Westminstenders: Fallout coming to a place near you soon

[RedToothBrush]

Once again not much to report on Brexit itself.

The sideshow of Gavin Williamson lots set to run and rumble on. The scandal further weakens May as she has lost a key ally. Despite his protests of innocence, May herself must believe he is guilty. Whether this is because she is indeed too heavily influenced by Sedwill is the question, but for her to sack him when she has failed to do so with other Cabinet Members so many times means she must feel there is good reason. Every other party has seen it as a good opportunity to put the boot in and demand an investigation. So far this has been paid lip service as the Cabinet Office must approve any investigation and this doesn't seem to be forthcoming from Lidington. This may not hold, if pressure grows. In truth the whole affair is unlikely to damage Williamson's leadership ambitions; he has raised his profile and set up a narrative of a Remainer Victim. Penny Mordaunt has been the other major beneficiary of the issue.

May now seems to have abandoned the idea that there will be a way forward found before the European elections and they are now definitely going ahead. This isn't a surprise as there is no incentive for Labour to have an agreement before the EU elections in which the Conservatives are certain to get a bloody nose. She also seems to be dropping hints they she will give into a customs union.

We have a visit from Trump to look forward to, which will be utterly joyous. There are rumours that he might meet Farage whilst he is here. His visit starts on 3rd June and finish on the 5th.

The Peterborough By Election is set for just a few days later on the 6th June. The Brexit Party have a very good chance of winning their first Parliamentary seat here - so the temptation to have a photo shoot with Trump will be all the more appealing to Farage. The hope must be that the Brexit vote will be split, allowing Labour to retain the seat. The previous Conservative MP, Stewart Jackson might well stand and he's very Brexity, George Galloway is trying to get the Brexit Party candidency though I think it unlikely and he will probably stand as a Pro-Brexit Independent anyway. There is also the prospect of Farage himself standing as its a winnable seat, but this seems unlikely as you can't be an MEP and an MP and its a high risk strategy to go for MP rather than a sure fire MEP. (Plus the pay is better for MEP).

May faces a challenge at grassroots level with an Emergency Meeting called by the Conservative Associations at her leadership. This will be in mid June. After the local, EU elections and Trump's visit this will be difficult for her to survive. Whilst she has survived this long, this will prove to be her biggest challenge yet.

It has to be said that there is no sign that we will get anything but no deal ultimately. There is an admission that May can't pass a Queen's speech with anything meaningful, so as long as she remains as PM parliament is even more paralysed that it has been to date. All things point to a new leader who is very Brexitty or accidental no deal because May can not do anything.

Meanwhile in the real world there are rumours that cancer treatments are now being delayed indefinitely due to Brexit... And so we continue to destroy ourselves and now, it seems, actively kill people in the name of Brexit.

Local Election results will start tonight with the majority tomorrow. Tories are expecting 700 - 1000 losses.

Just briefly heard someone on the radio saying Lib Dem resurgence nothing to do with Brexit and simply the traditional protest vote. Evidence was that they were doing no worse in Leave areas than Remain, totally ignoring the fact that even in most Leave areas there is a considerable Remain vote - and that people can change their minds.

On another subject...

40% of Leavers feel that to be 'truly' British, it's very important that both of your parents are born in the UK. So Lenny Henry isn't truly British; Andrew Adonis isn't; David Baddiel isn't; Geri Halliwell isn't; PRINCE PHILIP isn't

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2019/may/02/leavers-v-remainers-how-britains-tribes-compare

And also, you know, feminism has gone too far and it’s ok to wolf-whistling a woman in the street..

This makes me sick....

Sends a nice signal to all those parroting the “80% of people voted for Brexit supporting parties in 2017.”

I think this has had a big effect on the Labour vote. Is it a Tory-originating slogan? I bet it is!

I’m wondering if these results will change anything. Will Labour wake up and actually start acting like an opposition? Or will they continue to sit on the fence and collude with a Tory Brexit that no one actually wants (I know some people still want Brexit, but they definitely don’t want the one on offer).

My big worry is that now labour and the Tories will try and get the WA through before the elections.

One of ukip biggest gains is quite near me :(

Ah ha. My ward was LD hold. That's something anyway. He got almost double the next candidate who's Labour: 1,710 to 900.

As usual i doubt either party will take too much notice of these council elections - it has also been a low turnout.

Its good to see the LD do well but nowadays councils have so little power, local govt is run centrally.

A most gratifying result in the Vale of White Horse, which is where I live. 31 LD, 1Green and 6 Tories. Protest vote be b, in a strongly Remain area being told to F Off for the past three years is what has swung it. We didn't expect quite the size of the majorities though.

A couple of the Tories were good councillors and I am a little sorry to see them go, but some of the others should have been cleared out years ago.

Seeing the spoilt votes was interesting - for one time Tories, "May must resign", "deliver brexit", were the sorts of comments. Otherwise, I suspect people just turned to the Lib Dems.

