Westministenders: Parliament Perogies pushing Rats in the Corner

[RedToothBrush]

One Opposition MP has just talked in parliament about how little the public understand what Preroguation is and what it meant. She described how one constituent thought it was about perogies.

The Benn Bill is now law and compels Johnson to ask for an extension if we have no deal.

Something that he has said he will die in a ditch to avoid and has suggested he would break the law.

But his options are hugely limited - if he refuses to do so and we no deal accidentally now, he is potentially personally liable for loses. He has no majority and the defeats keep on coming as a result.

Everything coming out now is the behaviour of a man with his back to the wall. The only thing he can do is frame everything as a people v the establishment and hope he survived until a GE. This is a dangerous time - he is now a rat in the corner with nothing to lose.

After Rudd's resignation, not much has got better for Johnson. Several other Tory MPs have signalled they won't stand again. This might mean they decide to rebel as they have nothing to lose. Lord Wellington, who has Tory written through him like a stick of rock, has also resigned the party. Attorney General Buckland hasn't resigned but has made threatening noises if the rule of law is broken.

Proroguation now does stack pressure on Johnson. He has to be the one to make moves and that is going to be difficult for him. However it also gives him time to say and do something without the scrutiny of parliament who have been blowing his arguments and legal assertions to bits with such ease.

Today he has visited Dublin where he stood next to Leo Varadkar who was less than polite nor even particularly diplomatic. The discomfort on Johnson's face and in his body language was very obvious. Varadkar in no uncertain terms said: ""if there is no deal, it will cause disruption for British and Irish people alike", adding "there's no such thing as a clean break, or just getting it done" and that he'd recieved no workable plan.

Tonight are two emergency debates. The first has just concluded about the government's lack of willingness to release documents relating to proroguation and operation yellowhammer.

Its been reported that ministers and civil servants have used private communications to conduct government ministers and this has caused huge concerns and Grieve wants to compel the government to release them. The government have responded saying this is an invasion of privacy. This has raised the accusation that Dominic Cummings personally has rifled through the phone messages of the former treasury communications officer as he sacked her and number 10 were not particularly concerned about her privacy then.

At the same time as the debate the government were briefing the press that they would refuse to comply with demands to release information. Grieve then made the point this was leading to the complete breakdown in trust in government.

David Allen Green said that if the government were to do this we could well be headed into a full blown constitutional crisis. This is the first time he's said he thinks we are actually at this stage.

Grieve was supported by the house by 311 votes to 302 votes ordering the government to release the documents.

The second debate is about the Rule of Law and the government's obligation to obey the Rule of Law.

Yet to come tonight is another vote about an early General Election before parliament pergoies, possibly in the early hours.

In other news John Bercow has decided to stand down at the next election or on the 31st October, which ever is sooner. There are rumours he was about to be deselected by his local conservative association and against convention would have to fight an election to win back his seat. He therefore was merely taking action before he was pushed. This might also be an action to protect parliament from the election of a new speaker after another election, fearing that there might be a hard right takeover which could threaten parliamentary soverignity.

Also this:
Declan Lawn @DecLawn
ERG stalwart Andrew Bridgen on @BBCPM saying the only way he could see a NI only backstop being acceptable is if it was put to an NI-only referendum. Fascinating.

I wonder what would happen if parliament was forced to choose between a 2 year extension and no deal.

I have seen a long extension floated a few times by French commentators.

I can't imagine a referendum on the backstop solely in NI being allowed.

Surely this would encourage Scotland to demand a referendum on a similar topic, or even a Remain in the EU option. Maybe even with Wales or England (or London) following suit...

Maybe the fact that it would make no sense from the pov of stated Unionist aims means it will happen.

I wonder what would happen if parliament was forced to choose between a 2 year extension and no deal.

I think they’d get the WA through pretty sharpish!

Mistigri, Parliament would choose the long extension as there's no majority for no deal.

I actually hope that the EU27 look at the wording of Benn and offer just that. We can then have a GE and parties can battle on the grounds of what they'd do next (revoke / renegotiate something realistic and PV / dick about for two years - Cons).

Cliff edges are no good to anyone. And the U.K. has proven itself (as led by the Cons; sadly for the Scots and NI we are a package) totally incapable of dealing with short extensions.

I think it's clear that we'll be having a GE once no deal is off the table, so even if BoJo doesn't put that reason forward, the EU27 have been following enough to know that it will be the next step.

I think that psychology needs to come into action.

How do you persuade people to change their mind, from a hardline position without them 'losing face' or without 'demonising them'.

Far easier to stick with what you know than to say 'you know what, it is more complicated.

Operation Yellowhammer documents will prove to be helpful. Slowly, slowly start to make people realise the impact on their lives.

Along with reminding people of the effects of a Conservative austerity and the impact Labour wants to make.

And getting people to rregister to vote, and then get out to vote.

We either need the long extension or the WA, don't we? If it was a three way choice (no deal / WA / long extension) I'm not sure how it would go.

Again, if the WA was voted for, the parties could then fight the election on the basis of the future relationship. Something needs to give somewhere!

no deal' has been drummed into people by the game show. it's too simple to reflect the situation of the uk

Like a mantra.

And the ‘genius’ who thought it up was on the honours list.

