Westminstenders: Pragmatism versus Purity

[RedToothBrush]

There is one question for the HoC in the next week and that's will you persue pragmatism or purity?

May looks as if she is being sidelined after a backbench withdrawal of support, the DUPs withdrawal of support and an omminous silence eminenating from the Cabinet.

Her speech on Thursday where she pitted the people against parliament has been her last mistake. She's now a danger to the country's stability and the safety of MPs.

The priority for the week is to pass the SI to change the UK exit date from 29th March to the EU's new terms.

After that, with May's deal stuffed due to lack of support and a Bercow ruling it looks like we are facing some sort of indicative free vote. This seems to be being supported by ministers in government regardless of leave or remain.

The prospect of a Tory Leader Election contest looms. It remains to seen if that can happen in the next three weeks with so much else at stake. But this is the Tory party.

The penny seems to be finally dropping about the reality of leaving the EU and how we leave the EU. A week before we were due to go. The incompetence of Parliament is laid bare in all its glorious full scale.

his pound shop Lady Macbeth wife has been at it again claiming the marchers are elitist and would have lynched any leavers that turned up yesterday

God, this sort of thing makes me so angry. The number of times I read comments from Leavers on SM about feeling threatened and intimidated by Remainers who are ‘turning nasty’. Look at the number of actual death threats against Remainers- Gina Miller, Yvette Cooper, Nick Boles, Anna Soubry, the woman who started the revoke petition, that’s just off the top of my head. And against Leavers? Any? Thought not. Yet they keep having the audacity to suggest we are the violent ones.

Talking to a friend who marched yesterday (not with me) and she said the closest she came to witnessing any conflict was someone saying

‘Please take care not to step on those daffodils.’

Someone has to get the point that the number of people who will never forgive them if they don't leave is now smaller than the number who will never forgive them for leaving in this chaotic way (or at all).

Is Kyle Wilson the best way out of the madness? I don't see how Theresa can argue with the logic of making sure this is the will of the people. Not that logic is her strong point.

Stripey and hand-hold

Did anyone else see Marr on Sunday this morning? He asked Steve Barclay whether, if the indicative votes showed a Parliamentary majority for a softer Brexit, the PM would then negotiate for that outcome.

Barclay basically said No

I had one idiot who wound his window down and shouted 'Traitor go back home where you come from'.

I just shouted back the name of my home town and that I was home. Bigot.

Looks like it's No Deal

Ffs.

However, that would cause an uprising from everyone else, surely?

Plus shouldn't Gove be on that list?

Come on, sensible Tories, fight back. Don't let these clowns run the show.

God, this sort of thing makes me so angry. The number of times I read comments from Leavers on SM about feeling threatened and intimidated by Remainers who are ‘turning nasty’. Look at the number of actual death threats against Remainers- Gina Miller, Yvette Cooper, Nick Boles, Anna Soubry, the woman who started the revoke petition, that’s just off the top of my head. And against Leavers? Any? Thought not. Yet they keep having the audacity to suggest we are the violent ones.

If as some people are starting to openly suggest without the usual buckets of ridicule - there's a mood shift that revocation is possible, then such a story will be easy to spin into a narrative of how the poor old leavers were "intimidated", "cowed", "pressured", "scared" into submission. Thus allowing for (a) an excuse for why Brexit "failed" and (b) a retreat and regroup under the "we wuz robbed" underdog banner.

Remember: if that 1% window of revoke is to open at all, it needs to be accompanied with a climbdown for the Brexiteers to blame someone else for their actions. As a site aimed at parents, I'd hope there's a crowd wisdom of mumsnetters in dealing with truculent toddlers and how to play them so they think they won.

Gove, unbelievably, now seems to be positioned as the moderate, bridge building one so not on the Frothing Madness list. Strange times all right.

The Tory party will split either way. I suspect that May is going to be sidelined soon and a softer Brexit emerge. Failing that, Labour will get their wish for a GE.

if that 1% window of revoke is to open at all, it needs to be accompanied with a climbdown for the Brexiteers to blame someone else for their actions

Fair point. Revokers would be wise to come up with a face saving story for Leavers to explain why this isn't betrayal etc. You'd hope all the Leave campaign lies would do it given what we can now see will actually happen to the NHS.

Plus why does she keep seeing the ERG? (With exception of Damian Green)? There not going to be telling her anything new! She's seems so bizarrely thick headed over and over again.

