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.

@Clavinova
Local Council elections are a 4 year cycle
The proportion held is irrelevant when it may be three years till they come round again.

The Tories said yesterday that -800 would be bad
I have Tory friends who rightly and utterly won their seats
but nationally it was an omnishambles clusterfuck
and Labour gained less than fuck all from it

The trouble is that Brexit is now an article of faith among many politicians because, well, democracy - which they have to believe in, even when it’s a flawed referendum undertaken for entirely the wrong reasons and tainted by criminality, because otherwise their existence (as politicians) is pointless.

FGS do we all need to email all the Labour and Tory MPs telling them that the reason they have done so crap is NOT because we are telling them to get on with Brexit, it is because we don't like the Tory Brexit which is totally not what anyone voted for, and because the Labour Party are sitting on the fence about a second referendum. We have NOT voted Lib Dem/Green as a protest, but because they are pro Europe!

Ooft has anyone listened to the leaked Ruth Davidson practice speech? Nicola surgeon has tweeted it. Its humiiating for ruth. "This is the new version, it's got the jokes in" (the jokes are terrible btw)

Haha!!

DH heard (and fell for) a bod on Radio 4
who said that
more people voted for Brexit than anything else ever
so he thought it had a mandate
until I reminded him of percentages
BUT I'm angry that the BBC do not understand pasic percentages and stats to refute claims

Would any of you who have sent an email explaining that it's because we don't want the Tory Brexit be prepared to share what you wrote? I'd like to send an email but don't know where to start with it all.

Ooft has anyone listened to the leaked Ruth Davidson practice speech?

What an absolute idiot, hilarious.
But what is shameful is this so called remainer now wants brexit because she thinks it will enhance her career.

www.thenational.scot/news/17618269.listen-ruth-davidson-left-red-faced-after-microphone-blunder/

I thought clavs post made the losses look worse to be honest

Not to me.

Yes, I wonder who the Independents are as well - over 1,000 seats in all.

jasjas1973 yep, she has her eye on the prize. Only out for herself. Shameful woman

Some turnouts in the LibDem winning areas have been substantially more than this, well into the 40% + range, although I haven't been able to find figures for this.

I've seen turnout estimates of over 50% in some places eg in wards in Grease Smug's Somerset constituency (where my sister lives).

Anecdotally just from eyeballing the data it seems like some of the highest turnouts were in places where there was a massive swing to the LDs - perhaps where they were able to capitalise on remainer anger for particular local reasons.

I was thinking percentages of loss clav

Not overall seats still in tory or Labour hands

100% spoilt ballot papers?!

God no. Electing LDs is the right thing to do.

The frantic and transparent spinning tells you that both Tories and Labour know time is nearly up. (There is still time for a stitch up though).

I don't know what happens when you chuck the Brexit party into the mix. I think it's worse for the tories than labour.

@Clavinova
Do catch up dear
we worked out how to check the provenance of independents two threads ago
and yes, some of them stink
that is democracy

I just emailed a big wodge of the shadow cabinet to explain in simple words that I changed my vote from labour to lib dem because I support remain

Just been at BBC R4 Any Questions at a church in leafy tory southern town.

Chakrabarti, was very (accidentally) funny,(hope my laughs weren't picked up by the microphones.) laboursplaining the local elections and Brexit.

Her labour bullshit about 'wanting to get on with brexit' went down very badly.

Jonathon Bartley (Green party) was excellent.

The audience was very Peoples Vote and Remainy; kept applauding Bartley.

Shah apologised for the audience as 'self selecting' at the end of the broadcast.

1300 tory losses. 800 labour. A good day.

'Brexit''s just been decimated.

By us voters.

It's pretty frothy floraloctopus - but as I doubt any of them will actually read it anyway, i though fuck it - why not say it like it is?
Dear ---

It is disheartening to see that - after a dismal performance from the labour party in the elections yesterday , in which your party lost seats overwhelmingly to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens - you have decided to spin the result as a protest vote from 'people wanting brexit sorting.'

Let me be clear:
The reason I have switched my allegiance from Labour to Liberal Democrat was because I am a remain supporter - who still wishes to remain - and they unequivocally stand for remain, whilst you stand for nothing.

The voters who have abandoned your party have not done so because you are not pro-brexit enough, or are not delivering it fast enough. They have abandoned your party because they are remain supporters and you are enabling brexit. That is why they have switched to remain supporting parties. You will note, the UKIP vote also collapsed.
Yesterday's election results were not a pro brexit protest but an anti brexit one. You have already been given conclusive proof that your pro brexit stance is causing you to haemorrhage support, across the country. If you take the people clearly voicing their preference for remain as a reason to enable tory brexit then you will be punished in the polls for a generation or more - as last night proved.

