Westminstenders: Waiting for the vote that never comes

[RedToothBrush]

March 12th (or earlier): Second vote on May deal.
March 13th: Vote on No Deal if WA fails to pass on the 12th
March 14th: Vote on an a50 extension.

The March 14th vote is the most important, though the others are still important and we have no idea how nuclear the ERG or the moderates will ultimately go in terms of blowing the Tory Party apart.

Even if May's Deal does pass we need an extension. We've known this a long time, from a British POV, but the EU have now explicitly said that they will need a technical extension to ratify the WA if we now approve it. We also need an extension if we decide to go for No Deal because we will have legal chaos as the HoC hasn't passed the necessary legislation for No Deal either. But this isn't the EU's problem...

With feelings in the EU becoming more bitter the idea of an extension might be more difficult to come by, if May hasn't passed the WA by the 29th March though.

The EU and May are therefore both aligned with a mutual interest to get the WA passed by 29th March for this reason. Which might mean the EU do play tough on granting us an extension (at least initially) if we formally ask for one on the 14th March in order to help persuade the HoC vote for May's deal before the deadline of the 29th March.

I think we should expect the WA to fail to pass on the 12th March. There just aren't the numbers for it. Then hardball politics from the EU commence on the 14th - it might well be a long extension or nothing. May will then try and do MV3 before the 29th March. If it passes, May's happy and the EU are happy. If it fails... well... I think the EU might give way to a shorter extension at that point, but very begrudgingly. And the idea will be for MV4 or the July cliff edge.

Until then we sit waiting forever for the sun to start going around the earth and for pigs to fall out of the sky.

The only one that immediately springs to mind is Lord Carrington, who resigned from the FO on principle iirc? .
But he had integrity .

Pretending it (Brexit) will never come seems to be fantasy now

I think there is a 50/50 chance brexit won't happen, all depends if the WA is voted down or not and by how much.
May is certainly going all out with the scare stories.

MPs then vote no to a no-deal (almost a certainty) and then seek an extension, anything is possible, even at this late stage.

gosh, I missed a whole page ! that was a reply to DGR

Uh oh, but he she has popped up again. Do not feed the troll.

I thought that too Peregrina- a real shift to be mainstream enough to stay in AIBU.

I think the gammon concerned showed some admirable selfish gammonesque traits- bemoaning that his ex and children were burdens on the state yet gloating his financial shrewdness in the divorce. Unbelievable.

The attention seeker has indeed popped up again. Hopefully MN will delete it.

"It's like the 2 referenda they had in the Republic of Ireland on the EU - the people voted 'the wrong way' the first time and had to be told to behave themselves and go back again and vote 'the right way'. "

Except referenda are built into the Irish constitution and having two is part of that system. The Irish won significant gains for themselves through this referenda and voted on a set of proposals that were improved and changed.

But that doesn't fit your agenda, but incorrect points are not valid.

Why can the people only vote once but the HoC can vote as often as necessary?

As I suspected the Green win in Haddenham and Stone was due to the HS2 and housing effect.

I made a study of HS2 for an OU course I did some years back and came to the conclusion then that it was a vanity project. Now I genuinely believe that the south east does need extra freight capacity on the railways, but there were other options to achieve this.

Don't ask a silly question Inniu

It's one rule for them and another rule for the plebs.

Well, my day just got weirder. School pick up. Mum comes up and says to me she is worried about her husband (avid remainer on fb) as he is increasingly "worried about Brexit". They've had an appointment set on 30th March and he's got very emotional about it apparently. She therefore has asked me not to post about Brexit or engage with him on his fb posts about Brexit . She blithely said "its not as if they are going to put off operations and things will just stop!"...at which point my face was and I said "well, to be fair they might but probably not on the very first day..." then collected myself and said of course I wouldn't 'encourage him' on SM .

Then, less than 30 seconds after this exchange my Italian friend turns up and declares Brexit "won't happen" ! . She said now that the EU has given us a 'wake up call' everyone can see it is pointless and it simply won't happen. She was positively beaming!

My head feels like it is about to implode.

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
Excl: Tory chiefs fear they could lose 1,000 councillors in a local elections meltdown, sealing Theresa May’s fate in No10

www.thesun.co.uk/news/8587477/
Tory chiefs fear they may lose 1,000 councillors in local elections chaos

Ongoing Brexit turmoil and an impossibly high bar from 2015’s success will mean losses at the May 2 polls could stretch into the high hundreds', one senior figure has claimed

In a final roll of the dice for Mrs May to cling to power, Cabinet loyalists are urging her to carry out an immediate and wide-ranging reshuffle immediately after the local polls to bring on a raft of younger Tory MPs.

