Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Brexit

Westminstenders: On An Election Footing

966 replies

RedToothBrush · 25/07/2019 16:22

Boris Johnson has set out his strategy.

He is challenging remain Tories to put their money where their mouth is, or to shut up.

His majority, soon to be just 1, is fragile but he intends to tough it out.

His Cabinet, is to all intents and purposes an ERG take over of the Tory Party, not unlike the Momentum take over of the Labour Party. And Johnson is looking to purge the party of its liberal wing, whilst pretending that he is liberal to make it acceptable to long term loyal Tories who might still waiver and merely vote for the rosette or like the veneer of respectability.

It has been made clear to Tory MPs that they will have to sign up to a No Deal Strategy should a snap election be called - or face the prospect of deselection. Disloyality will not be tolerated as Hunt's Cabinet backers all found out when they were sacked rather than be allowed to resign as Grayling was.

Instead Johnson reaped his revenge bringing back quitters and disgraced MPs as a deliberate 'fuck you' to moderates and remainers.

His message is clear and made all the clearer by the appointment of Dominic Cummings.

Today the Treasurery opened the piggie bank and told all departments to prepare for no deal. That is what is going to happen.

Parliament can not stop no deal. Johnson will drive it through regardless, even if its technically illegal. The default of no deal makes it an impossible juggernaught to stop without triggering a GE before the 31st October.

Technically speaking there are just 3 parliamentary days left this can be done.

And a GE is no guarentee of stopping no deal anyway. Cummings coming on board spells it out. Its a campaign strategy to reinvigourate the Leave Campaign and make all the promises that were made before. Of course there is no way of implimenting any of these before 31st October, so they just sound nice and people will believe them because they want to believe them. They want to trust and have hope for the future.

Yet with no trade deals and third party status, and crippling gridlock at ports and extra red tape for exporters and importers to deal with, it is inevitable that the economy will take a big hit. And Johnson's promises are expensive. His £39 billion he wants to withhold, is peanuts in the scheme of things and given what he is proposing.

The plan might sound nice, but it doesn't actually add up.

If we want a deal we will STILL have to sign up to conditions that Brussels sets out EVEN IF we no deal.

Meanwhile the US is ready and waiting to fleece us, because we aren't prepared to admit this and are too proud to see that this is a better option than have corporate American feast on the bones of the British economy.

Human Rights and Workers Rights are very much in the cross hairs with this. Health and Safety standards that have been set by London and then imposed on the EU will be burnt.

All the while the EU will be blamed for our own folly.

The worst thing is, people will actually buy it too.

Things are going to get a hell of a lot worse in this country, not because we lack optimism and hope, but because our egos are too big and we have been too idealist rather than recognising very real obstacles and finding ways to overcome than rather than just trying to ignore them. We will find out all those Paragraph Cs in good time the hard way because of the lack of attention to detail.

PFI and outsourcing will look like minor hiccups when the shit hits the fan.

I do hope that the puritians of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats and the Remain Referendum Campaign are happy. This is also their mess. They have spent 3 years naval gazing and still don't understand nor know how to respond. This is where a General Election becomes a very real danger because they are clueless as to how to combat a reunited Leave campaign.

Be careful what you wish for going forward.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
22
Hazardtired · 27/07/2019 22:48

This been post from the good law project?

July 25, 2019
Roll of honour: our legal action to stop the suspension of Parliament

You will have seen how the Good Law Project, alongside a cross-party group of politicians, has launched legal action to prevent Prime Minister Boris Johnson from suspending Parliament. He has threatened to suspend Parliament to force through a No Deal Brexit – but that’s not how democracy works. It is for Parliament to decide what happens with Brexit.

We are very pleased to announce that more politicians have joined the cause. goodlawproject.org/update-legal-action-stop-suspension-parliament/#.XTsrXxdqDQA.twitter (for the list it's to long to post)

We expect further MPs and Peers to join us shortly. And we expect formally to file proceedings on Monday.

--

Some people are having busy summer's at least.

woodpigeons · 27/07/2019 22:50

I’d like to know the criteria YouGov use to select people to do their political polls.
I’m obviously the wrong sort of person.
My usual questions are about TV programmes I have watched and usual answers ‘no I haven’t’ or ‘never heard of it’.

BigChocFrenzy · 27/07/2019 22:57

_ "Fife firm slams Boris Johnson for using their product to bash food standards laws"._

Surprise - BJ carries on inventing stories as PM

Looks like BJ invented the complaint,
since the kipper firm was astonished to recognise it was their kippers he was waving around !

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/uk-politics/940768/fife-firm-slams-boris-johnson-for-using-their-product-to-bash-food-standards-laws/

Glenrothes-based business SorbaFreeze has written to Mr Johnson after he appeared last week waving one of their ice packets during a debate with leadership contender Jeremy Hunt.

