seems, you will know that even among the electorate who voted on June 23 there is now no longer a majority for Brexit. In electing yourselves as representatives of the interests of the 17m and not of the 65m population of the whole country, you are doubly in service to a minority of your fellow citizens.

If you are any sort of democrat, not just the ‘true democrat’ who will regard 37% of the British electorate as an overwhelming majority (which you do because you hold your seat by the same percentage courtesy of our dreadful electoral system, and therefore have got into the bad habit of regarding minorities as majorities) – if you are any sort of democrat, let alone the ‘true democrat’ who regards a non-binding advisory referendum as a hard-as-steel binding mandating referendum that cannot be opposed for fear of the heavens falling in – if you are any sort of democrat at all, and if you allow the madness of Brexit to proceed any further along the wrecking trail it has already laid, then there is one very important thing that you will do: namely, give us the British people another referendum on the terms of any ‘Brexit Deal’ in which one of the options is: Remain in the EU.

I repeat: as democrats, ‘true’ or otherwise, you will give us the British people another referendum on the terms of any ‘Brexit Deal’ in which one of the options is: Remain in the EU.

I write to ask whether you would give a guarantee to the country and your electors that you will do this. It is a simple thing to ask of anyone whose choices and actions have been dictated by a ‘truly democratic’ response to the June 23, 2016 referendum. It is also – but does this recommend it, in these days? – common sense.

I think it is hard to argue that Farage didn't carry the racist vote, and therefore carried the Brexit vote. If 15% of voters followed him that translates to between 4 and 5 million votes, which is easily enough to have swung it in his favour.

I agree Peregrina. From the old issue of The Economist I was reading on the train today (article on the subject of UKIP taking Labour voters dated Dec 3:

One analysis, by the British Election Study, found that 67% of Leave voters had “at least dabbled” with voting UKIP.

Which is perhaps a slightly different point, but it is yet more evidence of the extent of Farage's influence.

But even in the Farage/anti-immigrant section of the Leave vote, there was some very clever campaigning being done via social media with Arron Banks' money and with strategies borrowed from the "facts don't work" Trump campaign. I'm not at all convinced that Farage was more than a face and a mouth.

The whole Brexit campaign borrowed huge swathes of ideas from Trump. From making counter factual claims, to "telling it like it is" and the promising everyone the earth thing.

But Trump's damage can be limited to 8 years at most.
Goodness knows how long the damage done by Farage will last.

I think overall its likely that most damage will be kept to a minimum, pragmatism will overcome ideology. Its likely thought that this will be seen as treachery by the hard brexiteers.

I think it is hard to argue that Farage didn't carry the racist vote, and therefore carried the Brexit vote.

If only hardcore racists had voted leave, the remain would have won. Someone else influenced the other leave voters, and I suspect it wasn't Farage. It was probably more a combination of high profile support by popular politicians like BJ (who managed to get himself elected as mayor of London twice and also as an MP - compare and contrast with Farage), dirty tricks (the NHS and Turkey lies), and the fact that no major newpaper threw themselves 100% behind remain, whereas several were rabidly pro Brexit.