Westminstenders: Stuck in the twilightzone

[RedToothBrush]

Just want to remind everyone if what really matters and what the priority if Theresa May is.

May isn't interested in a new referendum. There is barely time to hold one, and anyone remotely interested in one, isn't named Theresa May. Forget it. Its not happening.

Nor are Brexit talks the most important thing. Whilst Jeremy Corbyn seems finally to be playing with some sort if EEA type solution he's not the one named Theresa May. If she doesn't want one, then it won't happen.

May does seem to favour something along these lines but she has to sell it to her party. If she ends up relying on the support of Labour to push it through against what her party want, then that doesn't end well for her or her party. So Corbyn seeming to squeeze her here isn't necessarily a good thing. It could push her to no deal.

Why?

Cos petty party politics.

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING, and don't forget this, is the EU withdrawal Bill. As it stands, May has to concentrate her efforts on this. If it doesn't pass by the art 50 deadline then we have legal chaos. May isn't big on the courts, but I'm not sure she would want that situation either. It would be even more unthinkable than queues at Dover coupled with food shortages.

If it doesn't pass, and the Lords will do all they can to delay and obstruct as long as they can, May's only option is to beg for an art 50 extension. Which the EU might not be inclined to give. Which might leave us in a situation where our only option is to revoke a50.

The only predictable thing, is this will be last minute brinkmanship.

All the talk of a second ref is a distraction. Talk of Labour's position at this point, is all about positioning for the next election and not about Brexit at all.

So try to keep your eyes on what really matters and what battles are May's big ones and which are merely side shows.

I wonder who Side Show Bob will turn out to be.

[BigChocFrenzy]

imo, during the transition period,
the UK will be neither in nor out of the EU ... just stuck in the cat flap !

[BigChocFrenzy]

With its arse sticking outside in the rain
and amorous Rottweilers sniffing around …

[RedToothBrush]

Robert Peston @Peston
How government economists are stitching up @BorisJohnson and @michaelgove

Peston on FB

This morning’s Brexit subcommittee meeting of the most senior cabinet members passed off without a fracas and was - according to those in the room - “constructive and useful”.

Why wasn’t there the now traditional Brexit punch-up?

Well it is because the PM, foreign sec, home sec, Brexit sec, Chancellor and agric sec - inter alia - were debating the “uncontentious” questions of what our future security relationship with the EU should look like and how we would share data.

In other words, the policy so politically hot that it glows blue in the dark - the shape of our preferred future trading relationship with the EU - was not discussed.

But the cabinet’s biggest hitters will have their electric debate on this question - which is so disputed that it may prompt ministerial resignations - in the middle of next week, on 7 Feb, I am told.

Now what will be a ministerial brawl is being “informed” by confidential and highly sensitive analysis of the economic impact of different possible trading relationships the UK might have with the EU.

The analysis is being disseminated in a novel way: because of fear of leaks, ministers are not being given documents.

Instead a director general and economist at the Department of Exiting the EU, Susannah Storey, makes a personal presentation - with slides - to any Secretary of State on the crucial cabinet sub-committee who requests it.

She’s accompanied by an economist from the Treasury. And the relevant Secretary of State is encouraged to bring along the chief economist from his or her respective department, just in case he or she wants reassurance that it isn’t a terrible Whitehall stitch-up.

What amuses me most is the civil-service politics of this. The analysis is led by the economics section of the arch-Brexiteer David Davis’s Dexeu - and not by that last bastion of the Remoaners, which cried Armageddon during the EU referendum campaign, the Treasury.

The work was done and is owned by the cross departmental Government Economic Service

With this device, the Treasury and the chancellor Philip Hammond are trying to protect themselves from the inevitable charge that they are mugging the heroes of the Leave campaign, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

In practice of course Johnson and Gove are being well and truly duffed up.

The point is that the analysis shows UK growth and prosperity would be significantly greater if UK rules and regulations for business were closely aligned to those of the EU, and never diverged to any significant extent - because this would be expected to deliver cheaper and less cumbersome access for UK goods and services to the EU’s giant single market.

In other words, the civil service economists are underwriting the political position of Hammond, Amber Rudd and Greg Clark that it is worth sacrificing a degree of national control over rules and regs for the sake of becoming a bit less poor or a bit more rich (depending on what else is transpiring in an economic sense).

Or to put it another way, the Whitehall “experts” - so derided by Gove in the run-up to the referendum - are getting their own back on Gove and Johnson by providing supposed empirical proof that the Leavers’ passion to take back total control over making laws that affect business and commerce would be to throw mountains of £50 notes on to a religious fire.

The government economists’ case for remaining “converged” with the EU is so clear and overwhelming, I am informed, that ministers tell me they are utterly bemused by how Johnson and Gove will dismiss it - as they surely will.

Which leaves a PM, who in effect has the casting vote, with the invidious decision of whether to back an ostensibly impartial civil service analysis or embrace the convictions of her two most outspoken and influential colleagues.

Will she back the orthodoxy of Sir Humphrey and the mandarinate or the apostasy of Mr Boris and the Brexit bunch?

Which ever choice she makes has the potential to split her party. So it presumably feels to her less like boring boring economics and more like Russian roulette with a loaded bazooker.

Aha, this ties in with the 'impact assessment' report earlier today. Except its not next Wednesday but the Wednesday after the 7th Feb, which is MeltDown Day.

And guess what!!!!

