Westministenders: Plan B on the back of a Contempt Envelope

[RedToothBrush]

You could say its been an eventful day in BrexitWorld!

1. The Advocate General's opinion (non-binding) is that a50 CAN be revocated unilaterally provided its in good faith (not done merely to extend the a50 period and is a settled commitment to stay in the EU. This is NOT the ECJ verdict. This is still due. The ECJ does occasionally disagree with the Advocate General, but this is rare. This is important and will affect how MPs view how they will vote next week in the Withdrawal Agreement vote.

2. IF the ECJ rule in this way it does not rule out the EU appealing the decision.

The logic of the AG argument largely centres on the point that if the UK is sovereign then it can unilaterally withdraw from international treaties so it must also be allowed to revoke that decision otherwise it's not sovereign. Its hard to see how the ECJ will be able to go against that opinion.

Politically that could make an appeal difficult for the EU. However there is also much to say the EU WILL appeal though, if only because of concerns about how the a50 process could be abused by other countries such as Poland or Hungary to effectively renegotiate their status in the block. This possibility should not be forgotten. The 'good faith' argument is a legal minefield given the UK's behaviour in the last two years, if someone did want to challenge an ECJ unilateral ruling.

3. The government lost two votes regarding contempt of parliament and not releasing the full legal advice on Brexit.

The first vote was for a government amendment which they lost by 4 votes - which has been claimed is down to the DUP voting with Labour instead of the government. The result was 311 to 307 votes.

The second vote was for the actual contempt motion itself. Again the government lost. The result was 311 to 293 - or 18 votes. So some Tory MPs abstained on this vote.

This marks the point where the government is officially a minority government and May no longer has a majority.

4. Dominic Grieve tabled a motion (hereby named Grieve III), which was essentially a re issuing of Grieve II - the motion that he had proposed previously, but had been talked out of my May, only for her to burn him shortly afterwards.

This motion was supported by the regular Remain Rebels as well a bunch of known (and not insignificant) May Loyalists.

The effect of the amendment is thought to create a situation where 'Accidental' No Deal is no longer a default position. Instead if no deal is reached, it throws power back to the HoC to advice the government what steps they should now take.

It does not rule out the possibility of No Deal. It is still possible. Its just a lot less likely to. Brexiteers are arguing that the vote is not legally binding (Technically its not and they are correct). This seems highly unlikely in practice (politically not an option - the vote is politically binding, if not legally) even if that is the case. See the referendum for legally v politicially binding and how that has worked out. But there is room for a mess here too.

There is certainly no majority for No Deal in the HoC.

Grieve III was won by 22 votes (321 to 299). Thus making this a SIGNIFICANT vote in more than one respect.

5. Prior to the Grieve III vote, there were rumours that May was set to lose Tuesday's WA vote by up to as much as 400 votes.

There was a lot of talk that the government were prepared to lose the vote, with a view to representing the deal at a later stage. The vote next week was about minimising the size of the defeat.

However this relied on May being in full control of the options for Plan B. Grieve III limits this somewhat and puts power in the hands of parliament. (Parliament has taken back control you see).

It does not direct the government as such but it makes it much more likely that Plan B will have to be Nick Boles suggestion for Norway, rather than May's version of Plan B and a simple re-presentation of her deal.

Of course, this is over simplified as the EU and the EEA ALSO would have to go for the Nick Boles plan. The suggestion is that Norway WOULD agree to it, PROVIDED we were fully committed to it for the long term. But its not just down to Norway.

6. All this might well focus minds ahead of next week's vote. There are now three forces at work a) Brexiteers fearing that the likelihood of remain or a soft brexit have gone up, thus potentially being more inclined to support May. (This doesn't appear to be happening) b) The overall chances of No Deal decreasing, thus soft leavers being happier to pursue the opportunity for a soft Brexit (Norway deal) rather than supporting May's deal - at least at this stage. c) The hope of remaining due to the AG verdict combined with Grieve III encouraging remainers to not back May's Deal as they no longer fear the possibility of Accidental No Deal.

It has been suggested that its possible that the government allowed themselves to be defeated on the contempt motion in order to woo the ERG. This seems a bit of a stretch, as May has repeatedly proved that she isn't this kind of genius and Cox would have to have agreed to be the sacrifical lamb for that.

