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lhs3020b · 5 years

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Some notes on recent polling developments (long, fairly depressing)...

The YouGov MRP figures came out last night. This is notable because in 2017, the multilevel-regression approach was the sole one that spotted the possibility of a hung parliament. We all ridiculed it at the time - I'll confess that I side-eyed it too. And then - well, we all know what happened to Theresa May, don't we? So, the MRP thing deserves to be taken seriously. And unfortunately, this year, it's looking grim for us. Briefly, the MRP is forecasting a Tory majority. They're also predicting that all opposition parties (bar the SNP, who only stand in Scotland) will lose seats. Labour in particular look in the danger-zone for a collapse, and contrary to their bullish predictions, the Liberal Democrats are also forecast to lose seats. (Note that this is with respect to their current strength - technically, the MRP result gives them a gain of 2 seats on where they were on the 9th of June. They currently have 19, due to defections from various other parties.)

I'll admit that I don't want to believe the MRP results, but this has never been a data-denialist blog, and I don't intend to start on that road today.

One caveat is that the reporting on the MRP results has ben remarkably-bad. The actual YouGov page is here: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/11/27/yougov-mrp-conservatives-359-labour-211-snp-43-ld- Buried a long way down the page, they say this: "Taking into account the margins of error, our model puts the number of Conservative seats at between 328 and 385, meaning that while we can be confident that the Conservatives would currently get a majority, it could range from a modest one to a landslide." As far as I can tell, the "majority of 68" figure is derived by treating 317 as a working majority and assuming that the Tory vote lands right at the upper end of their confidence-interval. This is poor statistical practice for a variety of reasons. It's also a bit questionable in terms of parliamentary arithmetic - the "working majority" thing depends on how many Sinn Fein MPs Northern Ireland elects (they don't take their seats, so count toward neither Government nor Opposition tallies). And we won't necessarily know how many that is until, well, December the 13th.

(Also, a further health-warning is that apparently the model isn't able to fully-represent some local phenomena, such as independent candidates, and the effect of the Brexit Party's partial stand-down is also apparently somewhat-unclear. The last caveat is that the analysis assumes data that has already been collected - that is, if public opinion changes between now and polling day, then obviously existing projections could become obsolete. This will still be a possible source of error even if the MRP sample is statistically-unbiased and the underlying theory/analysis is all sound.)

However, even the best-case scenario for us gives the Tories 328 seats, which is both a working and a (very small) absolute majority.

Obviously, this is not a good situation for us.

While not quite a landslide, nonetheless an inflated Tory majority will be devastating for this country. The stuff they'll do will be awful. Brexit will happen. There'll be a bus crash late next year, when the transition period ends. (No, they will have no plan for this - they won't feel they need one, as they'll be secure in power until 2024.) There'll be a Windrush for resident EU citizens. They'll trash the economy. They'll probably crash the NHS - the only question there is whether they do it through accidental negligence or through deliberate malice (say, an ideologically-driven trade "deal" that gives President Trump everything he wants on a silver platter). Nothing will be done about the country’s escalating housing crisis. They'll double down on all the maddest of the madcap "law-n-order" stuff - expect an explosion in jailable offences, accompanied by lengthy minimum-sentence tariffs and further restrictions on legal aid. They'll also resuscitate their plans to manipulate the parliamentary boundaries, and change electoral laws in their favour. The media? Expect no surprises from them. The newspapers are largely already Conservative Pravdas. The BBC - nervous about its precious Royal Charter - seems to be in the process of declaring itself for the Tories too.

Bluntly, if the Tories get re-elected this year, they'll gerrymander things so you have little chance of getting rid of them in 2024.

Perhaps this is the key thing to understand about Boris Johnson: really, he's less Britain's Trump, and more Britain's Victor Orban. He'll leave just enough vestigial democracy intact to make what he's doing plausibly-deniable, but he'll busily rearrange the furniture to favour himself and his friends. If he gets re-elected this December, you can expect to be seeing his face into the 2030s. The only reason I put the cut-off as early as that is that I expect the coming climate-crisis will wreak havoc with the Tories' internal coalition. (Oh you've built all your luxury millionaire mansions by the seaside? How nice for you, especially now that the sea is literally in your parlour. Umm, whoops.)

What can be done? Well, the first thing is to reiterate some discussions I've seen on Twitter recently. The TL;DR of them is that hope doesn't have to be something you feel - it can be something you do. (And that's just as well, because I'll admit that 2019 has destroyed what traces of social optimism I was clinging to. I'm dreading the bad end that's coming to us next month, but I also fully-expect it.)

