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.

But if Farage/Brexit party do well, it will be spun as most people wanting to get on with Brexit. And even if they lose, it will be spun as most people wanting to get on with Brexit.

And therein lies the problem. We actually can't send a message with our vote because - in public at least - there's a stupid spin on it. I would love to be a fly on the wall, however, so I can see whether they actually believe the shit they're trotting our in public or not.

I'm pretty sure that if the BREX party gets the most UK seats in the EP elections, then LAB, CON & the media will claim it was a "clear" vote for Brexit

Especially if the combined % vote for the Remain parties is also lower

The party apparatchiks are mostly concerned with opinion / seats in England, when deciding policy
No wonder SNP support is rising.

The problem is also that - as with the locals - Leavers can claim people voted Green and Ldems for other issues, not Remain
To be fair , iirc hate votes Green

In contrast, BREX has literally only one policy.

Turnout is going to be really critical.

In the LE, turnout was very low in some areas, very high in others. I haven't seen any data but my impression is that turnout was highest in traditionally Tory-voting areas with a strongish remain vote, eg in Grease Smog's Somerset constituency where some wards had turnouts of well over 50%. These areas often have quite a strong LD presence and they worked very hard to get the vote out. One newly elected LD councillor (I think this was a Chelmsford one, not Somerset) claimed on twitter to have visited every house in his ward multiple times.

It's easy to forget that while about two thirds of Tories voted leave, there are significant numbers of remain voting working age Tories - usually middle class business people - who have a very high propensity to turn out at elections. I can see the LDs or the tiggers mopping up support from my (usually Tory voting) colleagues for example. (I only know of one person in management at my employer who voted leave, and he retired on 29/3 because he didn't want to be doing his job - shipping manager - after Brexit. True story.)

The other thing to say about the LEs and what it means for the EP elections is that the areas concerned by the LE voted on average 55% to leave in the referendum. In other words, this was an election focussed on areas which were more strongly leave (in 2016) than the nation as a whole.

Remember that people who don't know who they are voting for at the EP probably belong in one of two groups: people who won't vote at all, and remainers who haven't yet decided which remain party will get their vote. I think Nige has a hard ceiling and it isn't 30% (that figure doesn't include the undecideds). There is no one right now who is undecided about whether they are part of the cult of Nigel or not, and he is more likely to lose votes than to gain them IMO.

Agree with BCF that we are only going to know for sure after the election, because sampling must be a nightmare right now (polls are all over the place).

Nothing is getting through to the government. March? Nope, not enough people involved. Petition? Nope, ditto. Voting for remain parties? Nope, that means 'get on with' Brexit.

Even writing long, detailed, correspondence to your MP doesn't work, in my and many other, cases, as the MP simply ignores everything they don't want to address.

It's a good job we're not easily put off.

It would be hoped that those people in strong Remain areas do turn out and vote for Remain parties - but they are stuck between a choice of three LibDem/Green and ChangeUK. It's hard to predict e.g. in the south east constituency the 1st named ChangeUK candidate is Richard Ashworth, the one time Tory who made the impassioned speech the other week in the European Parliament, so the Remain Tories can go for him, knowing that he's really one of them.

Does anyone remember the last EU election sufficiently

Farridge's current political vehicle is only 2.5% higher than his last one.

peregrina Last EP elections, UKIP got 27%
So BREX seems a bit higher, but not surprisingly so

The effect looks greater, because this will be the first election in which Remain / Leave is the big issue

• and the small pro-Remain parties are splitting the Remain vote

In our desperate political crisis, these EP elections will have a political effect both on LAB & CON policy and on the E27 willingness to keep granting extensions without progress on the UK side

LAB & CON leadership and most of the media want Brexit, so they twisted local election results and will seize on any justification in the EP results

Nothing is getting through to the government
Extinction Rebellison managed it after 4 days action. Maybe they could run some training sessions.

Extinction Rebellison managed it after 4 days action. Maybe they could run some training sessions.

