Westministenders: The Tory Civil War – The Knives Are Out Again. A Big Battle Looms.

[RedToothBrush]

Today has seen the publication of a story about how Johnson and Gove are holding May hostage in a ‘soft coup’ and have made various demands over what they want for a hard Brexit. The letter which was for May’s and Barwell’s eyes only has some how leaked. Don’t forget how Gove has just joined the Brexit Cabinet.

It comes at a time, when the Observer is also leading with an editorial demanding Johnson goes over his handling of the Nazarin Zagheri-Ratcliffe case as well as his long list of poorly judged comments which have had diplomatic consequences and another newspaper is leading with a story about how 40 Tories are ready to no-confidence May.

It all smacks of a personal battle between May and Johnson to govern the party, which has been playing out publicly for some time, most noticeable in the parallel Tory party conference leadership speeches and Johnson’s freelancing.

Johnson also seems to be potentially caught up, with what happens in the Mueller investigation due to a photo and lying about having met Misfud which could be politically damaging.

Priti Patel’s –sacking-- resignation also fits in neatly with the story. The Foreign Office were not informed and there is the curious side story that May DID know various details but told Patel to keep quiet, so not to embarrass the FCO. Or more to the point, be seen to be undermining Johnson.

Whether this is true or not we don’t know. It does have implications if its true, but it also says something if its not too. Why leak the story at all? Once again its about the Johnson v May dynamic.

As it stands, if Gove and Johnson have been leading May then why would they decide to ditch her and go for power without her?
Notably Gove has the best satisfaction scores of the Cabinet amongst Tories on Conservative Home too. He has had a lot of favourable comments over his statements over pesticides. The pair seem to have put differences aside and are working together. And May has become more and more of a liability. Johnson, also came second favourite to be Tory leader amongst Tories (if you discount don’t knows and none of the aboves). Maybe they fancy their chances…

Or it’s a last ditch attempt to cling on to that power as threats that Johnson might finally get the boot – if Zagheri-Ratcliffe does have her sentence extended and Johnson’s position is no longer tenable for even May’s self-preservation. Whilst much has been framed about it being about May’s political survival, its definitely not just her whose future is in doubt. Who was the ‘dead wood’, that young Tories demanded be ditched in a reshuffle to bring in young blood? Either way, Gove has firmly hitched his wagon to Johnson's effectively repeating Johnson's dismissal of Zagheri-Ratcliffe's case.

Anyway another week and another set of high political drama is a foregone conclusion.

A round up of other developments this week:

Tory Party / Government

1. May announces intention to enshrine Brexit leaving date in law to force rebels to tow the line. This has many implications, not least tax related and putting more pressure on the UK government. It’s generally regarded as a desperate move by anyone sane.
2. The Impact Assessments were a dogs dinner that was done at the last minute, and were not worth the paper they were written on. There was no detail to them.
3. Priti Patel’s –sacking—resignation after having undocumented and unauthorised meetings with a series of Israel ministers. And then lying about it.
4. Penny Mordaunt, who lied about the UK not having a veto to stop Turkey joining the EU, replaced Patel.
5. Damien Green Porn. Another ex-policeman is backing the story that it was found on his computer despite Green’s denials.
6. The ongoing Zagheri-Ratcliffe story with Iran and Johnson’s gaff and none apology
7. Photograph of Johnson with ‘The Professor’ Misfud has been found. This links Johnson to how events in the US might pan out. If there are lots more revelations in the Mueller inquiry about him, then that might reflect on Johnson and make him subject to some difficult questions. Politically this might be problematic for Johnson.
8. Claims that the whips office leaked the name of someone who reported allegations against Nigel Evans which occurred 6 months after Evans had been cleared of rape and the sexual assault of six men
9. Suspended Tory MP Charlie Elphicke has complained that he is yet to be informed of what he has been accused of.
10. Young Tory MPs issue threat to May that she brings in young blood and gets rid of ‘dead wood, who do nothing but screw up’. Give her until the New Year to do so.
11. 40 Tories apparently ready to no confidence May.
12. Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll reveals a very small percentage of people want a no deal situation despite all the noise of it being a good idea.
13. Lord Ashcroft mentioned in the Paradise papers. Reported as domiciled in Belize despite assurances given to parliament that he would give up his non-dom status and pay tax in the UK as a Lord.

