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.

Thanks BigChoc. So there would not be a majority for a referendum then

Jessica elgot@jessicaelgot
RIGHT SO - there is some overexcitement going on with the Labour announcement. Understand party does NOT mean they are going to back all efforts for 2nd referendum. ie probably not this week. the frontbench effort is into their own amendment on their own Brexit deal

BUT what it does mean is if that amendment is rejected (spoiler alert, it will be) then Labour will back or table an amendment for a public vote if the only other option left on the now very sparse table is a "tory brexit deal." in practice, that could mean Kyle-Wilson.

And for clarity, Kyle-Wilson's amendment endorses May's deal, but puts it to public vote and is intended to be tabled not this week, but at the next Meaningful Vote, likely to be March 12.

Having said that, with all those caveats, it is a significant shift.

No final decision on Kyle-Wilson because it hasn't been finally drafted. And clearly some unease about anything that endorses May's deal, whatever the caveat.

Could they fit in another vote on the 28th?!

I think a vote on the 28th of March would see demand for blood pressure medication soar.

Bonnie Greer Retweeted NBC News
It's global..
Guess #Labour has to make it happen now.
#SecondReferendumBonnie Greer added,

NBC News

@NBCNews
BREAKING: Britain's main opposition Labour Party is backing a second referendum on Brexit, the party has announced.

The EU still have to agree and other legislation pass.

In theory yes we could see a 28th March vote. I fear we will. Atm 12th March is shaping up to be the one to get vast quantities of booze in the house for as it looks increasingly like its on a knife edge.

If the MV fails to pass the WA on the 12th March, then Cooper-Boles comes into effect. But May might well delay asking for that extension until something like the 28th and try again with the MV first.

I pretty some very stressed Westminstenders that week.

We finally got an offer on the house today. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. So how this pans out and whether we extend until May just got more stressful for me.

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/25/ico_foi_brexit_councils_kent/

The UK's data watchdog has reportedly asked two government departments and a Kent Brexit planning group to rethink advice given to local councils on how to handle Freedom of Information (FoI) requests.

At the end of last month, Kent Online reported that local councils were being told how to avoid releasing information about their work on planning for a no-deal outcome of the country's negotiations to leave the European Union, ostensibly so as not to cause public alarm.

Being one of the most significant political developments in the UK's recent history, the nation's departure from the EU is coming under intense scrutiny.

This means public authorities involved in planning will be receiving many more FoI requests – but in an apparent bid to curtail the amount of information making its way into the papers, the government reportedly sent those involved tips to keep emergency plans secret.

I have an idea. You know how brexiteers keep going on about wanting to be in control, especially on trade deals. Let's pay the EU to hire DD and LF. They could put them in an office near a lovely pub, throw a few pieces of paperwork past them every so often so they think they're doing something, whilst in reality they aren't. (Not much change for them really.)

Brexiteers are told they are in charge of trade deals, we get rid of them out of our parliament and we will pay extra into the EU out of gratitude.

We finally got an offer on the house today. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

What timing.Gives options I suppose?

Scary conversation with DD just now.

She is convinced that there will be a transition period even if there is no deal

The British Embassy in the country where she lives is giving out different, contradictory, advice every day.

She cannot see why I will not book flights to the Med for April - cos it will be OK by then.

She's a bright girl but cannot conceive of how stupid our politicians are

Synchronicity, Red, as invoked by DGR upthread.

Fraser Nelson @ frasernelson
Early days. But if the Labour 2nd ref pledge is real, then the Independent Group will have achieved more in a week than the Lib Dems have done in three years.

IMHO the move if pr gambling on the fact that the amendment is unlikely to get the numbers required. But yes, even that is more than the LDs had the leverage to force.

So would my understanding be correct,

12th March vote to extend article 50 for a couple of months wins if TM has not made any progress with legal concessions on WA

2 months time - vote to have a PV wins as TM has still not made any progress with WA

I sense a lot of Tories would feel happy if a PV was there as a safety net ....

Can I just say I am completely and utterly lost.

PV’s does not seem to have support.

May’s Deal is despised. But she is so undemocratic that she continues to push it through no matter what.

Parliament is so divided that i can’t Really seeing anything being agreed - unless May gets get way and gets hear Deal voted through.

I still cling on to a very very slim hope that May will turn around and tell everyone to F off and then revoke - she really is not looking well at all at the moment.

But even with a majority in Parliament saying No Deal is a disaster, I don’t see how it’s going to be anything else.

I’m almost getting to the stage that I want no Deal for it all to be over (even if it means falling over a cliff) - at least then it is done.

I don’t really want a No deal but enough is enough.

I have always been proud to be British, proud of our democracy and no matter what happens now it is clear that 1/ we are no longer living in a democracy 2/ It will be a very long time if I ever before I am proud to be British again

BCF wrt the backstop-

The WA backstop consists of the original NI component and the agreed U.K. wide plan that May insisted on.

There are two scenarios in which the original NI component comes into play:

One, an FTA is negotiated, the current professed aim of the Tories, which requires a hard border as there is no FTA in the world which produces frictionless trade.

The other is that an FTA cannot be negotiated, talks break down and the EU decides that there is no likelihood of that agreement.

In the first scenario, if the negotiated FTA cannot provide frictionless trade then NI will stay in the full EU CU territory to maintain the open border.

In the second scenario, if no deal can be reached, the U.K. and EU decide there is no prospect of one, the rUK can potentially leave the backstop with the agreement of the EU, leaving NI left behind in the EU CU. In practice it would be almost impossible to leave without an agreement, not least because the U.K. can’t leave without the EU’s say so.

