Westminstenders: At the point of collapse?

[RedToothBrush]

May is in trouble. The Tory Party are in trouble.

Brexit is not in trouble, but we certainly are.

May's problem is she has no way forward.

One the one hand, the ERG will not accept anything to soften Brexit. That's an extension or Norway. Or a second ref. The story tonight emerging of Rees-Mogg as 'peacemaker' is quite the opposite. Its a thinly veiled threat saying if you do not please the ERG we will split and no longer support the PM. They will quiet simply threaten to collapse the government if May decides on that course. Their gamble will be that with the Tories ahead in the polls, they can get enough seats to enable no deal or cause enough chaos to cause accidental no deal. Thus forcing out One Nation Tories from the party.

One the other hand if May does not soften Brexit, rumour has it that 20 ministers including several cabinet, will walk. There is talk of cabinet ministers supporting a second ref and of others supporting Nick Boles proposals and demanding a free vote on the matter.

May on the other hand seemed determined to pursue plan A which is now plan B, in the form of the WA. In order to do this her plan was go for cross party talks and a compromise. The trouble is May doesn't understand what the word compromise means, because... Well see above about the two factions within the Tory Party presenting a bit of an issue to that. She felt the WA was the only way to stop the party split / stop the government collasping.

In addition to this we have Labour trying to avoid a split. Corbyn had his ridiculous starting point to cross party talks being completely impossible for May. You can't take no deal off the table if it is the table. Corbyn was essentially asking directly for a revocation or extension to A50 clause. May could not agree to that because... Well see above.

Corbyn is now talking about whipping against Grieve's amendment which sort to create a cross party consensus. Bizarrely grieves suggestion seemed to be for a minority rather than majority which rather undermined it, by Corbyn's real motivation is about his power, preventing a centre consensus and possible splits in the Labour Party.

Corbyn merely wants to be obstructive, and block everything now as he thinks May and the Conservative Party are doomed to fail and the government will fail. And arguably this is a good and sensible calculation as things stand.

May's next Meaningful vote is due on the 29th Jan. But 28th Feb is pencilled in for a general election. Meaning it would have to be called by Thursday this week.

Will it happen?

We find out, not on this thread, but the next one... Or maybe even the one after that!

PS there was a bomb in Londonderry. And there's talk of a bilateral treaty with Ireland (a euphemisms for renegotiating the GFA).

Brexit was always ultimately about NI.

I'd like the world to stop so the idiots can get off then we can carry on as normal.

I'm intrigued yet terrified as to what tomorrow will bring.

I don't understand the nuances and political language but think I've got all the salient points now as best I can on this crash course in politics I've been forced to take.

Thanks again to everyone on here who's helped with my education

Oh therewillbeadaquatefood some people and by people i mean now ghosted friend who voted leave are already pulling that one out.... bastards.

hazard honestly what the fuck is wrong with some people.

hazard

Oh good lord

You are better off without friends like that!!

I followed that Twitter link to the Telegraph and found this too www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/01/20/feeble-plots-wont-stop-brexit-destroying-public-trust-politicians/

Will someone please muzzle that conniving self-serving odious egomaniac?? You can't just ditch the backstop, and you are the one destroying faith in our politicians you utter prat

Alex Wickhamm@alexwickham*

“I hope this works. I fear for our party and our colleagues in marginal seats if it doesn’t.
She is spurning the remainers to work with us” - one ERG MP tonight
....
Told following May's talks with MPs last week
the No10 plan B is now to focus on finding a deal on the backstop that can unite Conservative MPs and the DUP
and that the PM has made clear she is opposed to the customs union demanded by Labour

That Telegraph headline is awful. That had better not be Plan B.

Of course businesses can cope with an extra tariff of 10%, it's easy, it comes out of the workers pay.
Perhaps they didn't see that coming?

Wtf GD12. It's got to be a joke? How the hell would she pull that off seeing as she can't make a unilateral decision on the GFA?? It's madness.

I've never known such madness in politics as this.

It appears plan B is to get the EU to ditch the backstop so the DUP and ERG back hep deal. It's doomed to failure and a disgrace.
twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1087068937941143554?s=19

People of Irish descent live all over the world, they are the biggest minority here.

If anyone starts a campaign group to fight against May attempting to destroy the GFA, please post details here.

The Irish Border@BorderIrish

When it’s Sunday evening, your homework’s due on Monday, and you’re going to do it on the bus in the morning
......
Paul Brand@PaulBrandITV

NEW: Cabinet spoke on phone this evening and PM said her plan remains to do ”something” * about the backstop but still no specific ideas*


May wants to amend the Good Friday Agreement

Is this genuine? Is this the Plan B? Was this why she had the lunch with the DUP?

Is there any chance it's a delaying tactic- ie EU please give us more time because we want to amend the GFA ? It might take years? The EU will take their lead from Ireland?

Has anyone posted the Sky poll up here?