They're not

m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-mays-deputy-dismisses-suggestion-he-could-replace-pm-in-cabinet-coup_uk_5c9773aee4b057f7330c03e8?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage&ncid=tweetlnkukhpmg00000001
Cabinet Coup Against Theresa May Dead On Arrival As Ministers Back The PM
"It's not the time to change the captain of the ship", says Michael Gove.

Michael Gove and David Lidington both backed May to continue despite reports that 11 cabinet ministers want her to stand down and make way for a caretaker leader.

May’s deputy Lidington was named by The Sunday Times as the frontrunner to take over and guide through Brexit while the Mail on Sunday said Gove, the environment secretary, was being lined up by a rival faction.

But Gove said he was “absolutely” behind the PM while Lidington said she was doing a “fantastic” job.

There is a lot of 'why would I want to screw up my career to be interim PM when if I wait I could be the proper PM. Or simply, why the fuck would I want that poison chalice?

Come on, sensible Tories, fight back. Don't let these clowns run the show.

Too late. "Sensible" tories have made the mistake all along of assuming that non-sensible tories are at heart sensible tories. A little like Johnson forced into supporting something he never believed in, these tories are now forced to own that mistake and keep on making it, rather than turn around and say "you know what, I made a mistake thinking these bastards would never do this".

for all this talk of a general election, I can still see the end result being a no majority party. And the one after that. Until someone twigs that FPTP is broken and can't be fixed by repeating elections.

Imagine a fresh parliament with 250 tories, 250 Labour and 200 others. One guaranteed outcome of that is no form of any alliance with the Tories - no one is that stupid. So we'd get some sort of Labour loose coalition or alliance. Which means Jezza can whistle for his revolution too. Possibly the ultimate demonstration that if the country has to suffer, it'll make it's political parties suffer too.

Don't the Tories realise they're making themselves unelectable? And that the type of people who will vote for them won't be their traditional, historic voters? So they'll have to adjust their policies to please and ... they won't be 'sensible' one-nation Tories any more.

Surely the moderates will defect?

Max Jeffery @ jefferypolitics
David Davis and Julian Smith have arrived at Chequers together 👀

The Chief Whip was looking particularly sombre

He's just travelled with David Davies. Reason enough for him to be miserable.

Fair point. Revokers would be wise to come up with a face saving story for Leavers to explain why this isn't betrayal etc.

Revoke A50.
Cross party committee to address all the issues the last three years have highlighted.
Fresh referendum with new info, plus safeguards for the UK between best possible Brexit and Remain.
Immediately followed by a General election to give a full 5-year parliament scope to implement it.

On the basis I can't see Labour or Tories ever agreeing to that, it's about as balanced as it gets. It's not for me to call myself genius - that's for others to do - but I do particularly like the decoupling of a potential Leave vote from the government then elected to actually implement it. If that had been a serious consideration in 2015, we'd have never had the fucking referendum in the first place. Which makes me wonder why there was ever an assumption in the first place that the incumbent party would be the one to "deliver Brexit" ?????

If Leavers want a betrayal narrative, it's hard to avoid starting with the 2017 election May called needlessly. Whatever her reasoning then, it's the single decision in a clusterfuck of shit decisions that pretty much killed off the sneaky Brexit-before-you-know-it the ERG types wanted.

Max Jeffery @jefferypolitics
Steve Baker has just arrived at Chequers, although he wasn’t on the list of expected attendees

Hmm...

Surely the moderates will defect?

I would hope that the existence of TIG would make that easier too. Tories who are aghast at events don't have to join Corbyn. They can go and sit with the TIGgers.

Bet DD regaled Julian Smith with lots of tales of derring-do from his army days..

Is Steve Baker now a CF, turning up without an invite?

And what the hell will today's menu be? I seem to remember lots about the British fare served at the last Chequers crisis meeting (and that went well, didn't it..)

Don't the Tories realise they're making themselves unelectable?

Are they though ?

Ultimately, in a country trained to vote by rosette, as long as things go horribly wrong in the right place (e.g. mining communities that would never vote Tory anyway), it's possible to sail along on a sea of inertia.

Thanks to the UKs dictator-lite electoral systems, the Tories could comfortably lose one million votes (so more than the people who marched yesterday) and potentially not lose a single seat.

Probably better stop there, or I'll start frothing again about the missed chance to do something about it in 2011 :( (and notice how that referendum had conditions ....)

In hindsight, the LibDems should have agreed to Camerons fucking referendum in coalition and used their position to attach the necessary safeguards. Unless it transpires they tried and failed ?

I am enjoying the BBC announcing the figures for the revoke petition, followed by the figures for the no deal petition on every news broadcast. The difference is delightful. And the BBC is only showing balance.