So, my advice remains as it has been: on December the 12th, turn up, and vote for whoever you judge most likely to beat the Tory.

Remember, the MRP approach is fallible. "Mortal, finite, temporary" is absolutely in play here; no model is any better than the data that went into it. Or, indeed, the date when it was calculated. And at the end of the day, the only poll that genuinely-matters is the one on December the 12th, and that hasn't actually happened yet. (Though admittedly, given the storm-surge of pre-emptive grief that's flooding Twitter today, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.)

As for the horrible mess that are our opposition parties, I'll repeat what I said in 2017: it's OK to vote for a least-worst option. You're not perjuring yourself or committing any moral sin, rather you're trying to be a grown-up. Part of the package of being an adult is making the best of bad situations.

It absolutely does suck - believe me, this is one of the most soul-destroying election campaigns I've ever seen. Every single party has clown-show'd itself. All of them have done things that are ridiculous, inept or otherwise ghastly. (Well, maybe not the Greens - I haven't heard of any specific scandals surrounding them - but their cardinal sin is that they have no plausible prospect of winning the election.) But even then, the barrel we're going to have to stare down is going and voting for them anyway.

(As a related case-in-point, one factor that seems to have helped the Tories win their unexpected 2015 majority was that a contingent of left-wing voters simply stayed at home on the day. While it's hard to find concrete statistics on, nonetheless anecdotally, this absolutely was a thing. A lot of people were demotivated by Labour's confused and incoherent campaign, left cold by all the bothering about fiscal rules, and alienated by things like the mug with "controls on immigration" on it. All of those are 100% valid criticisms. Except, except, except ... it helped an even worse party back into office. The theory of "if the choices are bad, sit it out" has been tested to destruction. It turns out that looking the other way is also a choice, and not necessarily the best one.)

I would add that there are also real questions to be asked about the utter vacuum of political strategy of people nominally on the anti-Tory side - it seems the Opposition spent the summer fixated on the minutiae of House procedures, while never stopping to ask why they were on this battlefield to begin with. Meanwhile the Tories largely-ignored Commons process, and instead sent a political appeal straight to Leave voters. It lost them a lot of individual legislative battles (and I'm not minimising their defeats - they were important!), but it put them in a good strategic place to win an election. And in the long run, it turns out that was what mattered.

It's hard not to feel bitter while thinking about the events of spring and summer. Perhaps if Jo Swinson had been less blinkered about Jeremy Corbyn, perhaps if Labour could have had the minimum sense to call a Vote of No Confidence when BoJo was vulnerable, perhaps if the collective Opposition had been able to recognise the huge wave of unharnessed political energy washing through the country during the petition back in March, perhaps if Change UK had managed to be something other than an unfunny joke, maybe if Corbyn had taken the anti-semitism problem seriously in 2018 and had actually done something instead of sitting on his hands and letting it metastasize to the point where it derailed his election campaign ... but, no. That's for some other, better timeline, not the one we live in. We seem to live in the world that resolutely and firmly chooses the wrong fork in every road. I don't know whether our timeline quite qualifies as the Bad Place, but it's certainly a place full of bad choices.

In a weird sort of way, though, this brings us back to the key theme. Whatever you might think of what's happening in this election - and goodness knows I'm as appalled as anyone else - nonetheless, your vote matters. Use it. As we're seeing, this is the ultimate limitation on their power, and the one chance we have of stopping them.

So once more, let me reiterate: turn up. Vote against the Tory. Do it as a hopeful action, even if you don't feel hopeful. If nothing else, do it so that when the bad things happen, at least you can say you tried to stop it. I wish I had something less bleak to offer here, but this is where we are.

#UK internal politics #diary of a disaster #needed to get that wail of despair out of my system really #still feeling quite despairing though

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gyrlversion · 6 years

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Brexit delay could last FIVE YEARS if May’s deal is not passed

Theresa May will challenge MPs to finally back Brexit this afternoon – on the day Britain was supposed to leave the EU.

In a high-stakes gamble, Mrs May will throw down the gauntlet to Labour and her own Eurosceptic MPs, amid fears that she risks a third, and possibly final, defeat.

If she does lose – and Parliament tries to make her accept a customs union and second referendum – allies fear she could be forced to call a General Election as early as next week.

The Prime Minister made her move after deciding to take the dramatic step of splitting her deal in the hope of getting it through the Commons.

