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 weren't going to give in anyway, but yesterday's shenanigans made it pointless for them to do so anyway.
^
-^ the ERG didn't stay bought more than a few hours after May's capitulation on Brady

As soon as May refused to let them shove Ollie Robbins aside, they said they wouldn't support what they just agreed to.
Seems to be a Tory habit
^
Tom Newton Dunnnn@tnewtondunn*n

“Some of the ERG are now saying their vote means nothing and that whatever changes she gets, they won’t vote for the amended deal.
Who knew??”... senior Tory minister.

The truce is over.

I'm a grandchild of Victorians as well. One GP was dead before I was born but was born in the mid 1880s. Generation gaps are big when you're the youngest of the youngest etc.

GCs of Victorians and all Remainers 🙂

That's it Elements at each iteration things that were previously acceptable now become betrayal.

This operates at both international, Westminster and person in the street level. It's so weird... there can be no agreement because what is acceptable shifts over a very short period.

Yet Another example of the incompetent Home Office and its "hostile environment" making things hostile even for people who have the right to be here

....what are the odds on them getting it right when they have to deal with all the EU residents with the right to be here - especially when they try to outsource the onus for their complicated hostile environment

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-man-rent-property-home-office-right-to-rent-hostile-environment-homeless-a8754216.html?utmmedium=Social&utmsource=Facebook#Echobox=1548861217

Brexit gridlock could force Kent NHS staff to sleep in hospitals

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/31/brexit-traffic-chaos-could-force-kent-nhs-staff-to-sleep-in-hospitals

The trust is worried that it may also have to call in voluntary groups to help it care for and transport patients,
and ask staff to work at the trust facility nearest their home rather than their usual place of work.

It is also facing the possibility of having to rely on unspecified “alternative methods of communication” 🦅
and “alternative methods of travel” 🐢🛸

if it proves difficult to get around Kentt^ after 29 March.

Brexit gridlock could force Kent NHS staff to sleep in hospitals

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/31/brexit-traffic-chaos-could-force-kent-nhs-staff-to-sleep-in-hospitals

The trust is worried that it may also have to call in voluntary groups to help it care for and transport patients,
and ask staff to work at the trust facility nearest their home rather than their usual place of work.

It is also facing the possibility of having to rely on unspecified “alternative methods of communication” 🦅
and “alternative methods of travel” 🐢🛸

if it proves difficult to get around Kent after 29 March.

Another remainer GC of Victorians. Mine were all born between 1869 and 1883. My great- grandfather was born before the reign of Queen Victoria (and had 19 children).

My grandparents were all born around the First World War years. One side all lived in a small cluster of towns/villages on the Surrey/Sussex/Hants border and seem to have been there quite some time. The other side moved around what is now the Limburg area of both The Netherlands and Belgium - brief forays into Germany. Unfortunately, despite having a foreign mother, I don’t qualify for that nationality.

Morning!Catching up all the time as i'm planning my escape most minutes of the day. It's expensive and tight on timings but worth it.

Was thinking yesterday how the Tories will never the the party for business again. They will go down in history as being responsible for the biggest loss of business in our entire history. No mean feat!

I'm still confused, has no one told the govt EU needs to agree any extension?

Plus, I keep seeing British journo's asking Germans about their car manufacturing. Don't they realise any car companies left here will go to Germany in a matter of weeks? I think we have managed to buffer the effect on the EU remarkably and seemingly unintentionally...(as we wander into No Deal).

Good morning from (slightly) warmer climes - getting in my European breaks when I can. Once I would have left electronic devices behind and ignored news so no longer.
I was born to older parents, (the war and multiple miscarriages will do that) and my pgf was able to earn a Royal Humane Society medal for rescuing someone from drowning in the Thames in 1896, when he was 26. At that time the Irish/Scottish family was living in London, within ten years gf was back in the North, and died of an industrial lung disease in 1915, when df was 3.

Another Remain voter with Victorian grandparents. Dad (son of refugees) served in the war.

My grandparents were WW1 era but great grandparents were Victorian. My great-grandmother was Indian and divorced when she married my great-grandfather. Apparently it was quite the scandal at the time.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-labour-infighting-support-may-deal-opposition-a8757046.html

Abstaining and voting against the whip Labour MPs branded cowards and unforgivable.

Sounds as if some labour MPs are doing their own versions of the DUP deal with the conservatives, cash for their areas in return for votes. Thats not dodgey at all that...

Good morning and

David Phinnemore @Dphinnemore
'Few Whitehall officials believe a second meaningful vote will happen on February 14. “There is a chance of movement from the EU [in the talks about the Irish backstop] but, if it comes, it will happen later than that,” said one official'

www.ft.com/content/484b050c-2578-11e9-8ce6-5db4543da632?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8

Another Remainer with Victorian grandparents, but not surprising since I am in my sixties.

Was thinking yesterday how the Tories will never the the party for business again. They will go down in history as being responsible for the biggest loss of business in our entire history. No mean feat!

We can but live in hope, but the Tories have a way of passing the buck. They will blame everyone else for as long as they can, so it will be the EU's fault for not accommodating us. However, this will wear thin - in the same way that Austerity was all Labour's fault, that was OK for 3 to 4 years after 2010, but after that people began to ask why nothing had been done. So the lazy excuse that it's all the EU's fault about fishing, laws, whatever the latest Leaver gripe is, won't be able to be laid at the EU's door.

I think the real thing the Tories won't be forgiven for, or won't be able to pass the buck on, is if they break the NHS. Now personally I think it does need reform and we need a debate about how and what we pay for and combine this will social care, but this debate isn't happening in any meaningful way. I think that also is about the one area Leavers and Remainers could unite around, so May, if you want to bring the country together, pause A50 and start there. (Except you don't, do you Mrs May, it's Tory party first and last with you, and you are too blinkered to see that this is not synonymous with the good of the country.)

If one in three firms close or re-locate then the NHS will struggle to survive. I don't think people voted for the NHS to go under.

I hope common sense prevails but watching my wider family I'm not sure it will as Brexit is like a religious cult.

It has long been Tory policy to destroy the NHS.

Im confused as to why this confuses people?

Feeling very low about it all again this morning.

There may well be no appetite for no deal in the HofC but there is obv also no appetite to prevent it.

Running down the clock.

May's deal or no deal.

We called it on this thread months ago.

Again, I'm confused that people are confused by this. Its always been TMs plan.

I'm just not sure atm how long she will stay after B day and who will replace her... pondering on it leads to dark thoughts and I have enough of those already :(

I’m just disappointed that it’s taking so long for Lab and Cons to fall apart. Best case scenario in my book, vote in Feb goes overwhelmingly for WA so as to avoid no deal and give business some scraps of reassurance. Conditions of WA give some breathing space for sensible people in Parliament to sort out way forward that minimises destruction of economy and civil society. Headbangers on both sides give up, stand down, are deselected, kidnapped by aliens or whatever removes them permanently from public life. We all live as happily as poss ever after.

I agree @borntobequiet

Interesting thread here, from a trustworthy source.
Some unusual types hanging round parliament these days.
twitter.com/NoIAmTonyGreen

Another remainer of Victorian grandparents. In my 50s