UK General Discussion: 2019. Blackadder goes Brexit.

[Lord Halifax]

...what the Christ was that?

What are you referring to?

[Lord Halifax]

What a disgrace.  A minority is holding hostage & completely paralyzing the government.  The UK needs serious constitutional reform if and when this ever ends.

So the government is holding itself hostage, since they're the ones in minority now.

NO.  The remain minority is now holding hostage a governement trying to implement the will of the people.  There's going to be a reckoning in the next election.

Since when was no deal, supported by 30% of the electorate in polling, "the will of the people"? Are you drunk?

Yes, but the people didn’t vote for a deal.  They voted on whether they wanted to leave or not.  No deal was always an option.

So how is one "option" among many "the will of the people"? No deal is an option just as much as EFTA is. The government is blocking "the will of the people" by refusing to put forward a soft Brexit!

If you don’t think the people want no deal, let there be a general election on Oct 15.  I know who will win.

That a party can win because of vote-splitting by its opposition has no bearing on measuring the 'will of the people' writ large. Polling suggests soft Brexit remains the plurality most popular option, and hard (no-deal) is less popular than Remain.

I resisted the conclusion of supporting muh second referendum for a long time, but at this point a second referendum would probably have more democratic legitimacy than a general election, since presumably in a second referendum one of the options would have to get to 50%+1 of the electorate.

The problem with a referendum is it seems that you would have to be three options-- to remain in the EU, to accept May's Deal or to leave without a deal. That seems cumbersome at best, pointless at worst.

Just use STV.

[Lord Halifax]

I doubt very much that one EU country is going to go gung-ho vetoing an extension against the will of the other 26. If there is a denial of extension it will be with the consensus of all Members. EU members are very, very reluctant to unilaterally use their veto in these matters - they know that if they do so they themselves will be at the receiving end of the veto at some point.

De Facto there will now be negotiations between France (and its supporters namely ES), who do not want an extension without significant progress on the British side, and Germany (and its Supporters like NL, BE) who desperately want an extension because of the pressure from Business. They will decide on a compromise, and because the Latter Bloc is the more powerful one in Europe, an extension will almost certainly be given, with some conditions attached.

Spain?

[Lord Halifax]

Heidi Allen has joined the Lib Dems.

https://twitter.com/IanSollom/status/1181298780244762626

[Lord Halifax]

It is politically untenable for Labour to accept anyone other than Corbyn as PM. They'd basically be admitting 'our man isn't good enough', and while everyone knows that he isn't good enough, they can't just come out and say it. It would be politically disastrous and basically inviting what remaining voters Labour has to find alternatives. Thus Labour won't accept an alternative.

All they would be admitting is that Corbyn isn't acceptable to Tory defectors, which is a no brainer.

[Lord Halifax]

How many factions are there in Labour? Hard Left, Soft Left, Trad Right, Brownites, Blairites and...?

What faction do Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry belong to?

[Lord Halifax]

How many factions are there in Labour? Hard Left, Soft Left, Trad Right, Brownites, Blairites and...?

What faction do Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry belong to?

The soft left, they aren't Corbynite true believers by any stretch of the imagination. If either one wins the leadership if Corbyn fails at the next election they'd move drastically back towards the centre in terms of rhetoric though their policy platform would be fairly similar to what was proposed in the 2017 manifesto (which many on the 'hard left' felt didn't go far enough).

I assumed they were further right. Angela Rayner is Soft Left and I thought Thornberry and Starmer were a bit to her right.

So the potential leadership candidates are all on the left?

Hard Left: Pidcock, RLB, McDonnell
Soft Left: Rayner, Thornberry, Starmer
Trad Right: none
Brownites: none
Blairites. none

[Lord Halifax]

Jewish MP leaves Labour due to antisemitism.

@LouiseEllman
"I have made the truly agonising decision to leave the Labour Party after 55 years. I can no longer advocate voting Labour when it risks Corbyn becoming PM. I will continue to serve the people of Liverpool Riverside as I have had the honour to do since 1997."

"Under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, antisemitism has become mainstream in the Labour Party. Jewish members have been bullied, abused and driven out. Antisemites have felt comfortable and vile conspiracy theories have been propagated. A party that permits anti-Jewish racism to flourish cannot be called anti-racist."

[Lord Halifax]

Jewish MP leaves Labour due to antisemitism.

@LouiseEllman
"I have made the truly agonising decision to leave the Labour Party after 55 years. I can no longer advocate voting Labour when it risks Corbyn becoming PM. I will continue to serve the people of Liverpool Riverside as I have had the honour to do since 1997."

"Under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, antisemitism has become mainstream in the Labour Party. Jewish members have been bullied, abused and driven out. Antisemites have felt comfortable and vile conspiracy theories have been propagated. A party that permits anti-Jewish racism to flourish cannot be called anti-racist."

due to the fact she was about to be deselected.

because she has criticized Corbyn for enabling the spread of antisemitism within the party.

"Jeremy Corbyn - who spent three decades on the backbenches consorting with, and never confronting, antisemites, Holocaust deniers and terrorists - has attracted the support of too many antisemites."

[Lord Halifax]

The 13 unknown are:

Ivan Lewis (IND)
Anne Milton (IND)
Mike Hill (IND)
Amber Rudd (IND)
Richard Benyon (IND)
Justine Greening (IND)
Philip Hammond (IND)
Jared O'Mara (IND)
Margot James (IND)
Stephen Kinnock (LAB)
Melanie Onn (LAB)
Jim Fitzpatrick (LAB)
Kate Hoey (LAB)

But Kinnock and Hammond should be for and Hoey against. How do you expect the rest to vote?

[Lord Halifax]

Betfair odds right seems to have odds of Meaningful Vote to pass tomorrow at around 53.6% vs 46.4%

Those odds would seem to assume that all Tory MPs will vote for the deal, which is certainly possible, but far from confirmed. The Burges Group, for example, is going in very hard on Twitter against BoJo's deal. I don't doubt that a lot of them will indeed vote for it (Andrew Bridgen, for example, has already said he would), but I'd be shocked if there aren't at least a few hardliners who refuse to do so.

If it passes then Boris will win a landslide and Farage is toast, forever.

Really the deal is awful. It’s the worst of both worlds for the UK. Don’t get the benefits of a clean break and don’t get the benefits of being a member either. Shame.

There are no benefits of a "clean break" (i.e. no-deal).

They would get full control over immigration policy (no freedom of movement).

[Lord Halifax]

Betfair odds right seems to have odds of Meaningful Vote to pass tomorrow at around 53.6% vs 46.4%

Those odds would seem to assume that all Tory MPs will vote for the deal, which is certainly possible, but far from confirmed. The Burges Group, for example, is going in very hard on Twitter against BoJo's deal. I don't doubt that a lot of them will indeed vote for it (Andrew Bridgen, for example, has already said he would), but I'd be shocked if there aren't at least a few hardliners who refuse to do so.

If it passes then Boris will win a landslide and Farage is toast, forever.

Really the deal is awful. It’s the worst of both worlds for the UK. Don’t get the benefits of a clean break and don’t get the benefits of being a member either. Shame.

There are no benefits of a "clean break" (i.e. no-deal).

They would get full control over immigration policy (no freedom of movement).

Yes, but freedom of movement is more economically beneficial for the UK than the lack thereof, so on balance, it's still not a benefit.

Not everything is about economics.

[Lord Halifax]

"Dawn Butler, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Jess Phillips and Angela Rayner seen as possible successors to Tom Watson"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/07/who-are-the-favourites-to-take-over-as-labour-deputy-leader

Is Jess Phillips really a serious possibility?