The member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip held a kipper alongside the company’s “unique” ice packaging during the final hustings for Tory leader

"Watching him wave our ice packet around was pretty surreal."

tobee · 27/07/2019 23:21

Feel like the best thing would be a totally different way of doing politics in uk and lots of MPs just leaving the party system altogether. I'm not sure how? Or what the reaction would be? But it seems the only possible way to deal with the situation. I know Brexit is the present driving force but I think it will be incredibly hard to mend the damage that has been done. For Conservative party and Labour. I think that voting for middle ground parties of any colour is not going to work in any meaningful way. I suppose that means Farage has succeeded.

Can anyone suggest what could be done by moderates in a really radical way? That's not mealy mouthed? Anyone else agree that even if Brexit is done on October 31st that's kind of a cover for far right and far left factions have fundamentally damaged politics? Sad

tobee · 27/07/2019 23:23

I suppose I mean if Farage has hoovered up a certain voter then the middle ground should be able to do the same? But moderates by their very nature don't tend to be fired up, particularly into a cohesive movement

SingingBabooshkaBadly · 27/07/2019 23:24

Belated thanks Red. Catching up right at the end again and feeling immensely grateful to Gaspode for posting that Guardian link which, along with those post Boris polls, gives me a much needed glimmer of hope - however vain that hope may be.

Feeling very much like someone surrounded by animated chatter at a party who didn’t manage to join in the conversation at the relevant points so ends up saying it all long after the conversation has moved on but anyway...

I’ve been surprised to discover so many others who use Celsius for cold and Fahrenheit for hot - I though I was just weird. I can do the conversion thing in my head though and am starting to get there on hot Celsius I think. I use metric for cooking measures but can only visualise someone’s height, or the size of a room, in feet and inches.

I always use a double space after a full stop. See. I didn’t even realise this was old school.

Shock at the cruise story/footage Swedish posted. DH and I have actually considered a cruise to Norway as regular, independent travel is pretty much impossible for him now. It’s a decade since we were able to visit another country and it seemed like a cruise might just make it possible - the idea that we might have ended up on something like that though .

And couldn’t resist sharing this. A nice touch that Seb Dance has added Esq. to his name.

Westminstenders: On An Election Footing
WhatWouldScoobyDoo · 27/07/2019 23:31

Ra Ra Cleopatra ...

Going to see the film ASAP.

borntobequiet · 27/07/2019 23:53

Goodness me. What larks on this thread tonight.

RedToothBrush · 28/07/2019 00:52

^The MP, aged 37, said he was ‘not well and in the process of receiving medical help’
and would resign following the MPs’ summer recess, which is due to end on Tuesday, September 3.^

Well if this is true, I bloody hope Labour are on the ball to get that fucking by election triggered immediately so that there is an MP there for important votes.

Labour will be responsible for the time table as its the party MPs were previously in until by election rules.

If they do it that week, a by-election would be a couple of weeks before 31st Oct.

But because they are afraid of the seat going LD they might drag theirbl feet...

OP posts:
JustAnotherPoster00 · 28/07/2019 00:57

Well if this is true, I bloody hope Labour are on the ball to get that fucking by election triggered immediately so that there is an MP there for important votes.

Not only that Red I hope they actually do a deep dive on their media first because we dont need another bloody idiot representing Labour we have enough as it already is although I think our opinion on who that is would differ Grin

JustAnotherPoster00 · 28/07/2019 00:57

social media *

Peregrina · 28/07/2019 01:01

DH and I have actually considered a cruise to Norway as regular, independent travel is pretty much impossible for him now.

Go on the Hurtigruten. Which started as a means of linking small towns in Norway back in the 19th century and still provides that function, so you can watch them unloading say kitchen equipment in one port and loading crates of fish in another. But then they also offer interesting expeditions and lectures.

No good if you don't like the Germans though, because they probably make up about half of the passengers. Having been on a couple of trips, with excursions which go to places which talk about the Nazi occupation of Norway, I always wondered what the Germans made of this.

prettybird · 28/07/2019 01:06

Re the Trump tweet: We're working on 'substantial' UK trade agreement, three times better than EU deal

I suspect he doesn't mean the UK doing 3 times "better" business with the US; he means the US selling 3 times as much to the UK Hmm

Iambuffy · 28/07/2019 02:50

Sunday papers giving a very different view of the polls.....

FoldyRoll · 28/07/2019 03:51

The polls are pleasingly surprisingly tepid. But he has only been PM a couple of days.

Yes we shall go back to the Romans. The wall was built where it is because it's the narrowest point on the island of Britain (what is this island called?). It split the middle country, which ran from the Clyde to the Humber in half, dividing tribes and families and was bitterly hated, just like all externally imposed arbitrary borders are. The Scottish border is well established now, but it took a good 800 years to get that way. There are loads of lessons from history about what will happen along the NI border if Brexit screws the GFA if only the Govt cared, but as it's all a long way from Chelsea and the shires they don't give a shiny shite.

And yes, as a Geordie in (narrowly) Remain voting Newcastle we'd welcome the old border being restored. Brussels is no further away than WM but puts far more into this region than WM. people here are long fed up of being taken for granted by Labour and ignored at best or punished at worst by the Tories. Many leavers around here saw the referendum as a protest vote against the government, never believing we'd end up in this sorry state.

