Westminstenders: One Pepperoni Pizza Please. And a Milkshake To Go.

[RedToothBrush]

On the Eve of the EU Elections that we never met to happen, and we don't know what the next hour next mind day might bring.

Farage is enjoying the theatre of milkshakes. It means he gets attention and gets to play the victim. And avoid talking about his dodgy friends and even dodgier financing. The Brexit Party are polling so highly its possible he could be PM. And boy does he know it. The temptation is there and its too much to resist.

May has refused to resign so far tonight after a day of asking her to. The 1922 Committee refused to change the rules to help oust her - possibly because they don't want the next PM to be beset with challenges to the leadership at the drop of a hat. Graham Brady is seeing her on Friday... The ERG are not happy bunnies.

May is still apparently planning to plough on with the WAB with a referendum possibly attached. Though this remains to be seen.

Meanwhile Leadsom has just quit the Cabinet. She was one of the Brexit 'Pizza Club'. Rumours are this might be the Cabinet withdrawing support for her. Though Gove has said he doesn't intend to resign (tonight at least).

Rumour is that May's senior staff have abandoned her to let her make the decision to go. And rumours are that when Leadsom rang May to tell her she was leaving cabinet, May didn't tell her senior staff. This comes two weeks after rumours where that Phillip May was at the point of telling her it was time to resign. The rumours of course may be just that, rumours but it's hard to see how or why anyone would tell her to carry on now.

And so tomorrow. Who would vote for this utter shower of shit? Even if you were the most loyal of Tories?

The thing tomorrow is to get the remain vote out. It doesn't matter ultimately what people vote for. Every vote cast for remain keeps the Brexit Party popular vote down. Even if it doesn't win seats. And that is psychologically important.

Tomorrow make sure EVERYONE you know who is anti brexit party votes. More so if they are a Remainer voting for a Remain party, but also if they are solid Labour or the rarest of things, a true blue.

It MATTERS. Narratives will be set.

If you are not sure if you are registered to vote, please TRY ANYWAY. The worst case is you are turned away and have lost 20 mins of your life. But you might also be able to vote and that might change the course of events.

Talk to people tomorrow. Remind them. Make sure it's about preventing a hard right foothold. Apathy will destroy our futures. Being fed up of politicians so refusing to vote is actively shooting yourself in the face.

Who am I voting for?

Still no idea. But I will vote.

If I were in charge, I'd just makes sure that the paperwork around who should or should not have had a vote is so shit, it will take years to ascertain who was unlawfully denied a vote. At which point the incumbent Fuhrer PM will issue a fulsome apology for all the distress caused.

See also: Windrush

if 48% of the electorate can put up with the warm feeling of being pissed on over 3 years,

We haven't though. One and a half million marched a few weeks ago, (300,000 by Clavinova's arithmetic), 6 million plus signed a petition (all a handful of posters making multiple email accounts!) and the Tories were given an absolute thrashing in the Local Elections. These were real votes, so this meant we wanted to get on with Brexit, apparently. So I don't think we have had a warm feeling about being pissed on.

Of the people at our polling station - one person coming out was a friend and he delivers leaflets for the LibDems, so he might have voted Brexit, but I doubt it. I went with one DC and had a proxy for two others, so I think the haul was 3LD votes and 2 other Remain parties. This is of course, much to small a sample to infer anything from.

3 x green votes here.

Is anyone surprised?

People have been saying for weeks on social media this was liable and likely to happen because they botched organising the entire election as they didn't want to hold it.

Sadly agree DG

Huge congrats on the weight loss btw. Really well done x

When the trolls invade, would you share your weight loss tips please DGR? I could do with losing a stone and a half or about 8kg or so.

I am sure that the UK would be very upset if several other EU countries returned 80% Nazi parties and it was seen to be done by vote rigging.
There is of course a risk of this which would be terrifying and if it came to pass then the UK would not escape the horror whether in or out.

Incidentally, most of the blame lies at council level as they are the ones responsible for handling voter registration and administration. Given that services have been stripped to the bone by cuts, its not a huge surprise that some have struggled to get stuff done properly and on time when the government held off giving the green light for the election until past the eleventh hour. It also explains why some councils have handled it better than others.

You'd expect problems to be worst in some council areas than others.

It will be interesting to see who has failed most.

3pm. Small, non-picturesque village in SW. Mostly working class Tory.

Two ancient people shuffling out of village hall as I go in to vote. I'm the only one there. I asked about the turn-out and was told that so far, was less than for local elections.

I went Lib Dem (with some nose-holding)

People have been saying for weeks on social media this was liable and likely to happen because they botched organising the entire election as they didn't want to hold it.

