Westministenders: KAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOMMMMM

[RedToothBrush]

'Quick' Recap.

Once upon a time, despite warnings to the contrary after previously attempting to recreate a speech from the 1930s, Theresa May triggered a50.

A series of events, which included a disastrous unnecessary General Election and losing seats, ensured that we have Brexit by Timetable in which every piece of goodwill was burnt up a long time ago, and the EU decided to go "see ya then".

Only this General Election, made this politically impossible as well as practically impossible, given how this would destroy our economy.

So May did the only thing she could and agreed to lock us in with sufficient progress deal, which is legally binding, if no deal is agreed. Thus giving us in essence a choice between staying in the Single Market and Customs Union due to NI or breaking an international agreement which would destroy all our international credibility and trust.

Except none of the Brexiteers really grasped what was happening. Until this week.

In the meantime we still have had spectacles of Nadine Dorries asking on the infamous WhatsApp Group why we can't stay in the CU. Any Davis saying that he has now apparently 'changed his mind' on the matter. Not that Labour are any better, with Corbyn saying we can't stay in the Single Market and leave the EU. Except of course, Norway is in the Single Market...

Fast forward through a sex scandal that's swept through Westminster, installing self appointing the vampiric Gavin Williamson as Defence Secretary, we eventually ended up with a reshuffle which was possibly as pointless and as successful as the General Election. And Gavin Williamson is caught up in a sex scandal.

May has managed to drag the Great Repel Bill through the Commons, without breaking the party, but with much back room dealing and compromise with Remainers. Hailed as something of a victory by Brexiteers, this rather is a fools paradise. At what price to their ideological purity did this come? Is there much Brexit left? And there is much more to come in the Lords, with the LDs committed to working with Labour on securing at least 10 amendments. The two parties have a majority in the Lords if they work together.

Away from parliament we have had the glorious demise of Toby Young, who is forever to be remembered for eugenics.

As it has become apparent that we are increasingly looking like we are on track for BINO, the EU have told us, that we should have sucked up a compromise proposal earlier and now the Norway Option is off the table as we fucked that up by taking too long to disagree amongst ourselves and being arses to EU citz. I paraphrase slightly here, but that's about he long and short of it. Instead we get the pleasure of 21 months of the EU interfering in our law without representation. And we are already locked into this. Now Leavers can moan about this, and shock horror, actually be correct about it too! Transition will be up to 31st Dec 2020 at the latest. Which realistically is still too soon, not that any lying arsed Brexiteer is willing to admit to this. Yet.

The only way to get out of this proposal for better terms? Either beg the EU for something there is no way they will give us or revoke / extend a50.

The fall out from May's reshuffle is still going on in slow motion. Rees-Mogg has got a bigger platform to spout shit he knows nothing about, admit that he has never changed a nappy nor wiped his own arse, thinks women should give birth to football teams, and how he has never visited IKEA and has no plans to do so. Johnson has tried to build bridges. And effed that one up again. Gove has made us all be obsessed by plastic straws and turn into environmental maniacs because no other minister is good at press releases and media stunts. Arch Remainac Liddington, got Deputy PM and took over Brexshit even more from DExEU. Hunt is in no way after becoming PM and Greening is really pissed and when straight back to lead from the Naughty Step.

To cut the long story short: they all hate May and think she's shit

There are thought to be nearly 48 letters to trigger a leadership election in Graham Brady's hands. But not quite. And its not about the letters its about needing 159 MPs to no confidence her... but that is starting to sound more and more plausible in the face of Brexshit hitting the fan.

We now have a leaked impact assessment that we really were not supposed to see which is slightly less worse than Project Fear. But not by much. Its supposed to be by DExEU. Its been suggested that its actually by alt-DExEU aka the Cabinet Department (Robbins and Liddington).

Anyway, nothing is decided. May might zombie on forever. She won't, she's in a crowded field of Tories with stakes. But that sub-committee meeting on Wed 7th Feb is crunch time for something or someone.

Tick tock, tick tock, went the Brexit Clock.

Oh yeah and there's going to be a trade war between the US and EU. And there's some stuff about a ex-Belize diplomat. And Trump's coming to visit us.