Oakenbeach · 28/07/2019 06:05

Interesting that even in what should be a honeymoon for BJ, Tories are polling at or below the level they were annihilated at the 97 election.

The fact the BP are still doing as well as they are indicates there are significant numbers of Brexiteers who just don’t trust, and won’t vote for the Tories despite the hard-line rhetoric of the last few days.

I wouldn’t pay much heed to the electoral calculus models for seats as this won’t capture the extent of tactical voting that will likely occur.... Brexit will completely dominate any pre-Halloween GE, and over the course of the campaign people, and those against no-deal will tend to recognise which local party is best placed to stop this and vote accordingly. We saw this to an extent in 97 where anti-Tory sentiment caused their seats to plummet below 200 as Labour and LDs picked up seats disproportionate to their individual vote share compared to the 92 election. Expect this on steroids this time around.

lonelyplanetmum · 28/07/2019 06:34

Yes Oaken you are absolutely right. This should be a honeymoon period.

Let's hope Mr Johnson ( not esq. for a PM I'm guessing) is not the exception that proves the rule.

QueenOfThorns · 28/07/2019 06:35

This isn’t very encouraging: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49141375

No-deal Brexit now 'assumed' by government, says Gove

Mr Gove said tweaks to Theresa May's withdrawal agreement - which was approved by the EU but resoundingly rejected by Parliament - would not be enough.
"You can't just reheat the dish that's been sent back and expect that will make it more palatable," he wrote.
He added he hoped EU leaders might yet open up to the idea of striking a new deal, "but we must operate on the assumption that they will not".

Cherrypi · 28/07/2019 07:18

Laura Kuenssburg putting no deal at one in a million seems very optimistic right now.

BigChocFrenzy · 28/07/2019 07:51

pretty You*re right
All Trump's efforts wrt trade with other countries have been to cut their imports and increase US exports.
That's perfectly normal for a POTUS, but starting trade wars with China and Mexico to do so are not

woodpigeons · 28/07/2019 07:53

Babooshka I also find travel very difficult so boats, either big cruise ones or small canal ones, are my ideal mode of holiday.
We went on a cruise to Norway last year with this company
www.cruiseandmaritime.com
It was very sedate with a demographic of older, probably Tory voting, retired people on smaller boats which can fit In Norwegian fjords. People do tend to talk at mealtimes about their previous cruises and we never heard any reports of anything similar to what happened recently.
We can’t afford them often but years ago went on their ship, The Marco Polo, on a Baltic Sea cruise.
When DGS was 4 we went on one to the eastern Mediterranean. It was Thompson’s, family friendly with a kid’s club. The most ‘exciting’ thing that happened was the kids from the kid’s club dressing up as pirates and storming the bridge.
We do tend to be quite anti social so treat the holiday as a floating hotel rather than a chance to take part in activities.
I think some companies have been encouraging younger people and wanting to turn their ships into party ships so it’s necessary to look at the people they cater for.
I was put off one company which advertised all your usual condiments such as Heinz tomato ketchup, salad cream and brown sauce on every table,

GaspodeWonderCat · 28/07/2019 08:10

We cruise with Fred Olsen - smaller ships, and we feel like youngsters on board (in our 50's). Out of school holidays, no children. August some families. But no trouble. Highly recommended as no flying involved.

howabout · 28/07/2019 08:30

Bit more detail on the overnight polls. The Boris bounce is roughly 7% taken from Bxt Party versus pre Boris. All polls done 24 July so take into account effect of wall to wall Conservative hustings but not necessarily the impact he may have had since becoming PM.
Therefore I would anticipate a further bounce mainly from Bxt Party but also from LibDem.

The YouGov poll gives a 60 seat Conservative majority. As usual it gives the highest bleed from Lab to LibDem. Vote LibDem get Conservative does indeed seem to hold.

Mail on Sunday asked an "Anyone but Corbyn" question which boosted Labour support to 34%. That therefore looks to be the ceiling for Labour support.

BigChocFrenzy · 28/07/2019 08:30

oakenbeach The seat predictions at the time for 97 were about right
and so is this seat predictor

When I use the seat predictor using the GE %
(putting BREX as referendum party and UKIP=0)
the results are respectably near the GE, at least for the main parties

LAB 433 (actual GE 418)
CON 166 (165)
LDem 32 (46)

The LDems - because of FPTP - still won only 7% of seats for 17% of the vote share

There are big difference in circumstances to 97 that would probably help the tories

  • There will be at least as much tactical voting for Brexit as for Remain
  • The addition of the Faragists - if they don't stand down at the GE
  • Labour had a charismatic cente / right of centre - leader instead of a toxic one
  • LDems also had a charismatic leader - Ashdown - instead of a drip
BigChocFrenzy · 28/07/2019 08:38

The addition of the Faragists would mean that small swings in % have even more disproportionate effect than normal under FPTP

So the variation in % probably plays a bigger role than any inadequacies in the seat predictor
Far too early to say if BJ will gather momentum, or if Tory voters will rumble him - or care

btw, there is a refined form of the predictor that allows for specific % of tactical voting for each party,
but with the % votes likely to change before the GE, i didn't bother with that more complicated input