Westminstenders: Game On?

[RedToothBrush]

Johnson has had prorogation approved by the Queen.

There has been widespread outrage and horror both in the UK and in Europe. Johnson has ripped up the principle of Liberal democracy even if constitutionally what he has done is legal. In shredding convention and the 'gentlemans agreement' of understanding we teeter on the edge of democratic collapse.

Talk is tha Dominic Cummings is persuing a game theory principle of deliberately putting us on collision course with the EU. The idea being that they will blink first because the alternative of what will happen is just too awful for them to allow. The idea is to force others to make the moves whilst Johnson appears principled and strong, even without a proper strategy and plan for a deal.

And there is the rub. Despite all the Talk of no deal, at some point a deal MUST be made, regardless of whether its before or after 31st October. There is no sense of what that could be and how it could be done. And then there's the prospect of a US deal which suffers from the same lack of tangibility.

All there is, is how things look for a General Election. Nothing else.

Johnson is pitching for an election with no sense of what's needed for Brexit - including the legislation needed for no deal. Not to forget that Cummings, strategist that he is, apparently isn't here for the long haul, only being contracted until 31st October, when he goes for surgery he postponed to take on this job.

So what's the plan for Johnson Post Cummings? Or is he going to do even more 'winging it'.

Meanwhile there's an awful lot of moderate Tory MPs getting very nervous and already failing to stick to the Cummings script.

Johnson, until there is an election is going to firmly blow hot and cool, trying to play to the hopes and fears of leavers and remainers to keep them hanging on to hope and the notion that x or y will happen, when x and y can't possibly both happen because they are completely opposing strategies. Hope leads us blindly to stumble like fools into his trap and to win his reelection.

Next week looks very bumpy indeed. Chances are this thread won't make it past Saturday...

Aroom sorry, realise I assumed you meant are there currently shortages rather than will it be available post Brexit. If the latter, I’m not sure if the list of stockpiled meds is available.

@prettybird true about Corbyn, but other party leaders are hopefully more politically astute and will play the long game

lonely I’ve lived in two countries where MPs, both existing and former, have been killed.
Nothing that can be proved. The PM just needed to say something like ‘I don’t want to see that person again’ and then there would be a convenient road accident or other mysterious death.

Doesn't matter if the other leaders are more astute (and they are not that that's difficult ) but if Labour whips to support over-riding the FTPA, then it will go through

...unless enough Conservative MPs vote against it

What a topsy-turvy so called democracy we are living in

I'm behind on the thread but I'm still getting emails from my local conservative association and have just had one about an urgent meeting in two weeks time to adopt our current MP as the conservative candidate for our area - elections are definitely brewing I think...

Let's hope the anti-no dealers get their act together with a election pact - although it won't be much use here as it's a true blue area...

Anybody think the tory party might split over this, it seems to be becoming more and more polarised.

viz his continued insistence on trying for a GE and not looking for a PV, going against what the Labour Party Conference had agreed

Thats exactly what was agreed at conference pretty, GE firstif we couldnt get that then PV after (although the PV under any circumstance is new thank god)

Rightly or wrongly a lot of Labour members are more focused about domestic issues than Brexit, allthough thats not my personal view, Brexit is more important

We have to hope the good guys can win

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rebel-alliance-of-mps-summon-the-force-to-fight-a-hard-brexit-z8brlvsjg

They haven't even managed to appropriate any mystical symbols, and come up with a natty uniform

If they all start wearing Hugo Boss I'll be very worried (sarcastic laugh)

Ken Clarke with Yoda ears my cheeks hurt

I did note that upfront. I'm rightly wary of uncited and unproven sources, but by the same token, not all news can be cited and proven while it's news.

It's not the lack of cite making it dodgy, it's the content. I'd have said the same if it had a cite!

I suppose what Corbyn does depends on what they've decided in their cross-party talks, should a FTPA vote be called.

