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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:
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BigChocFrenzy · 28/07/2019 13:07

Harold Wilson's perennial maxim:

Sara Hobolt@sarahobolt

During his leadership campaign, Boris Johnson said the chances of No-Deal Brexit were “a million to one”, but now his government assumes a No-Deal outcome.

A week is a long time in British politics.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49141375

MockerstheFeManist · 28/07/2019 13:17

Let us not forget Cameron and Clegg's bequest gift to the nation, the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011.

To have a general election, there needs to be a vote of no confidence in the govt. or a vote in the house of commons to dissolve with a two-thirds majority.

Suppose Attorneys at Law Starmer, Grieve and Partners block No Deal and force through a Revocation with disgruntled Tory support, then Bozza could be stuck holding the baby until 2022 along with his cabinet of rogues and shysters.

Hasenstein · 28/07/2019 13:28

DGR

"Latin has proved to be a wonderful tool for dissecting other languages. Learned so much more about grammar from Latin than English Language classes."

Absolutely agree about Latin as an aid to grasping the grammar of other languages. I did Latin to A-level and it's helped me no end with language learning since.

prettybird · 28/07/2019 13:33

Ditto.

Ds was really disappointed that the Latin teacher at his school retired the year before he went there (and they can't be replaced Sad). Even though he's not keen on MFLs, he can see how Latin would've been helpful.

SingingBabooshkaBadly · 28/07/2019 13:34

Just caught up on the last few pages and all this talk of Esq. is making me think a lot about my late father. When he granted me power of attorney in 2014 I found out he still Esq on his chequebooks.

He became a father very late in life, for those times anyway, and was extremely old fashioned but in a rather sweet way. Motorists who cut him up were ‘bally fools’, someone like Mark Francois would have been dismissed as a ‘blithering idiot’. Favourite exclamations were ‘crikey’ and ‘crumbs’. I remember the dementia nurse asking him if he liked ice cream and he very enthusiastically replied ‘Rather!’ (Rath-Er!).

He was lovely. A little bit like a less posh John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson crossed with a less posh Nicholas Parsons.

Bit misty-eyed now...

bellinisurge · 28/07/2019 13:37

@SingingBabooshkaBadly , your dad sounds ace. Thanks for the little vignette of him Smile

SingingBabooshkaBadly · 28/07/2019 13:47

Thanks Bellini Smile

Thanks too to Pergegrina, Gaspode and Woodpigeon for the holiday advice upthread.

Peregrina · 28/07/2019 13:54

Suppose Attorneys at Law Starmer, Grieve and Partners block No Deal and force through a Revocation with disgruntled Tory support, then Bozza could be stuck holding the baby until 2022 along with his cabinet of rogues and shysters.

That would be most enjoyable.

I also think that Hammond's idea to put Rory Stewart in charge of anti No Deal Brexit is good. People do respect him having fought in Afghanistan, but at the same time being an old Etonian he should have the measure of Johnson and Rees-Mogg - neither of whom have done proper jobs that I can see.

howabout · 28/07/2019 14:04

pretty most Conservative voters I know are Remainers. I assume this is why Struth is still Boris bashing and there is so much noise about sacking Fluffy. All the rammy serves the dual purpose of reminding "traditional small c" conservatives that Struth and co have their back.

The other side of the coin is that Allister Jack gives a come home signal to Brexit minded Tories. Ross Thomson gets deployed very very sparingly to bolster the dour North East.

Gove is probably an asset on both sides.

Peregrina · 28/07/2019 14:05

For me, I found learning German was a good aid to learning grammar. How would Rees-Mogg cope with a language where in a subordinate clause the verb goes to the end? So if the subordinate clause starts the sentence you have verb comma verb.

ListeningQuietly · 28/07/2019 14:12

The most marginal seat in the UK - Southampton Itchen - 31 votes

has nothing to do with national party politics and all to do with the personal grudge between Royston Smith (Tory former leader of Southampton City Council) and Simon Letts (Labour former leader of Southampton City Council).
The other Southampton MP is Alan Whitehead (Labour former leader of Southampton City Council.

