Westminstenders: The Tory Party Spectacular

[RedToothBrush]

A row over parliamentary language and conduct and how MPs are afraid of extremists has over shadowed talk of Brexit.

Cummings has said if you don't want to leave without a deal, vote for a deal.

Yet there isn't a Johnson approved one in front of the Commons and the EU are utterly despairing of Johnson's blank non papers and his full on Trump bullshit.

Then there's the threats to the rule of law.

Apparently there are five known suggestions to bypass the Benn Act and refuse to ask for an extension.
See Twitter Thread Here

This weekend sees the start of the Tory Party Conference. With a parliamentary vote to block a recess, its rather scuppered plans for the rest of the conference. Johnson's planned speech at the conference clashes with PMQ so he may well not attend the Commons.

Expect the conference to be.... Er... Inflammatory...

That's what I wonder now Misti

That was my thought, Misti. Seems like he's got himself well-involved with the wrong crowd!

I would have held a similar view until quite recently but am increasingly convinced by arguments by @RedToothBrush & others that compromise must be accepted by remainers. If (& I think it is) democracy is at stake then ignoring a 'democratic vote', whatever our criticisms are of that vote, is not a good idea.

@Driedlimes I don't disagree with you. I don't think we can "just remain" without some sort of democratic process, and assuming that the only available democratic process is a referendum, that seems hugely problematic to me in many practical as well as political respects. I have never been a PV advocate even though I will march with them because there is no alternative.

However, we have to be aware that any achievable deal would be seen as betrayal/surrender by many or even most leavers and we have to be prepared for that.

I have always been highly influenced by a quote from a politician involved in the NI peace process: "we all lost something, so we all won" (I'm paraphrasing).

The problem with Brexit is that I see no evidence that a WA followed by a non-destructive Brexit (perhaps involving a further period of customs union/SM membership on top of the previously agreed transition) would be seen by Brexiters as winning anything at all. Many would experience the same sense of loss and disenfranchisement as they would if we just revoked. I am not sure how you resolve this problem of needing to "satisfy the referendum vote" when no managed Brexit will ever "satisfy the referendum vote" for a majority of committed leavers.

Misti if that is true then there is nothing that he won't do to save himself.

What I can't understand about Boris is that he isn't even trying to pretend that he's working on a deal. As much as the Brexit massive now suddenly believe that they wanted no deal all along (even though the leave campaign was all about getting the best/easiest deal ever), surely if we DO crash out and the place goes to shit, then he's the obvious target of millions of angry (and potentially violent) people anyway.

Never I think he will scarper.

Misti

Google the Cipriani 5

5 wealthy businessmen (including Boris Berezovsky) who were friends who all apparently committed suicide within 4 years of each other.

I think he’s too busy with his domestic agenda that the actual international negotiation is less important- and he’s banking on the EU actually going to give an extension somehow without him personally having to get his hands dirty in the eyes of the ERG (and the voters he’s attracted to the populist message)

If the EU will be the grown up at the table or not, it’s to be seen. On one hand, the procrastination doesn’t help them, on the other hand if they end up with an ex member state that’s embroiled in a crisis similar in my mind to a civil war, is that going to benefit them? Imagine it’s a new Yugoslavian crisis for the 21st century, only in a country that used to be a founding partner, and still is a good importer or Eu goods. Would they meddle? Would they not? Would they try to help, and if so how?

With regard to the mob point, Chazs' earlier post seems highly relevant:

If you are interested in the grim truth of the collapse of the USSR and the rise of kleptocapitslism I would strongly recommend Misha Genny’s McMafia

Chas cross post ...

My thinking too although I'm wary of straying into conspiracy territory.

(Should emphasise that I'm not anti Russian in any way, much of my work over the last 30 years has been Russia-related and I have close friends and colleagues in Russia. But I would not want to live or work in Russia and certainty not be involved with an opposition movement.)

Personally, I didn’t want to leave, and I really really believe in the EU and I’m the embodiement of the EU program: I’m a EU citizen married to another country EU citizen, moved to the U.K. with our master degrees, worked from day 1, kids with multiple languages and nationalities, all naturalised british, settled, high tax payers both; we loved it.
But
I think we (as U.K.) need to leave the Eu. It’s strategically wrong, but staying as we are now would be worse, and therefore I’d leave with the WA or any similar agreement and an implementation period, preferably of 5 years instead of 2 (having seen the mess of the last 3...)
Get an agreement that preserves the NI-ROI borderless status for as long as we need to work it out would be my priority. Everything else is secondary. That’s my POV....

