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Brexit

Westministenders: Well this is getting interesting!

999 replies

RedToothBrush · 15/11/2018 14:52

The Minister responsible for writing a deal with the EU has succeeded in coming to an agreement. And has subsequently resigned because he can not agree with it. This man previously didn't know where Dover was, and why this was important. This man is a solicitor used to writing and reading complicated documents.

And we are supposed to believe he has done the honourable thing and has quit on a matter of principle. And has in no way, been a Carpetbagger all along and has deliberately intended to scupper a deal.

Mundell is not wrong about his former Cabinet College but its not terribly polite.

Esther has fucked off too. She was cut out the loop over the UC slow down and was precorded as civil servants thought she'd go crackers if she gave a live interview. This seems consistent with reports that she threw a tantrum in the Cabinet meeting, demanding a vote, before Sir Humphrey told her to refer to the Cabinet Handbook that states that votes are not allowed.

Rees-Smugg seems to have triggered a split in the ERG and has submitted a letter to Graham. Graham has been to see Julian, to tell him that he's not had enough fan mail - yet. Other ERG seem more content to just attempt to vote the deal down. Will there be a confidence vote? If there is, will May win? If she does she gets a special prize of 12 months immunity albeit with the booby prize of still having to get a deal through Parliament.

May now seems to be running a minority government as there are suggestions that the confidence and supply deal with the DUP is over. Kate Hoey appear to have joined the DUP. Perhaps she should have resigned from the Labour party first.

Gove was offered the poison chalice of the Brexit Secretary post. Initial reports said he baulked at the responsibility. Will he resign? Is he just going to go for the top job now? There is now suggestion, he hasn't rejected it afterall. Maybe she should just abolish the department and reallocate resources to the Cabinet office (like she's already done anyway).

Mordaunt is meeting the PM this afternoon to be told personally that there isn't a cat in hell's chance that May will have a free vote over Brexit. Just so she can get the PR for her leadership bid. Resignation scheduled for this afternoon.

Hunt and Javid just sat on the front bench after making noises to please leavers and set themselves up for their leadership bid.

Johnson is lurking. No statement today. Got some ringing around to get supporters for his leadership bid? Will he be the stalking horse?

Loathsome and Fox, admit their political careers have reached their zenith, and they got a cat in hell's chance of getting another Cabinet post. They are not resigning. Today at least.

Greyling is currently silent. There is speculation that his resignation is running late. Twitter is having a field day with jokes.

Duncan has said that an ERG candidate won't be able to form a government - implying that Tories would resign the whip if they did.

Stewart, has done his honourable best to support May through thick and thin, with his best Comical Ali impression and spouting any old bollocks on the radio. Bless Little Rory.

Neill retweets him. Soames doesn't sounds unlike them both. Morgan wouldn't mind a Cabinet job again. Soubry doesn't really care who is in charge as long anymore so long as its not the ERG.

Hancock said in Cabinet that he couldn't guarentee no deaths in a no deal situation. Leavers do not have an alternative idea to May's deal but No Deal. They don't mind risking Hancock being unable to protect people from death.

There are 10 days to go until the EU Summit. We have no idea if we will have a clear PM. Two days later we find out if unilateral revokation is an option to save our necks from disaster if we get that far.

If there is a no confidence vote, its penciled in for Tuesday.

The only Brexit certainity you can be sure of is this thread won't make it til then.

OP posts:
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umpteennamechanges · 16/11/2018 11:03

Can Gove et all stay in Cabinet but also secretly put a letter in?

I wouldn't put that past him if it's possible.

BigChocFrenzy · 16/11/2018 11:03

You are right, bofsy the EU negotiates as a block, which gives all its members the clout of an economic superpower

This is one reason why Trump and the US hard right hate the EU:
he wants to be able to bully all the individual countries into deals that are far more favourable to the US

They want a Brexit that makes the UK easy pickings

  • their ERG and Atlantic Bridge stooges are ready to tear apart the Tory party and depose a Tory PM in order to do this
whitewave · 16/11/2018 11:06

Question if anyone can answer me please

If the DUP withdraw their support, we have in effect a minority government?