For some reason I'm picturing that scene in Shaun of the Dead where they're 'training' how to act as zombies! 😂😂

woman There is that one large unknown donor to BREX - Farage sayss not Arron Banks,
plus 70,000 supporters at 25 quid each

Note: "supporters" not "members"
Even the candidates are not members

BREX is a one-man and one-member party - Farage
He decides party policy and all candidates - and also where the money goes
There are no votes or democracy, just the way he likes it

Farage did get his UKIP vote out that time

This is true as far as it goes - but only as far as it goes. Twatface got out the part of the UKIP vote that is highly motivated on this issue. But with only a 36% turnout that's not really a big share of the electorate. He got 4.4m votes in 2014, so only about a quarter of people who voted leave in the referendum voted UKIP in the last EP election. In the 2015 GE, he got just under 4 million votes on a 65% turnout.

Peregrina Johnson lives just outside Thame I believe?

Thame elected three Lib Dems

However, pp were querying how one poll could hve 61% Remain, while the Remain parties total so much less in party polls

Accepting that most Remainers voted Labour in the elections - and will probably do so in the EP elections - is essential in understanding the polls

You also have to remember that the local elections weren’t held everywhere. For example, only 1/3 of council seats in England were being contested. They’re a barometer of what the electorate think (because they represent actual people casting an actual vote), but the data is obviously incomplete in that lots and lots of people had no 2019 local election to vote in.

Re MPs writing letters in reply to emails. I’ve had that, and wondered if it’s so recipients can’t easily copy/paste the MP’s reply and publish it elsewhere on social media.

I too am worried about the Remain vote being split, but does anyone else have a feeling the Greens are on the rise?

This Remain vote advice says Green in most areas have the best chance. (But that’s based on 2014 results.)

drive.google.com/file/d/1ucUzUJCWc7dhRJwTp26TO7FhONYdoWEp/view

ContinuityError Very interesting regarding the funding stream allegedly for transport Someone's also betting on making a lot of money out of this. However, it makes a mockery of our electoral law and democratic accountability. Not to mention incitement law, following that Goodall thread.
It looked like a rather empty stadium though.

anyone else have a feeling the Greens are on the rise
Seems like it Hester. The precious youth vote is theirs for the taking, I'd say. Recent ecology protests were fortuitously timed. I was also really impressed by Jonathon Bartley on Friday Any questions:
Clear, calm, witty, principled and logical. He was sitting next to labour's Baroness Chakrobarti who was the polar opposite.

Yep, the ⅓ of areas which voted are slightly more Brexity than average, since London & Scotland did not vote.
In the referendum, they voted 56% Leave, rather than the 52% result

Peregrina you could try the book I’m reading by Fintan O’Toole.
‘Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics Of Pain’.
I also have ‘The Lies of the Land: an Honest History Of Political Deceit’ by Adam MacQueen to read next. Don’t know how much that is about Brexit though.

In any formal / business letter, it's normal to put your address

The MP probably wants this for his records,
as well as to check that you are one of his constituents - some won't "waste time" on anyone who can't vote for them

• if you have a foreign address, you need to say you still have a vote in that constituency

My MP was pretty assiduous in replying personally by letter to my emails, until the sole email where I agreed with her (I said I’d be OK with her voting for the WA as the least worst option). I didn’t get a response to that.
But I think in her case it was a combination of habit and caution that stopped her from responding via email. I never had one response that wasn’t bland and toeing the party line in every respect.

To help with their reelection, MPs record who they have helped, who might vote for them, who never will
so they know which voters to concentrate on / ignore in a GE

Morning all. I'm not liking the lack of Brexit resolving action from the powers that be. I'm assuming Tuesday might bring some talk but no trousers.

"Who's funding it?"
F On Sophie ridge right now.
85 000 supporters giving £25. Raised £2m
Donation of £100 000 not disclosed.

Challenged on his lies about Oldham too.
Anyone spot his plea for one party state at the end of the interview?

That's the sensible way to launch an EP campaign - so you don't get your arse full of splinters !

Sturgeon told the SNP conference last weekend:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/04/glasgow-march-scottish-independence-under-one-banner

“As voters go to the polls for the European elections on May 23, our message will be clear and direct.
And unlike Labour’s, it will be unambiguous.

Scotland’s not for Brexit, Scotland’s for Europe.”
......
SNP activists were distributing half a million “Stop Brexit” flyers across the country
on the first of three campaign Saturdays in the run-up to the European elections.

Meanwhile, a big turnout in Glasgow today for the Indy march