Westminstenders: The Rebellion

[RedToothBrush]

This week is the start of another big week. Touted (again) as high noon. However the end of February marks a watershed in many ways. Parliament simply can not kick the can further. Its last stand time.

Three Cabinet ministers are openly saying back Cooper-Boles. They are joined by other ministers and intend to vote for it regardless of the government position. And will break protocol by refusing to resign to do so. This leaves May with the option of accepting it or sacking them.

The breaking of collective responsibility would be a bit deal. But May can not easily sack them. She simply has so little power left.

These ministers are backed by up to 100 moderates too. And with the emergence of the TIGGERS the mood has changed with others emboldened in their rebellion and arguably more likely to go.

Meanwhile Corbyn is losing even more authority. In what looks like a last ditch attempt to retain remain support in the face of the TIGGERS whilst also leaving to the point where it is realistic, noises are being made that Labour are about to back a People's Vote. It sounds symbolic rather than meaningful in anyway.

The antisemitic row, however, seems to be engulfing the party even further with MPs seen as Jewish, or not loyal Corbynites subject to intense amounts of abuse for being diplomatic or sympathetic in the face of resignations. The spectacle of Labour infighting has been laid bare in a very public way and it doesn't look healthy and is swallowing all column inches over and above any policy regarding either austerity or Brexit.

What this means for votes this week is important. The power of the whip on both sides of the house is completely fractured. MPs are more likely to vote with conscience than party lines than previously.

Where this leads us is now wide open.

An extension now looks all but inevitable. But for how long, at what price and for what ends ultimately in terms of a deal or no deal.

This noise seems very much at odds with other voices.

The Government itself, however, still seems to be planning to get WA legislation through parliament at the last minute at the end of March. (This would also involve May using measures which break parliamentary constitutional arrangements). And prominent leavers are suggesting that an extention will just kill Brexit off completely.

A GE is also very much looming. The TIGGERS emergence is such a threat that both parties will now possibly want it sooner rather than later (for slightly differing reasons). They will not want them to become established or prepared for an election. But calling an election now closes parliament and enables no deal by default. A GE after an extension or Brexit is a different prospect too.

Things are likely to get very busy this week. Time to brace once again.

Well the Hart amendment looks like a ploy by May ( covertly) to derail Cooper-Boles amendment.

In fact, I don't think even before November last year that the EU had ruled out an extension.
It was more that they didn't want to provoke Brexiters by suggesting it

Mind you, a long extension has some of the disadvantages some disliked about the WA:

e.g. it extends the period of uncertainty, during which the UK will continue to lose investment, businesses & jobs to the EU

and the 5 million - the expats from both sides - will continue to have uncertainty,
unless that part of the deal is rolled into a separate treaty and dealt with asap, as proposed in one of the amendments that is said to have wide crossparty support

I'm one those 5 million. I don't care anymore. Either way I just want it to be over. I've been on anti anxiety medication since the fucking referendum. I just want to be able to sleep again.

I would hope that a 21 month extension with changing demographics would mean that Brexit got killed off. Then we might seriously begin to tackle the real problems the country is facing - broken housing, and schools and NHS being deliberately broken, for starters.

If it destroys the Tory party then it's a bonus.

May's statement is interesting: “But it’s still within our grasp to leave the EU by the 29 March, and that is what we are planning to do.”

I am planning to go on the march, but I cannot say 100% that I will “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.”

Re TIG leadership, I'm good friends with someone in the know who has told me with some confidence / authority why Chukka withdrew last time.
I find it hard to believe the UK public around ever vote for him if what she says is true. Though I, and probably many of you, wouldn't mind a bit
Obv not saying anything definite here but does anyone else think they know what the issues were?
Who else would be a good leader if not him?

I don't think the UK public is as homophobic as it used to be. Keir Starmer would be a good successor, not that I would welcome yet another leadership election.

This from new statesman back in the time of labour leadership election.....
But Umunna was not prepared for Fleet Street's intrusiveness. Aides say that in recent days his mother was followed home by the Daily Mail (a claim categorically denied by the paper) and his girlfriend's parents and 102-year-old grandmother were doorstepped by the media. "Nothing can prepare you for what that is actually like," an aide said. Umunna was also disturbed when the pregnant Rachel Reeves, walking beside him, was elbowed by the press pack before Monday's shadow cabinet meeting. His decision, sources say, is a reflection that politics alone is not his life. Just as Reeves and Dan Jarvis have chosen not to stand in order to put their families first, so Umunna has done the same.