Can Labour then go for a vote of no confidence? Not that I’m convinced they’d win it, but interested.

DGRossetti · 16/11/2018 11:07

He kind of was though, wasn't he... turning up on HIGNFY and in that Parliament documentary, and being treated as a bit of an eccentric.

It's an affected eccentricity though. After all, kids names and stuff is penny ante-stuff. I bet they'll have "pet" names amongst hangers-on and family. (people like the Rees-Moggs don't have friends).

I've met a lot of people through the years, as a result of fortune, work, being in the right place, and friends of friends of friends. It was usually quite easy to spot the Rees-Moggs of this world. However, the one time I met a peer of the realm, I honestly would never have known. In fact I only knew because he paid by cheque, and my brother looked at it and noted it only had a surname on it (bank was Coutts). A little furtling in Who's Who revealed that he was indeed a Lord (there's streets named after the family along the route the march took, if you know your Anglo-Russian royal family connections). He would have disappeared into the background against someone of Rees-Moggs vulgarity.

DGRossetti · 16/11/2018 11:08

Is there a near 50/50 spilt in ERG over the letters? Why is everything so divided, even the rebellion can't be decisive?

And yet there's generally a 50/50 split between women and men ?

BigChocFrenzy · 16/11/2018 11:14

Hope you get well soon, MrsR8 💐

Spudlet · 16/11/2018 11:14

Oh god, the man is an authentic as a £19 note, I quite agree. Ive met a good few like him in my time too! But what I mean is, he got this platform as a result of playing this funny little eccentric, so-posh-he-barely-functions role, and well. Here we are, with this hypocritical individual as a household name with the prospect of wielding real influence.

SusanWalker · 16/11/2018 11:19

So Gove doesn't support the deal in that he will only be brexit sec if he can renegotiate, but he does support the deal enough to stay and support it. Makes no sense.

DGRossetti · 16/11/2018 11:19

Can Labour then go for a vote of no confidence? Not that I’m convinced they’d win it, but interested.

I think a vote of NC can be tabled at any time - the Speaker being trusted to prevent abuses and only respond to "genuine" requests.

But we're in new territory here. A failed vote of NC isn't the automatic GE trigger it used to be thanks to the FTPA - which I was a great fan of. (My how we were warned at the time Sad). It gives parliament 14 days to get it's shit together (that'll be 14 days of fuck-all-else being done then). And what's the endstop ? Another general election. Which - on current projections across all parties - is unlikely to really shift the numbers in parliament.

In any other universe, with such advance knowledge, you'd think party leaders would work on a public plan in the case of no majority. But this is here. This is now. And they won't. Mainly because that might encourage tactical voting and make things even messier.

We really are in uncharted territory. We have never had this situation in the UK in history. It's not just Brexit - that's the catalyst - it's the fact that over the years our political machinery hasn't adapted to reflect the more-than-two-ways of thinking that an electorate of 43,000,000 can process. No one is 100% Tory, and no one 100% Labour, with the spectrum in between. Up until now we're rather papered over the cracks with some questionable leveraging of geography in the "United" Kingdom. But now even that is starting to bulge at the seams. So unless you really are a thick pudding cretin moron ignorant tosser, the state of the "Union" shouldn't really come as a surprise.

TL;DR - whatever transpires today will last as any meaningful long term solution. It's a game of whack-mole.

DGRossetti · 16/11/2018 11:20

I think Gove is playing to an - as yet unseen - gallery.

Motheroffourdragons · 16/11/2018 11:22

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whitewave · 16/11/2018 11:23

Thanks for that. I will read and digest.

Interesting times

DGRossetti · 16/11/2018 11:26

By rejecting BrexSec, he effectively is going down a road where - when a time comes - he can explain his position with the suggestion that May offered him BrexSec in order to discredit him, following her stitching a deal up without Raab. Which, unless I've become a Brexiteer, is the current state of play with Raabs rejection of the current WA proposal.

