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.

Am I right in thinking that historically it’s someone not mentioned much at the start that comes through to win?

When Thatcher went, there was an "Anyone but Heseltine" movement which worked behind the scenes to ensure the votes split over the candidates so he wouldn't get in.

John Major was very much the "who ?!" candidate that won. From memory he was unable to appear in debates much, as he had "toothache".

There was a good dramamentary made about it quite soon after. If my IMDB-fu was better (I must be imagining that you can't search for characters ?!) I'd link it ...

Interesting graph on this twitter page - apologies can't seem to post graph.

@PJHeneghan
Is turnout higher in remain areas?
Based on sample of 30 official turnout numbers collected so far. Early days but there could be a pattern here.

DGR are you anticipating Boris to suddenly have dental issues then?

Miranda Cannon @mirandacannon
The #Leicester turnout for the #EuropeanElection2019 is 32.58% Thanks to all the staff for their great work today on the verification and I’ll see some of you back here on Sunday for the count! @Leicester_News

Wasn't it rather that John Major avoided the organised knifing of Thatcher because he had toothache? and could therefore present himself afterwards with a clean pair of hands. My memory on this point may be fault.

There was something a bit toddler like about the 'I love this country' delivery, I agree. The 'inner child' emerging under great stress / emotion.

imo, May's tears were mostly because she failed and has gravely damaged the 2 entities she genuinely loves:

the Union and the Tory Party

She made a fatal mistake early on:
her choice of Brexit aims, particularly prioritising no FOM or ECJ

• she didn't realise until too late the consequences for the Uk economy and for NI.

She never managed to recover from that.
She was forced to try to achieve the impossible and ence her political strength keep weakening all the time, as it became clear she couldn't hatch a unicorn cake.

The WA, given her red lines, was the best that could be achieved and many EU countries were unhappy that the UK had too good a deal

• she genuinely managed as frictionless trade as is possible without SM membership.

DGR are you anticipating Boris to suddenly have dental issues then?

Quite the reverse.

From memory (and I really can't believe that IMBD doesn't have a "search for character" option ....) Majors winning the leadership was a surprise as he was the underdog (quite unlike Boris).

As I said, there was a naked "STOP HESELTINE" movement. Which led to people stepping down and urging their supporters to vote for someone else ... I think Ken Clarke stood, along with Lamont and Redwood ?

The question is - despite appearances - could there be a similar "stop Boris" sentiment.

Heseltine was feared as being a divisive figure - the Tories would have split under him ....

Gt Yarmouth Council @greatyarmouthbc
EU election: The Great Yarmouth turnout was 31.4%, compared to 37.7% in 2014. We are among 45 local authority areas in the Eastern Region feeding into the regional result & turnout, being coordinated at Chelmsford. The count starts at 6pm Sunday, with results announced after 10pm

EU Ref: Leave 71.5%

Just looking at the clips of her over the last 3 years, thinking how damn tired she looks now. It is a job that ages you like no other I think, men equally as much as women of course. Couldn't care less about any PM's 'appearance' but she's looked utterly exhausted for some time now

At least the leadership contest is happening now and not over the summer recess. It gives the MPs enough time in the autumn to re-enact the headless chicken look before the October deadline. Happy days.

I wouldn't put it past Boris having some major scandal leaked by his own team so that he has to run away pull out

It was a poisoned chalice back in 2016; it is an even more of a toxic chalice now (thanks to May's own actions )

Whoever takes on the job now will himself (or possibly but unlikely, herself) be consumed by it - and will not emerge stronger.

The only faint possibility for a Boris premiership is if (as was suggested earlier in the thread) he has the balls to say, "Fuck the ERG it, we're going to Revoke because getting the WA through Parliament is impossible and No Deal would be catastrophic".

But he won't.

So he'll let someone else take the flak again

Disagree completely BigChoc, as I said, she "got it." Her aims were not the ones I might personally have favoured, but they were absolutely the right ones for the result as given, I thought.

What did for her was the intransigence of others IMO, rather than her own.

Interesting comment on Twitter - there was no such thing as a Remainer last time. It was Kippers who were more engaged then.

I try to be hopeful for a glimmer of something. At least got until Sunday before bubble bursts.

True prettybird. I was saying last night that Boris would ideally like to become leader (like most people) when in opposition, when the other guy is doing a shit job and ride in as the saviour. Not now, 3 years down the line from this debacle.

If you been missing him, people, there's been a lovely lot of Mark Francois on bbc news. Together with Clare Fox and wee Owen Jones.

Oh he's gone now!

Yes, also think more Boris stories will come out now no of one that was widely shared on mn a few years ago that I've still not seen published.

Where's Hammond in all this? Whatever the blowhards say won't change the maths.

Mercer and JRM both already declared for Boris. Assume Raab is the insurance ERG ticket to corrall enough votes to roll over to Boris later. I think this was the Gove / Boris strategy last time round till Gove developed delusions of grandeur.

Agree with pp that strategy will be to call it "No Deal" and reverse back into most of the WA. The difference is the reversal in will be to end up at Barnier's Canada + option rather than TM and co's plan for Norway +.

Lots of talk of not risking GE while threat of BXTPty. However I would bank on GE with above "No Deal" strategy because Labour vote now so split with LibDem.

Rupa Huq speaking a lot of sense on Sky. And giving no quarter to Jonathan Isaby. Good!

*know!

Also wonder if Boris is a boil that needs lancing.

Is May seriously going to have to ponce around with Trump at some stage? How even more humiliating. He'll say something disrespectful as well, I bet.

I noted from that chart that on the whole, the higher the Leave vote, the lower the turnout this time - not in all cases, but there seemed to be a trend, whereas the Remain areas were showing higher turnouts.

You mentioned Red that Flintshire was a Leave area. I used to live there a long time ago, so still follow its results. It has switched between Labour and Tory in the past. Remember it has the Airbus factory, and that might have begun to concentrate some minds now that the easiest deals in history are proving illusory. It returns Labour MPs at present and I think they are still less Brexity than the Tories. But we shall see.

My own area Vale of White Horse doesn't verify until Sunday so I don't know whether the turnout is good or not.

Yes Johnson has a few skeletons in his cupboard. I must be thinking of the same one that I've seen mentioned on social media but absolutely not reported on in the press. His new, much younger, partner will now suddenly be under a lot of scrutiny too.

Clare Fox gives me the absolute rage.

How DARE she mention Grenfell???

I thought that exactly. And DP and I laughed loud, long and derisorily (sp?) at her repeated mentions of 'compromise'. All this time, all this shite, and she still has the self-reflection capacity of a breeze block.

Hope some of the lame duck ness of Theresa will rub off on Trump.

Her aims weren't sensible, because they meant far more damage to the UK economy than a Norway+ Brexit,
or than allowing at least 10 years to make Brexit a gradual process, not an abrupt event

Those aims lost her the soft Leavers, as well as the Tory & Labour Remainers

The ERG alone weren't enough to thwart her

• the number of Tory No Dealer MPs would probably not have reached 100, let alone the current 160, if she had chosen a different path, back in January 2017