The thing about the game show is that in Deal or No Deal, you often threw away £250,000 and ended up with 1p.

One hell of a risk.

Should we keep with the deal we have, take the offer from the EU or risk it on a 1p block?

What would the people holding the boxes say?

(I can see the ad now - a voter at the box, and characters like Farage, Rees - Mogg etc shouting at them to take No Deal)

@mathanxiety , Scotland's argument for independence is totally different to NI and frankly got stronger when Scotland went for Remain. If Scotland wants to secede from the union that is an argument that won't go away and is their choice. It is not the same as NI.

Just been reading Le Monde. Thé EU are not going to force the UK to leave without a deal on the 31st October, because even though every country has a right of veto, none wants to be the country to force a No Deal Brexit.
Thé EU had little room for manoeuvre outside of TM’s WA because it was negotiated for 2 years and signed as an international treaty by all 28 member states.
The only potential concession / wiggle room was to swap the Irish back stop into a NI only backstop, TM refused because she needed the political support of the DUP.
Thé French Papers seem to think the next step is an extension to the 31st January 2020 and a general election at the end of this year.
Full Article here in French
I will however say, that living in France; the French are already putting steps in place for the UK to leave on the 31st October. Brits here can apply for a carte de séjour; basically the right to stay if they meet the basic criteria.
Brexit is happening; I think the possibility of revoke has now disappeared.
It’s just a question of when exactly; and what form of Brexit. I think we are whittling down to a version of Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement ( that is just my personal opinion); election probably in November; leave the EU end of January 2020.

I think the possibility of revoke has now disappeared.

This may be true politically, but it certainly isn't true legally.

I don't think we know what will happen in January 2020. Who could have predicted what is happening now back in February this year?

Jack Blanchard @Jack_Blanchard
The Brexit Party have taken out a full wraparound advert on the front page of the Daily Express this morning offering Boris Johnson an election pact. Fair to say they are not messing about

If I were trying to get people to change their minds about No Deal, I would try to get them to find a valid reason / concern that would let them say "I am worried about that" so they can change their mind about No Deal, without having to back down.

Softly softly, drip, drip....kind of the reverse of what has been done to them about the EU and the effects of it.

But it needs doing in the next few weeks.

Red so Fromage looks in control and BoZo desperate...Not sure if that plays well to either side but BxP more than Tories, I'd say.

Am in hospital having had op. Could hear someone talking about it on other side of the curtain yesterday.Sounded like an older gentleman, not it’s particularly relevant. He thinks the WA will be tweaked and brought back. Made me think of all those posters on here who say they never hear anyone talking about it apart from here.

Sorry - catching up here

To go back several pages, Faintly posted the BBC article on BeLeave:
Early on in the campaign, Vote Leave launched a giant data harvesting exercise through a competition to win £50m if you could correctly guess the result of all 51 games in the 2016 European football championship.
It was described by one Vote Leave insider at the time as a potential "game changer" because it would allow it to gather the contact details of thousands of potential voters, many of whom would not normally be interested in the referendum.

Someone said that the pro-Brexit protest on Saturday was reminiscent of the football hooligans.
Not reminiscent, imo - they are the football hooligans of the 80s, “all grown up” and caring as much about Brexit as they did about football.
In addition to harvesting lots of contact details, I think that campaign was deliberately targeted to flush them out.

Sorry if anyone has already suggested this.

Mother that link will likely feed into their data capture.

I see only poor public health when I see that story and a faint desperation that offering people things to kill themselves slowly with will make this "all worth it". And then there's the undertone that poor people are more likely to think this is great without really thinking why we pay tax on things that kill you = leavers are poor and thick.

lurpark I’m no sure I have the same feeling. It swings every day, but on average I feel things are not improving (yet?) for the mood of the country. I’m surrounded by colleagues who don’t want to talk about it, don’t want to know about it, are not engaged at all. Besides the Europeans, of course, but they feel passive and recipients of whatever is going to come their way.

The last one from yesterday is that criminal checks for new Eu settled-aspiring families will include also kids above 10 yo. Which sounds an astounding waste of resources IMO, and might only be used as a tool to keep out Roma? How many primary school kids do you know that have criminal records?? And moreover, if we leave Europol, how the deuce do they do it??

Ah but the magic time slowing bridge will cease to work when the public finally get hold of portkey technology. You know, if we're going to go Harry Potter style we may as go all they way.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-tory-taxpayer-boris-johnson-latest-a9099556.html
Dominic Cummings accused of wrongly carrying out work for Tory party while being paid by taxpayer
Controversial Johnson aide is reported to be conducting focus groups, Chuka Umunna protests – but freedom of information request is rebuffed

Good to see it made the press.

The Independent understands that Mr Cummings is, like almost all special advisers, paid exclusively from taxpayer funds.

Well...

Loathsome lying claiming on BBC Breakfast that the UK Government is one of the most transparent in the world and complaining about the "travesty" of parliament using a Humble Address to try to force them to publish the Yellowhammer documents.

Note I said: try to force them - because she did also say that although the Government abides by the law, they are looking at ways to avoid publishing the documents because "they only deal with worst case scenarios" and used as an example her getting running over by a bus after she left the studio

Missed most of her interview as I left the room when she came on - but I came back in too soon.