Parliament / Opposition both inside and outside parliament
14) May facing a possible revolt over Universal Credit. MPs due to vote on reducing wait times.
15) Talk that there are enough Tory Rebels prepared to back a Dominic Grieve amendment to force a meaningful vote on the Brexit Deal.
16) May under increasing pressure from business leaders to make a deal after a meeting with them at no. 10.
17) Lots of distraction in the Paradise Papers generally which raises the question over the power and influence of the super rich versus the poor. This plays well to Labour’s narrative and against the idea of a low tax post Brexit Britain.
18) Lord Kerr, author of the a50 clause states that May has misled the public and insists that it is reversible.
19) New Money Laundering and Sanctions Bill in the Lords. Government looking to omit 4th EU directive on tax avoidance. Naturally raises questions about whether UK would adopt new rules due to come into force the week after Brexit Day.
20) Money Laundering Bill also has lots of overlap with immigration and home office operations, raising some rather sinister questions over who could be affected and why. Potential for abuse seems to be huge.
21) Leave leaning Cornwall and Grimsby seeking special status in the face of Brexit – in line with remaining to preserve business / economic interests
22) Suicide of Welsh Assembly Labour member who was under investigation for sexual harassment
23) A Labour MP accuses the already suspended fellow Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins of inappropriate behaviour.

EU
24) Ireland demands the UK stays in the customs union.
25) Brexit talks have not progressed at all despite apparently being speeded up. Barnier saying that progress in December only possible if UK makes moves on the settlement deal. Prospect of stage two being delayed until March being raised. This leaves just 7 months to come to a deal, which plays to the No Deal Crowd’s interests.
26) EU believe the UK are not working in the best interests of the UK and there is a failure by May and Davis to understand the process or what No Deal will mean.
27) EU signalling that there is no bespoke transition. Only available options ae EEA or EFTA fudges.
28) Increasing view in Brussels that No Deal likely. EU think May hasn’t got the authority to come to a deal and its easier for her to drag UK off the cliff. Though they have doubts she will survive much longer.

World
29) Trump sides with Putin above the US Intelligence Community over the Russian election interference. On Veterans Day.
30) US’s Wilbur Ross said UK will have to dump European food safety standards and that losing our passporting rights to the EU would harm our interests with the US.
31) Developments in Lebanon, with it being said that Saudi Arabia said to have declared war. Many would consider this to be a proxy war against Iran. Crown Prince has purged political opponents including several with significant Wall Street interests. Eight died in a helicopter crash.
32) Large scale far right march in Poland as part of their Independence Day.

Brexit will cost us over £350bn, let's fund it from our NHS.

@woman11017

I keep forgetting the power of markets to keep politicians honest. The FX market is a powerful one indeed. I wonder if a v sharp fall in £ - say parity - would shake things up.

Sorry, hit send instead mid dropping phone. Massive phone and copy and paste error. In my defence I have a bandaged thumb thanks to an incident with a UK onion the Spanish onion left me unharmed

I meant the big red bus should have said
Brexit will cost us over 3bn let's fund it from our NHS.

Brexit will cost us over £350bn, let's fund it from our NHS.

Hashi - that line is genius. Please send it to the person leading Remain to put on the side of a bus... Oh wait, there isn't anyone leading Remain. (It's still an awesome slogan though.)

Maybe we should crowdfund a bus with the slogan on?

I wouldn't worry about inflating the figure - it didn't bother Vote Leave...

Thinking of Farage and Johnson brought to mind the Salvation Army (?) question, 'Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?' Why can't Remain find an influential figurehead?

Very true lala

I could probably go on tv with that and no one would question it. Any mild suggestion I'll just mutter something about so called experts and people not being enthusiastic enough.

@BethRigby
Brexit. £700m spent already, another £3bn announced today. That’s in addition to £2.1bn for extra civil service resource. £5.8bn so far folks

Nothing about council housing or sprinklers in the budget.

@JWoodcockMP
Bombshell for Foreign Office in small print of budget red book - 40 PER CENT BUDGET CUT in ONE year

One good thing about selling off military fuel pipelines to a Spanish company:
they would probably sabotage any War of Distraction over Gibraltar ?

Now I wonder what we've sold off to Argentina ....

40 % cut to the FO ?
When we'll need to desperately reach out more post-Brexit to countries in the RoW and we'll need fresh contacts in the E27 since we're no longer participating in all their discussions ... [facepalm]

@ShaunGDavey
THREAD: This thread documents my conclusions from my FoI requests regarding the 58 studies on the impact of Brexit. All of the following points take the FoI responses at face value in terms of their veracity. /01

The exercise encompassed many government departments, as you would expect. Those involved: DExEU, Cabinet Office, BIS, CLG, DEFRA, International Development, International Trade, Transport, DWP, Agriculture (NI), Health, Export Credit Guarantees, FCO, Tresury, PM’s Office, /02

There is no evidence of strong project or programme management from DExEU. Indeed, no departments have actually recorded the time/effort involved in the production of the studies. This implies a highly informal process (and probably a chaotic one). /04

I would have expected a properly governed programme of work with clear budgetary oversight: there is simply no evidence of this. /05

The devolved administrations do not appear to have been consulted to any significant degree, though I await a response from the Welsh Government. Scotland in particular has significant resources which could have contributed (A Chief Economist, Financial Strategy Directorate, /06

Economic Development Directorate), but they were not asked to provide input. /07

No external contractors were used in the production of the studies. All departments used in-house effort only in their respective contributions. I am left wondering whether the government has the expertise for this in-house: Personally I doubt it. /08

Although many on both sides of Brexit are keen to see these studies, I do not hold out high hopes of an extensive library of credible documents, which will stand up to scrutiny as one might hope or expect. /09

When they are eventually published, we will need to challenge their conclusions, the credibility of the authors, the assumptions on which they are founded, and the way they were produced.

