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Brexit

Westminstenders: A fully functioning government?

960 replies

RedToothBrush · 10/05/2019 23:50

It's been a month since parliament voting on anything.

The staggering reality of May's premiership is that government has ceased to function. We are stuck not just on Brexit but every other issue, such is the weakness of May's authority.

It begs the question of how long this is tolerable by all sides of the Conservative Civil War?

May being unable to bring anything forward means no deal is probably as inevitable as if a hardliner was PM.

There was talk of May / Corbyn reaching a fudge to get a deal via the backdoor WAB (Withdrawal Agreement Implimentation Bill) as it was politically impossible for them to be seen doing a deal any other way. However news today is that despite pressure from the 1922 Committee to bring it forward, May has slapped just a one line whip on it, meaning it will go precisely no where.

The polling for the European elections is perhaps more favourable to Labour than they might have feared after last weeks local election disaster so the mutual interest for Corbyn to move forward in anyway has already gone. Seeing the Tories be humiliated at the ballot box is too much of a temptation.

The phrase about Shit Creek only gets more apt.

All that is happening is every member of the Tory Party is lining up to take part in a leadership contest. It's harder to think of a Tory who isn't considering standing. It's not just the likes of Johnson, Gove, Rudd and Hunt. It's also the likes of Johnny Mercer and Graham Brady queuing not so patiently.

And its getting harder to argue that May is better as PM than the possibility of a right right candidate, because of the paralysis. Though as Rudd rightly points out, such a PM who wanted to actively have no deal as a policy, would struggle to win a majority in the HoC for that all important Queens Speech vote - every bit as much as May. Unless they were to somehow decide they could abuse the power of the executive and ignore parliament - a feat May has repeatedly attempted but ultimately failed at.

All everything feels, is a massive sense of merely delaying the inevitable.

Remain? Hard to see how under any Tory. A Deal? Hard to see what it might be and how there will be a Parliamentary majority. A PV? Well that still has to get through parliament and needs to be arranged smartish. And might not resolve the Irish border issue if the vote goes 'the wrong way' A General Election? That still seems to be a distinct possibility. But with the seeming resurrection of the LDs that's one the Tories will be desperate to avoid. Not that Corbyn is likely to succeed either. And of course there is now the Spectre of the Turquoise Arrows lurking. The crushing of the purple pound notes feels a hollow and distinct success.

It feels like we are waiting for the political sky to fall in in some sort of never ending Brexit Purgotory.

The cataclysmic event will occur at some point. It has to. But for now, it feels that there is nothing but waiting and waiting to be done.

OP posts:
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lonelyplanetmum · 14/05/2019 08:46

Don't forget Boris's criminal prosecution has its first hearing this afternoon. I'd like to go but think one hearing is private and the second clashes with school run timings..

1tisILeClerc · 14/05/2019 08:56

Why does Olly need to GO to Brussels, what is wrong with the telephone or hasn't the UK paid the bill?

ContinuityError · 14/05/2019 09:01

Math Hatari, the Icelandic Eurovision bunch, are pranksters:

grapevine.is/icelandic-culture/music/2019/05/13/six-times-icelandic-eurovision-stars-hatari-trolled-the-world/

Still, they’re more favoured by the bookies (25/1) than the UK (300/1) to win this year.

DGRossetti · 14/05/2019 09:08

But what about all the Tory Remainers?Have they gone away?

Maybe being a Tory is more important to them than being a European ?

DGRossetti · 14/05/2019 09:09

Why does Olly need to GO to Brussels, what is wrong with the telephone or hasn't the UK paid the bill?

Whatsapp hack, innit ?

1tisILeClerc · 14/05/2019 09:12

{ Hatari, the Icelandic Eurovision bunch, are pranksters:}
Well a refreshing change from the bad old days of the 'Miss World' where, dressed in a posh frock the young ladies would speak of looking after cute puppies in their spare time and world peace.
If their music is any good then they may be on a winner.

1tisILeClerc · 14/05/2019 09:14

Maybe he will nip out to the Belgian embassy to get his application papers signed while he is there?

BigChocFrenzy · 14/05/2019 09:17

Yep, I reckon Ollie wants political asylum,
after the inhuman conditions of 2 years working for ignorant batshit ministers

1tisILeClerc · 14/05/2019 09:20

Wasn't it Olly who asked Mr Verhofstadt about becoming a European citizen?

{Ollie wants political asylum,} But Westminster IS a political asylum.

