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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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OhYouBadBadKitten · 15/05/2019 08:19

I had horrific nightmares, really really horrendous, but got out for an early morning walk which was soothing.

I feel strangely detached from brexit at the moment, a bit like the characters from On the Beach.

Peregrina · 15/05/2019 08:30

At a different time, May's qualities of tenacity and a capacity for hard work would have stood us in good stead, but she is completely the wrong politician to lead the country in a time of political upheaval.

magimedi · 15/05/2019 08:35

I feel strangely detached from brexit at the moment,

I feel very similar, OYBBK . Almost feels as if I'm living in a dream.

Ellie56 · 15/05/2019 08:36

May will never revoke. I agree.

I think the Maybot has jammed. Yep. She needs putting back to factory settings.

Ellie56 · 15/05/2019 08:45

It's amazing that May, for all her grievous faults, still looks like a better leader than most who aspire to her office.

I think this is the reason she has lasted so long.If there had been any really credible alternative she would have been forced out long before now. The aspiring Tory leaders are all much of a muchness in their uninspiring mediocrity, and Jeremy Corbyn is just as much a liability as she is. As for Farage... just let's not go there.

Scary times...

1tisILeClerc · 15/05/2019 08:58

{She needs putting back to factory settings.}
At least 'Baby Anabelle' had a switch on the back of it's neck.
Even Furby's had them too.

May is 'determined' but is pointing the wrong direction.
Corbyn is simply a liability with no sense of anything that is going on on this planet. The fact he is deliberately being obstructive and obtuse makes him worse than May. It is all very well talking to the faeries in his potting shed but not as a strategy for governance of the UK.

ContinuityError · 15/05/2019 09:26

Just received a very bland response from my MP to my email complaining about the Tories stating that their trouncing showed that the public “just wanted to get on with it”:

Dear ...

Thank you for your email.

The results of the local elections are difficult to read because they really do differ across the country, However, it still doesn’t change the fact that there was a democratic vote in 2016 that hasn’t yet been implemented.

I understand that some may try to use the results to call for a people’s vote and second referendum, however as I have said before, I believe this will further divide the country, undermine our democratic processes and only act to prolong uncertainty.

Yours ...

Blah, blah, blah.

LonelyTiredandLow · 15/05/2019 09:29

I think May is trying, in her mind, to get a sensible plan in place before someone like Farridge can get in and No Deal us. I think she believes along the same lines as the German negotiator in Behind Closed Doors; that some remainers simply don't know how to compromise. The trouble is you cannot compromise when so much is at stake - rights, jobs, freedom of movement, food and medicines aren't bargaining chips to pick between.

Being "seen" to be doing the will of the people has trumped doing what is right for the people. As I said previously I think the Tories have left it too late to fully explain to people why this stage has been so hard - they've bought into the Leave rhetoric for profit only to discover too late that they can't do that and keep power, because they will be held to account (sooner or later) unlike Farage.

1tisILeClerc · 15/05/2019 09:31

Borrowed from the Daily Mash:
{Remind your older relatives there is a normal world outside Farage worship, and that if they didn’t know about the EU they’d find it hard to care about. Soon they’ll shift to just whining on endlessly about car insurance, wheelie bins and wasps.}

LonelyTiredandLow · 15/05/2019 09:32

Mogg et al have been noticeably quiet since they apparently realised that "Brexit is a process, not an event" or words to that effect. The penny has dropped that this is a possible death knoll for the Tories I think.

LonelyTiredandLow · 15/05/2019 09:35

A post from one of my Leave fb acquaintances this morning:
"I don't think we should become anything like the USA IM BRITISH AND PROUD! I'm also happy to share that I voted leave in 2016 I'm ASHAMED THAT NOT ONE POLITICAL PARTY OTHER THAN FARAGE WOULD MAKE IT HAPPEN"
Hmm

WhatWouldScoobyDoo · 15/05/2019 09:51

I feel strangely detached from brexit at the moment

Me too. I’m still overwhelmingly worried and anxious about the future - but I can’t seem to FEEL anxious.