He then has the ammunition that May was trying to handcuff him into her deal, but he wants what's best for the UK - hence wanting to renegotiate.

Remember, it's doesn't have to have any connection to any other reality than that in the minds of Brexiteers. So no need to research too much. Just setup an nGram viewer on Twitter Grin

That being the case, we are still looking at Gove for PM.

1tisILeClerc · 16/11/2018 11:27

As an aside while something else happens. Watching the HoC debate yesterday with May (about an hour's worth) I was getting so depressed that nearly half had no F*ing clue about any details of Brexit.
Can we sponsor Big Bird from Sesame Street to give them a half hour 'beginners' course.
Spouting stuff like 'taking back sovereignty', it was truly embarrassing.
Mrs May said about half a dozen times to different questioners 'I have already told you that answer'. It's no wonder the country is going to the dogs if this is the best we can muster.

Staringcoat · 16/11/2018 11:27

I'm desperately hoping that JRM has over-played his hand this time Spudlet. I think realisation is dawning generally that the leading architects of Brexit either haven't had the cojones to enact it (Gove, JRM & co) and where they have had a hand in it (Bono, DD, Raab) they've failed miserably. I think that has lost them respect among the general public.

I don't know whether it was TM's long-term plan all along to expose Bo-jo, DD and Raab as incompetents but that has been the upshot.

Loathsome Gove I think is bright and politically astute enough to be wary of being lumped in to the same category and is wary of relinquishing his leverage in cabinet. For now, anyway ... .

Spudlet · 16/11/2018 11:28

So, they're appealing to get a decision on whether they can revoke A50, have I understood that correctly?

Staringcoat · 16/11/2018 11:29

Sorry, thread has moved on while typing that! Can't keep up! Fascinating though Smile

Motheroffourdragons · 16/11/2018 11:31

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Spudlet · 16/11/2018 11:33

Oh God, I hope so too staringcoat. Let the odious little twit be consigned to obscurity, preferably via a dose of public failure, ASAP please.

Depressingly I think there is still a section of public opinion that still wants to BeLeeeeeeeeeave... can't remember where I saw it, but one Leave voting caller to 5Live gave TM 1/5 and said we should just start the negotiations from scratch, or words to that effect. Presumably she wanted more unicorns 🤦‍♀️

BlueEyeshadow · 16/11/2018 11:34

"Bespectacled 18th century meerkat" is rather unkind to meerkats, RTB - I prefer James O'Brien's "mewling pencil". Grin

Spudlet · 16/11/2018 11:34

That's what I thought too! I'm glad it's not just me.

Motheroffourdragons · 16/11/2018 11:35

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Xenia · 16/11/2018 11:35

Mother, I am not sure that is quite right. Some appellants (not the government) want it clarified if the notice can be withdrawn. That is going to be heard by the CJEU on 27 November. It looks fro that link that our Government is not happy about that and is appealing the decision to allow the CJEU to look at it, not the other way round.

Either way I am pretty sure the CJEU will say until all 28 member states agree the notice cannot be unilaterally withdrawn.

PineappleSunrise · 16/11/2018 11:36

Agreed that Gove is positioning himself at the moment, but I think he's trying to signal several things at once:

  • that he's not happy with the deal (a position popular with all sides)
  • he'd rather renegotiate the deal but not say how
  • that he's capable of putting country before party not before himself of course

As I said yesterday, I saw his decision to come out for Leave as a calculated tilt at party leadership, much as it was for BoJo. I don't think either of them actually expected to have to follow through with Leaving, even if they're both fully signed up to the whole Britannia-chained-by-Europe nonsense. He's now seeing an out - a way to not fuck the economy (which would kill of the traditional Tory base), still have his patriotic "Britannia" credentials, appeal to the Europhobics, and try to bring the centre along with him.

He makes my skin crawl. Unfortunately, they're all so bad at the moment he's probably in quite a good position.

BertramKibbler · 16/11/2018 11:39

Imagine Sarah Vine in number 10!

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