Westminstenders: Adrift at Sea

[RedToothBrush]

After May lost the Meaningful Vote last night by a long way she has lost control of the agenda. She managed to persuade just 40 out of the 116 she needed to support here.

This leaves us all adrift with nothing apparent to a solution.

May announced that tonight's vote will be to stop No Deal. She has announced that it will be a free vote and she herself intends to vote against No Deal. This looks set to be blocked but the amendments that go with it are more important. Particularly the Spelman / Dromey amendment which is pitched to stop no deal completely (it doesn't) which is more about trying to kill off a Meaningful Vote III instead.

Tomorrow's vote is perhaps more important though. Its about an extension to a50. We NEED an extension. However the length of the extension is yet to be argued as is the purpose of the extension.

This is also against whispers that the Italian Far Right group has been lobbied by Leave.EU and Farage has directly asked Eurospectics in the EP to veto any extension. Whether this would happen remains to be seen but it certainly raises questions over an extension is even now possible. This was always a probable action; Banks & Farage have for 3 years aggitated to cause maximum problems for the government. Its also true that they only have power due to this dynamic of being a hostile force.

With No Deal so catastophic that Hammond today made the point in his Spring Budget that, if he feels there's almost nothing he'd feel able to do to mitigate the effects of what he sees as the car crash of no deal, this leaves one option on the table. Ironically it is possible that the actions of Banks and Co might be more likely to have that effect rather than to stop an extension. The question, however, would then be whether May had the guts to revoke.

We certainly have, at least, reached crunch point. Have we done so too late to make a difference? And will our new found sovereignity be twarted by Brexiteers inviting the interference of foriegn hostile forces to intervene?

In Italy, La Repubblica borrowed a line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

It would have to say that if no deal has been agreed by 29/03 we will revoke. That would take no deal off the table.

Thanks red

Thanks, red 💐

shambu Your link sums up well what I've been hearing in Germany

I know some don't like me saying this, but much of the EU has for some time not been hoping for Revoke, but merely for us to fuck off in an orderly manner.
Their overwhelming priority is avoiding No Deal.

I always tell people in Germany that I still hope for Revoke, but for some months now, the reply has been unenthusiastic to say the least.

Even the EU Commission has given up on us now.
There'd still be years of negotiations after Brexit, but while we are so disfunctional they regard us as more trouble as a member than we're worth

The final straw was January, when the PM reneged on her own deal
That was the proverbial cold bucket of sick poured over the EU; the final demonstration that we can no longer be trusted.

If the UK ever regains its common sense & calm and elects politicians with some integrity, we'd be welcomed back again.
Not now though.

We can still Revoke and I hope we do
but MPs need to vote for this or for a PV
Otherwise, the WA is their only way to avoid No Deal

Can't blame them bigchoc

Bloody sermon Gove is giving. Fire and brimstone bloody idiot! People objecting to WA3. He is being pulled up over several things. He just said he's being taxed by stupidity.

Thanks red

That link is perceptive:

The verdict of the German press was scarcely less damning. Some newspapers blamed Mrs May for “frittering away” the EU’s concessions and tipping her country into a “national crisis” by recklessly inflating the expectations of the hardcore Brexiteers in her party.

What has been the point of trying to humour the hardcore ERG mob? Party first- I know. But it was inept to think they could be tricked or tipped into the WA with false promises of their no deal profit fest.

From the moment they failed in their no confidence motion why did she continue to appease them?

While the electorate clearly were tricked in the ref by all the false linkage with funding the NHS etc- the ERG were never going to be so foolable, so why inflate their expectations by her rhetoric even after they failed to oust her ?

Cheers @RedToothBrush . Thank you to everyone on here. Some fab posts which restore faith in my fellow citizens.

So pissed off with this shitshow. If the Government can't even get a divorce deal agreed in 2 years then as far as I'm concerned they've had their chance and blown it. They should admit defeat, and that there is no good Brexit, revoke A50 and call a GE.

Politics, Mostly Kakistocracy. (In the UK anyway.)

{Can't blame them bigchoc}
I'm not picking on you 67 but it is interesting that almost all on these threads refer to the EU as 'us and them' which for me sums up the basic problem that the UK is not appreciating that the EU is WE.
WE are European from UK land, Germans are European from Germanland etc.

{and that there is no good Brexit, revoke A50 and call a GE.}

The massive problem with this, as we can all see is that there is no one to take the helm with a stable and forward thinking party.

Gove < wet tentacles slapping > actually has a brain and may have started using it
Indications are that his current job forced him to realise what a hole he & his chums have dug for the country
That's your own arse you should be kicking, chum

Now, he may try to help pull us out of this hole

(I'd hate to be grateful in future for being rescued by Gove, but better the devil than the deep blue sea ... under the cliff)

Well.
Quite.
Perhaps I should have said "I dont blame the EU27?"

If the Government can't even get a divorce deal agreed in 2 years then as far as I'm concerned they've had their chance and blown it. They should admit defeat, and that there is no good Brexit, revoke A50 and call a GE.

The problem is, that would destroy the Tories ... despite the Bertie Big Bollocks swagger of the louder Brexiteers, it's not a given that a party campaigning on a "Brexit II" manifesto would do that well. I refer to the circular from my MP noting that real people (not the people in the "will of the people") care about more pressing things far more than Brexit. And despite peoples faux horror at Corbyn, it's quite possible that a General Election where Labour addresses the real issues, not the distraction of Brexit could actually see a Labour Government.

That's the case against revoke.

The case for will be MPs who rather like the idea of being MPs in 20 years time. Because a no-deal will stiff them.

It may be my fever BUT I'm pondering whether the Tories will walk away.

The sane Tories must know that for no deal or revoke to happen under their watch will be disastrous for the party.

And the party is all they care about.

Atm, the EU is sadly split into them (E27) and us (UK in a midlife crisis)

Yep :(

LeClerc - I agree. But if A50 had been revoked perhaps being in charge wouldn't seem like such a poisoned chalice.

.

Spellman had to withdraw her amendment because TM ordered to whip against it so it would not have got through. I did mention this at end of last thread. So TM gives free vote for tonights vote but whips against an amendment to take no deal off the table. Atrocious behaviour by this government. And Give got a telling off from Berkow. The speaker is brilliant thank goodness he's there. Gove may be intelligent but it was him and BJ along with DC that has bought this mess in the first place.

A party tearing itself to pieces is always badly punished by the electorate
May could hope that the effects of brexit can be mitigated and / or blamed on the EU

We can't read her plans
She may not have any
Other than to be stubborn

Mark Francois really missed his calling as a 2nd hand car salesman didn't he.

La Vanguardia is wrong. Henry VIII split England (and the conquered Wales) from the Europe, not Britain from Europe.