Is there a psychological reason for this?

DGRossetti · 15/05/2019 10:01

I guess we are seeing political "evolution" in action. As with Galapagos Finches, there's a survival of the fittest going on.

I refuse to believe that the Brexit party is somehow the fittest party for our times. And if it is, it's entirely because what came before - Tory and Labour - made it that way.

I don't like woo, but it's hard to produce any evidence that the human species hasn't been affected by an organism that is seeking to raise the CO2 levels on Earth, and flourish in the aftermath.

1tisILeClerc · 15/05/2019 10:16

Both Daily fail and Guardian reporting (?) that most MPs will vote against the WAIB.
When are the MPs going to learn to read English* and understand that it has to be signed?

*Also available in 26 other languages.

DGRossetti · 15/05/2019 10:23

I feel strangely detached from brexit at the moment

When I studied history, I recall reading peoples accounts from Germany, and how it quickly become like a dream - a state where you can only experience things and you have no agency. Ironically the exact situation that Brexiteers complain they were in that led them to "protest".

Time to dust off some poetry from the 90s. I can't be arsed to find the text, but the title was "Standing by a Self Dug Grave" and the idea was we spend all our lives digging our own graves and should contemplate how deep or wide we want them to be. And where.

Motheroffourdragons · 15/05/2019 10:33

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ on behalf of the poster.

Peregrina · 15/05/2019 10:44

In Scotland ChangeUK doesn't matter for the Euros - you have two good choices, SNP or LibDem.

Motheroffourdragons · 15/05/2019 10:50

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ on behalf of the poster.

BigChocFrenzy · 15/05/2019 10:55

Forming a new party

  • creating the organisation in the country and especially if you want to have policies, a manifesto, check where your funds are coming from, vet candidates properly -

is a quite different skill set to being a capable politician

The old SDP found this
and ChUK don't seem to have read their history

I wanted them just to stay as a pro-Remain group in the HoC, where they could have influence and coax other MPs to join.

I thought they couldn't organise a new party under such time pressure , but I didn't expect they'd make quite such a public mess of it, though
Very doubtful any more MPs would join them after this

BigChocFrenzy · 15/05/2019 10:56

and it was always obvious they'd split the Remain vote

DGRossetti · 15/05/2019 10:56

But I think it shows that Change UK have really not taken the place by storm.

I think their first few months of existence almost sum up the staggering incompetence all our MPs seem to display. In fact all the CHUK episode has done for me is confirm that it's MPs that are pretty useless much more than the party they represent. So all we've seen is some mediocre politicians leave both main parties - that were mediocre at best. Instead of shining like the jewels of competence they are, they've just formed another incompetent party.

Moreover an incompetent party whose core values I am unsure about.

My memories of the Social Democrat launch are much more positive.

Mistigri · 15/05/2019 10:58

They will end up merging with the LDs, I think, and I don't think that is a bad outcome.

The danger for the LDs now is that they end up in the same position as Macron's LREM - the de facto party of the soft right, due to the self-immolation of the traditional centre right party, rather than a left-of-centre party.

magimedi · 15/05/2019 11:02

{Remind your older relatives there is a normal world outside Farage worship, and that if they didn’t know about the EU they’d find it hard to care about. Soon they’ll shift to just whining on endlessly about car insurance, wheelie bins and wasps.}

Can I just say that not all us 'oldies* are pro Farage. I know many staunch remainers over the age of 65 who have been politically active all their lives.

WhatWouldScoobyDoo · 15/05/2019 11:09

I recall reading peoples accounts from Germany, and how it quickly become like a dream - a state where you can only experience things and you have no agency

DGR Sad Yes this is how it feels.

I do not want to give up on my agency. My initial thought was write more MP emails. But it seems that everybody seems so entrenched in their positions - I do not think there are minds to be changed by my email writing.

Any other thoughts/ideas?

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