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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.

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tobee · 25/07/2019 19:45

No! Definitely not! Just a general comment! Not meant snarky! Just because you mentioned sun and rain! It was a remark about Brexit- not you. It could have been anyone with that combination of weather.
Sorry I phrased it badly. Smile

flouncyfanny · 25/07/2019 19:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Alsohuman · 25/07/2019 19:49

@tobee, sorry, I misinterpreted. Blame the heat!

flouncyfanny · 25/07/2019 19:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MockerstheFeManist · 25/07/2019 19:55

There are four ways to Revoke A50:

  1. The PM writes to revoke article 50
  1. House of Commons replaces the Prime Minister after a no-confidence motion with someone who revokes article 50
  1. House of Commons, through the Speaker, notifies the European Council that article 50 is revoked
  1. Parliament passes a fresh Act to revoke article 50

blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/26/we-can-and-should-revoke-article-50-heres-how-to-do-it/

borntobequiet · 25/07/2019 19:55

PMK thanks Red golly gosh the PACE of these threads...

tobee · 25/07/2019 20:01

It's all right @Alsohuman. Reading it back I see it comes across a bit odd!

Iambuffy · 25/07/2019 20:03

I shall throw my integrity to the wind and vote for whoever remain voter tells me to

SwedishEdith · 25/07/2019 20:04

Interesting take but still depends on EU offering that extension for a GE.

Phil Syrpis
@syrpis

This may well be nonsense (it was ever thus...); but PM Johnson seems to have a plan. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but it will be difficult to stop. 1/

The plan is not what some might expect. He is more interested in power than in Brexit. His aim (so I argue here) is to fight, and win, a GE, and to obtain a mandate for the next five years. 2/

The way he approaches Brexit should not be seen as cakeist and naive. In policy terms it is: but the thing is that his Brexit plan is not intended to succeed. Instead, it is only intended to create the narrative around which a GE can be won. 3/

First, he will go 'our EU friends', appealing to their economic self-interest, demanding things he knows he cannot get. He will present himself as a 'can-do dealer'... whose plan has only been thwarted by intransigence in Brussels. 4/

Watch for the sharp shift in tone (which will come when the time is judged to be right). Erstwhile friends in the EU will become public enemy number one. The UK will be strong and confident. In extremis, we go it alone, and leave without a deal. 5/

But the plan is not to leave without a deal in October. That, as he knows, would cause huge disruption, and would not augur well for him as PM. The plan is to be ready to leave... but then to be thwarted by public enemy number two, the remainer Parliament. 6/

He will provoke the moderate Tories. He probably knows that they require quite a lot of provoking. He will not seek to undermine the confidence of the Labour Party and the Lib Dems. But he will starve the Brexit Party of political space. 7/

He wants to be able to fight a general election, as the man who is standing up for the British people; against the twin evils of the EU and the remain establishment. Vote Leave (and Dom Cummings) have, remember, done this unexpectedly successfully once before. 8/

To win, he needs to neuter the Brexit Party (I suspect that the jury is out on whether to offer some sort of pact or to opt for a more aggressive strategy), and bank on the fact that the 'remain' opposition will remain disunited. 9/

All this points, as I said a couple of days ago, to an Autumn general election. It is consistent with the UK's inability to concretise Brexit - both his 'new deal' and his 'no deal' will remain stubbornly undefined until after the GE. (link: twitter.com/syrpis/status/1153789780980670468) twitter.com/syrpis/status/… 10/
Quote Tweet

Let me join the mugs' prediction game. My best guess is that we are heading towards an autumn general election. A thread on why. 1/
Show this thread

He has a good chance of success. The difficult task of delivering Brexit is deferred to the far side of a general election... and by then, who knows what the options may be. He can cross that bridge when he comes to it. 11/

The easiest way to stop this plan is to prevent him from winning the GE. That depends on the opposition working together. Looking at the relationships between Corbyn, Sturgeon, Swinson and Lucas; Johnson might well calculate that he has nothing to fear. 12/12

OhLookHeKickedTheBall · 25/07/2019 20:06

Thanks red

Mistigri · 25/07/2019 20:08

The courts can't help, not at this late stage

Jo Maugham has another case on the go.

Let's not forget that without him and his collaborators, today's announcement that Grimes/Vote Leave broke the law probably wouldn't have happened, and nor would the court ruling that A50 can be revoked unilaterally.

