Westminstenders: On An Election Footing

[RedToothBrush]

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.

toobee I was also wondering whether these cabinet changes are actually a deliberate attempt to stir up the Tory moderates.

Fits in with the narrative put forward by swedishedith. (Apologies, I know you were quoting someone but I can’t remember the source and my phone won’t let me search while typing.)

Interesting.

The Express picture is rather scary

Another 2 political commentors who think Sepember / October GE
(I had thought soon AFTER Brexit, but maybe he fears being hammered by even the early effects of No Deal)

Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

It isn’t nonsense. I agree.
The Johnson play today seemed to be all about setting the bar high enough for the renegotiation to fail,
and then hope Parliament blocks No Deal.

The perfect conditions for a Brexit general election in Sept/Oct.
The campaign has already started

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. 10/

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

Agree BCF.

Everything Johnson is doing is campaigning. Note the EU citizens promise but refusal to legislate.

I'm on the look out for dodging votes which could be difficult and not doing anything more than soundbites.

He doesn't WANT to deliver anything. Just promise the earth and blame others.

I suspect the opposition parties are going to walk straight into the trap of fighting with each other too.

Look for things of substance, not hot air over the next couple of weeks. There will be an absence of it. Just PR instead.

I'm still wondering if he'll manage an agreement with Farage that his party won't stand in a GE
Maybe offer inducements, e.g. peerages, US ambassadorship for Farage & Tice

If not, the seat calculator predicts the Tories would suffer badly in a 4-horse race

He's currently dodging all votes, e.g. E27 citizens rights, for fear Remainers will add amendments to (try to) stop No Deal

However, his priority is a 5-year term, not No Deal
Will this cause a rift when the ERG (not the brightest bulbs) realise the possible conflict of interests ?

Late May

Late Mat!

The Phil Syrpis thread seems very plausible to me. The one thing it has made me wonder about though is the extent to which Cummings would stay on board with this. IIRC from Shippers's book (kept having to stop reading because it was so enraging) for Cummings Brexit is the true goal and the only goal and he'll do whatever it takes to achieve it. How would he take the idea that for BJ it's now merely a useful gambit and one he might well try to back down on delivering altogether?

That was the thread swedishedith posted that I couldn’t remember the name of!

But what would his plan be after an Autumn GE if he got a (bigger) majority? Brexit or no?

A sleeper mole is a good way to describe JC. It's the only explanation as to why his so rubbish.

if they could get Nigel and co to go to America forever and get the whole Brexit party out of the way then this could be a good thing? It might work.

School holidays and camping mean I'm a bit behind on the last 48 hours ...but judging Mr Johnson on his deeds not words:

1. Cabinet- bad. Very bad.

1. Immigration- dropping the silly target. Good? But isn't that a manifesto issue? And the Australian based points system sounds Faragist to me.

Well I will be OK for tomatoes! I have 35 on one outside plant! They just have to go red now!

Boris Johnson will deliver brexit, and then take the country into a GE. It is the only way he can save the conservative party, and deliver on the referendum result.

Labour have dithered too long on the fence, realising far too late they stand to lose at least half of their brexiteer voters indefinitely should they back remain in any form. Many labour voters feel entirely betrayed already.

The inexperience of the new leader of the lib dems is evident. I don't think she is anywhere near ready for a GE. So there you have it.

Remain conservatives other than the most die hard will vote conservative again even in the event of no deal, because their personal loss (as they already know) of a potential labour government led by Corbyn will be far too high.
They will not risk their own personal wealth and future with a communist in charge of the country.

Remainer Tories? would that be Jo Johnson who quit his post under May to campaign for a 2nd PV... to rejoin Govt under his brothers premiership?

Talk about regaining trust in Politics.... why the fcuk can't Corbyn pick up on this type of open goal ?

Instead becomes the butt of BJ's jokes, i despair.

Remain conservatives other than the most die hard will vote conservative again even in the event of no deal, because their personal loss (as they already know) of a potential labour government led by Corbyn will be far too high.

I can't agree with you. In the event of no deal, I can't see any remain-voting Tories voting for the party. In the event of no deal, their personal losses are likely to be way greater than any Corbyn administration will levy on them.

noword do you honestly think any tory will risk losing the family home and wealth for brexit or for anything else?
The idea of a Corbyn government terrifies them far more than brexit deal or no deal.

You are deluded and out of touch if you do not know this to be the case.

Corbyn's plans for housing and the 'redistribution' of wealth, makes most home owners blood run cold.

You’re the one who’s deluded and our of touch @urbanlife. Family homes and other assets are at much greater risk from a no deal Brexit than a Labour government. Nobody’s taken in by your leave version of project fear.

Honestly also no one believes the remainer project fear mark 2. No one. It was an utter humiliation for you the first time, and will be again on the 1st of November.

No one is going to risk a Corbyn government for brexit. Not now. Not ever.

@urbanlife

You appear to be under the misapprehension that people who vote Tory are homogeneous. You also appear to have the simplistic misconception that all Tory voters are selfish bastards, (whilst presumably all Labour (and other) voters are noble citizens.)

You can bang your drum all you like, urban, I won't believe you. When people like Michael Heseltine are voting Lib Dem, it's pretty obvious that other - less prominent - Tory voters will be doing the same.

Explain the 2017 GE result if Tory voters never stop voting Tory (or any GE where they've not won). People change their minds about how they vote. You only have to see local council results in previously-safe (as in VERY safe) Tory areas to see a mood shift in the country.

I don't know why I'm even engaging with you though, as you're obviously not open to debate or reason. Stick your fingers in your ears and go 'la la la, can't hear you' all you like; it won't make you right.