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.

Jack Maidment
‏*@jrmaidment*
Anna Soubry, Sir Oliver Letwin, Justine Greening and Heidi Allen all arrive at PMQs together, five minutes late. No sign of Dominic Grieve.

Laura Kuenssberg
‏*@bbclaurak*
Corbyn meeting May at 3pm in Commons

BigChoc I’m a bit more hopeful than you about a May revoke.

She gives precisely zero fucks about what people think of her, including death threats etc but does care about the future of the Tory party.

She knows no political party could survive delivering ND and it would permanently sever the Conservative’s reputation as the party of business, the economy and cold hard realpolitik.

I think she’ll push to the wire to get her deal through (best chance of holding country and party together) but if she fails, I think she’ll revoke at the 11th hour.

May knows the EU won't budge, but she has to go through the motions

She'll bring the WA back again, with probably some tweaks to the PD, but the WA backstop unchanged.

If the HoC reject the WA again, then she will have managed to put the blame of No Deal firmly on them, not her
and will probably think she has done her duty as best she can

PMs do tend to worry about this writeup in the history books and imo she'll go down as a second-rater who inherited a terrible situation and tried her best
That's far more than she deserves, because she always put party before country and caved in to the batshit rightwing.

I would be astonished if she Revokes rather than No Deal, because that would tear apart the Tory party
She'd rather the country go down the toilet than the Tory Party
(if that 1% chance does happen, I'll have to apologise to her on these threads !)

DG I posted last thread how the New IRA are reportedly planning almost daily attacks after 29 March So no, they aren't more nuanced now.

Say one thing, do another doesn't seem to have done much harm for one side in this shitfest. It would be remarkable if it wasn't employed by the other.

All that would surprise me is if they didn't notice / have forgotten that it was bombing a few high value buildings in the City that brought the UK govt to its knees, not bombing and shooting some poor sods out shopping

Be curious to know how many warnings the UK government chose to ignore in the 70s and 80s. I'm suspecting it's a non-zero number, and it's one of the reasons the pIRA realised that the terror tactic against civilians was a lost cause. Not because they were squeamish, but because it was a waste of resources and eventually was perceived to act against the political aim.

That said, an unstable political situation brings all sorts out of the woodwork, and one thing I can guarantee, is that most people have forgotten the alphabet soup that defined NI politics in the 70s and 80s.

Just musing idly, but maybe one angle to address the backstop would be to connect it to a unification referendum as a way out. But again, we return to the weird cosmic irony that delivered up the DUP as the answer to Theresa Mays prayers. God that woman really is thick ... the old joke about the lifeboat, the raft, the ship and the helicopter was never more illustrative.

I don’t often post on these threads but do read them all the time.

Wtf has got hold of our country? It seems we are stuck in some hideous extreme right wing nightmare of inertia.

I lived through the Thatcher years. She created a horrible divisive selfish society. Evil evil woman.

But she was nothing compared to these Victorian, punitive, backward looking idiots.

Gammon rules it seems🍖☹️

I don’t think revoking at the very end would tear apart the Tory party.

There is a majority against ND in the party itself, it’s only the hardest brexiteers plus DUP objection to the backstop that she needs to keep in harness till ahe’s Driven the deal through the gates.

Once the gates are slammed shut and she revokes, she’ll probably only lose 10 to 15 MPs (if they decide to splinter off and create a separate party).

I have received my copy of the Wetherspoons news (?) / magazine (?) in the post. Is this just sheer political advertising?
How did you say we can send it back?

Place marking

sleight I hope that if there is No Deal the Tory Party are wiped out and replaced by a completely new party of the centre Right
That would be deserved punishment, but more importantly remove what has proved to be the rabid dog in British politics.

However, with Labour being so useless, the Tories could struggle along in govt for years.

There's a good chance that a mostly united Tory party would win the next GE,
then continue to win, as voters don't apparently understand cause and effect

May knows a Tory civil war could end them - it's something that really repels voters and the war might never end
So she totally buggered up Brexit negotiations for the country, just to avoid that.

The important thing is that May believes Revoke would tear apart the Tories
So far, she has always put avoiding serious damage to the Tory party above the national interest
Also, the ERG have convinced her they'd tear down their own govt if they don't get the Brexit they want^

So, a last minute Revoke to save the country is v v unlikely
Remember, she probably believes the Tory party is essential to the country anyway

ElenadeClermont I returned my copy to

J D Wetherspoon PLC
Wetherspoon House
Central Park
Reeds Crescent
WATFORD WD24 4QL

Don't put a stamp on it.

