Westminstenders: A False Sense of Security

[RedToothBrush]

The new exit date, unless we agree a deal sooner, is the 31st October.

It seems ages away, but its runs the risk of a false sense of security too.

The first deadline is May 22nd. The Conservative Party would dearly like to avoid European Elections. They are already liable to face wipe out in the early May local elections, as the party was at its peak in 2015 under Cameron when there were last elections.

The EU elections have the added danger of proportional representation meaning UKIP and The Brexit Party could win seats from them. This is despite polling suggesting that Ukip and the Brexit Party are unlikely to reach the high watermark of 2015 and this could lead to fewer UKIP style MEPs this time round.

The liklihood of a deal by 22nd May is low though. Especially given how well Tory - Labour talks are going. The potential for a deal seems remote in the next few weeks.

The next deadline falls on 30th June. If we do have EU elections, the next target for the Tory Party is the end of June to get a deal before the newly elected MEPs can take their seats. However if the goal is unachievable before EU elections, it seems unlikely that agreement will be found in the next 30 days unless there is a major change of heart amongst the hardcore ERG and the DUP. Labour will want to see the Tories humiliated too much.

May who says she will go, will face another wave of pressure to resign during May and June. Messages out of No10, though not May herself, had indicated an exit around 22nd May on the condition a deal was done. Crafty as ever, what May actually said was she would stay on until we reached the second stage of Brexit and had effectively left. This now falls as late as Oct 31st, thus killing plans for a summer Tory leader election.

Once we get past June though, time for a deal, any deal starts to become very limited. Parliament only sits until mid July. Here May hits another problem. The two year parliamentary session ends. There has been talk of it being extended but the DUP have firmly said no to this.

This means when parliament is due to return in September we have an issue. To start a new session May will need a majority to pass a Queens Speech. If the DUP and Hardline ERGers withdraw support in protest at May still being PM what happens? Can May win support from elsewhere. It seems unlikely.

At this point the question of a General Election looms large. And we only have six weeks from then before we exit the EU. If a GE is triggered then, the risk of no deal is extremely high, which might encourage some to support May from across the aisle to prevent parliament from being shut and losing those crucial six weeks.

The danger over the next few weeks, is there is a false sense of there being lots of time left. The reality is our real deadline might be in effect the end of the parliamentary session in mid July. After that all bets are off.

The date of 31st October isn't the one you should keep your eyes on.

The poll posted on here is very similar for Farage and Labour as the 2014 EP election. Then, the results were UKIP under Farage 27%, Labour 25%, Cons 24%, Green 8%, Lib Dems 7%, SNP/PC 3%. Turnout was 35.6%.

35.6%?! Why are people so apathetic about the EP elections?

Do most EU27 countries have far higher turn outs?

To be honest I can't remember anything about the EP elections in 2014 . I would have voted as I always do, I didn't realise UKIP got so many votes.

All elections merge into one for me as we have postal votes, so there's no distinguishing feature to remember each one by! And I always post them in the box by the station I commute from too, so that also doesn't help.

Germany warns Britain cannot have further Brexit extension

Merkel had to fight hard for agreement on the current extension, even in Germany

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/germany-warns-britain-cannot-have-further-brexit-extension-1.3861855

Germany’s foreign minister has warned London that there will be no Brexitt* extension beyond October,
sending out the strongest signal yet that Berlin’s patience with the UK’s deadlocked political system is starting to wear out.

“They will have to decide what they want by October,” Heiko Maass^ said in an interview.
“You cannot drag out Brexit for a decade.”

Angela Merkel, German chancellor, fought hard to secure a six-month Brexit delay at last week’s European summit against French insistence that the UK should be given at most until the end of June to secure an orderly withdrawal from the EU.

Mr Maas’s intervention suggests that Berlinn* will side with the harder French line should the new Brexit deadline of October 31st draw closer without progress on the UK side.

Based on that YouGov EP elections poll, 28 seats for Brexit Party+UKIP
and Tiggers ZERO seats, LDem 3
Grn 6, SNP 3 (those 2mwould be the only Remain winners)

Britain Elects Retweeted Owen Winter@OwenWntr

Very rough UNS (plus crosstabs for London and Scotland) give me these seat totals:

BREX: 20 (+20)
LAB: 17 (-3)
CON: 12 (-7)
UKIP: 8 (-16)
GRN: 6 (+3)
LDEM: 3 (+2)
SNP: 3 (+2)
PLAID: 1 (-)
CHUK: 0 (-)

I know the LDems increase from 1 to 3 seats, but I regard that miserable total as their death knell in being a significant force in UK politics