British Prime Minister Theresa May speaking at the House of Commons on Wednesday. She faces a third attempt to get her meaningful vote through

A dark cloud looms over the House of Parliament on Thursday evening as British MPs prepare to debate and vote on the withdrawal agreement on Friday

A cross-party group of MPs led by Sir Oliver Letwin and Yvette Cooper threatened to change the law next week to force Mrs May to pursue a soft Brexit option, such as a customs union

Tory leadership candidate Michael Gove leaves home for a run on Thursday as the Prime Minister fights to save her deal. Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured on Thursday) has urged hardline Eurosceptics to back Theresa May or face losing Brexit

The meeting with the Speaker shortly before Commons leader Andrea Leadsom made a cryptic announcement about a debate and vote on Friday

Theresa May is rolling the dice on another vote on her divorce deal on Friday after finding a way around John Bercow’s (pictured on Thursday in the Commons) ‘sabotage’ of the plan

MPs will vote only on the ‘divorce’ element of the deal today – and not the political declaration on Britain’s future relationship with the EU.

If Mrs May wins, the date of Brexit would be fixed at May 22, and Britain would not have to hold European Parliament elections the following day.

David Cameron refuses to say who he thinks should replace Theresa May

Former prime minister David Cameron urged warring MPs to ‘compromise’ to get some sort of Brexit deal through the ‘stuck’ Parliament.

The ex-Tory leader, who quit after leaving the failed Remain campaign in the 2016 election said two of four main factions in the Commons – spanning all opinions on Brexit – would have to ‘compromise’.

But he declined to say who he would back to replace Theresa May when she stands down, telling ITV News on Thursday: ‘It’s not for me to say.’

He said: ‘The basic problem is that Parliament is stuck.

‘There are four groups in Parliament; people who want the PM’s deal, people who want no deal, people who want a second referendum and people who want a softer Brexit.

‘We – the Government – has to try and find a way of getting at least two of those groups to work together, to combine their options, to compromise to find that partnership agreement and I hope that is what will happen.’

However, if she loses the vote, Mrs May is likely to have to return to the EU to seek another, longer delay – guaranteeing we would elect MEPs.

A Whitehall source said another defeat for the Prime Minister’s deal could see Brexit delayed for up to five years.

‘Once you have taken part in the European elections, there is no limit on the number of extensions you could have during the lifetime of the parliament,’ they said.

The warning came as:

A cross-party group of MPs led by Sir Oliver Letwin and Yvette Cooper threatened to change the law next week to force Mrs May to pursue a soft Brexit option, such as a customs union;

Boris Johnson, who dropped his opposition to the deal after Mrs May agreed to step down, was reported to have declared it ‘dead’;

Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab made a bid for the Eurosceptic vote in the coming leadership election by refusing to back the deal and urging Mrs May to go back to Brussels and negotiate;

Former chief whip Mark Harper and Tory grandee Crispin Blunt indicated they would now back the deal;

Mrs May’s former deputy Damian Green suggested she would ‘soldier on’ as Prime Minister if her deal is defeated, despite ministers warning privately she could not lead the party into another election;

Writing in the Mail, Iain Duncan Smith urged his fellow European Research Group members to back the deal, saying ‘Brussels will have Britain over a barrel’ if the vote is lost;

Nigel Farage will lead a pro-Brexit rally outside Parliament while MPs are voting.

Ministers hope the symbolism of MPs voting on the day the UK was originally due to leave the European Union will pile pressure on opponents of the deal to back down. They also believe the public would blame MPs for blocking Brexit.

On Thursday Boris Johnson branded Theresa May’s Brexit deal ‘dead’ – less than 24 hours after he sensationally backed it – and will call on Mrs May to quit even if she doesn’t deliver Brexit

Attorney General Geoffrey Cox (pictured left, on Thursday) and David Lidington (pictured right on Thursday) confronted John Bercow on Thursday morning to establish whether he would allow a new vote on the Brexit deal

The Prime Minister will use what was supposed to be Brexit Day to hold a vote on just the legally binding divorce deal and not the political declaration – meaning the Speaker could not rule it out

Tory and hardline Brexiteer Mark Francois said on Thursday he wouldn’t vote for the PM’s deal even with a gun in his mouth

Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, who will open today’s debate, said the vote would give MPs the last opportunity to lock in the May 22 departure date and avoid further debilitating uncertainty and delays.

