Westminstenders: Stalemate

[RedToothBrush]

After May's Meaningless Vote defeat and Corbyns Pointless Vote for Your Own Party defeat we are well and truly at Stalemate.

May has invited other parties to come and talk to her to find a compromise. Except she has so many red lines all she is asking is for everyone else to compromise whilst she gets exactly what she wants.

Corbyn made a tactical error in not initially speaking to May, so now she gets to say that its Labour who are being difficult and not wanting to work together in the national interest.

Corbyn has in addition put down the red line of saying he won't talk to May until she agrees to drop no deal. Except since no deal is the default until an alternative solution is agreed! Corbyn is expecting May to say that she would revoke if there was no alternative agreed, whilst is isn't really reasonable from a compromise point of view.

They are as bad as each other. Both too stubborn for the country to move forward. Its long been said that they were alike in this respect, but having it put to the test about which is more stubborn has the potential to destory the country in the process.

In addition to this, Leadsom has removed all other Brexit related HoC business from the schedule until after the 29th January. This is a blantant attempt to try and stop backbenchers having the opportunity to table pesky amendments which the government don't like.

The 29th January is due to be the Meaningless Vote II. Given that May has made it clear that in her head 'compromise' means 'do exactly what I want and capitulate' it looks like the Withdrawal Agreement will be represented to parliament to vote on with little change. Perhaps with a few amendments there designed to attract support, though it remains to be seen where this support will come from given the spectulator level of the rejection the HoC gave it. May's Plan is literally to run the clock down and hold a gun of no deal to the head of remain leaning MPs or to scare Brexiteers by suggesting that she might revoke or there might be an extension.

Its beyond farce.

Of course the role of the Speaker becomes paramount.

Technically speaking no bill can be presented to the HoC twice in the same parliament. Its against the rules. So how is May going to get around this, and will the Speaker indeed allow it?

The Speaker may also try and help backbenchers out by allowing amendments and motions to be tabled outside the normal rules. Normally the government alone control the majority of parliamentary time, with the opposition parties being given so many debates depending on whether they are the official opposition and then according to their size. Backbenchers don't tend to get much parliamentary time. However the Speaker's actions last week showed he was willing to be creative and bend the rules to allow backbenchers more influence and power than under normal circumstances because of the way that the Executive was trying to frustrate the house. So not timetabling any further Brexit Business between now and the 29th January seems a sure fire way to have the Government straight on course for another run in with Bercow.

So what next:

Do not forget that whatever happens May has to agree to it, or we go to no deal. Whether that be a 2nd Ref, Revoking, Staying in the Customs Union, Norway + or Any Other Alternative May has to agree to it on some level.

Backbenchers can table amendments all day long to 'guide' or put pressure on May but they may not be able stop her ultimately. Boles, Grieve, Benn and Cooper seem to be the ones to watch.

So May's stubborness is the biggest barrier and issue there is to preventing No Deal.

Corbyn, whilst he might well be very right to avoid getting sucked into May's trap, isn't helping matters with his own stubborness. His priority is party politics and stopping the Labour Party from splitting. Not solving Brexit.

There is not a shread of pragmatism nor thought for the national interest between them. Party before Country.

So we are to go through all of the last week, possibly with another vote of no confidence thrown in for good measure in another 12 days.

Won't that be fun?

I know of a UKIP councillor who has convictions for race hatred related crimes.
He is ex BNP and has been featured in the Daily Heil.
But the kippers are quite happy to have him under their banner.

Taikinpeace another bad egg? My, my what a surprise.

See my shock

Its almost as if ukip attract bag eggs. I said almost. I have not said ukip was built with majority bad eggs. No I didn't say that.

DG I cannot imagine that the EU would dare to unilaterally pause A50

They have already gone as far as they can by saying they would extend for a GE, a PV and would be open to a request for any reason

Any further than this and they would be roundly condemned for interfering
and Leave support could actually rise

Note - Leaver sensitivity to "foreigners interfering" is very selective:

They don't object to Trump condemning May's WA and telling us it makes a US deal impossible
whereas there were furious headlines when Obama merely said the UK would be at the back of the queue

(we seem to be at the back of the queue for most of the world, looking at how negotiations with the EU have been prioritised over those with the UK by India, Australia, Japan ..... )

Bag eggs? Lol. Bad eggs*

btw, I hated the FPTA from the start
and was as furious with the LDems for bringing this in as mother is with them over student loan increases.

I didn't need a crystal ball to realise that it is a terrible, undemocratic idea to make it more difficult to remove a bad / disfunctional / zombie government
AND - even more important -
to enable the consequent complacence of this zombie govt

I certainly don't want a GE, but
^May's complacence that her govt can stay until at least Brexit is bad for politics
and removes pressure on her and her party to drop red lines and shift position^

fffs, FTPA

DG I cannot imagine that the EU would dare to unilaterally pause A50

Extraordinary thinking ?

Do you think May would dare to dissolve parliament to force no deal through ?

