Westminstenders: Waiting for a Valentines Miracle

[RedToothBrush]

Guess what folks, we get to do it all over again for Valentine's Day!

Bet you are all looking forward to that.

May has already been told by the EU its a non-starter, and with there being a vote scheduled again in a fortnight, there is little incentive for the EU to shift. And every incentive to just let us stew and think things over.

We are trying to renege on what we signed up to with the Withdrawal Agreement. Which only proves the EU needs the Backstop. Our credibility as a nation to do deals with is shot through the floor. With everyone but those who think they can stitch us up at least.

There is one key development with the latest vote:

The emergence of a new Brexit voting block within Labour, I believe led by Carole Flint. They are supporting Brexit and are prepared to vote with the government and against the Labour Whip.

This negates the Tory Rebel block, meaning May has a majority if she has the ERG on board - this being a big if, of course.

Many other potential rebels who threatened to quit from government, were detered from doing so by a promise from May and the promise that they had another show down on the 14th they could use to block No Deal.

In not quiting they are showing they are committed to some deal brokered by May and not an alternative by Parliament. This is important. There may be no realistic opportunity for anything else to be realistically be tabled by anyone else now.

I don't think they will quit now, if they can see a potential deal present itself.

The way forward now looks to be the Withdrawal Agreement or No Deal only. Keep this in mind and in focus. This will become an increasing pressure and increasingly definitive. Revoke is still on the table, but I just can't see May doing it. Ever.

Whether May can get the EU to back down on the backstop seems unlikely. Its going to be more backwards and forwards on it. Before it becomes obvious its going nowhere. Its just theatre.

What the ERG do next is important. My best guess is they will split into No Deal Hardliners and last minute WA Compromisers. This will leave May short of a majority, but not as far as she has been especially with Labour resolve weakening. I think she may yet get her deal over the line with Labour support of some sort. Probably unofficial rather than direct from public instruction the front bench.

Here's the logic: Corbyn has said he will now discuss matter with her. He still wants to pin Brexit on her and destroy her, but he still wants Brexit and he still wants to keep the Labour Party together despite its differences over Brexit. All without making a clear Labour policy. How does he do this?

The same way he handled the Immigration Bill is possibly the best guess. Plus how can he stop his rebels...? {innocent face emojy} He gets to look tough against May outwardly and make lots of Remainy noises without more outward support for a particular policy. Those awful stupid Northerner MP (or MPs from backward towns if you live in the Metropolian North) who know nothing and screwed Remainia. It plays people off along splits in society, in the hope they don't notice Corbyn really orchestrated it. His MPs in leave areas get to look Leave without consequence, and if it all goes wrong he still get to pin it on May. Thus saving his marginals in both the North and the South 'cos those evil Tories'. And he does stop No Deal in the process. Yes, call me cynical, but thats how he could try and game it. Ultimately Corbyn and May do have certain aligned mutual interests, afterall.

And given there are few alternatives now there apart from Revoke or No Deal, once you think it through doesn't seem as far fetched as it initally sounds. Corbyn certainly seems to have form for it. His priorities are his Party, managing his north / south cultural divide and being seen to kick the Tories.

It'll go to the wire whatever happens, and its hard to see many ways out of this now. We are running out of time, opportunities and options. Of course, this works for May and has been her plan for some time. The question is merely, if she is serious about preventing no deal (and I believe she is) how she persuades either the ERG or Labour to back her.

Afterall, after the WA is done and dusted there is still everything to play for.

The EU aren't planning on chucking UK citizens out

The reverse of which hasn't been ruled out.

DGR that's terrifying! Can you elaborate on the knock on effects other than credit?I guess cash in the house is a wise precaution?

@SusanWalker @PerverseConverse

The roll out of Universal Credit has been rolled out but nothing to do with Brexit asaik www.ft.com/content/90a8148e-11be-11e9-a581-4ff78404524e

Re benefits post Brexit: there will be huge question marks as to the rights of EU citizens (bar for the Irish who are treated exactly as British citizens for benefits purposes) in the event of No Deal. No one at the DWP knows what rules will apply, we keep asking and they keep giving no answer. If there is a deal then the settled status kicks in which, we think, will be equivalent to permanent residence. In any event, there won't be any changes to welfare benefits for British nationals as a direct result of Brexit whatever the outcome. HTH.

The roll out of UC has been delayed rather

Susan for you and ds.

