Westminstenders: Has Boris been outmanoeuvred? Reprise

[RedToothBrush]

In the beginning there was this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2670552-Has-Boris-been-outmanoeuvred?pg=1

And it said:
If Boris Johnson looked downbeat yesterday, that is because he realises that he has lost.

Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.

With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.

And

If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act.

The Brexit leaders now have a result that they cannot use. For them, leadership of the Tory party has become a poison chalice.

So what of where we stand and the poison chalice of the Tory Leadership and a deal.

According to a poll of Tory Members, Johnson is by far their runaway favourite to become next leader. And he's given a 61% competence score - higher than any other candidate.

With Raab as their second favourite.

May has successfully managed to make such a mess of how she handled the 2016 Tory Party Conference and everything that subsequently stemmed from that, that the poison chalice of leadership will be passed and sooner than many would have wanted.

However blame for what follows can be laid at her feet. At the Labour Party’s feet for ending talks that were never going anyway. At the EU. And No Deal has been detoxified by May's handling amongst many supporters of Brexit. Johnson and Raab will therefore have no interest in striking a deal with the EU and instead set sail for exit on 31st Oct and will brazen it out.

What is scary is that waiting in the wings is Farage, who without winning a single seat in the HoC has more power than any MP. They are all so afraid of him. Thus we face a very hard push to the right, with the left and centre in disarray and disorganisation.

The Human Rights Act and Devolution settlements will be top of the list to go.

And we will face draconian ways to control the population as the lazy fools will want no accountability to the press or the courts.

How long before appointed or elected judges?

Was Boris outmanoeuvred?

By the look of it, absolutely not. He just had to wait a few years. But his path and power will not be lead by him... But by those who pull his strings.

It looks bleak. Very bleak.

Many may rue the day they didn't vote for May's deal yet...

... And fear of this nightmare vision of the future is the only card May has left in her hand to play. Will anyone realise this?

Probably not, because they will all still think Johnson's leadership bid will be blocked by moderates. The trouble is he's polling well and the cowards are too busy looking over their shoulders at the turquoise arrows.

Pray for a shock result next week which brings fewer Brexit Party seats than are anticipated. The trouble is they have the momentum right now and Remainers don't know their arses from their elbows much less be passion and inspiring to the young and to women.

We are fucked.

Have you been on the Leavers rejoice thread? They are having difficulty telling us why they will vote for Farage - other than that he will respect the result of the Refendum and the sun shines out of his arse.

Cheered myself up watching the Chernobyl series and thought 'well it could be worse'.

Harry Cole@mrharrycole
I’ve been watching or covering Farage speeches for 15 years and that was something very different. Always the outsider. He told me couple of weeks back he has no real interest in going all the way to power, but can’t help feel that current polling is putting ideas in his head.

Mike Smith @ mikeysmith
Did you believe him?

Harry Cole @mrharrycole
No. Think I filed it as him trying to convince himself it was true.

Agree mood has changed. He could become PM now.

It might be a possibility.

Sam Coates Times @samcoatestimes
Final YouGov / Times European Election poll

- Brexit party on 37%
- Tories 5th in 7%
- Labour now comfortably 6 points behind the Lib Dems
- Lib Dem’s 3-1 taking votes from 2017 Lab supporters over Tories

YouGov polls have steadily got worse. This is utterly horrific.

And YouGov have best track record in polling in recent years.

Cameron won the GE in 2015 with less than 37% in the popular vote.

This means its theoretically possible for Farage to be PM now.

This is an era of deeply divided politics, populism, feelings and extremism.

I still think it's a fall out from various global things but mainly the last crash.

It will still be hard to predict - this is now something of a second referendum, and it still shows how divided the country is. Leaving Conservative and Labour out of it and Remain parties get 39% - which they will no doubt try to spin as a vote to get on with Brexit.
Conservative can be left out because that's Referendum on Theresa May and the split in the Tory party, leave Labour out because they are on the fence and are trying to be both.

You may laugh, but a couple in my family were planning to vote for ChangeUK - and I made a silent prayer that they would change their minds and vote LibDem. One has done. Must send up another prayer!

What’s wrong with ChangeUK? I was planning on voting for them.

