Westminstenders: From Uxbridge to...?

[RedToothBrush]

Speaker Bercow is gone.

Speculation that Johnson is parachuting into Rutland.

Rumours that the Brexit Party won't contest the election.

A new speaker to be elected on Monday.

Parliament to dissolve next week.

Brexit? Oh we've forgotten that until Friday 13th...

Farage has charged a lot of people a lot of money to be Prospective candidates.
If he decides not to let them stand, they may want their money back.
But he's spent it
Ones I know of are accountants and lawyers who might just know how to make things rather difficult for the Company Party
beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11694875

pretzels 😂 Your mum is ace 👏🏼🤛🏼
I hope the music was appreciated

I watched jo Swinson interviewed it was not really recent, but I think she was leader - probably only just. Anyway she despises Boris - you could tell from her tone and body language. She didn't have the same response to Corbyn. Obviously not his biggest fan - more exasperated by him.
But her response about Bozo was visceral - which I thought was interesting.

The Farage Company for which afaik even Parliamentary candidates - and later even MPs - can't be members

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall

I’ve seen Farage give dozens of speeches this year.
He never usually speaks from notes. He is today.
He’s being entirely deliberate.

Farage: “this is a Lab Party which represents Islington, not Islwyn. Hampstead not Huddersfield. Dalston not Doncaster.”

This is the problem.
He’s right there’s electoral drift for Lab in these places.
But all three of those seats have huge Lab majorities.
They won’t fall.
....
Farage: “Boris’ deal will not get Brexit done. It will lead to a campaign where we have no voice, no veto.
It’ll lead to a campaign for us to rejoin.
A campaign I have no doubt would succeed.”

Farage’s conversion to remainer critiques of Brexit is interesting...

Farage says he’ll compromise over no deal.
Says if he’s “willing to go down the route of a genuine FTA and that he will not sign up to continued political linkage.
if Boris were to go along with that, in the interests of building a Leave alliance I’d be willing to back that”

Farage seems to be saying Johnson has to drop the Withdrawal Agreement entirely and just have an FTA
...but he can’t do that...

Says if Johnson doesn’t accept his offer then the Brexit Party will be standing in every seat in Great Britain.

There is no way Johnson can accept the ultimatum of dropping the Withdrawal Agreement which is Farage’s ask.
Farage must know this so I assume it’s an offer designed to be rejected.

So we must assume the Brexit Party will contest virtually every seat.
No “leave alliance”

This means Farage will spend every day slamming Johnson telling Leave voters that his deal is not Brexit.
It’s not an existential problem.
But in an election with tight margins it could be decisive.

Farage gives Johnson until the close of nominations on November 14th.

Farage:
“there’s two weeks to construct a Leave alliance and it needs to be done.”

He’s playing a vintage Brexit blame game.
Offering a compromise which he must know can never be reached.

Interesting thing is,
does Farage’s offer start to introduce splits into the Tory Party?

ERG MPs start to say, yes, perhaps we should ditch the a Withdrawal Agreement?
If we get a majority we can do it?

Tory unity quite brittle.

There are a rich seam of Tory remainers that are there to be mined. No way on Gods green earth will they ever go Labour for the most part we see that on here. But a few of them in the right areas might after watching the one nationers be removed may have the same worries we share on here about the direction the Tory party is taking. There are more Tory seats Lib Dem’s are going after than Labour.

If have seen data today saying that in some seats could we won with as little as 30% such will the split be.

Still wish they would pack in the bickering though.

Trouble in Devizes?

Devizes consituency in Wiltshire voted remain 46.47% and leave 53.53%. Their MP was Claire Perry (conservative majority 21k) who is standing down.

They still have to select their conservative candidate

See this Tweet here:
twitter.com/wallaceme/status/1190297187315601413

which reads:

"SELECTION TROUBLE🚨
Brigadier Peter Sharpe has resigned as chairman of Devizes Conservative Association. Apparently CCHQ is forcing Devizes to delete three candidates from its shortlist against its will. I reported on Monday there was a tug of war..."