This is what the City of London Police consider to be a trauma pack
www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/protecting-business/Documents/ETP-contents.pdf

Reassuring to know what might be needed

Latest from Peston:

"With less than two months remaining before the official moment of Brexit, some of us are feeling a bit emotional, given how little we yet know about whether there will be an abrupt rupture without a deal, or a consensual formation of a new partnership, or a delay, or even a cancellation.

Which is probably why I attributed Churchillian rhetorical power to this contribution to my show last night from the business secretary, Greg Clark, who is not normally regarded as one of the world's great orators:

"Part of our national reputation is that at times of great difficulty for this country, Parliament has come together. Internationally, the reputation for stability of this country for a pragmatic approach to policy is one of our core strengths. It’s recognised around the world, and I think now’s the time to play that card.”

OK, it's true. I am going a bit soft in the head - because I hate this cancerous uncertainty.

So it was the substance of the arguments made by Clark and my other guests - Labour frontbencher Jon Trickett, plus his backbench colleagues Lisa Nandy and Peter Kyle, and the Tories Sir Oliver Letwin and Nadine Dorries - that mattered more.

The significance of Clark's emphasis on this country's reputation for shrewd pragmatism, and eschewing of divisive ideology, is that he is saying that it is time for the Prime Minister to surrender some of her Brexit red lines so that she can put a plan to parliament that would - in his words - command a "substantial majority".

Strikingly Nandy said even more explicitly that it was time for Corbyn and Labour to abandon their red lines and strike a Brexit compromise with the government.

And what Trickett said - about Labour's openness to negotiations on safeguarding and enhancing workers' right, which Clark is leading for the government - reinforced my view that in both parties there are prominent figures who are open to putting nation before faction in belatedly trying to sort out this Brexit mess.

But on what core would a cross-party compromise rest?

Well it was clear last night - and with my hourly conversations with MPs from all side - that it would include permanent membership of the customs union.

And when I put this Clark, he was not dismissive:

"I think it’s reasonable going into discussions to listen to people’s views and to see where the majority is in the House of Commons".

There is only one problem.

The prime minister has been redoubling her rhetoric against customs-union membership, and although there has been a theoretical route for her to fashion a vote-winning, customs-union-based Brexit deal, she is now on a mission to Brussels to obliterate that route.

The point is that, for the EU, the backstop - which includes customs-union membership for the whole UK as one of the temporary devices to keep open the border on the island of Ireland - was always seen as a possible bridge to permanent customs-union membership.

But in underwriting the Brady amendment that calls for the backstop to be replaced by unspecified "alternative arrangements" she is explicitly blowing up that bridge.

Why?

Because the ERG Brexiter minority in her party will never be reconciled to membership of the customs union.

Even Nadine Dorries - who these days is an ERG wet, and is rather scathing of the Brexiter ultras - said last night she would rather have an abrupt no-deal Brexit in preference to a softer customs-union based one.

So the PM has calculated that the customs-union-based Brexit deal that would win a cross-party majority in the Commons would lead to the break up of her party - and she has decided not to risk the fission of the party that is her home.

But this may be a dangerous miscalculation, and not only because Sir Oliver Letwin may have been correct last night that her attempt to follow the Brady bunch and scrap the backstop is likely to precipitate a no-deal Brexit that he thinks would wreak havoc for the country and eviscerate support for the Tory Party.

It may also achieve precisely the opposite of her primary aim, namely maintaining the unity and integrity of the Tory party - because in keeping the Brexiter ultras on board, she may provoke many tens of centreground Tory MPs into open insurrection."

Part of our national reputation is that at times of great difficulty for this country, Parliament has come together. Internationally, the reputation for stability of this country for a pragmatic approach to policy is one of our core strengths. It’s recognised around the world, and I think now’s the time to play that card.” This makes so much sense. It's time for them all to let go of all their fucking red lines.

It may also achieve precisely the opposite of her primary aim, namely maintaining the unity and integrity of the Tory party - because in keeping the Brexiter ultras on board, she may provoke many tens of centreground Tory MPs into open insurrection

Here's hoping. Prioritising the Tory party over the national interest is unforgivable. I'd like to see that shambolic lot implode and explode and splatter to the four winds.

Just gauging people's feelings on the thread....what is your opinion on % likelihood of no deal now?

See the cash bungs to coalfield communities tactic now being rolled out to secure May’s deal.
Any Labour MP that consorts with the Party that decimated the communities they represent should hang their heads in shame. They will be guilty of conduct that in my mind would render them far more eligible for deselection than their peers who voted against their Leave constituencies preference.