Commons Speaker John Bercow, who had threatened to block a third vote on Mrs May’s deal unless it was ‘substantially’ different, last night approved the vote, saying the decision to split the deal met his test.

Javid and Gove consider ‘stop Boris’ joint bid for Tory leadership after May

Sajid Javid is floating the idea of a ‘dream ticket’ with Michael Gove as Chancellor that could see him become Prime Minister and would also shut Boris Johnson out of Downing Street, MailOnline can reveal.

The pair are mulling whether Jeremy Hunt could be offered Home Secretary to drop his candidacy as part of the pact, while fellow Brexiteers Penny Mordaunt and Andrea Leadsom could also be handed promotions to fall into line, allies of Mr Javid have suggested.

The ‘Stop Boris’ plot came as Mr Johnson – who is joint-favourite with Mr Gove to be the next Tory leader – backed Mrs May’s Brexit deal only to pronounce it ‘dead’ hours later.

The Prime Minister on Wednesday offered to sacrifice her leadership to win rebel Tories’ backing for her deal, saying she will quit on May 22 if her deal passes this week.

If the deal does not pass on Friday, May could stay and Brexit will thrown into chaos with rebel MPs trying to force a softer exit from the EU and ministers threatening to call an election.

But Boris is now reportedly insisting Mrs May steps down even if her deal fails. MailOnline can reveal there are genuine fears that unless Mr Johnson’s rivals agree a deal ahead of a leadership campaign their support could splinter, opening the door for the former Foreign Secretary to take over.

As many as eight Cabinet ministers are expected to put their names forward and several are already out on manoeuvres today with former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab positioning himself as the No Deal candidate.

Speaking on Thursday he said Mrs May should return to Brussels and demand they reopen negotiations so Britain can achieve a ‘legally-binding exit from the Irish backstop’.

He added: ‘I think we should have sensible conversations over the two weeks we’ve got left around the suite of No Deal arrangements that can be made to mitigate any of the potential damage on either side’.

But senior Tories acknowledge they face an uphill battle.

Mrs May’s DUP allies last night said they would vote against the deal, despite days of frantic negotiations to win them round.

And despite Mrs May offering to resign before the second stage of Brexit talks, only a trickle of Tory Eurosceptics have switched sides.

MPs will today vote only on the withdrawal agreement, which sets out the separation terms.

They will not vote on the ‘political declaration’, which sets out the Government’s vision for a close economic partnership outside both the customs union and single market.

The two documents have previously been bundled together.

Until now, Labour has objected to only the political declaration.

Justice minister Rory Stewart acknowledged that, with a bunch of hardline Eurosceptics dubbed ‘the Spartans’ still holding out, the Government would need the backing of some Labour MPs.

He said: ‘What happens depends on Labour. The Labour front bench has said their problem is with the political declaration, not the withdrawal agreement. There is no reason for them to oppose it.’

But former minister Richard Benyon said Tory hardliners also had to face the reality that if they continue to reject the deal they will face a soft Brexit – or risk not leaving the EU at all.

He added: ‘They need to recognise that there will be a softer Brexit if they don’t help get this through. And tough on them, frankly.’

Mr Duncan Smith said: ‘If I believed there was a scintilla of a chance that we could leave the EU with no deal, then I would not vote for Mrs May’s deal today. But the brutal fact is that there isn’t.’

The EU has indicated it is happy for the two elements to be split, with one source saying it was ‘not an issue’.

If the withdrawal agreement is passed today, the UK’s exit date would be fixed at May 22. But Mrs May would still have to implement both elements of the deal before then – or risk setting up another No Deal ‘cliff edge’ in late May.

Whitehall sources acknowledged that the odds are stacked against her winning today’s vote.

But they warn she is running out of options. MPs are due to seize control of the parliamentary agenda again on Monday in the hope of identifying a majority for options such as a customs union or a second referendum.

Mrs May has said she will not accept options that breach the last Tory manifesto.

But Sir Oliver has indicated he will try to legislate on Wednesday to force her hand. One ally of Mrs May said she would have little choice but to call an election, as pursuing a customs union would tear the Tories apart.

As senior Tories began campaigning to replace Mrs May as party leader, one Cabinet minister raged last night: ‘Everyone is building leadership campaigns and just looking at the prize.

But no one is doing anything to get the deal done.

‘There’s going to be nothing left! They’re going to be fighting to be leader of the opposition.’