7. The contempt of parliament motion now passes to the Parliamentary Privilege Committee to decide what punishment will be levelled on the government and Cox in particular. It is worth noting that at present, there are 7 on the committee; 3 Cons, 3 Lab and 1 SNP. Which you would suspect does not bode well for government.

8. There is STILL some arguement over which version of the legal advice the government will publish as a result of the contempt vote, and when it will publish it. In theory there could be another contempt vote if it fails to act in a way that the house is satisfied with.

9. The government are pretty pissed off at the Humble Address motions, and are now seeking to find ways to limit them.

10. There is some suggestion that something has happened that opens the door for the US to leave NATO. This would be hugely significant to Brexit. Keep your eyes on this.

11. When Cox spoke in the commons earlier this week, he made the point that Brexit means we are bound by the GFA to remain in the ECHR. And the ECHR also binds us to the GFA. Again significant, when talking about wanting to force a situation where we have Accidental No Deal, given the strength of feeling about wanting to leave the ECHR. If the Accidental No Deal door is closed, then this might also change ERG opinions as their motivition to have a hard Brexit is also reduced.

And of course the backstop is, to all intents and purposes, the GFA. It will be interesting to see how the backstop is framed in the full legal advice.

12. Going back to point 1, there are still obstacles to remaining. May and the Conservatives are HIGHLY unlikely to want to revoke because of the damage to the party.

There is some talk about who has the power to revoke; parliament or the PM. The overall problem is that the PM does not have the power to overturn Acts relating to Brexit which have been passed by the HoC, although the original a50 vote passed the power to enact a50 to the PM from the house - and presumably the reverse would also be true if the PM has the power of a50.

Thus to revoke - IF the ECJ say we can - it has to be passed by parliament. At this stage there is no parliamentary majority to remain. This, of course, could change. It depends on what the alternatives are - arguably the likilhood of remaining is perhaps higher if accidental brexit is possible and the only alternative. Otherwise a soft exit would seem more logical.

13. Corbyn's speech in the commons in response to May's presenting the Withdrawal Agreement sounds remarkably like continuity remain, to an extent that he has not previously gone.

Conclusion:
Overall, Grieve III is massively positive, purely from the point of view of avoiding No Deal.

Next week STILL gives the opportunity for MORE amendments which could create enormous problems though. The potential to end up in a situation with amendments which are positions which are diametrically opposed to each other or to the EU or the legal situation are huge. This would mark something of a crisis in its own right.

Its difficult to see where May goes from here. Her ability to force her deal though, rested on the leverage of the fear of No Deal / being in complete control of what Plan B was. Grieve III kills a lot of that, and combined with the preliminary opinion on revocation. Her only alternative is to go for Norway - like a lot of her Cabinet have already pushed for, but this would be a massive u-turn for her. The Times were speculating this morning that she will walk next week. But we've been here so many times before.

I suspect other posters and commentators will read all this differently to me (will be interesting to see how others view it) but this is my best shot at trying to make some sense of it all. I think the biggest bone of contention will be the balance of probability of the options out there.

PS: DO NOT forget the EU's own self interest which is consistently forgotten in the UK coverage and debate of the subject.The EU have no obligation to do a Norway deal. Nor to extend a50 if they do not see it being in their own interests to do so.

I wouldn't get hopes up too much just yet, but today does feel like a potential turning point. We have to get through next week though. I don't rule out anything at this point. All options are still possible and I wouldn't like to put money on anything. But a soft brexit or remaining are more tangible than they were at 7am this morning imho.

Feel free to take this all apart with your own analysis!

I agree that they are intimidating Mistigri and alcohol seems to be a factor for some.

I'm damn sure that if the RoI has food shortages - especially if exacerbated by the UK deliberately impeding the "land bridge" to mainland Europe -
then the rest of the EU will make sure enough food gets through to the Irish.

Outrageous if Brexiters, including Cabinet ministers, want to use this to force Ireland to drop the backstop.

This bullying, treacherous UK govt has shown repeatedly why a backstop is necessary

Nutalls has also resigned from ukip. I'd forgotten he existed!

Î was reminded of Paris 1968 just because it felt to many of us then that France - indeed much of the world - was teetering on the brink of a revolution.

I agree the causes seem different:
the protests onthe mainland and votes for Brexit & Trump seem attempts to roll back much of the social progress made as a result of the 1968 movements

A rejection of progress

I suspect the elder ones are those who didn't join in the 1968 student protests or support their ideas

• many reactionaries then hated them -

and this is their last gasp attempt to overturn a defeat in their youth that has rankled bitterly ever since.