Not really a conspiracy theory to argue that he has to keep his ‘investors’ happy whilst ensuring the continuation of the Conservative Party by seeing off the threat of the BXP and Farage.

The best interests of the country are coming a poor third to these two atm.

I have a good friend who is Russian and was a lawyer in post USSR Russia she would agree with you last sentence.

As a Scot, I'd now be prepared to accept EFTA membership for an independent Scotland at least on an interim basis

Not what I'd want for Scotland but it's being realistic.

A Norway +(+) for the UK would still be "leaving" but the disaster capitalists, the ERGers and the Turquoise Party have done a brilliant job in changing a significant proportion of the electorate's expectation from "sunny uplands, unicorns and everlasting cake" to "there will be adequate food and most of us we will survive", with the added "benefit" that the "fault" for that shift is the EU's refusal to "surrender" to the UK's demands, so adding to the hatred of the EU (a hatred which hadn't even existed in most people until it was fomented by those who would benefit from No Deal )

My post is to Misti

I think the EU will grant an extension if there is a realistic prospect that a GE will take place. A no deal crash out isn’t in their interests either.

This may be relevant as well.

Tories in Devon hijacked the beach cleans by the Marine Conservation Society.
twitter.com/trumpy675/status/1176954371025854464

This is cynical photo-opportunism.

Interestingly, the unsuspecting volunteers were asked to fill in "insurance forms" on Conservative Party watermarked paper, and give their postcode and email.

I wonder who has that data now?

(Cummings and co, of course, used a football prize draw on Facebook to get hold of the data of, well, people interested in football. Which they reckoned was more – and different from – people usually interested in politics.)

Random18 probably, yes, he'll run away, but that doesn't fit in with his World King plan, does it?

This reminds me a little of the "compromise" problem seen on the trans threads. You allow an inch and it gets pushed to a mile.

Leave won. It was a fatally flawed referendum with a lot of media manipulation, but I accept they won.

What I don't accept is the need to blindly crash out. I don't recall it ever being promised three years ago - even Farage was saying "the easiest deal ever". Now we are down to "adequate food and prioritised medicine"

Get the WA signed. Heck, Norway ++ or anything the Leavers want to specify. My red line is the lack of essential medicines, the NI peace process and food inflation that hits the poorest the hardest.

Now, what will the Leavers compromise on?

Dominic Cummings thinks he’s Otto von Bismark. In fact he’s Finchy from The Office

Goodall:
"It's really important whether the PM might choose not to obey the law, because if he does I might choose not to obey the law."

Cummings:
"I don't think that's the right attitude.
You don't just watch criminals and think you might become a criminal too."

Sky video:

https://mobile.twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1177566649077157888

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/dominic-cummings-brexit-violence-finchy-boris-johnson-article-50-lewis-goodall-sky-news-a9123656.html

The only real question left to answer about Dominic Cummingss^, the former strategic genius whom you would now no longer trust to light one of his own farts without hospitalising himself,

is whether he is Finchy to Johnson’s David Brent or the other way around.

1930s levels of public spending = 1930s politics

At the BXP 1-day conference yesterday:

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall

Takeaways from tonight?

In terms of the viciousness of the language in politics, plenty in the room thought it entirely justified.

Eg One woman, when I asked her if she agreed that MPs in Westminster were traitors,
replied “I think there’s a lot of truth in that, yes.”

Many at the Brexit Party rally brought up the idea of surrender repeatedly.
But, as Farage alluded to, they think the biggest surrender isn’t the Benn Act but any withdrawal agreement.

I suspect Boris Johnson is going to regret injecting the word surrender into the discourse.

Most disturbingly for Number 10, I asked even if Boris Johnson ran on an election promising no deal^^
everyone I spoke to still said they wouldn’t vote for him but would stick with the Brexit Party.

They just don’t trust him.
< noone who knows BJ trusts him an inch >

Which effigies are going to get burnt though?

Cummings, surely?

I don't think anyone should be burning effigies of any sort right now. I think in the circumstances it would be inflammatory (pun intended) from either side.

Agree, and feeds the narrative. But I think he's an obvious candidate.