Westminstenders: "He's in trouble". No he's not.

[RedToothBrush]

All day I've seen nothing but comments and tweets about he Johnson is in trouble and he's losing it.

They are wrong. He's far from done.

Take a step through the Looking Glass and the world looks different.

Those tweeting and reporting all care about events and are following closely. They are unrepresentative of the population as a whole who don't give two shiny shits.

And so we have the Trump dynamic.

The Liberal elite of broadcasters and journalists who are only seeing through the lens of their own judgement, not from the repackaged marketing.

Instead they are unwittingly publishing the images and slogans in the format Johnson wants and enter the minds of the public as planned.

The media are out of step with perceptions. And that's worrying. They don't see what's coming.

Johnson will have an election at some point. With the Tory party cleansed of moderates it is the Brexit Party one way or another, whether it be by takeover or coalition. And its riding high in the polling.

Even though even his brother has abandoned him, the future looks positive for Johnson as his opponents have a complete lack of self awareness and no understanding of the opposition they are taking on; they are campaigning in a way that plays into the hands of Johnson.

Despite his lack of majority and apparently absence of plan or speech notes, the biggest mistake you can make now is to write off Johnson.

You do so at your own peril.

Pay close attention to how authoritarians work and what's already happened in the US. We are on course to repeat it.

For those that can remember books ....

www.faber.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/7321/s/9780571357024-march-of-the-lemmings/category/320/

As a Metropolitan Elitist Snowflake, Stewart Lee was disappointed by the Brexit referendum result of 2016. But he knew how to weaponise his inconvenience.

He would treat all his subsequent writing, until we left the EU, as interrelated episodes of a complete work. The cast of characters include Lemming-obsessed Michael Gove, violent tanning-salon entrepreneur Tommy Robinson and Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Bumboys Letterbox Cake Disaster Weightloss Haircut Bullshit Johnson. A dramatic chorus is made up of online commenters and Kremlin bots. And Lee himself would play the defeated, unreliable narrator-hero, whose resolve and tolerance would gradually unravel as the horror show dragged on. Until the 29 March, 2019, when it would all definitely be over.

Drawing on three years of newspaper columns, a complete transcript of the Content Provider stand-up show, and Lee’s caustic footnote commentary, March of the Lemmings is the scathing, riotous record the Brexit era deserves.

It's like a parallel universe! No mention of Ken Clarke et al the last few days either. All very crossing the Rubicon stuff with BJ, as opposed to the Art of War at Labour Party HQ. I'll drop by if anything interesting lands in my inbox.

Amazing threads really enjoy reading them.

I think we need the EU need to come to our rescue now... they need to refuse our extension, and insist we do one of three things by 31 October:

Agree to WA
Revoke
Leave without a WA

Praying Macron will echo De Gaulle with a big, fat “Non”!

The last thing we need is Labour’s tortuous renegotiation followed by a PV.

Confident that if we did have that choice, Parliament would end up agreeing to the WA.... we’d just need a Government to act on it! It would destroy the Tories that’s for sure.

Thanks DGR I think the same; it could have started off as one plan at Tory HQ and morphed a few times due to "events". I suspect Cummings has put the people who refused to help with the referendum in the party in their place since he started and now no one knows who really is leading the show. Until he is gone I suspect they are buying time to some extent. But he will make a good fall guy, if only Leaver's knew who he was anyway! Wonder how they will expose that one? Maybe "aide was responsible for no tellers letting devastating bill against Brexit through"? Although he is paid until the end of Oct so I am sure they will find more on him.

Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe (Brussels bureau chief at The Economist)

Some observations following two days of chats with top Brussels officials:

• there has been no negotiation under Johnson
• time limited backstop = not a backstop

• extension likely to be granted if there's a prospect of election (however unwillingly Johnson requests it

• some doubts that UK can pass Brexit deal in 1 week
• even natural UK allies eg Dutch and Poles have lost patience
• no question of EU pressuring Ireland to change position on backstop
• last-minute deals an EU specialism but it's usually the 'demandeur' (ie UK) who concedes)

< and this is when all parties are IN the EU)

What I don't understand about the chicken line of attack is how it's meant to continue to work once a General Election is declared, because that would first require Corbyn to vote for a GE thus negating the charge of chicken

As I said, it's nothing to do with Corbyn, and everything to do with changing what Google returns if someone googles "brexit chicken".

