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 think, Niles, it's because studies show free movement has, on the whole, benefited our economy.

Yes some companies take advantage and suppress wages. This is in large part to other mechanisms being ignored/abused. The stories about shipping in workers usually also entail rogue landlords and a form of slavery.

Perhaps if we wanted more British nurses who would lobby for higher pay, we could support higher taxes and actually fund the training of said nurses.

Of course this is an echo chamber, but it's many things more besides. A safe space to vent, challenge and be challenged. To discuss the things our families are sick of hearing. Maybe to learn too?

Sorry, I'll go back to lurking again. I've right got it on me today.

Exactly. Unfortunately the EU has contributed to the model of importing cheap nurses and other staff prepared to work for low wages. And the gap between rich and poor keeps getting wider.

I’m not saying leaving the EU is a solution. I voted REMAIN ffs. But wilfull blindness / shutting down debate on the fact that mass migration contributed to this vote is not going to help you persuade leavers to your viewpoint.

Yes. It's a difficult sell, to people who have got poorer over the past couple of decades, to tell them that actually things could and will be much worse if we left, and that the services they rely on would be even worse if we weren't involved in the EU and didn't have free movement. It's true, but it doesn't make it any less difficult a sell.

If you become a nurse to get rich you shouldn't be a nurse - my immigrant nurse mum always said this.
It is a feature of socialised medicine to use cheap foreign labour. That's how it works. And doesn't work.

IheartNiles I know what you mean about shutting down debate but look what opening up the debate has done.

Opening up the debate has led to an increase in racism, racist attacks and MPs saying we should starve our neighbours into submission!

Plenty of Leavers on here. Not one of them criticising Patel's comments.

It was bubbling under the surface mousse and without an end to austerity it would have surfaced one way or another. People who feel unheard are sooner or later given a home by extremists.

At the end of the day to harmoniously stay we need to persuade a great many people to change their minds. We cannot do that by belittling their fears.

bellini I am not talking about nurses getting rich (although neither am I opposed to their getting rich, surely they are as deserving / more deserving than many others?). But to accept they should be paid a couple of pounds an hour over the living wage because we can simply import cheaper ones (and drain their countries of skilled staff they spent money training) isn’t right.

But @IheartNiles , it has always been so. If you think low wages among nurses is a new thing, you are utterly wrong. If you think importing nurses from poorer countries to work in the BHS is a new thing, you are wrong.
Fixing the NHS isn't an EU/Brexit thing. Look at health care in the EU to see that they don't do it like we do.
We need to have a discussion about the NHS that is not tied to Brexit.

BHS? I mean, NHS!

I think the key point is "without and end to austerity".

Pushing people into poverty makes them look for easy answers. Blame the foreigners is always the say answer.

I think the Conservatives blaming the EU for everything has allowed a low level of racist debate - dog whistle racism - to become acceptable. Brexit has blown the lid of this and, as a nation, we have demonstrated we are not capable of the debate needed.

I'm sure Nicola would love the Kobayashi Maru and Highlander references

I have said on previous incarnations of this thread that I originally voted Remain, and given the situation in say July 2016 would do so again. Having witnessed the horrendous crap from Westminster on both sides and having read some of the other less 'on topic' discussions I would now vote Leave in some form.
Charles de Gaulle was opposed to the UK joining, I can't remember his train of thought as to why, but it is possibly because the UK as an 'isolates' island nation has a different inbred mentality to countries with land borders, and the fact that as a massive seafaring nation 'conquering' the world it got used to getting it's own way when exploiting other countries.
Germany gets slated for the way it's people regard life as they have a distinct frame of mind, as do the cores of all countries. Just because something is different, does not automatically mean it is wrong.
The UK could be ruled by a dictator as ferocious as that of N Korea, but if as a dictator ALL citizens were treated well with jobs they were happy with, good healthcare, good housing and standard of living, would that not be better than a so called democracy such as the UK now where the 'ruling elite' are very happy to have beggars on the streets, especially if the can't see them on a day to day basis.

Opening up the debate has led to an increase in racism, racist attacks and MPs saying we should starve our neighbours into submission!

If Priti Patel’s suggestion was made about any other country or community there would be a national outcry and she would be forced to step down. The ignorance and arrogance of these MPs is just staggering.

The racist views expressed by Patel, Javid, May and others OUGHT to see them in the dock in a 'civilised' society.
Incitement to hate crime could be a good starting point.

It's impossible to have a conversation about the NHS without it involving Brexit, because there are so many features of the NHS now that are intrinsically linked to the reasons that so many people voted to Leave, as well as real concerns about the impact of leaving on things like medical supplies and research. The NHS would actually be a great case study for considering the impact of Brexit more generally on the provision of essential services to the UK public, except that it is too emotive politically (hence the sodding bus)

About nursing. The NHS was a little naughty about the training of foreign nurses, I think. They were nudged towards the shorter training for SEN rather than SRN. Less prospects and less pay, I presume. And were not quite aware of this until it was too late in their training.