Brexit ‘black hole’ caused by MPs ‘chasing rainbows’ is costing jobs, say business leaders

Jobs are being lost and firms are going to the wall because of the ‘Brexit black hole’ of uncertainty over the British economy, a business leader said.

In an angry tirade at Westminster’s politicians, British Chambers of Commerce director general Adam Marshall hit out at the ‘political turmoil’ caused by Brexit and warned that the country was not ready for a ‘messy’ no-deal scenario.

There was already a ‘growing list of business casualties’ and ‘in many parts of our economy, real world damage is happening right now’.

Dr Marshall said firms faced: ‘Increased costs. Orders lost to competitors elsewhere. Contracts unrenewed or put on hold.

‘Investments postponed, cancelled or diverted elsewhere. Queries from customers that simply can’t be answered.’

He added: ‘Business want to get on and escape from the gravitational pull of the Brexit black hole that has sapped energy, investment and business confidence for far too long.

‘But uncertainty is generating a growing list of business casualties and a litany of rising costs. That damage is happening right now.’

In a stark message to MPs he said: ‘To Westminster we say – we are frustrated, we are angry, you have let British business down.

‘You have focused on soundbites not substance, tactics not strategy and politics not prosperity.

‘Listening without hearing.’

MPs could back Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, agree to a long extension to the Brexit process in order to work out a fresh plan or revoke Article 50 altogether and commit to EU membership for the immediate future, he said.

He acknowledged the options were all controversial but MPs could not carry on ‘chasing rainbows’.

‘Like all of us in business, they need to start making tough decisions, however personally or politically difficult they might be,’ Dr Marshall said.

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: If we don’t back the Prime Minister’s deal, the EU’s got us over a barrel

Yes, Theresa May’s deal is very flawed. But after much reflection, I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that when we MPs debate it again today, I should support it. I urge my fellow members of the European Research Group to do so, too.

Previously, I voted against the deal because I have passionately wanted Britain to get better terms, particularly on the Backstop.

However, as a result of some inept negotiation, that has sadly not been the case. We have therefore been left with a difficult choice.

My concern is that if we don’t approve the Prime Minister’s EU withdrawal deal, Brussels will have Britain over a barrel. Westminster would be obliged to come up with an alternative exit proposal by April 12.

Yes, Theresa May’s deal is very flawed. But after much reflection, I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that when we MPs debate it again today, I should support it, writes Iain Duncan Smith

If that happens, I am convinced that the overwhelmingly Remainer majority in the Commons would try to force through a much softer Brexit, and possibly no Brexit at all.

Not only that. The other 27 national EU leaders now have the power to respond by making it tougher for Britain by demanding an extension to Article 50. This could mean us staying in the EU for another two years and British voters taking part in the European Parliament elections in May.

If I believed there was a scintilla of a chance that we could leave the EU with no deal, then I would not vote for Mrs May’s deal today. But the brutal fact is that there isn’t.

There are those who argue that the EU won’t offer us an extension to Article 50 because they just want us out. But I don’t agree.

As Donald Tusk and Angela Merkel have made clear, they want Britain to stay and they do not want a No Deal exit.

You only have to look at who, in this country, is arguing for an extension to Article 50 to understand the true threat. They include Tony Blair, who, in recent weeks, has reportedly been briefing France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, on how to force Britain to stay in the EU.

I urge my fellow members of the European Research Group to do so, too, writes Iain Duncan Smith

Blair has made it clear that he wants a long extension, for one simple reason: He knows it’s a means of stopping Brexit.

While there is much wrong with the Government’s deal, it will allow Britain to leave the EU – even if we voluntarily accept the EU’s rules and regulations during an implementation period.

Repealing the 1972 European Community Act at least means, too, that under a new Conservative leader, we would be able to enter trade talks, which are the next stage of the process, with renewed vigour and confidence as a nation. We would be a sovereign nation again.

Above all, we would be able to achieve the kind of settlement that could lead our country out of the mire of protracted Brexit negotiations, which have meant paralysis at Westminster, and towards a bright and prosperous future.

What happens next? JACK DOYLE answers all the questions on May’s last chance to get her Brexit deal over the line

What happens today?

MPs will vote on the Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement. This is the vast, legally binding treaty that deals with the exit part of Brexit and contains the money – about £39 billion – the ‘transition period’ to the end of 2020, and the rights of EU citizens and UK citizens on the continent.

How is this different from previous votes?

The first two times Mrs May put her deal to the Commons, MPs were also voting to approve the so-called ‘political declaration’. This sets out the likely shape of the future relationships between the EU and the UK on trade, immigration and security.

