Westministenders: Sub-Prime Minister at large

[BigChocFrenzy]

Our Sub-Prime Minister BJ is threatening a govt tantrum strike until he is allowed his Haribo GE on 12 December.

If MPs vote for a GE, he has promised them "more time" to debate the WAB,
but that would only be from 29 October to 7 November

• ridiculously inadequate for such complex legislation -

before Parliament is automatically dissolved for the 25 sitting days before a GE.

The GE debate starts Monday 2:30 pm in the HoC
Corbyn says he'll agree to a GE if BJ takes No Deal off the table

BUT wIth this WA,
No deal cannot 100% be taken off the table whilst the Tories are in office:

they could still No Deal after transition ends on 31 December 2020,
if they don't request a transition by July.

We don't know when the EU will give their decision on an extension, or what it will be:

The EU may decide only after the HoC vote
- in which case MPs would be voting "blindly"

Tusk, Merkel & most other leaders want to grant the Flextension until 31 January,
but Macron & a few others want to give a short extension of only 2-4 weeks, to pressure MPs to pass the WA in November

• in which case the GE would take place shortly after Brexit, which would be a gift to BJ.

A 12 December GE would also cause serious logistical problems for local council officials:

Apart from their poll station bookings clashing with Xmas bookings for church halls & schools,

they are legally required to send out all the polling cards based on the current electoral roll,
then at the GE, check names against the new electoral roll which must be updated on 1 December

The Rebel Alliance want a long extension, so they have time to add amendments to the WAB,
e.g. a CU, the Level Playing Field agreement in May's WA, maybe even a PV
So many may want to vote against a GE before that ..... but what does Corbyn want ?

BJ as PM could still change the date of any GE after he has agreed to it, if it suits him.

What does BJ want ?
Alice Cooper said it:

"I'm your top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice
I wanna be elected
I'm your yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce
I wanna be elected
Kids want a savior, don't need a fake

I wanna be elected
We're all gonna rock to the rules that I make
I wanna be elected, elected, elected..."

m.youtube.com/watch?v=cSvy8HpxFxo

• Post edited to correct dates

I just find it baffling that the Tories have such a big opinion poll lead. But what do I know?

I initially blinked at a December GE, but on reflection, I considered the possible timings:

The Rebel Alliance looks trapped
We really can't have a GE in January - campaigning over Christmas / NY ?!

So, unless the EU would give us a further extension Feb-April / May,
Brexit would happen December / January, i.e. before a GE

That would make BJ a virtual certainty to win, having finally "got Brexit done"
which is what most people still believe

So, poor as the chances look for defeating the Tories in a December GE, they look even worse later on
The alternative plan is to hope something (unknown) comes up to stop them. Sometime

It looks grim

The SNP / LDmm timing for the GE slightly earlier than BJ wants, is reportedly planned so as not to leave sufficient time for the WAB to pass before Parliament is dissolved

Yes LD / SNP plan is to make GE BEFORE we have a deal so it works in their favour...

"If they lose we end up with a Johnson majority to dismantle justice and democracy as we know it in this country."

The same thing would happen if they just let time run out to 31 Jan or however long the EU give us

A GE before Brexit gives only a small chance of avoiding disaster, but it indicates that any alternative plans couldn't be made to work

I'd be more hopeful if Labour weren't still busy fighting each other as much as the Tories

I'm a Labour party member in an area that as long as I can remember has always been held by Labour, my inbox is getting bombarded with emails every day on the policies they will base their election campaign on. Most of them don't even mention Brexit. Like many of you have said, if they would just tell Boris that they will agree to an election if a second referendum is held on the same day, they would be on to a winner.

Isn't 9th December a Monday? Does the 5th not work for timing?

"If they lose we end up with a Johnson majority to dismantle justice and democracy as we know it in this country."

The same thing would happen if they just let time run out to 31 Jan or however long the EU give us

I agree with you here, BCF. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. I have come round to thinking that this is our best chance to at least reduce the Tory seats, especially as there aren't really any parties who'd want to C&S with them now.

If the polls are anywhere near correct, the extension deflates BoZo's vote share as the 'just get it done' crowd move their votes.

And we live in weird times. Council and EU results show a political shift. So, we shall see.

There'll be no time to have a PV on the same day, I don't think. No time to legislate (there'll only be a week of Parliament).

I think BigChoc has nailed the logic of it.

And, yes, it's grim.

As for why so many people vote Conservative? Well, I think RedToothBrush probably had the right of it a long while ago when she discussed the 'fear factor' and how that seems to push people towards more authoritarian Parties.

It also pushes people towards Conservative (with a small 'c') Parties. Sadly, we know the Conservatives are anything but in their current incarnation. But people have an embedded trust there.. 🤷‍♀️

Agreed, I think BigChoc has it. Not saying I'm pleased about a GE at any time during this ongoing shitshow, but I can see what they're thinking.

Wonder if labour regret not votong for a GE in Sept???

Agree that boris's worst enemy is boris. Give him enough rope etc...