If BoJo does put the vote to the HoC, does he risk people adding anti-no deal amendments to the vote as well? I.e. must ask for an extension if vote goes his way type amendments?

lonely I’ve lived in two countries where MPs, both existing and former, have been killed. Nothing that can be proved. The PM just needed to say something like ‘I don’t want to see that person again’ and then there would be a convenient road accident or other mysterious death.

Boris has already shown he's ready to (get someone else to) break legs where needed. That was years ago, so what is he capable of now ?

Along with The Queen, I'm also wondering what the fuck my taxes have been wasted on in terms of the magic behind the scenes intelligence service which was supposed to protect us from this ?

Justanotherposter - yes, and he has avoided, prevaricated and as a result missed the opportunity to campaign for a timely PV. A GE now is too late

That was, as far as I could make out, the intention of the resolution at the Party Conference

If we cannot get a general election Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote. Taken direct from the resulution that was passed. Seems pretty clear to me

Forgive me if I am cynical, but I do not recall Corbyn campaigning for a PV

Or am I forgetting when he actively supported a PV?

very crap Nazi tribute government
Absolutely

It's not the job of our intelligence services to overturn elections or to "take out" party leaders appointed by due process.

They can only watch in horror as the electorate (or just the membership of the Tory party) make these decisions.

Same in the US. The FBI knew about Tump campaign members' dealings with Russia. Comey judged Trump's demands for personal loyalty so suspicious he immediately wrote down a close-to-verbatim account of the meetings and shared it (first with colleagues in the FBI, then outside the FBI).

Mueller's report laid out in detail how Trump and those around him had blocked the Russia investigations, and appeared shocked that the Attorney General to whom he delivered the report did nothing with it.

But neither they, nor the FBI as an organisation, can do anything outside their remit. Even though many of them have known in detail about much of the horror for a long time.

Back in the UK, IIUC, if a Prime Minister chooses to ignore the evidence presented by the security services and appoint someone to a job anyway... that's the PM's prerogative.

Forgive me if I am cynical, but I do not recall Corbyn campaigning for a PV

Difficult to begin with he had MP's sitting in Leave constituencies as much as everyone on here wants Labour to become a totally Remain party iy just isnt that easy until the narrative has changed and thankfully with all the No Deal rhetoric hes been able to bridge some of the gap in the party between Leave and Remain, which I suppose cant be straight forward if youre a Lexiter

Worrying (but not surprising) if Labour Party members are more concerned about domestic issues than Brexit. Do they seriously think Brexit is not going to effect domestic issues?

Probably a pointless question, but I was thinking during a spell of insomnia last night, why is there not legislation in place to stop disaster capitalists, like JRM, being actively able to work in government to achieve something that will benefit them financially. Isn't it basically insider trading?

But would those constituencies have been Leave if Corbyn had compaigned properly in the first place?

He campaigned more than Alan Johnson and he was the head of the Labour Remain campaign

But would those constituencies have been Leave if Corbyn had compaigned properly in the first place?

Would those constituencies still be Leave had they not had austerity inflicted on them? that had nothing to do with Corbyn

I’m sure some hard Leavers might reconsider no-deal if they fully realised that we’d still need to do the massive negotiations afterwards. It’s not an end, but a start. As far I can see, it leaves us in the same situation as a deal but with a lot of bad feeling among the negotiating sides. Why is this not more publicised?

Barnier:

’The EU cannot prevent the U.K. from choosing a no-deal scenario. I would fail to understand the logic of that choice though, as we would still need to solve the same problems after 31 October.’

mobile.twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1168065522392424448

Although if we'd a competent, electable leader of Labour in the first place, they could well have won in 2015 so austerity might have been begun to be sorted.

But Corbyn was the leader of Labour so should have been the one to campaign more. Why wasn't he the leader of Labour Remain rather than Johnson is the question begged?

Or if the butt hurt Labour centrists had stopped constantly sabotaging their own party, they were hemorrhaging support especially in Scotland and the North hence the bitch slap the SNP gave them, again more to do with the previous leadership and with such a hostile media its an uphill struggle, and yes he could be better and those things ive listed have been a huge hindrance but its the first leader on the left weve had in the longest time and all in all he's not doing an awful job but thats an opinion of my own