The contents of this appear to have leaked already:

www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/the-governments-own-brexit-analysis-says-the-uk-will-be?utm_term=.neq8lJ9OKp#.gmod4moazW
The Government's Own Brexit Analysis Says The UK Will Be Worse Off In Every Scenario Outside The EU
Exclusive: BuzzFeed News has seen a new Brexit impact assessment, which says leaving the EU will have adversely hit almost every sector and every UK region.

Now who would have thought THAT would happen.

[RedToothBrush]

Quote from the Buzzfeed article:

Asked why the prime minister was not making the analysis public, a DExEU source told BuzzFeed News: "Because it's embarrassing.”

ROFL.

We are all the way back to 'Project Fear' Re-Dux 3.0.

[RedToothBrush]

Brexit Twitter has just started to go bonkers.

[DGRossetti]

Nature abhors a vacuum ?

In the absence of political leadership, the civil service takes over.

Is this the body politic ?

[DGRossetti]

bazooker

[RedToothBrush]

Gosh

Andrew Neil @afneil
The Government's Own Brexit Analysis Says The UK Will Be Worse Off In Every Scenario Outside The EU
Link to the Buzzfeed Article.

So far, no rebuttal from Neil. He must be pissed at this.

[IrenetheQuaint]

"Asked why the prime minister was not making the analysis public, a DExEU source told BuzzFeed News: "Because it's embarrassing.”"

Fancy that, eh? WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT IT?

[RedToothBrush]

Sam Coates Times @ samcoatestimes
Parliament will now want the full document. And the Commons probably has the numbers to force it out of government...

Omg today just keeps on giving, if you are into Brexit related pain.

[RedToothBrush]

Carl Gardner @ carlgardner
I'm starting to suspect the government, and Brexit itself, could implode before long.

And I think I need to repost this.

Will May make it til the 7th Feb.

[woman11017]

@faisalislam
In tonight’s Brexit news avalanche: Trade Sec Liam Fox tells The Sun that Brexiters have to “accept the reality” that there are not the numbers in Parliament for hard/clean Brexit, & defends Hammond

[IrenetheQuaint]

Liam Fox says something sensible? That can't be right

[woman11017]

@faisalislam
In that vein, a Tory Single Marketer MP tells me re Tory Brexiters flexing their muscles: “If they are threatening a leadership challenge, then this new leader will find himself in charge of a much smaller party, and will effectively crash the Government”. (“Him” was on purpose).

[RedToothBrush]

That's where we are.
Newsnight just quoting an anonymous mp saying, "you journalists are looking at this the wrong way. Its not the 48 letters that are needed to trigger a leadership election. We are after the 159 votes for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May".

This is significant. It speaks of how little support May has within her own party.

[thecatfromjapan]

Oh, it's not that sensible, Irene. You'll notice he's still sending out the bat-squeak to the Brexit reactionaries and the swivel-eyed people to say that it;s the numbers (of Remoaners) in Parliament that are betraying the Brexit dream, rather than 'fessing up that Brexit is an almighty pile of poo, that will cut the guts from the UK, and he is mightily relieved to have been spared the horror of implementing full (insane) Brexit.

That message, sadly, will not call the Brexiteer dogs off.

[thecatfromjapan]

I'm being too negative. Sorry, my fellow-people-of-the-thread.

[SusanWalker]

Andrew Neil @afneil*
The Government's Own Brexit Analysis Says The UK Will Be Worse Off In Every Scenario Outside The EU
Link to the Buzzfeed Article.*

No shit Sherlock.

Carl Gardner @ carlgardner
I'm starting to suspect the government, and Brexit itself, could implode before long.

Time to stock up on red wine and popcorn, sit back with my crochet and enjoy the show.

Shuffling off over to yahoo comments to watch the rabid brexiteers trying to put a shine on this one.

[RedToothBrush]

Harry Cole @MrHarryCole
Fingers pointed at the No10 Brexit unit as being driving force behind the new doc

[RedToothBrush]

Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1
I voted to leave the EU in June 2016.
I didn’t vote to leave the EU sometime FOUR AND A HALF YEARS later. That wasn’t on the ballot paper.

Remind me what WAS on the ballot paper?!

[woman11017]

Disappointment:

[RedToothBrush]

have to “accept the reality” that there are not the numbers in Parliament for hard/clean Brexit

Its either this, or kill the party. If they rebel then the government collapses.

I don't put it past them, in a last ditch gamble to win a mandate.

Carl Gardner @carlgardner
"It would have been a huge success if it hadn't been for the BBC, Remoaners, the New York Times, Hammond, the Supreme Court, Juncker, Barnier, WhatsApp, Buzzfeed, the government's own EU Exit Analysis—Cross Whitehall Briefing ..."

[RedToothBrush]

www.thesun.co.uk/news/5454428/tory-mps-warn-theresa-may-that-inaction-will-let-jeremy-corbyn-into-no10/
TORIES' STARK WARNING Tory MPs warn Theresa May that inaction will let Jeremy Corbyn into No10
Ex-ministers Nick Boles, Sir Nicholas Soames and Rob Halfon issue the broadside in a joint article for The Sun

[woman11017]

I don't put it past them, in a last ditch gamble to win a mandate
Arron Banks.

[RedToothBrush]

Slightly off topic: Yay for the Irish Referendum!

If Ireland do repeal the 8th, where does that leave NI and its stupid, EHCR breaching position on abortion? And how does that sit with the DUP?