LonelyTiredandLow · 25/07/2019 20:09

But he has to hold his cabinet of egos and Cummings together until Autumn... Personally feel cracks will start to be clear before then.

BestIsWest · 25/07/2019 20:10

In London for work and had a stroll past the HoC as BJ’s car and detail was coming out. Lots and Lots of booing (me included).

Mistigri · 25/07/2019 20:12

Personally feel cracks will start to be clear before then.

I think so. He has pissed off most of the previous cabinet, and now Steve Baker too.

tobee · 25/07/2019 20:16

Ooh I missed what happened to Steve Baker? 😮 Last I saw I thought he was trotting in to number 10!

Somerville · 25/07/2019 20:19

A united Ireland beckons most sweetly now. And Sinn Fein did nothing to expedite this.

Aye they did. Mostly through keeping pretty quiet publicly. It was a clever strategy and UI is closer than I could have ever imagined for my lifetime.

RedToothBrush · 25/07/2019 20:26

Owen Bennet @owenjbennet
One source tells me Baker was furious with the job offer, and said he “stormed out”. Adds that a lot of Tories feel he should have had a cabinet post.

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RedToothBrush · 25/07/2019 20:27

Pretty much sounds like Baker has thrown a tantrum.

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TemporaryPermanent · 25/07/2019 20:36

Scared.

Ultimately he is another Tory leader who will haul the Overton window as far right as needs be to try and kill off the Brexit party threat. Not sure where that ends.

Alsohuman · 25/07/2019 20:40

So Mr ERG has flounced? Splendid. It sounds as if it’s starting to unravel already.

RedToothBrush · 25/07/2019 20:43

www.computerweekly.com/news/252467251/Controversial-immigration-exemption-used-in-60-of-cases?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
Controversial ‘immigration exemption’ used in 60% of cases
The UK government has used a controversial GDPR opt-out in response to the majority of its immigration-related data requests since the start of 2019, the High Court has heard

The government has denied data subjects access to some or all of their data in 60% of immigration-related cases by using a controversial clause in the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018, a legal challenge in the High Court has revealed.

The figure was confirmed on the first day of the legal challenge brought by the Open Rights Group digital campaigning organisation and the3million group, representing EU citizens living in the UK.

They argue that the immigration exemption, which passed into law in May 2018, is unlawful, is in conflict with the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and undermines the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which states that everyone, regardless of their nationality or residence, should have their fundamental rights and freedoms protected – in particular, their right to the protection of personal data.

The immigration exemption affects the three million EU citizens who will have to submit their applications for a new immigration status after Brexit. It also affects anyone who has dealings with the Home Office, other state bodies and several companies who are involved in “immigration control”, such as those seeking refuge in the UK and those affected by the Windrush scandal.

The immigration exemption under Schedule 2, Part 1, paragraph 4 in the DPA allows the Home Office, and other organisations or companies involved in “immigration control”, to refuse access to personal data held about individuals if it might “prejudice the maintenance of effective immigration control”.

The first day of the two-day hearing also revealed that individuals were not being informed when the immigration exemption is applied.

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jasjas1973 · 25/07/2019 20:43

SwedishEdith That does make perfect sense, a lot of ifs and buts, not least relying on the opposition to remain in chaos.

Johnson is a bit like Farage, both could be found to have been in cahoots with Jimmy Saville but their considerable support wouldn't wane.

SwedishEdith · 25/07/2019 20:45

Just been laughing at Baker's tantrum. He could go BXP, of course. But he's another with a vulnerable majority.

ListeningQuietly · 25/07/2019 20:48

Alexander Boris Johnson is not highly intelligent.
He has been VERY expensively educated
He is very driven
he was trained to be competitive
but there is no evidence at all that he is highly intelligent

  • remember that he got into Eton long before the days of league tables
  • he got in when one put one's son's name down at birth as an alumnus
  • and the Eton to Oxford path was pretty slippery and pre Russell Group back then

he uses big words and bluffs a lot
but he is not a clever man

urbanlife · 25/07/2019 20:59

The default legally is leaving on WTO terms on or before the 31st of October.
A lot of work has been done to ensure ports etc stay open for free flowing goods.
All aerospace etc has now been agreed.
Financial services have even been agreed,
We are much more prepared than this thread will let us believe.

GE will come in the new year not before.

Steve Baker is keeping his powder dry to remind Johnson that he needs to deliver, and he will.