One ally Cabinet minister told The Sun: “They will wait for the council results before coming for Theresa, and use them as the final nail. It will be a critical moment because they will be very bad.

“I am urging her to do a major clear out of older ministers for lots of new blood.

“She might then be able to stay on for another year or two, if she can convince the party that bringing on the new generation is her final act of service to it.”

The minister added: “This is all of course if we can get through the next few weeks of Brexit chaos”.

The council elections in eight weeks time across most of England except London were last contested on the same day as the 2015 general election.

Oooooo

If you were European it would have been unbearable!

To be honest @mrslaughan the ref wasn't the worst time for me in that respect because I did have a lot of trust in MPs being the voice of reason. Well...
Then there was TM's 'citizens of nowhere' speech and that triggered the Big Reflection. To me that was THE turning point because it actually came from the PM herself. Not just from a few small-minded xenophobes.

Jasjas is it just me who remembers No Deal kicking in legally on 29th March if no other deal is on the table?

We haven't made any reasonable demand for an extension yet and 21 days to go...

Do people really think May will kick it into the long grass after spending billions and trillions in business leaving the country? Do people think EU would be happy with that? Us just hanging on indefinitely?

Tory chiefs fear they could lose 1,000 councillors in a local elections meltdown, sealing Theresa May’s fate in No10

Oh yes, please. It does depend who gets in instead, but I think the UKIP vote has collapsed also.

UKIP have the problem of lack of organisation and candidates.

No, I can't see May kicking it into the long grass, and her last screeching U-turn ended badly for her.

I expect us to crash out, with a sort of 'phoney war' period, and then people will realise that they don't know which laws are in operation. Or I could envisage e.g. the French stopping all cars coming off the ferries and insisting on seeing an IDP and Green card, and either fining people or sending them straight back. (But for the Leavers that will be good - it won't be "We've taken back control", it will be "Blame the frogs."

I feel distressed when TM blames the EU unfairly instead of taking responsibility or changing her red lines. The backstop was the UK's idea, the EU reluctantly agreed and now they're being blamed for not dumping it. So unfair. So embarrassing.

I'm dreading the vote(s) next week. Not sure my blood pressure can take it. We are fucked, we just won't know how badly.

Songs / Mrslaughlan
When I applied they went through all of my passports back to when I arrived in the UK
UKBA You have entry stamps but not exit stamps, why is this?
Me Because the UK border force stopped doing exit stamps in the 80's, they are there before that
UKBA I do not believe you
Me phone them then
UKBA on phone to manager Oh, OK, I see
Me

Plus the backstop is there to protect an international peace treaty! It's not the EU trying to play to their own advantage! How can anyone be so obtuse?

TiP - you're an assertive, articulate, informed, gobby and educated American - so you were able challenge (successfully ) the UKBO.

Pity the poor person without those attributes trying to make their way through the HO "hostile environment"

Not only will we be hungry and stressed because of transport and border chaos, it'll be cold as hell for a month! Is the universe trying to tell us something?

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-forecast-snow-fall-14104113

I expect us to crash out, with a sort of 'phoney war' period, and then people will realise that they don't know which laws are in operation.

That's where my £1 is.

The scope for suing various government departments that get it wrong means there is a very real danger the UK civil court system will simply become unavailable for years. mr & Mrs Bloggs won't have the money to take HMG to court, but MegaCorp Ltd/plc/Inc will - egged on by furious shareholders who will sue them if theydon't.

That's when we'll learn what was in those NDAs. Empty promises.

Nick @nicktolhurst
Watching BBC report again from Theresa May's "event" today in Grimsby, towards the end she says that if we allow the British people to vote on her deal "we might never leave at all."

Just reflect on that for a minute.

We cannot be allowed to have another say on this issue.

What May actually said was as follows:

Because despite his promise at the last election to deliver Brexit, he now supports holding a divisive second referendum that would take the UK right back to square one.

Not completing Brexit and getting on with all the other important issues people care about.

Just yet more months and years arguing.

If we go down that road, we might never leave the EU at all.

That would be a political failure. It would let down the more than 17 million people who voted to leave the EU and do profound damage to their faith in our democracy.

Some of the people who voted in the referendum did so for the first time in years. Why should they ever bother doing so again if their decision were over-turned without ever being implemented?

The thing is that her version of Brexit isn't what the public voted for either. She can't argue about democracy here in this way.