The level of media attention led him to resolve that he had been wrong to stand in the first place - at the age of just 36 (making him the youngest candidate). "I had always wondered whether it was all too soon for me to launch this leadership bid - I fear it was," he said in his statement. Some in Labour suggest that the support of grandees such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson led him to feel he had an obligation to stand. Until last Thursday he sincerely believed he would be serving as Business Secretary in a Labour government and had been planning his first 100 days in the role. Aides emphasise that he is not a "Heseltine-style figure" who resolved to become prime minister by a particular age.

No other conspiracy theories apparently about Chuka....
'He was the bookies' favourite but now he isn't even a candidate. Chuka Umunna's decision to withdraw from the Labour leadership race, just four days after declaring, prompted an inevitable raft of theories. Was there a Sunday tabloid exposé to come? (Friday being the day politicians often first get notice.) Did he fear Labour would lose the next election and think it better to wait? Was he struggling to make the ballot paper? (35 MP nominations are needed.) Was he planning to stand for Mayor of London?

PMK. Picked up something I got from Ebay yesterday from a couple downsizing to a bungalow. Their sale fell through in November and since they’ve had 11 viewings but no offers.

I said it would be Brexit and they looked most surprised ‘Oh no, don’t think that’s it, people have to move’. I know someone who owns local estate agency and said that he has been saying it’s Brexit and market gone really quiet but could tell that did not fit with their mental model of the world and an explanation they could bring themselves to accept.

El Pais, a serious Spanish newspaper, mentions on online article that May's request to the EU to delay Brexit could be this week.

elpais.com/internacional/2019/02/24/actualidad/1551012887_655005.html

sos Defecting to the Tiggers makes it much more unlikely there was ever a hiddden scandal,
because Chukka will now be scrutinised much more closely than if he were merely a Labour leadership candidate

Going by the vitriol some on the hard left are expressing, especially the anti-semitic deniers, towards defectors,
any hidden secrets would have been published by now

• he would be daft to have expected otherwise

This quote from game of thrones sums up a bit of the political crisis.

CHAOS ISN’T A PIT. CHAOS IS A LADDER

Littlefinger revealed his plans with this statement. You could take it as a salutary lesson. Sadly, many of our politicians seem to have taken it as a mission statement judging by the number of prime minister we have had in the last 10 years.
And my favourite....' I drink, and I know things' or ' you know nothing Jon Snow' or best of all ' winter is coming'.....

sos Ramsey Bolton in the show was also clearly talking about Brexit: "If you think this has a good ending, you haven't been paying attention."

Daniel Hannan is pissed off with Brexit extremism.

Mood change definitely in the air.

Had to come on and just . I don't think this will have gone down well anywhere - all of my leaver friends were saying "it will never happen" at the beginning. I think people will be getting very angry. QT shows us every week some monotone dead-eyed meat head repeating "leave means leave, get on with it" - which are exactly the kind of people who IME resort to smashing things. I think this week will be bumpy.

I don't know if I can take another 21 months of this. As pp said, I think MH issues across the country must be rocketing. I'm sure there will be a period of "Brexit Blues" or something for history to mull over in future.

I worked with a few (financially poor and not well educated) leavers from 2016 - 2018.

Each of them - once they realised the precarious position they were in and the lies they were spun by leave.eu - ended up on anti depressants.

They all work hard - some have 3 or 4 jobs - and all left education with no qualifications.

Our county is 98.8% white. No EU immigration to speak of.

I'm as baffled now as I was in 2016.

Thanks Red. Finding it hard to keep up with the threads (and life!) at the moment.

Lonely I share some of your concerns around a long extension. I agree this would provoke outrage amongst the ‘just get on with it’ and ‘they’re stealing our Brexit’ brigade. However, a larger part of me is hoping we do get that 21 month extension and an eventual PV during that period. If it’s right for the country we shouldn’t avoid it to appease populism/mob mentality. But I agree, it would probably provoke all sorts of nastiness and it won’t be pretty for a while.

My MH is shot to pieces btw.

Also finding it hard to keep up with threads over half term.

Thinking of sharing this with my friend's Mum whose other daughter had cancer but it seems too bitter to do that somehow!

www.hsj.co.uk/policy-and-regulation/some-cancer-treatment-may-be-delayed-post-brexit/7024457.article

No-deal hardship fund planned for surge in jobless

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-deal-hardship-fund-planned-for-surge-in-jobless-sthj7g79g

Other measures under consideration include using “tax and benefits policy” to offset rises in the cost of living, protection for parts of the country “geographically vulnerable” to food shortages and sourcing alternative food for schools, prisons and hospitals.

Interesting from Daniel Hannan, I am pissed off with Brexit extremism from both sides too. I am concerned we will end up with no deal by default as so many won't compromise.

Well I suppose the possibility of another 21 months of business uncertainty is an excellent way to make sure that all businesses are really pissed off.