ContinuityError · 14/05/2019 09:21

I reckon Robbins could claim asylum under the grounds that working for May’s Government is a “cruel and unusual punishment” Smile

DGRossetti · 14/05/2019 09:26

I reckon Robbins could claim asylum under the grounds that working for May’s Government is a “cruel and unusual punishment”

Does English law have such a concept ?

Anyway, it's a meaningless idea anyway. It must be, since in the US not only are executions still allowed, but they're also allowed to be deliberately painful. To the extent (and in one of the WTF did I just see moments of television, even Michael Portillo was visibily shaken) that it's considered a waste of time to research painless ways of execution.

Oops, keep it light, Dante, keep it light .....

ContinuityError · 14/05/2019 09:31

Well, I suppose “cruel and unusual” is the Eighth Amendment. The UK has Article 3 of the ECHR (for now, at least).

DGRossetti · 14/05/2019 09:34

Well, I suppose “cruel and unusual” is the Eighth Amendment.

presumably for decoration. Unlike the second which seems to work.

prettybird · 14/05/2019 09:38

Just watching Maria Miller on All Out Politics and she is still trying to promulgate the twisted interpretation that the local election results "show the politicians very clearly that the people want to see us out of the EU" Confused

BigChocFrenzy · 14/05/2019 09:52

Deadlock looks the most likely status quo for years

ComRes acceptable/unacceptable Brexit outcomes:

Only Revoke has 50% and that only just.
Each form of Brexit though is opposed by a large majority

Westminstenders: A fully functioning government?
BigChocFrenzy · 14/05/2019 09:54

Nick Cohen:

"the characters who have taken over the British right have not provided us with a ruling class but a ruling chaos"

DGRossetti · 14/05/2019 10:02

Today, I see a report warning of growing inequality as a "threat to democracy".

I wonder if that's code for "if we're not careful, there will be enough poor to vote of tax rises for the rich" ? ("...If we let them ...")

What better way to neutralise a bloc vote than by creating a myriad of "choices" to dilute the result ?

Ellie56 · 14/05/2019 10:04

Ha ha! That leaflet just about sums the Conservatives up!

lonelyplanetmum · 14/05/2019 10:09

On the subject of cruel and unusual roles - lots of posts st DexEU available some more posted in the last 2 days.

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=dXNlcnNlYXJjaGNvbnRleHQ9Nzc3OTM2NzYmcGFnZWFjdGlvbj1zZWFyY2hieWNvbnRleHRpZCZwYWdlY2xhc3M9Sm9icyZrZXk9ZmFpcg==

lonelyplanetmum · 14/05/2019 10:10

They need strategy and policy advisers. You don't say.

DGRossetti · 14/05/2019 10:12

They need strategy and policy advisers.

They need the right S&P advisers ...

CrunchyCarrot · 14/05/2019 10:20

The Labour leaflet

Westminstenders: A fully functioning government?
Westminstenders: A fully functioning government?
BigChocFrenzy · 14/05/2019 10:28

"if we're not careful, there will be enough poor to vote of tax rises for the rich"

No, that's the main motivation for those financing populism in the USA and Europe:
To distract the poor from doing this

Globalisation & automation has been carried out in such a way as to transfer even more wealth from the rich to the poor
That can only continue as long as the poor are distracted.

MrPan · 14/05/2019 10:33

I have noooo idea what "bring the country back together" actually means. Yet politicos use this phrase all the time, as if it's widely understood. Is it?

My version of it is "bring us back to a pre-referendum" state, so we can decide to not perform any more self-harm.

BigChocFrenzy · 14/05/2019 10:33

For years, there have been enough poor in the Uk and USA to vote measures to reverse equality

A study revealed how the wealthy engage in ‘stealth politics’:
quietly advancing unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative policies

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/30/billionaire-stealth-politics-america-100-richest-what-they-want

citizens could be badly misled by what a handful of famous billionaires [largescale charitable donors Gates, Buffett] said in public.
....
Our findings help illuminate how the political network assembled by the Koch brothers could have become so powerful.

The Kochs have had a fertile field of less-well-known conservative billionaires to cultivate for hundreds of millions of dollars in in secret, unreported contributions.

The Kochs’ entrepreneurship and organizational skills, together with stealthy contributions by these little-known billionaires, have produced a political juggernaut.

Both as individuals and as contributors to Koch-type consortia, most US billionaires have given large amounts money
– and many have engaged in intense activity –
to advance unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative economic policies.

But they have done so very quietly, saying little or nothing in public about what they are doing or why.
They have avoided political accountability.