I hope no voter is allowed to forget that our current prime minister, Boris Johnson, is the man who said fuck business putting to bed the lie that the Tories are the party of business.

Don't expect to see it in our MSM though, especially the 'impartial' Brexit Broadcasting Corporation.

Yes, BCF is saying what I said last night about why December.

I really do hope that the opposition get some bloody strong messages in their election campaign. Shout loud and clear what they've only really been tweeting / hasn't come through in the press.

The good thing about an election campaign is that the media HAS to be even-handed in their reporting.

i would love to see the data tables on this.

When I look at Opinium resarch www.opinium.co.uk/political-polling-3rd-october-2019-2/

They don't have margins of error, they don't say how they do their weighting and they don't say how many 'don't know'.

Seems the last one had 944 people as respondents who said they knew who to vote for...out of 2006 respondents.

Anyone else see this with Opinium

Sorry, Fluffy. I didn't read back through all the posts.

Why the 9th rather than the 12th?

However sensible it is, I can see why it doesn't look great for Labour to be backing away from a general election.

The only way to get no deal off the table is presumably to bring in an act meaning that if a deal cannot be reached, we revoke, which there doesn't seem to be any appetite for. Not to mention labour have been calling for an election since the last one.

It's facts vs feels. Which is what got us in this mess in the first place.

An election worries me greatly - I know 2017 etc, polls aren't reliable, Boris Johnson's greatest enemy is himself... I'm currently on the fence as to whether I'd prefer the risk of an election or trying to get the WA through with amendments (workers rights back in the legally binding bit, maybe a customs union, if we're shooting for the moon even a PV). Not that it matters I suppose as they certainly won't be consulting me about it.

It's also interesting looking at the ages and the areas.

From the last data table - people aged up to 44 were far more likely to vote Labour or Lib Dem, and older people in their 60s were more likely to vote Conservative.

Looking at the areas, Northern England is split between Labour and Conservatives

That's why headline percentages need drilling down to - and this matters in getting people out to vote. It also matters in the constituencies.

This is Leonardo Carella's analysis on "bloc politics" and spatial distribution, in article form:

ukandeu.ac.uk/bloc-politics-a-split-remain-vote-may-not-equal-a-large-conservative-majority/

Tl;dr Tory and BXP votes are concentrated in the same constituencies whereas the LAB and LD votes have a different geographical distribution. This means that % vote share does not necessarily = seats. (NB: The SNP is an extreme example of the spatial distribution phenomenon).

This was written before the new WA and polls have evolved since. I think a lot is going to depend on tactical voting.

If you don't want another 10 years of this, stfu with silly arguments about how you could never vote LD because of student fees (or any other party because of X or Y) and take a serious look at how best to melt the Fatberg in your constituency.

Nicked from Leonardo C's twitter account while I was harvesting that link:

Italy's migration crisis:

Some stats about Italy

• its population shrank 4 years in a row
• live births decreased by 128,000 relative to 2008
• the number of people aged 65 and over has increased by 560,000 since 2015
• 160,000 Italians moved abroad in 2018

Coming soon to a country near you!

Agree, Misti.

My Twitter feed is full of, ' I will never vote for Corbyn,' and 'LibDems are Yellow Tories.'

I absolutely despair.

Interesting

This is not a heroic assumption: of the top 100 Liberal Democrat target seats, only 12 are Labour-held, while 82 are Conservative held; of the top 100 Labour target seats, none are Liberal Democrat-held

I assume this is common knowledge in Westminster.

If you don't want another 10 years of this, stfu with silly arguments about how you could never vote LD because of student fees (or any other party because of X or Y) and take a serious look at how best to melt the Fatberg in your constituency.

Yes. This ^ in absolute spades!

The fact is, BoZo isn't going to allow the necessary time to consider the WAIB and make amendments. As he KNOWS it's a steaming, sloppy, turd for anyone other than those fucking arseholes he's seeking to pander to.

We need to deal with him before this zombie Parliament ends up being 600-odd people who cannot do ANYTHING at all because it's incapable of acting in the best interests of the country.

NOW is our best chance to un-fuck the problem. It's over to the electorate.

Don't forget, we have new candidates, possibly where the incumbent is standing as an indie. We have yet to see the moderate CON voters' response to all the shenanigans with the 21 rebels.

This is a very, very weird situation for an election. I really do think that all bets are off.

I think the Monday election is to just move it a bit further away from Christmas.

My Twitter feed is full of, ' I will never vote for Corbyn,' and 'LibDems are Yellow Tories.'

The LD/uni fees one is particularly dumb, because tuition fees are redistributive and free uni education is regressive in economics speak.

If you wanted to have a go at the LDs for regressive policies you should object to their policy of raising the tax-free allowance. Bad regressive policy which helps the wealthy more than it helps the poorest.

But NOT ONCE have I heard a Labour shill talk about that, because this is all partisan politics and it has NOTHING to do with helping the poor.

If an election does go ahead, will the WAIB be debated?

I can see that having an impact once it gets out how shitty it is, and presumably he would have to campaign on the basis of a shitty deal...