They don't seem to have got as much support as would have been hoped.
If you are in the South East - a few extra votes could get the LibDems a third seat, but isn't likely to get ChangeUK one. However, any votes for a Remain party are good.

I’m still keen on the idea of a new centre grouping and welcomed The Independent Group. Wasn’t too keen on the morphing into CUK but nevertheless applied to become a MEP candidate for encouragement if nothing else (Farage had been bragging about all his potential candidates). In retrospect I now think the EU elections was the wrong time for them to launch, and that they should have kept their powder dry for the next general election. The LDs have regained their credibility as a pro Europe party and lost some of the (undeserved) taint of the Coalition, is I’m voting for them despite some reservations - I don’t think Jo Swinson is as good as some suggest, and there are some other things. I think, unlike others, that Vince has actually done a good job and should stick around a bit longer. For CUK, so far Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna’s have been far more convincing in interview than Heidi Allen, but I can see why they have chosen her as interim leader - she’s telegenic, genuinely nice and comes with no baggage. I hope the centre grouping evolves over time to develop some worthwhile policies including a genuine understanding of and promotion of women’s rights.
Oh that was long for first thing in the morning!

Don’t know if any are interested in/can access this (I seem to have signed up for an account with the Telegraph at some point so they send me this)
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/05/20/farage-v-cable-brexit-debate/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1017030&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Loy_Dig_Acq_190521_Brexit-Debate&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Loy_Dig_Acq_190521_Brexit-Debate_2019_05_21&utm_campaign=DM1017030

@redtoothbrush 37% BREX is frightening, if they hold onto 90% of their EP support for the GE (as reported to Comres)

Also, 3 main parties - 3½ with LDEM - is a totally different ballgame under FPTP

• the threshold for Farage to become PM is from about 24%, depending on how other parties do.

Over 30% would likely be a landslide victory in the HoC

BREX success depends on both LAB and especially CON doing badly, under 20% - not unlikely atm.

An early GE would mean before the BREX bubble has burst / party imploded
and this Farage party is far more tightly organised than UKIP was and more professional (US help ?)

• with UKIP he inherited Alan Sked's fairly democratic structure, which he has deliberately avoided for BREX

Upthread, I tried various scenarios with the Electoral Calculus seat predictor:

1. Using an earlier EP poll for EP elections BREX=34, CON=9%, LAB=15%, LDEM =17%, GRN=11%, UKIP = 3%

It gave Farage overall majority 282 ..... BREX 466, LAB 80, BREX 466, CON 0

2. I then deducted 14% from BREX and 1% each from GRN & LDEM and divided the 16% among CON & LAB, so BREX=LAB = CON = 20%, LDEM = 16%

That gives Labour No Overall Majority ...... LAB 240, BREX 71, CON 220

3. Next, taking equally from CON & LAB, I set BREX=24, CON=LAB=17%, keeping LDEM=16%

That gives Farage overall majority 56 ...... LAB 150, BREX 353, CON 34

I'm really pleased that Vince Cable is doing this debate. Though no doubt the pro-Brexit press will cherry pick quotes to suit their agenda once it's over.

I'm finding all of the pre-election stuff quite mentally draining due to the hideous polls. I think it was BCF who said that we can only hope the weighting is wrong for the Brexit Party as it's new and their projected figures are incorrect.

I just want Parliament to bloody get on with some ACTUAL fucking Brexit stuff seeing as they've just managed to waste over a month of the extension pissing about on always-doomed talks and TM continuing her mental decline.

Actually, on the subject of TM, I think if she had the vote on a second referendum first, she'd have more hope of getting the WA through as more people would potentially vote for it if they knew there would be a referendum to decide the ultimate choice between it and revoke. Doing it after is the wrong way round.

Brussels no longer interested in negotiating with May, says former official

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/21/eu-despair-emptiness-may-latest-brexit-offer-mps

“The EU side is looking well beyond Theresa Mayy^ – and have been for some time.

Their central scenario is that a new leader will be crowned at the Tory conference.
< 29 Sep - 2 Oct, so only 4 weeks for new PM to decide to ask for another extension, to avoid No Deal >

Their interest is in who that leader will be and what policy line they will support.
The rest – including today’s speech – is just noise.”
....
One official said of the claim that the political declaration could be rewritten to achieve frictionless trade outside the single market and customs union:
“It is not going to happen”.