The electorate know why they voted. They know what message they were trying to send. The unprecedented wins for the Greens and the massive recovery of the Lib Dems tells us that message is a pro remain one. If you try to tell us that it was a pro- brexit vote then all you do is insult the intelligence of the people whom you wish to lure back to voting for you, and show them that democracy is truly dead, in this country, as it does not matter what or how we vote - you will dictate, wrongly, how to interpret that - and act in accordance with your own wishes.

You have lost my vote - and, currently, I do not believe there is anything you could do that would win back either my vote or my trust in your party. Last night suggests I am far from alone in feeling this way. However - if you do not wish to destroy the Labour party completely, forever, then you need to start reaching out to the 48% - to the 70% of your voters who are remainers - and who abandoned you so completely, yesterday, and not do anything to enable Theresa May to ram an unwanted hard brexit through parliament. If you enable this harmful tory brexit - which the electorate proved in both the 2017 general election and last night that they did not want - then not only will your party's utter annihilation be assured at the next election, it will be well deserved. If you are the labour Party that allows the Conservatives to destroy the welfare state and worker's rights through a brexit you could not control, once the W.A was passed - then that will never be forgiven or forgotten amongst the people you were meant to stand for.

It is time to stop lying - about what last night's results signify and about what is possible under Brexit. There is no 'job's first brexit'. A customs union does not protect the peace in Northern Ireland, deliver frictionless trade and allow British manufacturing to keep its place in a pan-European supply chain. Ending FOM means removing rights we currently enjoy and bars us from free and easy access to the single market. It is time to come clean that any form of brexit is just a poor man's version of Remain. It is time to start acting like the opposition.

The mandate for brexit is long since past. If the tories are the face of brexit, they have suffered two humiliating electoral defeats since the referendum. Your fence sitting and facilitating brexit means you have now suffered an humiliating electoral defeat of your own.

Learn from last night. The people are clearly saying that they don't want you to just 'get on' with brexit - they want you to stop it. That is why they voted for the parties committed to stopping it. It was not an elaborate double bluff - we vote for remain parties to tell you we love brexit - it was a clear and conscious vote for remain.
Do not tell those of us who voted what our votes means. Don't insult our intelligence. Don't lie to us. We know. And it is time that you worked out that the only way to avoid a similar disaster in a General Election - or at the EU elections in a few weeks time - is to stop enabling brexit and start backing a confirmatory referendum.

I was thinking percentages of loss

Tories lost 25% of their council seats. Labour lost less than 5% (but if it wants to be the government-in-waiting it needs to be winning seats at this point in the electoral cycle).

LDs roughly doubled their councillors, Greens quadrupled (off the top of my head but that's in the right ball park).

Conservative voters traditionally have always been most likely to turnout.

I wouldn't be surprised if this has now changed to LDs - which will now include a significant percentage of former soft Tories who have abandoned the party.

This group will contain many of the most politically interested full stop. And will be a generally well educated group.

My concern for the European elections is that we have the Brexit Party and many voters who didn't vote today might want to make a point - especially given the level of defeat by the 'remain parties' and so will turnout which could give a very different result.

The places with the lowest turnouts do seem more likely to be leave strongholds.

It is entirely possible there will be a total reversal of fortune.

misti

Exactly 25% loss sounds much worse than 5%

red

Nah...i reckon we'll be ok

Cos people voting for remain parties means that everyone wants to brexit

So that means that everyone voting for leave parties means that everyone wants to remain

Apparently

On the basis that Clavinola seems to be more than a bit French I would propose a deal. She can stay in the UK and I will remain in Europe.

Let me be clear

Have you morphed into TM, I cant?!

Ican Bravo -well-said. My earlier post mis-interpreted local results (Arun) (was having to open individual PDFs for each Ward & add up) Now has 22 LDs to 21 Cons, this is pretty seismic -normally VERY Tory here.
Local issues critical though, Cons have made a complete hash of local plan & seriously pissed off many, & LDs able to capitalise on it. At least some of the Inds not swivel-eyed, but anti - local plan. 8 Inds elected. There will be interesting times locally, & Con hegemony about to be shattered, not before time.

Conservative
2019: 3562 seats (-1334)
=> 2015: 4896 seats (i.e.3562+1334)
Lost 27.2% of their seats

Labour
2019: 2023 seats (-82)
=> 2015: 2105 seats (i.e. 2023+82)
Lost 3.9% of their seats

UKIP
2019: 31 seats (-145)
=> 2015: 176 seats (i.e. 32+145)
Lost 82.4% of their seats

LibDem
2019: 1350 seats (+703)
=> 2015: 647 seats (i.e. 1350-703)
Now have 108.7% of their 2015 total - they’ve more than doubled the number of seats they hold

Green
2019: 265 seats (+194)
=> 2015: 71 seats (i.e. 265-194)
Now have 273.2% of their 2015 total - they’re not far off having quadrupled their number of seats (up by a factor of >3.7)

She can stay in the UK and I will remain in Europe.

What makes you think we want her? Any more than Farage.

What makes you think we want her? Any more than Farage

Youll get what youre given and be grateful