UK General Discussion: 2019. Blackadder goes Brexit.

[Pericles]

Swinson is right imo that it'd be wiser to make Clarke or Harman the caretaker PM. Corbyn is toxic with the current parliament, this is another unnecessary obstacle to stopping no-deal.

[Pericles]

[Pericles]

Result coming in around 15 minutes.

[Pericles]

This has been pointed out many times, but the hypocrisy of the Brexiteer serial rebels getting rewarded with cabinet positions while anti-no deal rebels losing the whips is disgusting. While too many Tories have put career and party before country, the likely decisive few who put country before party and career should be commended.

[Pericles]

Aye 328-301 no.

[Pericles]

Some cheeky guy shouts out "not a good start Boris!" lol. True, he has lost the first ever parliamentary vote of his premiership, which seems pretty special.

[Pericles]

Non-Tory/DUP Noes:

Kate Hoey (Lab)

Kate Hoey is the absolute worst.

The weird thing is her constituency went 78% to Remain.

[Pericles]

Now reports are the 21 Tory rebels lose the whip in all circumstances.

[Pericles]

The former prime minister, Theresa May, leaves the Houses of the Parliament after Boris Johnson’s defeat Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/03/commons-showdown-looms-in-battle-over-no-deal-brexit-live

While May didn't rebel, she possibly sympathizes with the rebellion or at least is happy Boris is suffering parliamentary defeats instead of her.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1169027053691330561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw...
lmao

[Pericles]

"There were at least four individuals who were still doubtful who changed their position to being supportive and voting with us on the back of Jacob’s performance. He was deemed to be arrogant, out of touch and I think the way in which he treated some of the interventions was a red rag to bull in many cases."-Guto Bebb
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/04/brexit-crisis-boris-johnson-mps-bill-blocking-no-deal-eu-no-deal-parliament-politics-live?page=with:block-5d6f82c98f08b2e15bc1a01c#block-5d6f82c98f08b2e15bc1a01c

[Pericles]

Good on Labour not taking Boris' bait with a general election.

[Pericles]

There seems to be a bit of a dangerous assumption among those who supported this Bill that the EU would automatically approve another extension. The Bill takes this as a given - it is not. If there is a clear prospect of an alternative Government coming to power (which, according to polling there isnt) or a second referendum, then yes they would likely, but otherwise I have my doubts. The idea of renegotiating with Mr.Johnson is a obvious farce at this point. Very many people in the EU, chiefly the French, want this over as soon as possible, even if that means no-deal.
It would be very ironic if the EU were the ones forcibly delivering the referendum result, against the will of the "traitors" in the UK parliament. I wonder what the Brexiteers would say then.

It looks like there will be a general election very soon though and the outcome is unpredictable so the EU probably should grant an extension.

[Pericles]

A slight worry with a second referendum is if Remain wins but gets less than 17.4 million votes that Leave got in 2016-idk how plausible that is but maybe possible if turnout is low for the referendum (even if Remain's percentage ends up higher than Leave's), this could lead to further division about which referendum is legitimate.

[Pericles]

Yes to all the above (and I made a point about it’s above before) but I’m still terrified by the prospect that these polls and are right and the short campaign won’t change them and we’ll look back at this period as the same way we look back at late ‘14-15- as a time when we ignored that our leader was a huge block for labour winning an election

I wish Corbyn could be unseated soon, there is the electability factor and also so many other reasons he should not be PM (but Labour is of course far better than the Tories and the other parties either aren't actually much better or have no chance of forming a government). The 2016 experience seems to have killed those hopes though, and even if the membership has changed their mind it would probably be too impractical to have a leadership contest at this stage distracting from stopping no-deal and probably too close to a potential election. Hopefully Corbyn does do well campaigning again, but he is even more unpopular than in 2017, and it's far from clear that the 2017 experience can be repeated in these significantly different conditions.

[Pericles]

Of course it's all to play for, there's a very wide range of possible scenarios-the electorate is very volatile and polling accuracy is unclear. I'm not sure whether the most likely of those possible scenarios is a hung parliament or a Tory majority though.

[Pericles]

And anyway, people could have also preferred a softer Brexit and thought May's deal was too economically damaging. Additionally, it was quite far from what the Leave campaign promised, and certainly didn't appear to be the 'will of the people', so MPs were right to vote their conscience and think that Remain is a better outcome and voters deserve a chance to revisit the issue.