I don't have a word for the support for the "line my own pockets" Faragist party. Faragism is beyond depressing. It's dire despondency- beyond melancholy.There isn't a word.

After the ref on these threads we analysed endlessly, it was a protest vote, people feeling left behind , the disenfranchised, concerns about increased poverty, food bank use, underfunded health and education etc etc .

That analysis doesn't stack up for Faragist support. Not even the most naive can think Faragism will do anything to lift people out of poverty. When does he mention food banks? It's all Aaron Banks not food banks.
It's clear Faragism doesn't endorse supporting the cost of the NHS. When is the Faragist leader expressing concern about depriving schools of funds? Where are the policies on housing or universal credit?

The 'excuses' of the ref no longer apply. Faragism is dangerous and uncompassionate and over 1/3 of my country appears to support it.

" Nigel Farage was proud at the height of Britain’s far right movement that his initials NF also stood for National Front, according to a close school friend who after years of silence says he now wants the public to understand more about the man."

Give me a child until he is seven (teen) and I will show you the man, he hasn't changed. People must see that, and they support it.

Yep, fluffy Poll accuracy is all about representative sampling - age, education, social class, sex etc - across the electorate, plus weighting for likelihood of each group to actually vote

With a new party, we need at least one actual election, to compare predictions with reality.
So do the pollsters, in order to tune their models, sampling & weighting algorithms

Even one is not enough, especially if CON & LAB remain much lower than in modern political history
It's a new ballgame for predictions and FPTP would be v sensitive to small changes in party support or keenness to actually vote.

Of course, people also vote differently in different kinds of election, so it would indicate only the accuracy / margin of error across the various pollsters,
not necessarily what would happen in a GE.

"Cameron won the GE in 2015 with less than 37% in the popular vote.

This means its theoretically possible for Farage to be PM now."

Ask the Greens/SNP. Our FPTP doesn't translate popular support into seats.

uk.news.yahoo.com/change-uk-scottish-choice-urges-111527703.

The top Change UK choice in Scotland for this week’s European elections has written an open letter to his fellow party candidates urging them to consider following his lead and voting for the Liberal Democrats or other remain parties.
In a damaging blow for the fledgling party, David Macdonald announced last week that to avoid splitting the remain vote in Scotland, pro-remain voters who also opposed Scottish independence should instead back the Lib Dems.
Macdonald, an independent councillor in East Renfrewshire, said it was important to “shore up the remain vote”. He recommended that in other places where Change UK were polling at low levels, voters should switch to other remain parties, recommending that Green and Lib Dem voters could do the same in areas where their party was lagging.

Farage should know that better than anyone else. UKIP had the same issue. They got 12% of the vote in the 2015 election and came away with 1 MP.

I don’t think votes in the EU election will translate easily into a general election. This is a single issue vote in the eyes of most people, a general election is very different. I know a number of people who are voting Lib Dem’s for the euros, who would go back to labour for a GE. Plus, Farage would actually need some policies and a coherent party for a GE and we know he’s not good with those. Remember that UKIP got almost a third of the votes in the last euros but were never able to translate it to MPs.

Still, it is disappointing to know how utterly gullible my fellow countrymen are. I have spent time in the company of men like Farage and Boris, men who have never in their lives had to look after or fend for themselves, have no concept whatsoever of life outside their Uber-privileged social bubble. Who care only about money and how they can be top dog in that social bubble. That they are being held up as men of the people is just laughable.

{ magimedi Tue 21-May-19 22:59:09
I think I might just have to fuck off to Dignitas.}

For a number of varied reasons, please don't say that.

I can think of a couple of real advantages to Farage being PM:
He wouldn't be a MEP so won't be bothering Brussels.
The EP are used to his crap and unhelpful stance.
As PM they can nod and make polite small talk and ignore him.
So, good for Europe.
The bad news is the UK will be totally fucked, but hey, breaking eggs and omelettes.

Do you remember when I said that it felt like the 'calm before a massive storm' the other day? Well, the winds are certainly picking up a bit!

UI can think of a couple of real advantages to Farage being PM^

Farage as PM. Dear lord.