Westminstenders: Tory Natural Selection

[RedToothBrush]

Here we go again...

Agree with lonelyplanet and bellini - any failure to achieve any of the 17 million individual fantasies of Successful Brexit (many of which are mutually contradictory) will be the fault of somebody else. And simultaneously, said failure will also be exactly what they knew they were voting for in 2016.

leclerc The Mayor said that several months ago, but I haven't heard anything since the No Deal test they ran, with the long queues

backintime Summer recess doesn't seem to have been fixed yet
Normally about 7 weeks from mid-July to the first week in September

BUT
only 2-3 weeks work - with maybe an NC vote called by Labour -
until the party conference recess 🤦🏻‍♀️,
which runs through the last week of September and the first week of October

So after the Tory conference acclaims the new leader,
he / she only has 2 weeks to decide on a request for extension, because the EU heads of govt would debate this at the 17-18 October EUCO

Very little actual work time to prevent Halloween No Deal

Survey on twitter

(the 'natural causes' party: if anyone's seen Episode 5 )

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/12/keir-starmer-urges-mps-to-back-safety-valve-to-stop-no-deal-brexit

Nick Boles warned opponents of a no-deal departure were fast running out of options – apart from a confidence vote to bring down the government.

“No-deal Brexit on 31 October is back to being a racing certainty,”
he said.
“It is very hard to see where any further legislative opportunities will come from.

So it’s now a question of politics – specifically whether a PM pursuing a no-deal Brexit can command and sustain the confidence of the House of Commons.”

A series of rallies is being planned, culminating in a big London one in October:

www.peoples-vote.uk/let_us_be_heard

Did anyone catch Iain Duncan Smith on Pm this afternoon? He was repeating absolute garbage about GATT 24 and all the 'deals' that are in place already to manage no deal. Absolutely no challenge back. It was infuriating.

I think a lot of us have given up on the BBC - I haven't listened to R4 for 2 years now. The only things I catch are Monkey Cage, Friday Night Comedy and Rutherford and Fry. If it want news, the BBC isn't even in the "also rans" these days.

Did anyone catch Iain Duncan Smith on Pm this afternoon?

What is it with IDS? May invited him to key secret meetings at Chequers in her attempts to get the WA through. Even Trump saw him as important enough to meet.

He was an unsuccessful party leader for 2 years nearly two decades ago. Why is he seen as the power behind the ERG throne.

Esther McVey out first do you think?

I would also hope to see Leasdom go out early. Sadly I think Rory Stewart won't last long, but his day as party leader might well come later.

I suspect Esther and Andrea will go today.

Rory may or may not scrap it, but he'll be out next round anyway.

Theresa May has just arrived at Parliament to vote in the Tory leadership contest

Will she write “bollocks to the lot of you” on her ballot paper?

John Rentoul @JohnRentoul
Tory MPs voting now. Sweepstake will close when ballot closes at noon. Guess Johnson's vote & 3rd & last candidates

Tamara Cohen @tamcohen
Unpredictable vote today - some Tories predict just one or two eliminated; others say a big clear-out.

Does Johnson get over 100, and nail place in last two?

Gove needs to show no loss of support (32 declared)

Javid looking for clear lead on Hancock to stay in contention

In a mad tea break fantasy Boris gets humiliated as the utter wanker he is but I suppose that is too much to hope for.

I suspect that history will be a bit kinder to May. She will have been seen to have tried her best, but her personality flaws of not listening and being inflexible will always go against her.

The trouble with this vote is that there is no obvious Stop Boris candidate. Ed Vaizey who is the nearest Tory MP to where I live, is backing Gove! Is Gove better than Johnson - yes, despite his disaster at Education, but is he Stop Boris? Who do the batshit ones want (i.e. those elderly folk who still support the Tories!)?

In a mad tea break fantasy Boris gets humiliated as the utter wanker he is but I suppose that is too much to hope for.

You expect any of those spineless jellyfish to find a spine and do anything which isn't populist at this point?

He is going to storm it I fear.

Lot of speculation that Gove will lose support to Hunt.

TheSaj seemed to have a good day at the office yesterday, but all the media escaped him because of Boris launch and No Deal Motion. Given the MP internal electorate machinations lack of media focus on Javid may actually have played in his favour. Was a bit more in Scotland because he is Struth's pick.

Agree McVey won't progress and I would also doubt chances of Hancock and Harper which is why I think Leadsom and Stewart will survive. Will be interesting to see where Raab and Gove end up relative to the rest.

I cannot imagine Boris as the PM

Don't worry. The chances are you want HAVE to imagine it...

Interesting thoughts from Oliver Letwin re: "No Deal". One of very few who I think have "grown" throughout the Brexit debate, always thought he was a bit of a twit personally but his anti "No Deal" work is to be commended. Unfortunately for the motion's movers, I understand they put this motion up with Jeremy Corbyn's name on it. I'm sorry but that's just spectacularly stupid.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/13/parliament-is-out-of-options-to-stop-no-deal-brexit-tory-mp-oliver-letwin

Theresa May has just arrived at Parliament to vote in the Tory leadership contest

Will she write “bollocks to the lot of you” on her ballot paper?

If she did she would go up considerably in my estimation.

Agree McVey won't progress Given her complete ignorance of St Helena and her general incompetence it wouldn’t surprise me if she did progress.

On IDS, I thought The Economist (5 Jan 2019) nailed it - “Their choice for party leader—Iain Duncan Smith—turned out to be a nincompoop.”

Further to the Letwin comments Lisa Nandy said something interesting on Peston last night.

Although she voted with the Motion she understood the reservations of others. In order to block No Deal Parliament would have to have an alternate instruction for Government and whereas she was prepared to countenance Revoke there was no majority for it. Enthusiasm for 2nd Ref also seems to be waning as the realisation of the prolonging the agony it would involve starts to dawn.

Interesting that Letwin doesn't believe Grieve's threat of No Confidence and last I checked the various Tiggers etc were not prepared to vote No Confidence either.