Sample size 7834
Do you know what No Deal Brexit means?
Exit EU without agreement 63%
We stay in the EU 26%
No idea 4%
Nobody knows 7%

{People of Irish descent live all over the world, they are the biggest minority here.

If anyone starts a campaign group to fight against May attempting to destroy the GFA, please post details here.}
Well the rest of the EU would be against it, never mind anyone else.
A US president other than Trump would be against it too.

May is planning to go the the EU and shout louder in English that the backstop needs to be removed, because being foreigners they probably didn't quite understand last time. And everyone knows that shouting louder is the best way to deal with those pesky europeans.

twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1087106238700314625?s=19

Yep, May's plan B is alter the GFA. Dear God!

We stay in the EU 26%

That's a quarter. That's a lot.

We stay in the EU 26%

And that’s why we can’t rerun the referendum.

Please make this go away.

Sunday night

Plan B =Tearing up the GFA.

Over one quarter of the electorate think no deal means retaining membership.

We are so fucked.

SKy News seem to think the PM could get HoC to approve the WA if she changed the PD to permanent CU

However, that would split her party
and she'd rather destroy the country than that.

news.sky.com/story/brexit-pandoras-box-about-to-burst-open-11609342

Mrs May's team knows fully well that softening her Brexit by offering opposition MPs and the DUP concessions on the customs union could get a deal over the line,
but could prove fatal for her party and her government, provoking a perhaps terminal split in the Conservative party
and triggering a general election.

May wants to amend the Good Friday Agreement by Jan 29th!!!!

How the heck is she planning to do that?

Even the Telegraph themselves, in another article, are poking their fingers through the gaping holes in her new “plan” and laughing.

“Amending the Good Friday Agreement will never get EU approval
Theresa May’s latest ruse to finesse the issue of the Irish border flies in the face of both political and legal reality.
The plan, it is reported, is to “amend” the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in order make a new joint Anglo-Irish commitment that there will be no return to a hard border in Ireland and no infrastructure on that border in any eventuality.
It is argued that this, coupled with some new EU concessions time-limiting the backstop, will be enough get a decent slice of the 118 Tory and 10 DUP on board.
But the mere suggestion that a British government wants to ‘amend’ the Good Friday Agreement should set alarm bells ringing - imagine if Sinn Fein or the DUP were seeking to amend sections of the agreement on policing, say, or citizenship?
The Good Friday Agreement, which allows both nationalists and unionists to live indelicate parallel constitutional realities, is already rapidly corroding. Northern Irish politics are polarising, and the situation is being made worse by the bitter Brexit debate.
The idea that the British government, after what is happened in the last two years between London and Dublin, is in any position to be trusted to ‘amend’ that agreement in order to advance its Brexit agenda is extraordinary.
Consider the practicalities: to amend the Good Friday Agreement you need the consent of all the Northern Ireland political parties (whose power sharing executive has not sat since January 2017) and the Irish government.
Is Mrs May seriously considering convening cross-party talks in Northern Ireland to do this? It is a prospect so unlikely, that if you were cynical you would think that the Prime Minister is not serious, but just playing for time.

Then there is the legal rationale for the new ‘plan’, which is even more far-fetched than the political.
It appears to presume that the European Union would grant the Irish government the power to manage the trade issues on the Irish border unilaterally with the UK. That is never going to happen.
It would be legally difficult enough for the UK, as a non-EU state, to agree bilaterally with Ireland never to police the border, but for an EU state - which shares common tariffs and rules with 26 other states - it is simply for the birds.
The reason for the backstop is that Mrs May’s stated desire to leave the EU customs union and single market cannot obviously be squared with her December 2017 promise to avoid a return to a hard border while installing “no additional infrastructure” on that same border.
As they say in Brussels, when it comes to trade, customs and regulations, this is “not just Ireland’s border”, it is an EU external border (or will be after Brexit) and it is the EU that has the ‘competence’ to police it.
The idea that the other 26 EU member states and the European Commission will allow London and Dublin to simply codify a ‘no infrastructure’ agreement amongst themselves and then ‘drop the backstop’ is, to quote one senior EU official briefed on the idea, “insane”.
The cold reality is that Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement go together like oil and water - at the time the deal was put together, no-one envisaged that the UK or Ireland would leave the EU. It is still not clear how it can continue to work under those circumstances.
The idea of changing the Agreement to accommodate the new realities was being discussed early in the Brexit process in 2017, but it was dismissed “in about five minutes” according to a source with knowledge of those early discussions.
The fact that this non-starter of an idea is being resuscitated by the government at this late stage should, to put it kindly, fill no-one with confidence.”

We stay in the EU 26%

I think there is a good chance that some people didn't read the question. I don't think you can conclude that a quarter of people think no deal = remain.

She can't amend the GFA, let alone in that period of time. It's not even just the EU, wasn't the UN involved in brokering that?

She is seriously out of options. We are seriously out of options. Perhaps we should stop winding ourselves up on here about impossibilities and wait until we get some solid news on what she is actually proposing tomorrow.