As for the BBC - just looking at the news right now - both main parties have done badly - er well, Tories down 446 and Labour down 79 rather suggests that the Tories have done significantly worse, although this has to be set against it mostly being shire counties voting, who were more likely to be Tory.

I should say that some of the turnouts were quite high for local elections.

This will be a pyrrhic victory if the opinion polls are correct and the Brexit party do very well in the European election.

Defeating Brexit has always been about playing the long game. Just holding euro elections is a victory for remainers in itself.

In the event of the Brexit party doing well and remainers splitting their own vote across numerous parties May could very much do a "Cameron" - panic about the eurosceptics and ultimately pander to them.

I'm not convinced Lab and Tories are close to an agreement on Brexit - await to be proven wrong on that.

Sends a nice signal to all those parroting the “80% of people voted for Brexit supporting parties in 2017.”

The Labour Lexiters are more than happy to parrot this slogan, whoever it originated with.

@Iambuffy I've just said that to dd(10) as they know this is a major revolt against brexit.

Manchester don't start counting til later so I have a while to wait and see whether Labour's total council domination will be reduced a bit. The Greens and Libs need an election pact. I voted Green yesterday for the first time ever and it felt good. If the Libs teamed up with the Greens I'd vote for that!

The big parties need to recognise the swing to remain. And our momentum friends need to realise 2017 was their peak and this incarnation of Labour is toast.

On Corbyn, I agree he is now a huge problem for labour as it is clear that it is him that is blocking a PV. Now all the people that always hated him still hate him and all the people that used to support him are really bloody pissed off at him ignoring the membership on brexit. Certainly amoung the people I know who used otbe big fans there has been a real wish to send a message and I think any election will be used to do that. Labour need to really reflect on this result and follow their policy to start supporting a PV or they will lose their existing base without any chance of making any gains on the leaver side. Corbyn needs to realise that a GE is bloody suicide.

Of course he is as stobborn and bloody minded as May so it's hard to imagine any of this happening and I can see them responding by pushing even harder in the Brexit and GE direction just because he is incapable of changing direction.

Worryingly I also heard on the news talk of "just sorting out Brexit" and fear Con and Lab will now shove any old thing through to look like they have delivered the "will of the people" on a 3 year old vote, rather than looking at the latest trends. Then LD or Green will get lumbered with Brexit after next GE while the people who shat on the doorstep skip off into the sunset.

Do you know it the majority of The Independents gaining votes are in favour of Brexit ?

FFS

John McDonnell -so far message from local elections- “Brexit - sort it.” Message received.

Ruth Smeeth -voters just don't believe Labour will deliver Brexit

NO that is not the message. Look where the votes are going.The message is forget the ditching EU membership and focus on other stuff.

Before the referendum between the 2010 and 2015 elections a massive 97 per cent didn’t consider the EU a big issue anyway.

On the Tory side, I think we’re going to see more pressure for a harder Brexit or more willingness from Theresa May to drive it through.

Says Laura Kuessburg. I despair of the woman. Does she not realise that those southern England Tory seats which have gone Lib Dem have done so because it's the main Remain party. A strong Brexit will kill the party stone dead in those areas.

The Vale of White Horse now has 31 Lib Dems, out of 38 seats. Previously, the Tories had 29 of the 38. If that isn't a drubbing, I don't know what is.

As usual i doubt either party will take too much notice of these council elections - it has also been a low turnout.

I'm not sure about the turnout across the country but in my area it has been pretty high. My ward was 52% and the constituency as a whole was 45% which is a smidge up from 43% in 2016

Not bad and worth taking note of I'd say.

Look at the people voting remain parties in! People have changed their minds!

I wouldn't get too excited - I heard on the radio this morning that the turn out in some areas was as low as 20%. People were phoning in with anecdotes of how they had spoiled their ballot paper by writing the Brexit Party across it in blue marker pen etc. EU citizens resident in the UK can vote in local elections as well.

@Clavinova - I'll get excited about people who engage and actually vote, thanks all the same. There appear to be more of them than the spoilers.

Results on ward by ward basis with percentages can be found here:
public.flourish.studio/visualisation/334991/

This makes me sick
Yes.

That survey was asking which aspects of ECHR, Equalities Act and Criminal Justice and Public order Act whoever the respondents are would be content to break.

Very odd.

I should say that some of the turnouts were quite high for local elections

This would bely the answer to the daft question about 'elites' and trust in politics.

The reposting of images condoing spoilt ballot papers is pretty too.

It was inevitable that Corbyn/May would spin this the brexist way.

What they can't control is how pro EU voters are going to build on this for the EU elections.

Corbyn must go. He is killing our party and our country
Yup.

Thank you for doing the polling station work Peregrina and congratulations to green and lib dem workers. I am Real Labour, but appreciate what you've achieved.

I've just replied to John McDonnell's 'sort it' tweet. Thick twat (I was more polite to him!).