Returning to official SOP, the first cry will be Who would have thought such a thing could happen ? . Just like every other fuck up that gets predicted and then comes to pass. Like landlords not getting their rent when it was paid directly to the claimant, councils abusing RIPA to chase up bin-bothers, people spunking (and being encouraged out of) their pension pots when rules were relaxed ... the list goes on.

Things are going to get a hell of a lot worse before (and if) they get better.

We’ve voted. It was very quiet at the polling station. One person leaving as DH and I went in and nobody else turned up the entire time (including the ridiculously long time it took me to turn the car around to leave ).

I didn’t do my staring very hard at the ballot paper to make sure I hadn’t had a brainstorm and voted for the wrong party as I was distracted by the official rushing over to ask if I had two ballot papers. Turns out I did. Only because she’d given them to me and I hadn’t realised but it did make me feel as if I’d been caught trying to commit electoral fraud

Consequently I voted in a bit of a flap and then worried I might have voted Brexit instead of LD as they were next to each other on the ballot.

Shared my concerns with DH. Apparently he ‘does worry about me sometimes’.

Did an update on Boris get posted? Here's one if not:
metro.co.uk/2019/05/23/boris-johnson-will-find-fate-next-week-brexit-bus-lies-9666621/

off to vote now. Lib dem for me.

🤣🤣🤣

Breaking news...

exH has agreed not to vote for Farage - hurrah!

Apparently, he felt bad about my lack of ability to vote due to him taking me off the Council Tax (exH not Farage) so has decided not to vote himself. Stunned...

Just a very small straw poll. I am a member of a reasonably popular football fan site. It's a mixed bag of people as you might expect but they have a poll running today as to how people voted. Of the 80 or so votes that have been tallied.....40% are libdems, 22% for the greens, brexit is on 17%, and change (who I voted for tactically) is on 13%. But here is possibly the biggest surprise, the Tories got 0 votes and labour are on 2. There are gonna be some unhappy people in the major parties.....so no doubt they would interpret these numbers as "they just want us to get on with brexit" hmmmm....

Voted SNP here. I'm in Scotland (obviously) but in one of the few conservative constituencies. Our MP has supported TM all the way

There were a few folk in when I was there about 09:30am. All young(ish) mums with prams.

We are new(ish) to the area. The former owner of the house has passed away but received a polling card and mail from the conservatives and the Brexit party!

But here is possibly the biggest surprise, the Tories got 0 votes and labour are on 2.

No surprise here.

You simply need to be on Electoral Roll to vote, I thought, Stripey

Yet another reason for the EU to be pissed off at bad faith / failure to deliver by the UK
Yet another reason not to give a further extension

Yet another reason for the EU not to trust us
Really can't blame them for insisting on a legally binding WA, not some promise that we'll be good and accept the SM for the future trade deal

If, after suitable scrutiny, it is found the UK has not allowed a fully democratic vote, surely this could work in EU's favour? Could they simply not say "You haven't complied with the legal statute" and deny our place at the table? Might be useful if BP actually get lots of seats?

Yup. lonely, I hope so.

It's an existential question for the EU now, about how they pro actively defend and promote democracy amongst member states rather than just preserve it.

North Macedonian elections, with too low a turnout were a sort of relevant test case?

Interesting.

If, after suitable scrutiny, it is found the UK has not allowed a fully democratic vote, surely this could work in EU's favour? Could they simply not say "You haven't complied with the legal statute" and deny our place at the table?

Where are the EuroLawyers ?

I'm going to guess that it's going to emerge that the EU actually has no power to do anything, since it was built upon the notion of good faith. Whether or not it maintains this naïveté remains to be seen. Trying to give the EU more powers at this time may not be a good way to get a united EU27.

Stripy I still think you should TRY and vote... worst case, you can't. best case you can.

Good news. 1 vote less for the Brexit Party is a good thing.

Small, non-picturesque village in SW. Mostly working class Tory.
This sounds a reasonably good thing to me.

Peregrina - I'd lost nearly 4 stone on the MN Boot Camp (from 15 stone to just above 11 stone) in 1.5 years

Unfortunately, the stresses of Brexit yes, I am blaming it meant that I fell badly off the wagon over the last 3 months and put nearly 2 1.5 stone back on. But I'm back on the wagon and have lost 5 pounds in that last since last Tuesday . And that includes 2 days at the London Wine Fair, tasting over 100 wines (That will tail off to --I hope, on past performance, an average of c.1lb/week)

Tiny village in deepest Tory Brexitland (our Tory MP increased his majority in 2017), and the polling station was very busy. One left as I arrived. Four came in after me and another was coming up the path. Green for Yorkshire and Humber here . This vote may count more than my GE vote in the circumstances.