Alex Wickham @alexwickham
NEW: People's Vote descends into splits and infighting over:
- strategy of how to achieve a second referendum
- when to table PV amendment
- campaign tactics and events
- whether PV should run the Remain campaign
- antics of its senior MPs and officials
Labour MPs increasingly turning against a People's Vote
- shadow ministers tell Corbyn they will not support PV
- several MPs agreed at PLP last night
- Lucy Powell: “We’ve passed peak People’s Vote... PV has put off colleagues, pushing people away"
People's Vote row over when to table the second ref amendment.
Philip Lee and Sarah Wollaston determined to proceed on Tuesday despite PV officials and other MPs telling them to delay.
They say going now is "stupid" and PV has "lost control of its MPs"
Chuka/Lee/Wollaston have been pushing to table the amendment at the earliest opportunity.
They were opposed by PV officials at a meeting in which "voices were raised".
PV strategists fear they will lose vote and want to "knock out" no-deal and EEA first
Another split is over whether PV should run the Remain campaign.
Some PV MPs and staff think they should.
But others say: “There is absolutely no way the Blairite faction can be allowed to run the campaign at a second referendum. We’d lose 70-30”
^More internal PV rows over
- Philip Lee's 'hubristic' campaign launch
- PV Labour MPs' public blunder last week
- attacks on Labour and Corbyn
- Chuka's centrist party plans
- Blair on broadcast
- Roland Rudd doing Today prog live from Davos
www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/the-campaign-for-a-peoples-vote-on-brexit-has-descended?__twitter_impression=true
The Campaign For A People's Vote On Brexit Has Descended Into Infighting And Splits
The Labour party is increasingly being turned off a second referendum because of the internal rows between leading Remainers, MPs have told BuzzFeed News.
I think there is a certain inevitability to this. Its a mirror to what Ronald Smith said about the history of eurosceptism and an inability of leave to find a plan or a workable way of leaving.
The inherit problem of the PV is its lack of stated goal. Like the leave campaign it takes you down the route of 'get a referendum, then what?'. It has not practical political solution, only an ideological opposition to something and a half baked plan to stop it, which really only has a common goal of another referendum (like leaves only unity was simply in its opposition to the EU and winning a referendum).
The number of divisive issues that a second ref through up: everything from what's on the ballot paper, who leads the campaign, the central message of the campaign is still totally up for debate. It suffers from not having an agreed leadership structure and figurehead. Leave always had Farage and Johnson even if it had an absence of an end point.
Interesting to see though.
That's the challenge for the centre ground to address politically more generally imo. Cos its sure as hell not being demonstrated by Vince and his yellow vests.