I loved this from Fintan O'Toole:

"If the choice between shooting oneself in the head or in the foot is the answer to Britain’s long-term problems, surely the wrong question is being asked"

DG There is a difference between what the EU considers acceptable, taking all members and interests into account

• and remember it does do "considering" -

and what a rificulously stubborn PM will do, when she has always put party before country.

People with ethics have more boundaries
Those without shame have none that involve ethics

I've admitted it before, and will happily admit it again .... at the time I supported the FTPA and completely discounted the warnings it could lead to where we are today as "project fear".

I might leave my brain to science, so they can compare with a Brexiteers (if they can find it) to see what the difference is.

Maybe there's a macho thing about not admitting error ?

re not being able to keep up with how Leave "change:

red is correct that Leave have not changed in the sense of always wanting Leave

However, their claimed benefits / acceptable price is always expanding ....

The Brexit Overton Window

The political pro-ana version of “taking back control”, descending into a worsening spiral:

2016:
sunlit uplands, 350 million for the NHS

changed in 2017 to
"we've survived a lot worse"

and early 2018 to
(DD) “won’t be as bad as a Mad Max dystopia“
“we thrived on rationing in the war”
"it'll help the obesity crisis"

2018 / 2019:
Emergency govt planning for troops, essential medicines, food supplies ...

Prospects after No Deal

2019:
Carney / BoE economicpredictions happen: 8% drop in GDP, Sterling crashes, house prices crash, food prices rise, unempoyment spikes ...
Widespread civil disorder

Govt 2020 ?
"Brexit has not resulted in an increase in cannibalism."

DG You admit error
(which I find very appealing in a bloke !)

It is human to err,
We ALL do it. Frequently

To learn from mistakes - to help avoid repeating them - we first have to admit they were mistakes.

So you are doing vastly better than most folk.

Brexiter Frank Field, Former Labour MP, now Independent, has tabled a motion for Monday
demanding "indicative votes" on 7 possible courses of action:

Rewind slightly as I have accidentally been working.
I was banned from MN some time ago. I was asking open questions about NI as I had already stated I did not know much of the 'ins and outs' of the situation. I knew it was 'touchy'. I was hoping that through discussion others would learn a bit about the various tensions.
Apparently it was 'numerous complaints'. Interesting that others asking pointed questions remained.
I feel there are new moderators around as some things have disappeared very fast in the last week.

Pudding is served

PerverseConverse
Very envious. Roll on teleporting food over the internet!

This by Siegfried Sassoon was in my O level poetry book and my English teacher was very keen on it, possibly because it’s short and easy to learn (there was always a question where you had to remember and write about one of the poems).
I wasn’t so taken by it at the time - it’s about the end of WW1 - but being older now and with some life experience I think it describes the feeling of extreme relief after an awful time very well.
Later I appreciated Sassoon’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer very much.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57253/everyone-sang

Oooh Mrsr what did happen in the summer of '87?

Did anyone hear the phone in on R4 today, it might have been the answers as previouslyposted (?). A caller called in saying the yellow vests would accept nothing other than a no deal, that the gillets jaunes want to leave EU and something else...? Am I confused, but aren't gillets jaunes socialists against taxes rather than anything else? I'm always baffled when far rights take it as their own, especially as its airport from France! . Thugs will be thugs I suspect, whatever excuse they get.

Trying to untangle my understanding:

1. TM persuaded her party to vote for confidence in her leadership by saying she wouldn’t lead them into the next election.

1. Number 10 have said that even if an extension to Article 50 is offered, it will be refused.

1. Now it appears that we are heading for another snap election - less than 2 years after the last one (‘cos democracy ‘n stuff), even though it is apparently undemocratic to hold a second ref nearly three years after the last one.

1. As others have pointed out on this thread, this means Parliament would stop Parliamentary business for a significant amount of time - taking us uncomfortably close to the cliff edge of no deal.

1. If TM holds true to her word (IF!), I’m guessing one of the hard brexiteers (or, as I like to call them, lemmings) will end up as Tory party leader? Oh dear...

1. Or - I suppose it is entirely possible that TM could decide that it is in the ‘national interest’ to lead the Tories in a snap GE, because - in her mind - she must see Brexit through ‘cos ‘will of da peeepul’. Double oh dear...

1. You couldn’t make this shit up.

1. My head hurts.

{A caller called in saying the yellow vests would accept nothing other than a no deal,}
And no hint of a French accent. An imposter me thinks.

Loving the peotry. Actually, the Fintan O'Toole book talks a lot about the Charge of the Light Brigade and it always reminds me of N. Molesworth's incomparable reading: ^harfleag harfleag harfleag onward', which I loved as a child

Apologies to anyone who has no clue what I'm blathering about.

Just back from a food-bank collection at a local supermarket. Lots of people being very generous, which is fab. And also, interestingly, lots of comments from the public about 'the mess we're in', comments on the empty shelves and even a tentative conversation about stockpiling among the volunteers. Strange days indeed.