Matthew O'Toole Retweeted Evan Davis@EvanHD
The Northern Irish appear to support any kind of Northern Irish backstop, according to a @LucidTalk^ poll just published.^
< I posted details of the poll upthread >
Even if technology solves the border issue, 62% would choose to stay in SM and CU regardless of what GB does (including 22% of unionists)

I went through 4 GJ 'blockades' last week and being away from Paris they seemed relatively 'sane'. A bit of a shelter and a fire and mainly trucks being stopped. The biggest was on the outskirts of Rouen where the centre of a roundabout was filled with Gendarme vehicles and Gendarmes, and the outside was ringed by protestors, casually drinking coffee / beer and chatting. The issue of fuel price is important as France is big and fairly sparsely populated, I am 15 Km to my nearest town for shopping, the village shops having closed years ago.

I too would anticipate the EU doing all it can to help the Irish. Just stick the cost onto Mrs May's 'tab'.

I hadn't seen much of the GJs until yesterday (been in Africa, gives you a bit of perspective when it comes to first world problems). Saw a few jackets on dashboards on the bus to the airport last weekend, mostly good-sized vehicles driven by a single white driver. Yesterday there was a huge bunch of them mid afternoon at a péage on a very quiet stretch of motorway. Apparently they weren't there at lunchtime (in a bar eating lunch with a pichet of wine at a guess).

These are not the left behind. Sorry but they are not. It's a movement led by entitled white men and people who like a bust up. It's not about the poor.

Not sure about that BigChoc. I know some of the 68 protesters who are pillars of the community now (I was there when it started, my claim to fame is getting sprayed by a water cannon 😀).
My impression of the local gilets jaunes is like Mistigri, white van man, the hunting fraternity and the "things can't get any worse for us" group. They do seem to be enjoying themselves. A nice brazier going and some wine seem to feature in the protests.
Completely off topic I do recommend the film "Milou en Mai" for the atmosphere of 68 away from Paris.

anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2018/12/an-open-letter-to-theresa-may-why-i.html

anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com

An open letter to Theresa May: Why I won't be backing your Brexit proposals

8-10 minutes

Dear Theresa,

One of the only arguments I've actually heard anyone actually make in favour of your last-minute shambles of a Brexit proposal is that we need to forget that you are a cold-hearted, ruthless, and self-serving Tory and back your Brexit proposal because it wouldn't be as economically damaging as a "no deal" flounce out of the EU.

This argument has a kernel of truth because the economic chaos of a "no deal" meltdown would undoubtedly be worse than the illogical and almost universally unpopular mess you and your Tory mates have cobbled together.

And we all know that under Tory rule it would be the poor and vulnerable who would be forced to suffer the costs of a "no deal" meltdown (while your mates Rees-Mogg, Redwood and mega-rich speculator class who bankroll your party would actually cash in on the crisis they created by speculating against Britain).

Just look at the way you lot callously loaded the burden of austerity dogma onto poor and ordinary people as you simultaneously lavished tax cuts and handouts on your mega-rich mates (you know the ones who bankroll your party).

But then there are four gaping flaws this argument that 'we should all pull together and back your rubbish deal because "no deal" would be worse'.

The Closed Tory Shop

If you wanted parliament and the nation to back your deal then you really shouldn't have run the whole Brexit show as a closed Tory shop for the last two years.

Not only did you deliberately exclude opposition MPs, devolved parliaments, UK business leaders, trade unions, academics and experts, charities, civic society, and everyone else from having a say in the negotiations, but you also fought tooth and nail to sideline parliamentary democracy too.

How many times has your autocratic Brexit scheming been defeated in the courts, and voted down in our sovereign parliament?

How many times did you attempt to hide Brexit impact assessments and legal advice from parliament and the public?

How many times did your chums in the right-wing propaganda rags whip up tidal waves of abuse and death threats against anyone who tried to hold you to account over your dictatorial and self-serving Brexit scheming (judges, academics, opposition MPs, you own damnend Tory MPs ...)?

You've cynically and deliberately excluded everyone from involvement for the last two years in order to run Brexit purely in the Tory party interest, and now you've actually resorted to begging us to get on board to back the absolute farce you incompetent Tories have cobbled together without our involvement!