(I may have covered it in post-its telling bollock-face Tim to pay his workers a fair wage and to fuck off with his right wing Breity wank)

Exactly BigChoc, what DG aptly called the cosmic irony of the DUP situation also applies to the disastrous opposition.
There are a hundred and one senior labour politicians who could have saved us from this mess but we’re stuck with the magic backbench grandpa.

My dishcloth would have made a better fist of handing the tories their arses. Now we’re stuck with them, and whatever mendacious, selfserving loon the membership replace May with to bugger up the WA.

In my reckoning, Revoke would have to be coupled with resignation and a General Election. Basically the very last thing Theresa May did.

I have no idea about the timescales of the Tories choosing a new leader (or leaders ) within the run up to an election though. Especially as Labour might want a rethink too.

How did you say we can send it back?

Is it an urban myth that you can send stuff back to a Freepost address (like, say UKIP HQ) and they have to pay? How about if I send something like that Freepost, wrapped around a 5kg sack of kitty litter? Do they have to pay that?

Could someone explain to me why no deal is an option at all since the EU has made it clear that it will require a hard border in Ireland? Surely that's not an acceptable option?
Thanks

Sleight of Mind

"While the EEG are no fan of workers rights, I think it’s a minor issue for them compared to getting out before full implementation of new EU tax regulations (begun on the first of this month, supposed to be in force by Jan1 2020) and getting out of any customs union or regulatory parity, so they can throw out standards that impede free trade."

I think this is what the ERG and its acolytes have been focusing on for some time. There does seem to be some doubt as to when it comes into effect. Ernst & Young say:

Although the UK
is scheduled to leave the EU on 29 March 2019 and the Withdrawal Agreement
has not yet been finalized, it is expected that the UK will need to comply with
the ATAD requirements at least throughout any transition period agreed.
Consequently, the UK is proposing to implement any changes that would be
required to be brought in by the ATAD by 1 January 2019 (when the UK will
still be within the EU) or 1 January 2020 (which is expected to be within the
transition period).

The EU website says:

Member States should apply these measures as from 1 January 2019.

Yougov website:

The Directive comes into force with effect from 1 January 2019.

So have we actually applied these measures or has it been put off until 2020 (so the ERG hope it can be avoided)? I presume we'll still have to comply if the WA is accepted and the transition period is in place.

Haven't had chance to read it but here's the latest from Peston

www.facebook.com/1498276767163730/posts/2266593683665364/

Mother where was the Tory or Labour amendment for Remain ?
All those amendments and no MP even had the courage to propose Remain

That's not the govt preventing an amendment;
that's lack of support for Remain.

Remain is dead in the HoC
There will not be the votes before Brexit Day
Opinion won't change within a few weeks

In contrast, after a few years of WA transition (extended of course) public opinion may well change substantially.
Until the EU take back fast Track from the table, which they won't, it remains a possibility, although not a probability.

The aim MUST be to avoid No Deal
If we can avoid becoming a basket case, then all other possibilities remain open

But what l understand is:

If there is no majority for no deal in the house why didn’t Cooper’s amendment go through?😞🤷🏼‍♀️

That was the one chink of light in this cashm of hell

I just can't see May revoking for the reasons BigChoc says. May's obsession with protecting the Tory party has always been a short term rather than long term strategy. She is concerned with the immediate threat and has little regard to what damage might be done to the party in the long term by her actions (or we wouldn't be in this mess). Revoke is a threat to the party immediately whereas If it's an accidental fall out and the EU can be blamed for being intransigent, plus labour are still being total crap, than the Tories could very well hang on through the turmoil of no deal in my view. Unless they lose a no confidence vote there's still a while before the next GE and the Tories are slippery fuckers. From what I see of May I believe she would take "accidental" no deal over revoke anyday.

Easterly No Deal is legally the automatic default of Article 50 on 29 March 2019
unless the Uk specifically chooses something else.

The EU cannot legally stop the UK choosing No Deal
Noone can.
However, after a No Deal Brexit, the EU - and maybe other countries too - can refuse to negotiate any future relationship until the UK signs up to everything in the WA anyway.

I mean what l DON’T understand!

EMoji The amendment against No Deal was not legally binding, so more MPs plucked up courage to vote for it

The Cooper amendment was legally binding, so any Tory who voted for that would have had their career wrecked