Apparently there had been a bit of an issue about the Conservative party imposing candidates with the local party wanting to have their own local candidates.

More about that here:

www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2019/10/introducing-the-six-candidates-shortlisted-for-devizes.html

The fact there are some Tories - who would have been branded traitors only 2 years ago - talking about a pact with BXP is an indication of a fult line just waiting to crack.

Going back to 2015, the idea that the Conservative and Unionist party of Great Britain would even consider any form of electoral pact at a national level would have been laughed out of the room. Why on earth would one of Europes oldest political parties even consider it needed anything from a bunch of johnny-come-latelys.

The fact some standing Tory MPs feel it's now OK to speculate - nay beg - in public can be added to the list of things I never thought I see when I was 14. Which included:

1. Fall of the Berlin wall
2. Collapse of communism
3. End of apartheid (the idea Mandela might be president didn't even have odds of "never" ...)
4. A negotiated peace in Northern Ireland.

Tories talking pacts ? It's up there at #5 .....

Rub your eyes ...

www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/johnson-and-cummings-under-fire-police-hand-criminal-evidence-vote-leave-prosecution-agency/

After 16-month investigation, Met Police refer Vote Leave to the CPS for possible criminal charges.

But will the timing of the election mean further delay?

.

Matthew Holehouse@mattholehouse

The problem for the Conservatives here is a US FTA (and a Brexit deal that permits one)
is why Theresa May was ousted and Johnson came to power.

Its terms are not a distraction from this campaign, but the heart of the Boris project.

Worrying that Major is worried

The Major quote is from 2016.

Really Nadine? I think we can and should doubt Farage’s “true commitment to Brexit” - it’s just a convenient cause to generate publicity for the current embodiment of the Nigel Farage Franchise Party.

I wonder how many Leave supporters would vote Brexit rather than Tory-what would make you decide between the two?

Are people here still anticipating a hung parliament? The Tory campaign hasn't exactly got off to a good start. I sense doubt among some Tory voters.

Maybe Nadine can get her shotgun and join Farage ?

Very interesting to hear Nigel Farage on Boris’s Brexit deal. He really helps make the point that passing Boris’s deal is just the start of the process, not ‘getting it done’ and that there will be years of this and years of uncertainty afterwards.

Best argument yet for Remain?

*The Major quote is from 2016.

Shame it wasn’t taken more seriously.

Project fear......

Having seen this post on Facebook yesterday, I wonder if Children in Need is also going to become a bunfight, with Tory pressure to avoid talking about hungry children in our own country ? Given the BBC is their media wing at present (to be sold off when they get in, of course).

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/30/food-banks-childrens-books-britain-hungry-election

have just read a beautiful book about something truly obscene. Full of lovely pictures and occasional bits of text, it’s the kind you might read with your four-year-old. It shows a little girl and her mum as they visit a food bank.

It’s a No-Money Day is narrated by the daughter who sees how her mother worries over every penny, while shielding her from the painful stuff. “There’s no more cereal, so I have the last piece of toast. Luckily Mum isn’t hungry,” the girl says; and you know the biggest thing Mum will have for breakfast is her own little white lie. When they reach the food bank, the child tucks into biscuits and squash while her mother sags like a balloon from which the air has escaped.

(contd)

Matthew Parris (former Derbyshire Tory MP and one of the Times's Remainer columnists) is leaving the Conservatives and voting Lib Dem.

The Major quote is from 2016

Are you suggesting that John Major may have changed his mind Oubliette?

Because that's the will of the politicians and ex politicians. Just the same as the will of the people.

I'm shocked at Matthew Parris

Obviously the centre ground is the LibDem ground now, mostly from ex Conservatives.

In an election that is about polarising issues, I'm not sure about this strategy.

@placemats - not at all. Just putting it in context.

Even all the way back in 2016 Major knew Boris et al. couldn’t be trusted with the NHS.

I think we will have an uber right wing government that will take the UK crashing out of Europe with devastating consequences for business, social care, education, and health.