Same idea behind Boris suddenly becoming a model bus buff.
(And again, people should turn up to Boris [few] public appearances and offer to swap bus plans with him ....)

My copy arrived today DG

So the law can just be ignored?!

Thanks Julia!

Oaken The EU is standing well clear of this clusterfuck with very good reason. The minute they do anything at this point it will be twisted.

The EU is doing exactly the right thing - standing back and laughing.

What, DGR, are you suggesting Brexit means chlorinated chicken?

Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe

A hunch.

Boris Johnson will turn out to be Theresa May 2.0:
initially hubristic (aided by fawning press coverage)
but ultimately brittle, awkward, vague, over-reliant on close aides and self-destructively prone to telling lies.

BigChocFrenzy

What would work? After revoke? What could work? Is there any legislation that could be passed by a GNU?

I do realise the Tories could get straight back in with an overall majority and trigger A50 again, but how is that worse than now? Wouldn't they then have to completely own Brexit? And would they get in based on a straight Brexit/no Brexit GE?

I saw this from an exasperated German commentator: 😂😂

I wonder if it originated in EUCO !

If Boris decides to ignore the bill, we'll barrel into another "constitutional" crisis. Which it's possible Boris & chums think will drag things out long enough to get his pre 31st Election ?

Asd we found out with people who were denied their lawful right to vote (and hows that going ?), when you really dig into it, democracy in the UK counts for fuck all.

Bercows here is Gove suggesting as much Independent

They just passed a law that would force me to beg Brussels for an extension to the Brexit deadline.

Wha...?

So this letter from Boris ADMITS he isn't planning to get a deal?

Because he'll only have to seek an extension IF there's no deal, correct? Have I understood that right?

Apologies if already mentioned but today’s episode of “on the house” podcast makes for very interesting listening! 3 of this week’s Tory rebels having a not-holding back chat about the current situation

We all know there isn’t a deal, the EU has told us that.

Wondering if the EU should in future add £100m onto A50 for a No Deal exit from the Union, to cover their costs...?

Thinking about the last cycle of US elections what actually defeats the hard right isn't sharp Facebook pictures but hard, foot heavy graft.
Making sure as many people as possible are signed up to vote, encouraging under represented groups to both stand for election and to vote.
Knocking on doors. Visiting where people go and talking to them.
Organizing people to the vote or in the UK postal voting.
Building personal connections with people.
I might use saving the NHS as my central platform, emotional and practical.
You could mix positivity about NHS with US horror stories.

Of course, writ large (there is a bigger picture) Boris is trying to redefine - without any oversight - the role of Prime Minister.

If he succeeds, we won't need a parliament anymore. The PM becomes president.

So for all the froth on the individual matter of this bill, I hope wiser heads than mine are already scouring precedent and paper to be prepared for the next step.

Also, if Boris does stand firm and refuse to act, would it invite the vote of confidence he so craves to trigger the election ?

ballyhoo Revoke just means the Tories / Brex will win 500 seats at the next GE

They own Brexit now; they wouldn't own it any more later - they'll still blame Remainer sabotage and the EU for all problems

The only chance Revoke would have is if BJ did it
Their own hero
The one person Leavers might listen to

I originally put that at 1% chance, but I might now even raise it to 5%

On a more realistic basis, then we come back to passing the WA, because it does stop No Deal
and it takes some of the heat off the "just Leave" push, because we would have left

Yes, a future Tory govt could break the WA ..... or they could intern any opponents, suspend GEs
You need to look at what is likely - and a middle-sized industrialised country choosing to become N Korea is not
Quite different from the world's only superpower ignoring international law - we are far too weak to survive that.

There is no certain way to avoid a hard right takeover for the next decade(s) but we should try the most likely options

PerkingFaintly
That's the whole content of an email I received just before 4 pm today. I haven't edited the body of it at all.
The only thing that is missing is my real name, and the burble you get as standard at the end of emails.
Caracas isn't it?

Maybe it's all just a master plan to blame the opposite for the WA.