This scenario is reflected in Cox’s legal advice to the government. He warned that if negotiations broke down then the UK would be able to withdraw from the CU arrangements, but NI would be left in it - effectively splitting it from the rest of the country.

Cox pointed out in paragraph 26 of his legal advice that under the WA the backstop protocol could be removed "in part" - and that the EU could use this to remove the UK from the CU while keeping Northern Ireland fully in it.

He warned: “Either party could invoke this review mechanism. Therefore, Article 19 provides also for the EU to argue that the Protocol is no longer necessary “in whole or in part: it would be open to the EU, under the pressure of the factors set out above, if it considered negotiations had clearly broken down, or were taking an unsatisfactorily long time, to argue that Article 50 TEU no longer provided a legal base for a UK wide customs union. They could, therefore, submit a formal notification to the Joint Committee arguing that the Protocol was no longer necessary in part and that the GB elements of the customs union should fall away, leaving only NI in the EU customs territory as the minimum necessary to achieve the objectives in Article 1.3.”

This is why DUP Nigel Dodds described the full version of Cox’s legal advice as “devastating”, (and why it was initially withheld) and why the DUP objects to the WA so strongly - because it proves that NI would be “be in full EU CU while GB is not”.

red That forced choice has considerable variations depending on how the no-deal Tory vote split.
So the vote outcome is his guesstimate

What happens on 12 March would also depend on which amendments are proposed (& selected by Bercow)

The whips could tell May she'll probably lose the vote
But Anne Soubry said the Tiggers would vote for a PV of WA vs Remain

May has to blink - or accept No Deal - but would she blink for a 2-3 month extension, a 21 month extension or PV ?

Would she blink before or after the 12 March votes ?

Just listening to a Scottish Labour MP on the new "Scottish 9" hour long news show, trying to justify explain Corbyn's position. He is, to use a good Scottish word, havering Ignored the fact that Corbyn had ignored the unanimous party resolution for a 2nd referendum until too this late stage, wouldn't even opine as to what the question might be, that Labour still expected to put forward its own different but stool cake deal but wouldn't answer the question about whether he expected the negotiation to be re-opened - and said that of course it didn't mean that Labour would support a 2nd Indyref because "that's different - Westminster's in crisis" I suppose that is a back handed compliment to the Scottish Governmemt

He probably managed to immediately lower the viewing figures for this inaugural news show!

Susan, that idea is genius.

Tatiana My point was that the UK cannot unilaterally change the all-UK backstop to an NI-only one:
It would be up to the EU to propose that

These are all possibilities in the WA if a whole chain of events happens - some very unlikely - to get to the worst case

The difference is that if we have a No Deal Brexit, then that is certainly the worst case
It doesn't need ifs, buts & maybes - the UK crashes out of all its trade dels with the EU and RoW, its agencies, loses it right to certify its goods etc

Sayeeda Warsi
‏*@SayeedaWarsi*

“ ..those who voted Conservative in the 2017 general election are among the most likely to hold anti-Muslim sentiments”
Deeply troubling findings in this report -we must ask ourselves why are we @Conservatives an attractive proposition to #Islamophobes? 🤔

www.hopenothate.org.uk/2019/02/17/state-of-hate-2019-conservative-party-islamophobia/

'Islamophobia is creeping through the heart of the tory Party – and the lack of action is worrying'

If it is the mere possibility of the EU proposing to fall back on the NI-only backstop that is causing Tories & DUP such anxiety,
then a sensible & face-saving way out would be for the EU to offer a legal codicil that they wouldn't do that, but would stick to the all-UK backstop.

That would then keep the whole Uk in the CU, with the SM trade rules
which would block the US FTA and the nonfire of workers rights that the ERG want.
It would not give the UK frictionless trade with the EU, but it would be as frictionless as possible outside the SM

In contrast, a No Deal Brexit would let the ERG do anything they want
and UK exports to the EU would suffer WTO tariffs and Non-Trade Barriers

Wales: YouGov shows sharp drop in Labour support

Britain Elects@britainelects

Welsh Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 35% (-7)
CON: 29% (-4)
PC: 14% (+4)
LDEM: 8% (+1)
UKIP: 6% (+2)

via @YouGov, 19 - 22 Feb
Chgs. w/ Nov 2018
.....
Projected seats would be.

LAB: 23 (-5)
CON: 12 (+4)
PC: 5 (+1)

blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/electionsinwales/2019/02/25/the-february-welsh-political-barometer-poll-voting-intentions/

Tatiana My point was that the UK cannot unilaterally change the all-UK backstop to an NI-only one:It would be up to the EU to propose that

Not sure what you mean. I’ve never claimed the U.K.can change the backstop. But it can choose options that could leave NI behind in the backstop - either an FTA that doesn’t produce frictionless trade, or failing to agree a deal full stop.

The WA is basically deferred no deal as the likelihood of agreeing a deal within the U.K. let alone with the EU is small on the current showing.

Lower FDI (foreign direct investment) into the UK (report Nov 2018)

•	Foreign direct investment into the U.K. has fallen by almost 20 percent since the EU referendum.

•	Since the vote, the U.K. has experienced its sharpest decline in overseas investment since records began.

•	Germany overtook the U.K. in 2017 to become the European country receiving the most foreign investment.

• France gaining on the UK FDI

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/brexit-could-cause-serious-damage-for-foreign-investment-into-the-uk-new-study-says.html