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.

Your council might not have done the verification yet, so they won't know what the turnout was. Otherwise they usually put them up on their websites.

Dominic Grieve has said he'd back a NC motion to stop no deal if there was no other way to do it. We just need a few more with his principles.

Would I be correct in assuming that - irrespective of who the next PM is, the menu of choices available to them would remain the same ? The only real latitude they would have is in presentation and spin ?

and that menu - like a Valentines day set menu - is pretty limited ?

In no particular order:

1. continue with Mays WA (which begs the question why did May resign ?)
2. revoke (claiming need for blank sheet)
3. demand the EU renegotiate the WA, and then have a hissy strop when they say "va te faire foutre" and then
4. either proceed to no-deal, or just start at no-deal and take it from there
5. General Election

Incidentally, didn't parliament insist there be no "no-deal" ?

Thank you Peregrina.

That depends on about 10 Tories voting NC against their own govt,

• more if the Labour Brexiters support the govt again

In fact, we can't be sure Corbyn would actually call an NC to prevent No Deal.

It would be helpful if JC would follow TM's lead.

It would be helpful if JC would follow TM's lead.

Why ? He's seen her off. I bet Corbynistas are already selling this as one of his Greatest Victories.

Yep, DG The Tory party playing PM musical chairs will not cause the EU to make concessions.

In fact makes it even less likely, as they'd suspect Brexit will destroy the new Tory leader just like the last one / several - so no point anyway

"didn't parliament insist there be no "no-deal" ?"

See the Inst govt link;
as we've often discussed, the HoC can only use political pressure - no legally binding way other than a vote of NC to change the govt

Corbyn has seen off two Tory PMs! Remember Cameron telling him to 'Go man'.

BCF. I think my gut is leaning towards the last YouGov poll which put the Brexit Party on 37% was slightly over cooked. But I do think they will get over 30%. Probably towards 35%.

I hope its less than that.

The SW has higher turnout - it was leaning LD / Brexit most. Thats consistent with YouGov.

Lincolnshire in the East is particularly Brexity, and the turnout being higher than the locals a few weeks back, smells of heavy turquoise.

And the NE turnout staying reasonably stable - but after the local election and with higher turnout in remain areas - hints to me that Labour will do badly and the Brexit Party will gain a seat there (but the constituency only being 3 seats limits problems).

I think London is looking much better than it could have gone. I have hopes for the NW doing better too - but little data on that so far.

Wales has just gone mad! It was supposed to be very similar, according to the pollsters, to the west and east midlands. This is simply not the case. I'm guessing 2 Brexit Party, 1 Labour, 1 Plaid. (Which does tie with polling).

Not heard a peep out of Yorkshire and Humber.

Rumours are Scotland turnout is up but I've not seen any data for that either. Turnout being up in Scotland, I would interpret as being good for Remain parties and bad for Brexit Party.

East Mids is stagnant. Suspect Brexit Party will do well from Lab/Con collapse tbh. No one else has a foothold to work from.

West mids. Again heard nothing.

West Mids and East Mids are the two I'm worried about tbh.

SE I'm expecting better results than expected - its the largest constituency. Higher Remain turnout works here and will make a difference with d'hondt.

Not sure how many more turnout figures we'll get now tonight. Its after 5pm so I suspect thats it. Everyone has clocked off and gone hope until Sunday.

Incidentally, didn't parliament insist there be no "no-deal
The markets know it is legally automatic. £ is in freefall today, following the pronouncement by Stanley's 'handy' son. Chink chink.

It's not extant yet, but I notice elsewhere a couple of rabid (and arguably paranoid) Brexiteers signalling this as the last act to thwart Brexit ...

(goes to quote)

^She has kicked the can further up the street and in my opinion to to
deliberately delay any possible brexit. Earliest for a new PM will be July, then they enter recess, on return they will have a couple of weeks to sort before the Oct deadline. It ain't going to happen. She has sabotaged the Oct deadline.^

Obviously a lot of frothing, but a few glints of insight. That post caught my eye, mainly because it was (a) spelt properly, and (b) not in capitals.

The point about the recess is interesting. It gives Mays successor a good clear 8 weeks without parliament to bother them . Which echoes the plan to force Brexit by suspending parliament over March-April.

East Midlands was a Tory stronghold. Vile mp who Bercow called a sycophant.
Quite a well off area. Can’t see them being enamoured of Farage but they’ll probably vote for him to leave.

Kunarian @Kunarian
Update. 99 authorities. Estimated 2,175k Leave votes and 1,892k Remain votes in play. Estimated increase of 132k Leave votes and 152k Remain votes. The new turnouts don't significantly shift the Remain turnout advantage.

Your basic problem is this. Remain needed an even bigger increase in turnout than this because the vote is split between parties.

How many of us former labour voters have said we won't back labour while he is leader?

Plus the (rarely mentioned these days ) "floating voters" (raises hand).

I've had to follow Ian dunt. He's just a nobby twat

Friend who was the Chief Electoral Officer at a polling station (if that's the correct term ) said that it was quiet (although his station is always very quiet - a very poor part of Glasgow) and slowly getting towards about 30% when I asked him at about 8pm - but the good news is that he said it was very much the younger generation who'd been in this time

DGR, whoever is the next PM, has the summer recess to work out how the fuck they pass the Queen's Speech. Otherwise there WILL be no parliament before the deadline and every chance of a GE. Which any new leader will want to avoid.

Whatever happened to floating voters? I've not heard about them for ages!

DGR, whoever is the next PM, has the summer recess to work out how the fuck they pass the Queen's Speech

They could also revoke without parliamentary meltdown ... #justsayin'

I try to read the more thoughtful Brexiteer thinking. Luckily it doesn't take long.

I seem to have an uncanny knack of being out of the country when a Brexit-related milestone occurs.

May negotiating the WA (that everyone hates) with the EU back in November 2018, with time running out: conference in Munich.
Original Brexit day (29 March): travelling to Cyprus
Brexit day v2 (12 April): business trip to Rotterdam
EU election results (26/27 May): overnight ferry to the Netherlands
Brexit day v3 (31 Oct?): on holiday in Cyprus

I was supposed to be in Luxembourg today, but the trip got cancelled

May I therefore suggest a General Election date of 19 September (when I’ll be away again)?

You know how passionate Brexiteers are about democracy ?

Once this new one comes in, 3 of our last 5 PM's have been unelected.