Oh and school meals also to be reviewed post Brexit.

It makes my blood run cold that this government really will stop at nothing.

she may provoke many tens of centreground Tory MPs into open insurrection

Like that's ever going to happen.

I think it’s 70/30
no deal / Brexit.

I personally think less likely because of the success of the non-Binding Spelman amendment.
I think TM will come back with nothing and all the cowards will have to put their grown up pants on and vote for WA if they want to leave.

I think I've dropped to 50% on the basis that even if nothing changes there will be sufficient numbers of MPs that will do anything to reject no deal when it comes down the line....accept the Cooper amendment second time around, accept the WA with or without changes, etc.

DGR that's terrifying! Can you elaborate on the knock on effects other than credit?I guess cash in the house is a wise precaution?

All I know is that credit (and other) rating factors are baked into a lot of fintech systems. One of my last projects was connecting all of that goodiness into quote engines for insurers. By the time it arrived at our end (via Equifax, Experian or LexisNexis) we had no idea where or how the sources had been aggregated. All of those operate in the UK under the assumption that the UK is an EU member. The data itself should be covered by the ICO being accepted as a guarantor or EU data privacy standards (including GDPR). But the contracts under which the data is provider may not be operable. At worst that would see a plug pulled, at best it would lead to all sorts of restrictions.

I tend to catastrophise so might be unduly pessimistic. But the sheer complexity of modern IT systems - which is several orders of magnitude more than it was in 1999 (by the way ) means it's best to think the worst.

Remember how bad things were when just one UK bank went titsup for a few days. Imagine all of them having similar problems at the same time ....

DGR Christ The analogy about attempting to remove eggs from an omelette mixture springs to mind...

The Tory MPs she’s pandering to May become less significant given her overtures today, She will not be able to appease them and it’s my view that she is just ricocheting hopelessly between Brussels and the domestic intransigent element. I think she’s quite happy with this.

May is a fool is she believes the ERG will capitulate at the last minute.
The fact she’s now shaking the magic money tree for carefully selected Labour MPs is an indication she isn’t quite that stupid.

In this sense May is the ideal person to have at the helm of the Tory party since now is not the time for nerves of steel and leadership it is the time for nerves of steel and no conscience.

The Patriotic True BeLeaver religion ramps up a notch: now The Queen is a traitor:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/31/ukip-leader-gerard-batten-asks-queen-to-suspend-parliament-to-thwart-remain-mps

Everytime I think Leavers can't get any more batshit, they prove me wrong. Hopefully this bodes well for Brexitannia; I think Brexit is batshit, so maybe they'll prove me wrong here too

The great thing about the Queen is that she believes in parliamentary democracy and will politely ignore that shit.

Perhaps the queen likes being an EU citizen. What with being married to a greek and having german heritage herself.

From the guardian:

Labour MP Jess Phillips takes aim at politicians considering imposing a £30,000 pay threshold for EU workers to be considered skilled, saying: 'I have met many people who earn way more than £30,000 and have literally no discernible skills, not even one.' The MP for Birmingham Yardley says the post-Brexit immigration proposal was 'insulting' to the care workers, nurses and teachers who live in her electorate. 'I have definitely met some very rich people who earn huge amounts of money who I wouldn’t let hold my pint if I had to go and vote while in the bar,' she says.

The analogy about attempting to remove eggs from an omelette mixture springs to mind...

Leading back to the "trying to get eggs out of the cake" analogy that was doing the rounds a while back.

While I'm musing over data, I'm wondering how many systems have been "improved" so that missing data doesn't cause any wobbles ?

I've seen many really shit bugfixes (especially from overseas software houses) where the instruction "fix this error" get's translated into "when that error happens, hide the message".[1]

Again in a world where everything is interconnected, blank gaps in a database might not immediately throw an error until someone needs to do some reporting or go back and make amendments (at which point the data might be lost forever).

[1] I once saw a developer "solve" a problem where a piece of code was trying to cram an alpha into a numeric database field. Rather than locate the source of the error (which would also have had some associated logic errors) they simply changed the database field tyoe to "text" (don't get me started). Error went away - everyone happy. Until the end of month summary report crashed. At which point the horror of the "fix" emerged in that the original data was long gone.

The Patriotic True BeLeaver religion ramps up a notch: now The Queen is a traitor:

if you search back a few weeks, you'll see I predicted the loopy Brexiteers would actually call the Queen a traitor.

As I said, I wish I could bet on this shit.