Any predictions that are based on data averages will not pick up on the local nuance of that sort of thing.

borntobequiet · 28/07/2019 14:16

I’ve always been annoyed by what I now know are fronted adverbials. Writers who use them frequently over use them and it grates. It’s a stylistic tic. I stop reading.

prettybird · 28/07/2019 14:21

That's what will make the effect on the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party so difficult to call Confused

Ds absolutely hates Ross Thomson (I actually have no particular opinion on him apart from the fact that he appears to be a prat Hmm) and is really disappointed that he'll still be in Aberdeen North once he's moved into his new flat, so that he can't have the pleasure of voting against him Wink

howabout · 28/07/2019 14:36

Now that I have googled fronted adverbials I don't think I approve other than when used sparingly to add a touch of poetic flair.

countrygirl99 · 28/07/2019 14:38

OH does all the shopping and had fun this week with all the chiller unit failures announcing very loudly that it's a good trial run for Brexit.
Anyone else desperate for a reason to write to JRM just so they can use kg, litres and km?

RedToothBrush · 28/07/2019 14:41

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3649929-Westminstenders-The-Imperial-March?watched=1

New thread

OP posts:
Peregrina · 28/07/2019 14:44

New thread already? Gosh!

MockerstheFeManist · 28/07/2019 15:02

....and you just know what always happens when pedants issue lists of rules-that-must-be-obeyed:

metro.co.uk/2019/07/28/jacob-rees-mogg-falls-foul-style-guide-issued-staff-10473815/

And regards Rule number One: Organisations are SINGULAR, there is the excahange in Fawlty Towers between Basil and the Major, who is reading the cricket reports in the Daily Telegraph:

"Hampshire won, Fawlty!"
"Did it? Good....."

tobee · 28/07/2019 15:30

When I took my CELTA teaching English as a Foreign Language course, many of my fellow students were non native speakers. In lessons about teaching grammar, they were all miles ahead of us having learnt English grammar when learning the language. Native English students were only better at vocabulary and, very much more so, idioms.

Dh introduced me to Jennings books. Sometimes he reads them to me as a bedtime story (Grin) and I always sleep well then!

Socksontheradiator · 28/07/2019 16:07

I loved the Jennings books!

BigChocFrenzy · 28/07/2019 17:38

Howabout Despite the particular Tories you know - is that maybe a Scottish difference ? -
2017 Tory voters overall were over 70% Leave

Some of that 30% have since moved to the LDems, but many others are too Corbyn-phobic

It is Labour voters who were 70% Remain and even those 30% Leavers mostly want a soft Brexit so, like Corbyn, oppose No Deal

BigChocFrenzy · 28/07/2019 17:47

"Suppose Attorneys at Law Starmer, Grieve and Partners block No Deal and force through a Revocation with disgruntled Tory support,"

mockers I remain dubious that the HoC can Revoke / force a PM to Revoke when that PM doesn't want to
Both in practice and wrt Constitutional law

Most legal opinion I've read disagrees with that LSE blog claiming they can
It would at least take a court case and the govt would oppose vigorously
Any Tory moves are likely to be too late to make this work in practice, even if the judge decides against the govt

The HoC can't change international law,
so regardless of whether BJ is found to have acted illegally wrt Uk law / constitution,
if he just does nothing until Brexit has happened, that's it.

If the HoC have a majority to stop No Deal, then they would be advised to do so via a VoNC and choosing a new PM who will Revoke or request extension,
rather than infuriating half the country by attempting to stretch the Constitution

Grinchly · 28/07/2019 17:57

Another massive fan of Jennings and Derbyshire!
Anyone remember the time when the bath overflowed and stove in the music room ceiling below? Grin

Ellie56 · 28/07/2019 18:02

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7294389/Every-home-Britain-leaflet-prepare-No-Deal-Brexit.html

So £10 million to pedal how many lies?

And apparently it will warn against stockpiling. Hmm

Yeah right.

DGRossetti · 28/07/2019 18:03

I remember Jennings taking a leap into my experiences when he holidayed with an aunt, and ended up making friends with girls and experiencing a more diverse side of England Grin.