Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

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:
Thread gallery
39
Ellie56 · 16/05/2019 11:23

On Corbyn getting off the fence, he's just killed Labour.

It will be interesting to see how Labour fares in the opinion polls after this...

NoWordForFluffy · 16/05/2019 11:25

Well, we've been spammed today. UKIP and BP wrote to DH personally (first in alphabet) and the others weren't addressed.

He says he had a Labour one a few weeks' ago, but I think that was for the locals, even though he says not!

Westminstenders: A fully functioning government?
LoonvanBoon · 16/05/2019 11:26

That Corbyn clip is from May 2017. It's the 2017 Labour manifesto position, not a new clarification.

1tisILeClerc · 16/05/2019 11:41

That Tommy Robinson leaflet is simply vile.
It is one thing to have a difference of opinion, but his message is phrased as a threat.

DGRossetti · 16/05/2019 12:07

We got our Brexit party leaflet today ..

What's the Westminstenders preferred method of disposal ?

I'm tending towards putting it in a windowed envelope with a dud cheque that can be seen through the window. No stamp, and despatch to Brexit towers ....

BestIsWest · 16/05/2019 12:08

Huge turnout for Nige in Merthyr yesterday

Westminstenders: A fully functioning government?
1tisILeClerc · 16/05/2019 12:12

BestIsWest
Is that another page of the 'Where's Wally' book?

DGR
I am not sure if you can't wrap it around a brick or similar to assist it's correct return.

borntobequiet · 16/05/2019 13:37

I think these threads are almost always positive towards the EU, while being realistic about where it requires improvement.
Perhaps we need a world-sized organisation to scrutinise the performance of major trading/political/economic areas. It could be called OFBLOC.

DGRossetti · 16/05/2019 13:48

I think these threads are almost always positive towards the EU, while being realistic about where it requires improvement.

One of the Brexiteers binary-thinking tropes that really wound me up (there were more than one ????!?!) was the logic-fail "so you think the EU is perfect" strawman, which then gave them airspace to detail the problems with the EU. Problems that were hardly concealed by Remainers.

And while we are talking of institutions that are far from perfect, the biblical quote about splinters and trunks might hold true. Because if the EU has it's wrinkles, Westminster is dragging folds of fat around and is far worse for purpose than Brussels.

BigChocFrenzy · 16/05/2019 14:09

DG "Brexit party leaflet"

Is it sufficiently soft on the arse and flushable ?

Peregrina · 16/05/2019 14:13

No, do not clog the drains - even though it's excrement. I am not sure that it will even compost. Best to bin it.

tobee · 16/05/2019 14:13

So Boris is going to stand

Ellie56 · 16/05/2019 14:25

So Boris is going to stand

That's all we need.

DGRossetti · 16/05/2019 14:27

So Boris is going to stand

Time for people with MPs that went on record as saying they would not serve in a party with him as leader to be ready to jog any ailing memories ?

dreichuplands · 16/05/2019 14:28

Of course he bloody is.
The only positive is that he doesn't give a hoot about Brexit only himself so he might be open to compromises to save his own skin in the future.

DGRossetti · 16/05/2019 14:28

So Boris is going to stand

Time for people with MPs that went on record as saying they would not serve in a party with him as leader to be ready to jog any ailing memories ?

Peregrina · 16/05/2019 14:30

Is there a vacancy yet? The Maybot hasn't said she's going.

dreichuplands · 16/05/2019 14:32

Well the men in grey suits are announcing the outcome of their meeting with her in the next ten minutes.

Peregrina · 16/05/2019 14:32

A statement from the 1922 committee soon, apparently.

Iambuffy · 16/05/2019 14:49

She will not leave.

When are the idiots going to understand that??

Peregrina · 16/05/2019 15:06

From Graham Brady
The prime minister is determined to secure our departure from the European Union and is devoting her efforts to securing the 2nd reading of the withdrawal agreement bill in the week commencing 3rd June 2019 and the passage of that bill and the consequent departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union by the summer.

We have agreed that she and I will meet following the 2nd reading of the bill to agree a timetable for the election of a new leader of the Conservative and Unionist party.

So if the Bill fails to get its second reading?

Peregrina · 16/05/2019 15:09

From the Guardian:

“Very frank” is normally code for a blazing row. It sounds as if, as reported in advance, some members of the executive did tell May that she should go immediately.

1tisILeClerc · 16/05/2019 15:21

I suppose in several of Boris's many 'twirls' he has been 'Remain' so maybe get him in to remain now, then 'sort it out' afterwards.
If it got the WA over the line, hell even I might vote for him.
I probably only have another 20 years on this planet if things go well, it will take that long to sort the mess out in the UK.

Ellie56 · 16/05/2019 15:30

She will not leave.

But she is determined that we will. Hmm

Peregrina · 16/05/2019 15:45

Ian Blackford of the SNP says that May is so incompetent that she can't resign properly.

I must admit, I wish her doctor would take her to one side and tell her that she must go, for the good of her health. No point in being dead right.