UK General Discussion: 2019. Blackadder goes Brexit.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1176467700731846656

They don't have any choice in the matter!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The ruling was unanimous. Given the very wide range of known constitutional views on the Court, this is really telling.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A few less whisky-breakfasts would do our politics the world of good right now, I think.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Okay, yes, the Queen can't willy-nilly decide to dismiss BoJo.

Not correct, she can. But it would be extraordinarily messy. Important to note, of course, that the present government does not have a majority in the Commons.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As with a few other MPs who have been the subject of such allegations, there have been rumours about him for a while. Of course his neighbouring S Tyneside member is in bother of her own.

Not even just rumours: there were local press stories that were not shot down with litigation. The accusations do appear to be more serious than some of the others. Of course it isn't just MPs and would-be MPs that there have been complaints about...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One of the things this mess has taught is the astonishing level of constitutional and legal ignorance on the part of political journalists and many actual politicians in this country. No, it is not permitted for the government of the day to simply ignore the law. Yes, there will be consequences if that happens. No, the government of the day does not have the right or even the capacity to override any such consequences.

A common talking point has been that the problem at present is largely constitutional in nature; that it reflects a broken constitutional system. While there are a few issues there, that argument is nonsense: this is not, not yet, a constitutional crisis. It is a political crisis, caused primarily by reckless, stupid and stupidly reckless behaviour from politicians and their advisors.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If that is your starting point then it isn't as if you would believe the truth (e.g. manifold manifest political failures and scandals), so why waste time elaborating? But perhaps you would find it instructive to note that the rot really set in after his response to the Skripal affair.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One of the branches in Riverside CLP had a 'motion of no confidence'* against her scheduled for Yom Kippur. I would suggest that might be slightly indicative of a problematic atmosphere.

_{*Such motions have no mention in the Rule Book, note.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Now there are two: "Corbyn is the second coming of Christ" and "About to be deselected".

Eh, long as the MP is white and (especially) male that doesn't seem to be a massive risk; Godsiff is the only exception in terms of failed-triggers so far...

Quite a few of us in this thread are or (raises hand) have been Labour members, so we at least all know what I refer to when I note that there is a certain culture than permeates a lot of local Labour parties and party meetings, and that it comes mostly from union/wider 'left culture' circles. No faction is exactly immune from this either, so while presently you mostly see its aggressive manifestation in association with the Left, this is mostly a reflection of its present incumbency.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But you know, and tying a few different strands of recent discussion in this thread together, I'm not sure if the Labour Party even really exists anymore - not as a coherent political organisation. For sure, you have all of the same elements as before, but do they fuse together to form anything greater than the sum of those parts? If anything the opposite seems true. Relations between the different elements are beyond poor: no one recognises, not really, the authority of anyone else and discipline has broken down across the board. The main power of the Left cadre at the top of the Party is ownership of the Party brand and label. That seems to be about all. Is there even a whip? After all, it isn't that hard to get anyone elected as a Labour Party MP to vote against a Conservative government. The cadre itself is no longer even slightly cohesive. It is also unable to use the threat of Member Power to bring its discipline to the PLP as the collapse of discipline has spread down root and (literally) branch: 'trust the members' no longer seems like a threat (or not a controllable one), and, anyway, is no longer practice. Thus the emergence of obviously stacked long and shortlists for what open selections there are in a manner that Peter Mandelson would have found a little gauche. Meanwhile the PLP is not functioning as an ordered counterweight, MPs, instead, seem to find it increasingly tempting just to do and say whatever comes into their minds. As, of course, does everyone else, from NEC members to Branch officials.

Perhaps Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. Perhaps not: would any of the people who have acquired for themselves (accidentally for the most part) this liberation from discipline want to surrender to it once more? Perhaps someone will manage to make a smaller and deformed Humpty Dumpty out of all the shards. But for the moment...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course, similar comments (if not identical) can easily be made of the Conservative Party. And the LibDems have been little more than a brand with an elected leader since before they were even called that. To say nothing of certain other parties...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Seems like Parliament just won't let BoJo win

By this point no one* is going to win in a way that they would have defined a win themselves not that long ago. On today's numbers, though, the deal ought to get through safely enough early next week, so long as the government doesn't do anything extraordinarily stupid in the mean time.

_{*Except for the E.U. as an institution: after all the principle modifications that Johnson made to May's deal were to remove the negotiating gains that May made against the initial E.U. position - hysterical.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The deal may well get through, but surely the difference now is that MPs will have some proper time to "scrutinise" it?

(in some cases "scrutinise" means just what it says, in other cases rather different)

Yes, this is also true - and fits the general pattern.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The parliamentary timetable for the secondary route around FTPA is extremely tight - it isn't impossible, not at all, but there will be a need to get everything in order or the clock starts to become a problem.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

LibDems refusing to compromise on the date, apparently.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Government has refused to go with the 9th: introducing a bill tomorrow for the 12th. As noted above, this date is problematic for the opposition parties. They would presumably need very firm assurances as to no silly buggers, but then the problem of trust looms. SNP have also made increasingly loud noises about possible amendments - votes for 16-17 year-olds for instance - that, of course, the government would not accept.

In other words, once again it really isn't certain what is going to happen.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Everyone involved is acting based on what they presume (whether rightly or not) to be their best electoral interests. It is not particularly edifying, because it is very blatant, but the issue of the timing of an election is always like that.

What I will note, though, is that it really isn't certain quite what the outcome of an election would be. Not just for the usual reason that much can change during a campaign* but because there isn't as polling uniformity as looks at first glance, it just happens that the polling firms most likely to show a substantial Conservative lead are also the polling firms who have weekly contracts with media organisations (and one even publishes more than that). I will also note, and this is important, that back in 2010 the Conservatives had a seven point lead nationally on a vote of 37% and still did not win an overall majority. As the vote share of the winning party drops, the sort of lead it needs to win a majority increases.^2. This is before we start to distinguish between a bare majority and a comfortable majority...

<sub>1. And that while changes on the scale of what happened last time were unprecedented, this time any changes would not have to be so vast to make a big difference.
2. The 2005 election was a curious aberration to this rule for a very specific set of factors and is not relevant.</sub>

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No one who would be sufficiently annoyed at an extension of the franchise (if successful) to go out and vote because of that annoyance would not have already been sure of going out and voting. Things aren't like that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Window-posters and lawn-signs are nothing like as common as they were even twenty years ago, let alone before. This, of course, is a reflection of the loosening of partisan ties. Still, if you know what to look out for they can still be a useful gauge.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

She has a genuine popular following of sorts. I don't know how many are presently Labour members or how many of those who are not would pay the fee to vote for her in such an eventuality, mind.