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?

What I would love is for TM to unilaterally revoke then come out to that No 10 podium, tell us she's done it, then resign at the same time. That is on my wish list.

As so many people are saying, it's clearly NOT working / able to happen in any cohesive way so let's put it down to a bad job, confirm that the referendum was only advisory, and that now options have been explored, it's simply not possible to extricate ourselves without causing (more) irreparable damage.

BiglyBadgers - the deadlock will be broken when May gets her WA through, its foregone conclusion she will keep returning until it's passed.....unless Bercow blocks it but is that likely?

I don’t think it will break the deadlock it just continues it in a different form.

If the WA is passed, Labour will go all out for a PV. The country will clamour for one.

And if the PV overturns the Parliamentary vote for WA, then what?

Apologies if this has been noted before but it's against the HoC rules to bring a motion again if it's already been denied (last used in 1943) so Bercow could refuse to table another MV...

In the meantime, I’ve downloaded and pored over the draft document for tariffs in the first year post no deal Brexit. I’m trying to find a pattern and logic behind it, and trying to drag DS1 who’s allegedly doing GCSE in economics...but it feels more Russian bureocracy in a checov play than Shakespeare....

So we should know at dinner time (ish) the amendments they'll be voting on tonight .
Thanks for that Red.

Bercow could refuse, and to be fair to him his balls are big. But the general consenus seems to be that he probably wouldn’t in the circumstances.

But once the WA is passed (prob next week after MV4) we then leave the EU (subject to a v short delay to pass the bulk of legislation,)

The trade negotiations will then start and as far as i'm aware, the Govt doesn't need HoC approval for any deal reached? no matter what May has promised - it'll all be done behind closed doors and series of ministerial jobs handed out to keep desenters quiet.

Any PV is meaningless after that we leave, any PV cannot physically be held until the earliest October.

My 9.39 post posted twice. Repost:

So many problems with a PV. We haven’t got to the bottom yet of the corruption and illegal activities in the first. No way can we protect a second one from that.

A thorough full blown investigation into the first, the findings may undermine the foundation of the second. And then where are we?

What will the options on the ballot be? No Deal and WA voted down by Parliament. We’re asking a population who understands the consequences of neither to pick a straw blind.

The tariff schedules are just another page in the scare story book that is project fear no-deal.

Liz Truss dismissing a Second Referendum: “I don’t think people have changed their minds."
Eddie Mair: "You have."
Liz Truss: "I have, that's true."

@eddiemair | #Brexit

Interesting how THEY are allowed to change their minds.

We need indicative votes on Revoke and on PV

Most of the Tories voting against the WA are Remainers, iirc from the list

If Revoke gets a lot of votes, they can continue trying to push Revoke
but if it only gets a few, that might cause them to switch to WA

Ditto PV

I agree, BCF.

Littlespaces - have written to my MP Scott Mann, who is against a 2nd public vote as "the people have given us a clear instruction" and "it would be anti democratic"

BUT changed his mind from MV1 to MV2........ fcuking hypocrite and is being flamed on his FB page for it by leavers & remainers :)

My latest Brexit annoyance is that they always choose similar towns for the vox pops...usually somewhere Northern and deprived... I can't remember the last time they had one from a rich leave area or a remain area at all.

Surely if they were being balanced you'd do 4 remain for every 6 leave or something (reflecting that leave won but not by a lot)

For those of us who wish to keep up the flow during these next few waiting hours ....

{A thorough full blown investigation into the first, the findings may undermine the foundation of the second. And then where are we?}

If the report/article that was posted yesterday about a long term plan by Putin that has been running since 1997 has validity, and it probably has, then a thorough investigation is likely to pull out many 'skeletons' (probably literally) that could be a massive game changer. Saying this, I don't see UK gov actually completing such a detailed investigation.
After all, there were at least 2 Russian 'agents' working on the atom bomb in the USA so closely that the first Russian atom bomb was a direct copy of the Americans.

The trade negotiations will then start and as far as i'm aware, the Govt doesn't need HoC approval for any deal reached? no matter what May has promised - it'll all be done behind closed doors and series of ministerial jobs handed out to keep desenters quiet

On the WA we leave the EU on terms that no-one in Parliament actually agrees with, even if they vote for it to keep the peace.

A split Tory party will start negotiating an FTA, with all kinds of divergent viewpoints that can’t be reconciled, under a headbanger PM that half the Tories don’t support. For the moment there’s nothing to say the HoC needs approval for any deal, but that could well change.

Meanwhile Labour campaigns for election on the basis of the fact that the Tories have forced thro a twice rejected deal without consulting the people.

Even if the Tories managed to stay in until ‘21 which I think is highly unlikely, if they’re replaced by Labour they will start negotiating a different deal.

The fact is the Tories cannot agree on any deal, passing the WA does not change that. WA defines the terms of transition, but deal itself is still undetermined.

I don't know if even Revoke would stop all this continuing for decades

The UK - humiliated - would probably be a far worse pain than before in the EU, actively disrupting business to posture to the public, working with the growing far right populist parties

• and maybe working from the inside with the US to destroy the EU and get what they want that way.

That the UK could be a danger is often expressed here and by EU analysts

Corbyn is a lifelong Lexiter, likely to seize on anything to blame the EU
The next Tory party leader would probably be a Brexiter and the party membership would clamour for Brexit to be in the manifesto

The Tories could use Brexit like the US Republicans use abortion:
winning power by getting people to vote against their own interests because of focus on one very emotional issue

The problem is that public hostility to the EU won't go away just because the PM / HoC or even a PV reverse the referendum

Cameron lit the spark and now noone knows how to put out the flames

Best way imo, is to concentrate on putting forward an EEA++ future relationship, a 3rd pillar in the EEA

Agree bcf but what are the odds that's likely?

I think I'm coming round to bellini's PoV in that if revoke really isn't going to happen then let's just go for the WA. I'm sick of all this shit, quite frankly. The merry-go-round is making me sick!

Do you think we’re still at real risk of no deal at the end of March now? I’m so lost on it all.

If the UK agrees to the WA, it's going to spend the next 3 years trying to find ways out of it rather than negotiate any trade deals. That much is a given. The ERG will simply regroup under the slogan "Brexit Betrayed" and continue to snipe from the sidelines.

Revoke really is the best option all round.