Under another leader, from the Labour centre or even respectable soft left, they would indeed be 20% ahead

People keep quoting this 20% figure and I’m genuinely confused as to how it’s arrived at. Quite apart from the fact that no party has achieved this in an election for at least 100 years, where are these votes supposed to come from, given the current 40:40 state of play? I see three logical possibilities.

1. Every non Tory voter donates their vote to Labour. Given that LDs and ukip are both stripped to their core vote, you'd have to appeal to both hardcore liberals and kippers at the same time. Not to mention the Yes voting Scots nationalists, which is a tricky stunt for a unionist party to pull off, especially if you’re simultaneously trying to court the kippers. And that’s before you throw in the fact that it was the New Labour governments that toxified Labour in Scotland.

1. Turn 1 in 4 Tories into Labour voters. Presumably a move back to the centre would be accompanied by a more overtly pro-Europe stance. 60% of 2015 Tories voted to leave, and have since been joined by a coterie of UKIP voters in 2017, so the figure is probably now more like 65%. So you’d have to convert about two thirds of Tory remainers to the Labour cause. If you’re really telling me that this huge number of people are sticking with the Tories only because of JC and no other reason (like, for example, a preference for right wing economic policy) then I would love to see the evidence.

1. Tory voters not voting, or voting for someone else. To get the 20point margin here we’d need half the current Tory support to stay at home, or switch to LD/UKIP/the mythical new party that never seems to materialise. I suppose there is an argument that if Labour had a less wooo scary leader then some Tories might vote LD because they’re not that fussed about a Labour victory despite not actively supporting for them. Is it the job of the Labour Party leader to make voting LibDem more attractive?

My feeling is that pretty much everyone who would ever vote Labour is already doing so. A blander leader might make some of those people feel less uncomfortable at the ballot box. But I’m not sure it would have that much of an effect on the vote. A bold and radical vision from the centre ground might in principle change things. Does anyone have one of those?

Agree with all of your post Eeee and that is before you factor in a couple of other points.

1. About 30% of SNP voters are pro-Leave and given the latest Scottish Government tax changes and the 2017 GE results there are about 3 more seats in Scotland almost guaranteed to go Tory.

2. If only half the UKippers went Tory in 2017 that means there were also more that voted Labour than is being given credit for. If Labour were to adopt Remain then they either all vote Tory or stay home.

3. To the extent that Corbyn and Momentum energised previous non-voters any move to the "Centre" would likely lead to them abandoning politics again. (Interesting to look at the declining voter turn out figures post Indyref in this respect. Increased turnout on the back of Indyref1 was main reason for Labour / LibDem losing 50 odd seats in Scotland to the SNP in 2015. The subsequent churn and loss of enthusiasm gave the opportunity for 12 Tory wins in 2017).

Bigly I thoroughly enjoyed that column from Marina Hyde!

Hope this is readable, Matthew Paris in The Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-are-lying-to-the-voters-and-themselves-over-brexit-r7nc79cw5?shareToken=e423a1c9d9a6f0a25b9e01b118e49bc4

Bigly I also have a huge girl crush on Marina Hyde.

.

elements that is quite an article.
It's the 'J'accuse' our 'Butterfly on a Wheel' piece of our day.

I have always had a lot of time for Matthew Paris (even if he is a Tory) and respect him for coming out as gay before it was widely acceptable.
He has always spoken a huge amount of sense about Brexit and I think that article is absolutely spot on.

Also been very impressed with M Parris

I realise I forgot

1. Increase the turnout to 100% and have at least half of them vote Labour.

Which is related to how’s point about any shift in position resulting in gaining some and losing some. The gamble is that you lose more than you gain...

Some questions on Yougov survey today about have you heard of momentum etc. No mention of Legatum though.

Highly recommend folk watch "The Mash Report" this week. Specifically Nish Kumars summary of where we are with Brexit.

I defy anyone to disagree with me that it's probably the most insightful and honest pieces about Brexit in 4 minutes. He's certainly right in that as long as Leavers are unhappy (too) then Remainers will probably feel a bit better.

As with all satire, there may be a kernel of truth there. How many Remainers are motivated less by a serious desire to be in the EU, and more by some primal desire not to have Leavers put one over them ?

woman11017

there's a pithier summary of the article you posted (was that M. Paris ?)