Sorry Theresa. No. You don't get to repeatedly exclude everyone else from involvement and then beg us for support because you failed to "crush" the opposition in your ridiculous vanity election.

Stupid threats

The only reason that the threat of "no deal" is on the table at all is your stupidly threatening approach to the Brexit negotiations.

You were the one who lobbed the threat of a ruinous "no deal" flounce onto the negotiating table with all of the bravado of a spoilt toddler threatening to deliberately shit their own pants if they don't get the sweeties they're demanding.

Of course you need to have a fallback position if the negotiations don't go the way you want, but threatening to explode a massive economic bomb under the UK in the desperate hope that fear of the collateral damage would drive the EU into caving into your demands is such a woeful display of strategic ineptitude that (despite your obvious limitations) it's still surprising that it was the best that you could come up with.

And it absolutely beggars belief that your mates in the right-wing propaganda rags actually lavished praise on you for your pathetic toddler-tantrum of a negotiating strategy.

The basis of any competent negotiating strategy would have been to identify areas of mutual agreement (of which there are surely several) in order to develop a reasonable fallback position should the full negotiations end up in deadlock.

That you didn't work towards a reasonably safe fallback position is bad enough, but that you're actually using your own hyperbolic threat in order to coerce your fellow citizens into backing the hopeless shambles of a deal you've eventually come up with is beyond reprehensible.

Using your own incompetence to your political advantage in this way is so utterly appalling there simply aren't enough negative adjectives in the English language to accurately describe it.

100% reversal

The next thing to note is that using the threat of a "no deal" meltdown in order to coerce people into supporting your shambles of a deal is a 100% reversal of your previous position.

Don't you remember your endlessly repeated mantra that "no deal is better than a bad deal"?

Yet now you suddenly want us to believe your new position that your shitty deal is better than a no deal?

How thick do you think we are?

How much contempt towards the rest of us does it demonstrate that you expect us to not even notice that you've absolutely and totally reversed your position?

Did you honestly expect nobody to notice?

What the hell are you playing at?

Two better options

The fourth nail in the coffin for the argument that we should support your woeful deal because it's not as bad as a bad deal is obvious.

If we're assessing the options on which would be least bad for the British people and the British economy, there are clearly two vastly superior options to the false dichotomy you're presenting us with.

One is to let someone else have a go at the negotiations. Someone who is prepared to do it in an open, democratic and accountable manner in the national interest, rather than excluding everyone else to do it exclusively for the benefit of their own political party like you did.

Someone who is prepared to set up a wide-ranging Brexit commission, seek political consensus, avoid threats and divisive language, and conduct extensive research into what kind of Brexit the people of Britain actually want from the Brexit they so narrowly voted for in 2016.

If we were to get rid of you and Britain went back to the EU for an extension of Article 50 so that we could negotiate a Brexit-in-the-British-interest rather than a Brexit-in-the-Tory-party-political-interest, it's highly unlikely they'd say no isn't it?

The other less harmful option is obviously to remain in the EU and then seek to reform it from within to give Britain (and other member states) more leeway to pursue their own national interests from within the union.

We can all see that you're deliberately excluding other superior options ("back to square one" / "Remain and reform") in order to present your second-worst case scenario as better than a worst case scenario derived from your own damned threats.

And we can all see that the only barrier to both of these vastly superior options is you.

Your autocratic power grab has failed. You threw away any chance of forcing your unpopular Tory Brexit through parliament when you gambled your parliamentary majority away in your spectacularly failed vanity election (a cock up you would already have been forced out over if the rest of your party weren't such abject self-serving cowards).

It's clearly time for you to step aside and let someone else try to fix this outrageous mess that you and your predecessor Cameron have lumbered us with.

Aside from wishing to see the back of you, I genuinely wish you a quiet retirement that affords you the time to contemplate and truly consider the enormous legacy of damage you and your fellow Tories have wreaked on our nation with your ruinous austerity agenda (that created the wave of public anger that drove the Brexit vote marginally over the line), Cameron's spectacularly reckless Brexit gamble with the nation's future, and your self-serving, autocratic, and downright incompetent efforts to deal with the absolute mess your predecessor ran away from.

Just nosing through the other Brexit threads. Is it just me, or has the dynamic completely shifted ? Quite a few Leavers having their soundbites dismissed and the flaws of having no evidence are being repeatedly shown up.

Especially where posters DCs are now in the firing line - there's some quite ragey parent bear posting ....