Note:
if the public at large cared about Remain, then the LDems + Tigger total % would be much larger,
since Labour are still officially in favour of Brexit

I'm confused: that Owen Winter tweet suggest SNP 3 (+2) - yet the SNP currently has 2 MEPs

I was just wondering that, pretty - I thought they already had 2-3

Only 2. Unfortunately they didn't quite get enough last time to get 3 - or alternatively, the LibDems vote collapsed/or the Greens came up short and allowed, for the 1st and only time in any capacity in Scotland, the odious and execrable UKIP candidate to become a Scottish MEP

I expect he just forgot the SNP have 2 MEPs already, because his chart shows 3 predicted

One important consideration re EP elections:

If 28 MEPS are returned for the 2 parties whose reason for being is Brexit, plus the Batshit Tory Brexiters,
with only a handful of MEPs for specifically Remain parties

.... then the E27 will be much less likely to grant a further extension in October

Both because of the strength of feeling for Brexit this would indicate in the UK
and because of the shit the EP will have been taking for the previous few months from those 28 MPs

Unfortunately, looks like Scotland will just be swapping a Kipper for a Brexit party MEP

imo, what helps Farage do well in EP elections is that he only has to run 11 campaigns - for the 11 GB regions -

instead of 630+ campaigns in GB parliamentary seats - which was always too much for the UKIP party organisation and will probably be too much for his new party

I really hope that the brexit party surge is because everyone else is currently fighting the local elections and haven't started on the EU ones yet ... and that a lot of people who say they would vote for Farage don't actually bother to turn up - a bit like the 2017 election revealed that Daily mail readers don't vote in the numbers Dacre thought they did.

But even having said that - and with everything crossed, I'm still none the wiser who to vote for myself. But maybe that's part of why the brexit party is polling so far ahead? They have a clear choice. It would be interesting to see how many seats the 'Don't know' party would be currently predicted to pick up...

That's a good point

Remain don't have a clear message or a single party / alliance to rally round.

This may discourage voters
and certainly risks wasting what Remain votes there are, by parties fighting each other so no single Remain party wins enough seats.

Also, suggests that Remain voters are much less willing to abandon the 2 main parties - suggesting Remain voters care about several issues, whereas Brexiters only consider Brexit

Unfortunately, it requires much less organisation to vote - go to a polling station or get a postal ballot -
than to have a large march

So unless Brexiters are very apathetic, they would manage to vote much more easily than march

I agree about tribal voting meaning that the 2 main parties won't be abandoned by all Remainers. That's also why I'm slightly sceptical of the Scottish projections as I'm not sure that Labour would drop so much that SNP would get 3 MEPs. I would however love to see the Conservative swapped with a Green - although I'd prefer it if it were the Leave (whichever party ) candidate that got squeezed out

My "perfect" result for the Scottish EP constituency would be 3xSNP (possible but unlikely), 1xLabour (hoping that Catherine Stihler is put top of the list), 1xGreen (they nearly got there in 2009), and 1xLibDem (unlikely, but you never know - their vote might recover). One can dream!

Far left support Farage !

George Gallowayy@georgegalloway*

Given the nature of Labour’s Euro-fanatic candidates list and the crucial juncture we have reached in the fight for the full implementation of the #Brexitt* referendum result

and for one-time only I will be supporting @Nigel_Faragee* in next months elections. @TheBrexitPartly

Oh Fuck Off "Gorgeous Not" George

Every time you think he couldn't stoop any lower he finds a new depth

I went to go and find a clip of 'would you like me to be the cat?' for all your viewing pleasure - but the only person I could find who had posted it seemed to be an extreme anti-Islam racist... so I won't be linking to their video. Makes me hopeful, though, that Galloway's support may actually put of some natural Nige supporters.

Bloody Galloway, the exemplar of the political horseshoe effect.

Am finding Galloway hilarious tbh - did no one spot that he accidentally typed "The Brexit PARTLY"?

Am v. hopeful that after the break some remain consensus will be reached.

Am with DGR on US/Brexit backers as I think I posted earlier in the week. Scary thing is the lack of foresight of the B.party - US may now realise how pig obstinate they are but the damage is done. Not only do their voters not care enough about other issues but they really feel they are the ones who are currently loosing democracy!

I somehow doubt they see the delays of Parliament not agreeing as the sovereignty they said they so desperately wanted.

I see the new and fervent support for the Brexit Party (and note the corresponding collapse in UKIP figures) as being in keeping with Brexit being a religion for many Leavers (obviously not all Leavers, before the usual gnashing of teeth). It's a single totemic article of faith; the word is the idol, and any supporting blurb is merely background dressing to the golden calf.