"all it takes for evil to triumph, is good men do nothing"

No idea who originally said it, but it's been said often in various contexts. (It goes well with a bon mot from Thomas Jefferson about it being a civic duty to disobey bad laws)

Bit more on that extradition case:

www.rte.ie/news/courts/2018/0201/937559-extradition/

Too long to post here, but the additional information is that 20 further extradition cases are now on hold pending the ECJ ruling ....

So much for Brexit "taking back control". Without cast iron guarantees (in writing) of the suspects ECHR rights, the UK ain't getting any criminals before UK courts anytime soon.

The 20% lead Labour should have - without Corbyn - is a rough "feel" based on several factors, e.g.

• the disastrous mess, sleaze, civil war, incompetence & ignorance that Tories are displaying in public, which is extraordinary and which normally a govt would be absolutely hammered for in the polls
• how dreadful May is as PM, how powerless and muddled she appears - a party leader boosts or drags down their party if they are very good / very bad.
• how the Tories were so far behind in the late 1990s and early 2000s when they were also sleazy, incompetent and squabbling in public
• what happened when Labour last had a leader - Michael Foot - whom many Labour voters and most centre voters disliked
• the visceral dislike of Corbyn that large number of Labour voters and Jewish voters have, who say they would vote Labour, but won't while Corbyn is leader
• the number of Tory and centrist supporters who say they are disgusted with govt policy on NHS, Brexit, their total incompetence - who say they would vote Labour, but not while Corbyn is leader

Corbyn is the gift that is keeping May in office and the Tory batshit Brexit wing in power

A competent Labour leader who wasn't Marmite would have Tories so far behind that they would have switched to a more moderate leader by now.
Instead, the Tory party may even go for a hard right throwback like JRM and the public may vote for him

Read posts on MN and elsewhere - many voters regard JRM as the lesser evil, compared to Corbyn

No wonder Tories and JRM supporters keep posting in support of Corbyn

If it really is the case that, regardless of leader, Labour can only manage a 1% lead when the Tories are in such a disastrous mess,
then Labour supporters had better resign themselves to permanent minor party status, as soon as the Tories sort themselves out.

Rosetti

It was Edmund Burke I think

No wonder Tories and JRM supporters keep posting in support of Corbyn
BigChoc very peculiar coverage of last night's 'fracas'
www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/02/jacob-rees-mogg-involved-in-scuffle-at-university-campus
The university said it was believed a small group of protesters, who were not students at the university and did not have tickets to the event, had broken into the lecture theatre through the back doors, before police and security were called

@_andreeatweets
The member of the audience in the white shirt started getting violent towards the people being disruptive. I was standing in front of him when he punched me. No student was violent here.

I wonder who that white shirted man with mogg was?

The whole thing raises more questions than answers.
Very busy JRM FB page, immediately it 'happened'.
Very peculiar English of his posters, almost like they had posts all ready prepared, pre the 'incident'.
Very peculiar 'support' for him in MN.

As we write: labour is a huge part of a massive pro NHS march through London. Huge.
The march doesn't exist in the BBC.

This isn't normal politics in any way shape or form.

there's a pithier summary of the article you posted
Eloquence can win over the many shy tory Remainersnow.

It's a beautifully written inditement.

I’ve set out what I believe are the only mathematical possible ways that a 20pt lead can be gained. And yet these are ignored because of “feelings”.

Sounds familiar.

I wonder who that white shirted man with mogg was?

Reichstag fire?

NHS march looks absolutely massive.

Labour were ahead by between 20 and 40 points for much of the 90s, see here for the Guardian / ICM poll historical data: www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/oct/21/icm-poll-data-labour-conservatives

I don’t think a swing of 10% in the current political context is unthinkable. How did Tony Blair do it?

@woman11017 shocking (but not surprising) that bbc is not covering a large demonstration like that.
what do other news channels report?

shocking (but not surprising) that bbc is not covering a large demonstration like that

Of course the danger is the BBC (or it it deliberate) might fuel the hype of suppression, and encourage some people to thing there is a conspiracy, a sort of reverse Streisland effect ...

The March looks bigger than some of the pro EU ones.

I guess this reinforces how powerful, deceitful and manipulative it was to falsely link the referendum to the unrelated funding of the NHS.

Shocking the BBC aren't reporting the March live. I saw the film "the Post" recently. The difference between the BBC's current government bias, and the Washington Post's bravery over the Pentagon papers in the 1970's seems a very stark contrast.