Priti Patel has suggested using the possibility of food shortages to Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit to encourage the EU to drop the backstop.

Tory MP Priti Patel has told [The Times] that these warnings should have been used as leverage against Ireland to encourage them to drop the backstop.

www.thejournal.ie/brexit-threat-food-shortages-ireland-4381228-Dec2018/

missclimpson Many of the 1968 generation, from both sides, are indeed "pilllars of the community"
That's part of the issue: they aren't all desperate left behinds.

All they have in common - like the mix of the better off & left behinds supporting Brexit & Trump - is that they want to roll back the clock, to reverse progres.

Significant elements in Trump & Brexit are culture wars - the authoritarians want to reverse the liberalism since 1968 -
as well as unfocused nostalgia for a supposedly better past where everyone had their place and they didn't see any furrin around.
They have managed to convince the left behinds and the desperate that authoritarianism, nationalism and demonising the liberal elite will improve their lot.

{A nice brazier going and some wine seem to feature in the protests.}
If protesting can be as 'civilised' as this I would go for it!
There is of course a whole spectrum of 'protest' and rural life is negatively affected by high fuel and other costs. Undoubtedly those nearing or into pension age in rural communities are feeling a pinch.

DG I'm still seeing the ignorant fuckwits who claim it's "all scare stories like the Millenium Bug"
Are they real, or just bots ?

I don't reply, because I don't trust myself and I don't want to be banned

This is a "white van man" political movement, which is kind bizarre because so far the things that Macron has done are broadly quite favourable for this group.

Just popping my head above the parapet here but the thing I see in common between all these movements, including Brexit and trump is that at its core is white middle aged men who are either full on wealthy or at least doing comparatively alright. People who were top of the tree culturally in the west but are now seeing their dominance challenged by women's rights and minorities demanding equality. I see a lot of this as coming from a backlash against wider societal changes, the fervant wish to return to a time when they were in charge. It is often forgotten that it wasn't the genuinely poor and left behind who voted for either trump or Brexit, it was the white middle classes.

Of course it is complicated and many of the poor have become caught up in the promises of unicorns and rainbows, which muddies the waters, but at the core of it is a lingering hatred of moves to equality and loss of power.

That's my 'tuppence for the day. Thanks as always for the updates guys.

And after all that BigChoc said it anyway.

I agree, bigly It's driven by a backlash from the better off middle aged and elderly, who feel their privilege is slipping,
that they - and their cherished beliefs - aren't being given the deference and status they feel they should have

This article for me sums up really well the issue with the UK's overall approach to brexit: me me me ad nauseam.

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/07/norwegian-politicians-reject-uks-norway-plus-brexit-plan

They've been pushing the idea that they are being "shut down" or attacked by "PC liberals"
when all that is happening is that people are producing facts to contradict them,
or even are just ignoring / disobeying / disagreeing with them.

DG I'm still seeing the ignorant fuckwits who claim it's "all scare stories like the Millenium Bug" Are they real, or just bots ?

However there are a lot fewer of them.

I don't reply, because I don't trust myself and I don't want to be banned

They wouldn't read the reply anyway. Keep your powder dry. When teh bot posting was most active, it was just creating noise, masking the signal. I think the signal is getting through now.

No words for what a piece of shit Priti Patel is - I really hope someone from her own community takes her to one side, and points out how she's effectively endorsed Britains despicable behaviour in India.

"Let's do to the Irish, what we did to my ancestors".

It's true about selling your soul to join the Tories.

@BiglyBadgers totally agree!

.

QuietRebel I don't know whether the EU & EFTA's patience finally ran out,
or whether that one conservative Norwegain politician quoted is not representative.

BUT

Barnier all along favoured the Norway++ approach as the best solution for Brexit
and I posted on the previous thread that he was recently saying that it would still be an option in transition, if the UK govt wanted

My suspicion 🤔 ^is that Guardian article, which concentrates on the views of UK Ultra Remainers,
is following Cameron's tactics 🤥 in the 2016 referendum:^

Trash the Norway option to drive people to Remain out of fear that only No Deal / WTO will be left.

I can only speak for the former 68 demonstators that I know personally here in France, but they could all be defined as members of the liberal elite now. Definitely no wish to turn the clock back. I went to university in '68 and I think most of my contemporaries have retained a certain leftiness, but definitely not part of the left behind.