FoI requests/responses here:
www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/shaun_davey/requests …

/end

40 % cut to the FO ?

Brexit logic: Dump the experts. Then no one can tell how bad you're doing.

Stamp duty cut to FTB is going down poorly

Because it does fuck all to the housing supply. Just increases inflationary demand.

Tories appear to have forgotten that most Tory voters already own a home. So giving FTBs a pass on stamp duty is a massive fuck you to their core demographic. Which will teach them to vote Tory.

Mike Smithson‏
@MSmithsonPB

New Kantar poll has CON ahead with LAB down on general election
CON 42
LAB 38
LD 9
UKIP 5
GRN 3
SNP 2

Matthew Green and 2 others liked

Jo Maugham QC
@JolyonMaugham
More Jo Maugham QC Retweeted Mike Smithson
As I've been saying for some weeks, when Labour can't make headway with the Government in turmoil, you know Corbyn's appeal is capped out.

Someone did it for me. Well someone did it for themselves but I'm nicking it.

Sam Coates Times‏ @SamCoatesTimes
OBR assumes just 3,500 extra sales as result of Stamp Duty exemption for First Time buyers

No shit.

Utterly brutal: the OBR verdict on the stamp duty exemption for first time buyers. House prices are will rise and main beneficiaries will be existing property owners

No shit.

I'm utterly stunned at the obvious being stated.

I was just thinking about how David Davis BS'ed to a Brexit Committee. Particularly when he said whether the EMA and EBA would relocate would be part of negotiations.

He should be pinned down and made explain his statement. Was it ignorance? If so it was a lie as he did not say he didn't know anything about it. Which is apparent. Or was he up to 'it will be great' propaganda?

The UK has a very large population. Soon there will be no excuse for everyone being on the back foot to these mendacious hobgoblins. I am talking about people like the Media, MP's, etc. The only one I have seen putting the on the back foot was Alistair Campbell getting Gisela Stuart like they always get others. When he started with 'people like you'. This is what they do. Getting in the traitors, against the will of the people or disloyalty in some way. And when they go on about another referendum being out of the question. Would another referendum with a different outcome not be 'the will of the people' exactly like the last one?

I've said it before, and will die saying it. But in a housing crisis, you build houses, not ponce around with interest rates/stamp duty, or any other non-building method.

I am increasingly reminded of the Golgafrincham B-Ark crew, that failed to deliver fire, as the committee couldn't decide what colour to make it.

If only we could send the Brexiteers to colonise a new planet. (Although by their works, it seems they already have).

The cynic in me suggests that Hammond has to push up house prices to make up for the falling demand as EU nationals get the message and fuck back off to bongo bongo land.

@LurkingHusband

YUUUP.

But I think it's the UK looking like bongo-bongo land. Never thought I'd consider France to be a better run country than the UK ... How about dem apples?

@georgemagnus1
And here's a fairly standard pitch from Brexiteers a year ago saying the same and how the UK shd look forward with optimism to higher growth and a stronger economy

Today, the OBR (thank heavens we have it) has reminded us that we face a bleaker economic future. In terms of income per head, its a virtual standstill, and of course no real Brexit impact as yet, or any allowance for the inevitable recession at some point

UK trend growth is now a full % point lower than estimated until recently, confirming some of our beliefs that productive potential was materially lower. Brexit will erode it further, so there's as yet no room for faux optimism

Credit to Phil Hammond, then for taking some steps to put some backbone into the economy's productive capability, but don't let that detract from the OBR forecasts, or the fact that it doesn't yet buy the effectiveness of the Chancellor's measures

Time will tell whether investment and skills will pick up, and whether the housing measures package will address the lack of supply and affordability, but for the moment, you can be forgiven for thinking of them as band-aid, not long-term cures

My view is that these L/T matters could be grounded by Brexit anyway. We need politically difficult but necessary things that matter, mostly to raise the revenue capacity of the economy thru extensive tax structure reforms; also more direct fiscal incentives to investment

But as we know, this government is a Wile E Coyote government, hanging on and w/o effective or bold leadership. I think Hammond is prob well intentioned, but he's surrounded by an unruly mob that play to the Global Britain gallery at all of our expense. End.

Brexit's already cost us £60 pounds a month per family.

We need to talk about paying for this racist fest.

Hammond forgot to.