[Pericles]

If the Spartans and the DUP are saying something's a compromise, you can be pretty sure it's not actually a compromise.

[Pericles]

Can any EU country veto a brexit extension?

I hope they veto it at this point I support Hard Brexit over no Brexit which is what I think other side really wants.

For the umpteenth time: a 👏 Hard 👏 Brexit 👏 would 👏 be 👏 horrific 👏 for 👏 the 👏 UK!

Then would you support a referendum between these two options : The May Deal or Hard Brexit .

That option wouldn't solve the issue. Remain is likely more popular than either option, and indeed if Remain had run against any specific Brexit option it probably would have won, but as Brexit was never clearly defined people imagined Leave as having the sovereignty restoration of Hard Brexit while having the economic stability of a softer Brexit (rather than May's deal like the Norway option or Labour's plan). No deal was not a viable option for Brexit in 2016, and it in particular has no mandate and goes against what the Leave campaign promised, so it can't be reasonably argued that no deal is the confirmed will of the people. Brexit was never clearly defined, and so there is no mandate for any particular Brexit option, and no matter what the option many people will feel it is illegitimate. In addition, many of the promises of the Leave campaign now don't match with reality, it would be undemocratic for people to have to go through with Brexit if they've changed their minds, this is a high possibility. So Remain has to be an option on the ballot paper.

[Pericles]

It may be unfair, but Corbyn having to make way for a caretaker PM would likely be damaging to him in a general election, which is much more important. If Boris Johnson wins a majority in the general election, all this maneuvering is pointless, and he can only be denied a majority if the Labour Party is competitive and a viable alternative government.

[Pericles]

But the LibDems are "compromising" on *what*, exactly? An alternate universe in which Swinson with all of 18 MPs (at time of posting) actually becomes prime minister??

As usual, it is the left that is expected to concede to the centre.

If Labour had a majority, Corbyn would be PM.

If the LibDems had a majority, Swinson would be PM.

Neither has a majority, so neither will be PM. Who does become PM will require a negotiation (one where Labour obviously has more bargaining power). It's really not that hard to understand if you stop being a hack for five minutes.

David Cameron didn't have a majority and he became PM. Theresa May didn't have a majority and she became PM. And furthermore, every election in my country since 1996 has been a hung parliament, and never once did one party get to dictate to another who its leader and who the Prime Minister was.

[Pericles]

This deal will shrink the economy by 6%, only slightly less than no deal would. Even if he can actually get an agreement, it still looks hard to get a majority for it and parliament should reject his deal, or at least attach a confirmatory vote to it.

[Pericles]

Johnson practically has no room for error and his deal is a bad deal, there probably is a very slim path but realistically I don't think it's getting passed. Johnson will have a deal to run on in the election and won't have a full on no-deal platform, but tbh this may be a mistake for him too by giving people more of a reason to vote for the Brexit Party and so splitting the Leave vote more.

[Pericles]

If the vote is actually a tie the deal does not pass, as per Speaker Denison's rule which states that the Speaker will vote for the status quo as there should be a positive majority for a change ("it is not for the chair to create a majority that doesn’t otherwise exist."-John Bercow) This was already used earlier this year when Bercow had to tie-break a 310-310 vote and so voted against a further round of indicative votes.

[Pericles]

Wilson added that the DUP made concessions with the Prime Minister in order to help him get a deal but suspected he would do what was best for the Conservative Party.

“We are disappointed he didn’t stick to the red lines he said he would,” the east Belfast MP said

He also voiced the view that a successful election could help Mr Johnson get a better deal.

“I believe, with a big majority, he can be more robust in his negotiations,” Mr Wilson added.

“It is one of the reasons why we believe that voting this down tomorrow is not the end of the game but in fact probably opens up possibilities for the Government that are not available at present but will be after a general election.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/oct/18/boris-johnson-launches-frantic-sales-pitch-of-brexit-deal-ahead-of-commons-vote-politics-live
Lmao at the DUP's stance here, if they get their way that'd be probably the fourth or fifth attempt to negotiate into existence the 'alternative arrangements' unicorn. Still, I could totally see some ERGers agreeing with them and voting the same way.