Westminstenders: Chaos

[RedToothBrush]

If anyone says they know what will happen this week....

... They don't.

Just looking at the Grand Wizard stuff on twitter. Does anyone know if this has been reported on BBC or Sky ? Or is it just 'normal' these days for senior politicans to name themselves as leaders of the Ku Klux Klan

The biggest problem for the HoC is to try to find agreement.
This can only be done by:-

1. Realising that you cannot have your own way all of the time.
2. Party politics MUST be removed from the equation.
3. Personal status and job MUST also be removed from the equation.
4. The realisation that NOBODY can have their first choice.
5. That they really will HAVE to COMPROMISE.
6. To remind themselves constantly that this is for the GOOD of the country.
7. To have COURAGE at all times through these coming weeks in the knowledge that they really do LOVE their COUNTRY.

Can Parliament do these 7 things? I live in hope but tbh I wouldn't bet on it.

Nat Centre @ natcentre
The British Social Attitudes 36 chapter on ‘The EU Debate, Has Brexit Polarised Britain?’ is available to download now:
t.co/FbJnrlZo2O

Big important report which says we are living in Remaina not Brexitland. John Curtice has declared.

I think I’ve missed something (one of many things) but why is the comparison of those signing the petition against the majorities the mps who didn’t have a small majority relevant?

If 7000 people signed the petition and the mps majority was 3000 but 30000 voted for the mp, wouldn’t the mp just assume that the 3000 didn’t come from the 30000 that voted for them?

www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground

This has got nothing to do with Brexit. It just made me really cross when I read it this morning.

Baroness Hayter made a good speech in the HOL yesterday

Does anyone know if this has been reported on BBC or Sky

Laura K tweeted that it wasn't on purpose .

All I can say is that in a bunch of educated politically-aware people my age or a bit older, some of whom have modern history degrees from top universities, it is an absolute 100% certainty that some or even most of them did know the connotations of "grand wizard".

But they went ahead and used it anyway ... dog whistling to US donors and employers IMO.

Forgive the mail link [[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785390/I-feel-like-grand-wizard-KKK-AGM-Black-Lives-Matter-Michael-Gove-criticised-joke-pro-EU-academics.html]
The Tories (Gove in this instance) have a history of using Grand Wizard.

Delurking to ask a (probably stupid) question.

I've seen a couple of chunterings about the indicative votes being "A dangerous precedent" or words to that effect. Most of my brain wants to dismiss this as You Lost Get Over It. But there's been some genuine discussion around the unintended consequences of the Fixed Term Parliments Act, so are there potential downsides to this approach?

(I don't count failing to break the deadlock as a downside as parliament is already deadlocked, so it's just not an upside in my head)

Try again

Forgive the mail link www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785390/I-feel-like-grand-wizard-KKK-AGM-Black-Lives-Matter-Michael-Gove-criticised-joke-pro-EU-academics.html
The Tories (Gove in this instance) have a history of using Grand Wizard.

@BoreOfWhabylon

BBC Radio 4 news headlines: Latest research from British Social Attitudes survey - 55% would now vote to remain in the EU.

The same percentage of Theresa May's constituents who voted to Remain in 2016.

if 7000 people signed the petition and the mps majority was 3000 but 30000 voted for the mp, wouldn’t the mp just assume that the 3000 didn’t come from the 30000 that voted for them?

I suppose if they only have a small majority and they are voting for Brexit in a mainly Remain constituency, it would make them think how precarious their position was.

In the Liverpool from Brexit constituency column, why do some of the voted remain/leave percentage figures have "est" in brackets. I assume that means estimated figure.

Surely the referendum result in all constituencies are known and were verified at the time. Why are figures estimated??

Crying it is "A dangerous precedent" because it threatens the minority government that is only still in power because of the 5 years fixed term rule.

Chris Bryant @RhonddaBryant

A simple point I hope those who scream blue murder about the Commons seizing the order paper will acknowledge. Formerly, if the govt lost a major plank of its policy, it resigned. This has now happened multiple times to this gov't. Only the Fixed Term Parliaments Act is keeping

More
It in place. The gov't has developed a theory that in a hung parliament MPs have a duty to support the govt but it should be the other way round. In a hung parliament the govt has a duty to listen to the Commons and implement it's will or step aside. There have been many breaches

*Live from Brexit

Astoundingly, Germany has a different opinion on last night's proceeding to TM
www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-germany-roettgen-idUSKCN1R70OR?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5c99eed19ebbef0001c281d9&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Well knock me down with a feather.

Hope one of the indicative votes is to form an emergency cross party cabinet to manage a long delay.

All I can say is that in a bunch of educated politically-aware people my age or a bit older, some of whom have modern history degrees from top universities, it is an absolute 100% certainty that some or even most of them did know the connotations of "grand wizard".

My 14 yr old knows exactly what a Grand Wizard is. He was a bit gobsmacked that UK politicians would brand themselves this way.

Dog whistle politics at it’s best.

In the Liverpool from Brexit constituency column, why do some of the voted remain/leave percentage figures have "est" in brackets. I assume that means estimated figure.

I think this is because the count was by Local Authority areas, and the Constituency areas are quite different, so the vote has to be apportioned between the constituencies. My own Local Authority spans parts of either 4 or 5 Parliamentary constituencies.

Indeed: the FTPA is what is casing these multiple "dangerous precedents".

The fact that the Erskine May guidelines that substantially the same motion could not be presented again within the same session was because a Government with a workable majority would have got the motion through

The fact that MPs have voted to "take control of parliamentary business" is because the Government did not have the majority to oppose the motion

Unless the government is acknowledging that our two party system is broken which it is , then these are circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated

If it is broken, then that simply and clearly demonstrates the need for wholesale parliamentary reform

That reflects my gut feeling Pesty, but then my gut feeling was that the FTPA was a fairly neutral change and I'm not sure that I was right on that. So wondering what the longer term implications might be

Fwiw, I'd like to see more collaborative effort and less Team Red v Team Blue in politics, so it may be that some if the things that "should" be a positive about the FTPA don't work as well when reflected through an unbalanced 2 party dominated system

Thank you @Peregrina, that makes sense.

When your phones autocorrect hates you...

May (or Leasdom?) also extended the Parliamentary session. Neither of them foresaw that doing so might work against them.

Morning all

Catching up now, but at the risk of blowing months of carefully accumulated knowledge on Brexit I find myself wondering if the UK - despite what people think - can now "accidentally" fall into no deal ?

I'm wondering if the way the choices the EU came up with last week (and which TM somehow agreed to ) are structured such that the EU can "chose" to ignore A50 if it expires without any transitional arrangements ?

Obviously the UK is free to prat about as much as it likes. And act as if it's in a no deal situation. But as far as the EU is concerned that would need an explicit vote to pass.

The reason I am thinking this, is could we end up where Treeza (bless) thinks she has pulled the UK out of the EU with no deal, only to discover that in order to do so legally she needs to get a HoC vote for the same ? If we now assume that is never forthcoming, then a formal revocation of A50 (noting that the A50 process has never been used before, so there are no precedents) may not be needed. A little like the FTPA which requires a confirmation vote of NC after the main one - if that doesn't happen the original is quietly never mentioned again

I dropped International Law and Treaties at school so I could play in the sand pit, so have to rely on others here.

(That's before, as others have noted, the UK simply doesn't have the law for no-deal in place anyway).

Given we've had countless iceberg metaphors, the one about 9/10s being under the surface may apply here ????????

Professor Mark Elliott is good on the mechanics of the EU extension and the draft SI.