What many expats find - if they live & socialise fully among the host community and not in a Brit bubble -
is that opinion within the EU has changed massively towards the UK, since the EU ref

from hoping fervently that the UK changes its mind, to hoping it won't

That's a result of the horrible xenophobic statements made aginst European countries by leading UK politicians and also by the press

• many people can read English, but mostly didn't have sufficient interest to do so before Brexit The local press also reports some of the especially nasty remarks

The "citizen of Nowhere", the Nazi allusions, the public intent to break any clauses the Uk doesn't like, the hate towards the EU, especially against Ireland ....
have all trashed what used to be a really good reputation

The UK is regarded as dangerous atm and many people don't trust its intentions or behaviour if allowed to remain.

It’s ALWAYS been held down Tatiana, for many reasons but being able to readily import cheaper staff is a significant cause.

‘It’ being public sector pay or wages generally?

This country has long had a tendency to train the minimum and import trained workers from elsewhere. That applies across the board - medicine, car industry etc.

We train x number of doctors per year, and import the rest. 26% of NHS doctors are not British. The government could spend more money training more British doctors but they don’t. Well in fact, 5 unis are reportedly opening new med schools.

Equally in the car industry - the government doesn’t provide what is available in Germany for eg, - ie. technical schools offering training in conjunction with car manufacturers. So we import workers trained from abroad. In fact U.K. carmakers face a skill shortage if EU workers are restricted.

We have indeed been "hung by our own petard".

Based on the (incorrect) belief that we still had the power, influence and economic clout that we did 150 years ago people voted Brexit.

We are now a toxic relative. No one wants us, no one cares what we think. They will trade with us but why would you want a relationship (trade or otherwise) with a country that may well turn round and bite you?

In fact Shakespeare may be our only cultural capital as countries run away swiftly.

fullfact.org

How can we inform our estimate of the effect a post-Brexit immigration tightening would have on the NHS?

There is no exact precedent to look at to judge these claims, as they depend on hypothetical decisions and perceptions after a British exit.

However, one imprecise precedent is the substantial tightening of rules for non-EU immigrants around 2010. This saw the elimination of general visas for highly skilled workers from outside the EU who did not have a job offer in the UK.

At the same time, migration for most categories of worker who did hold a job offer was capped. This followed changes made by the previous Labour government in 2008 and 2009 introducing a points-based system for these skilled visa categories.

There are good reasons to see this as a relevant example. If EU immigrants were simply treated in the same way as non-EU immigrants after exit from the union, these would be the exact rules applied. Even if some other package of restrictions was used, these rules reflect themes which have been cited by many proponents of leaving the European Union: reductions or caps in numbers, an emphasis on only allowing immigrants with especially economically valuable skills, and the use of a points-based system.

Did the changes around 2010 have a real impact on NHS recruitment over the following years?

Over the years following 2010, it does appear that the package of restrictions had a subtle but clear impact on NHS recruitment.

The Royal College of Nursing makes the case that there have been two periods of nursing shortage in the Health Service’s recent history: one immediately after the year 2000, and one in the last few years. Although comparable data on vacancy rates does not exist, trends in overall nursing migration seem to support this.

During the first shortage, migration from outside the European Economic Area filled much of the gap, rising to close to 15,000 nurses each year. The current shortage, however, has seen no noticeable increase in non-EEA nursing migration, which has remained below 1,000. Instead, migration within the EEA has expanded somewhat to around 7,000 each year to keep up with the Health Service’s need for nursing staff.

The economic situation in Southern European countries accounts for the rise in European migration. However, academics looking at the change have concluded that the key factor in the lack of non-EU clinical migration in this shortage period was the change in policies.

I’m not saying leaving the EU is a solution. I voted REMAIN ffs. But wilfull blindness / shutting down debate on the fact that mass migration contributed to this vote is not going to help you persuade leavers to your viewpoint.

Leavers never come up with any facts to support this though.

The only reliable piece of work on on this I know of, is the BoE research which indicated that a 1.88% decrease in pay for unskilled and semi-skilled service workers followed a 10% increase in the proportion of immigrants working in that sector in a particular regions.

But the principal driver was reckoned to be a general drop in wages for U.K. born workers in unskilled and semiskilled service workers. The impact of foreign born workers charging less was found to be very small.

2007 - 2015 the UK was the only big advanced economy where wages contracted while the economy expanded. In most other countries, (incl Germany and France for eg) the economy and wages both grew.

U.K. GDP hit pre financial crisis levels in 2013 but in 2014 wages were still 10% lower than in 2007 - compared to Germany and France where wages had risen 7%.

This, I believe, has been falsely blamed on immigration by the man in the street.

{The UK is regarded as dangerous atm and many people don't trust its intentions or behaviour if allowed to remain.}
Some members of the UK gov have openly stated they would cancel treaties (not overly diplomatic or clever).
A wider perspective is that the UK seems to be relatively accepting of Tommy Robinson and others of a similar view. As many countries in the EU are having a similar issue and that there seems to be some linking to the USA and/or Russia, ditching the UK could help them keep some control of other far right groups in the EU as they are not 'English' speakers (OK a bit tenuous but I am sure there is something in it).