Why has she now separated the two?

Short answer: Speaker Bercow. Invoking ancient Commons rules, he declared last week that the Government could not bring back the same motion before the Commons again and again. This threw a grenade into Downing Street’s strategy. After talks with Attorney General Geoffrey Cox yesterday, he agreed to the new plan. There is also a political reason: to heap pressure on Labour to let Brexit pass. Will the party – and all its MPs in Leave seats – which pledged to respect the referendum result once again vote against Brexit on the day we were originally meant to be leaving?

These are the results of the indicative votes on Brexit, in order of preference. It shows that while MPs can’t find a consensus they lean heavily towards a softer Brexit or second referendum

Why do it today?

It’s near enough a last roll of the dice. Mrs May might have preferred to take a few more days to rally her MPs but she is up against a fixed deadline, and also has some momentum in her own party. When the EU agreed last week to extend Article 50 – and delay Britain’s Brexit date – it set her a target of 11pm tonight. If the withdrawal agreement is passed by then, she would have until May 22 to pass the rest of it, and related Brexit legislation, and get out. If not, the extension to Brexit is only until April 12, less than two weeks away.

What are the chances of success?

Slim at best. The DUP has already announced it will vote against it. Despite the best efforts of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who was drafted in to try to win the Unionists over, they don’t appear to be budging. Labour will tell its MPs to vote against, calling the proposal ‘the blindest of blind Brexits’, even though the party has accepted in principle the need for the withdrawal agreement and its claim to respect the referendum result. There are also about 50 hardline Brexiteer Tory MPs who are refusing to back the deal. But Labour MPs in Leave seats will come under huge pressure to vote in favour or abstain.

What happens if it passes?

We wouldn’t be guaranteed to leave in an orderly fashion, but it would be a huge step forward. That is a victory ministers would bite your hand off for. The next hurdle would be actually getting the agreement into law via the Withdrawal Act, as well as the political declaration, not to mention any other Brexit legislation – all before May. If Parliament doesn’t manage this, or request another extension, Britain would leave with No Deal, and no transition, on May 22.

How MP’s could split for a third vote on Theresa May’s withdrawal deal due to be heard in the Commons today

What if it doesn’t pass?

The chaos continues, and the ticking clock gets louder. They could try to have another go next week, but they would be up against a near-impossible April 12 deadline. As Parliament won’t allow No Deal, the UK would be forced to go back to the EU cap in hand to ask for a longer extension of at least a year. That would mean the UK would take part in European Parliament elections in May. Mrs May has repeatedly said she would not swallow a Brexit delay beyond June.

What about this week’s ‘indicative’ votes?

Another key factor. After the process of voting on alternative Brexit options orchestrated by Sir Oliver Letwin failed to find an answer on Wednesday, he’s going to have another go too. On Monday, expect all the alternatives to be put back before MPs – a customs union, a second referendum, the ‘Norway model’ and No Deal. If one passes – and customs union appears to be the only real runner – MPs plan to pass legislation on Wednesday to compel Mrs May to do what they say.

What happens then?

If the Commons agrees to a customs union Brexit, she faces a gruesome choice. Could she really accept something which contradicts her manifesto and delivers a Brexit she knows is worse than hers, and would rip the Tory Party into pieces? Could she try to ‘prorogue’ Parliament – ending the session, suspending the Commons for a few days then coming back to have another go at her deal and killing off any customs union law in the process? Or could she hit the last emergency button at her disposal, and call a General Election?

PM ‘could stay if she loses vote’

Theresa May could ‘soldier on’ in Downing Street indefinitely if her Brexit deal is defeated, a close ally said yesterday.

In a dramatic gamble on Wednesday night, she told Tory MPs she was ready to quit this summer if her twice-defeated Brexit deal is finally approved in in the Commons.

Using that timetable she would resign as Tory leader on May 23, remaining as PM only until the party selects a new leader.

Damian Green, who served as Mrs May’s deputy, predicted she would try to cling on, at least until Britain’s divorce from the EU is finalised

But Downing Street indicated that her offer applied only if her deal gets through in the coming weeks.

And Damian Green, who served as Mrs May’s deputy, predicted she would try to cling on, at least until Britain’s divorce from the EU is finalised.

With speculation mounting that the Brexit crisis could spark a snap election, Mrs May could even find herself leading the Tories into another poll.

Mr Green, a friend of Mrs May’s since university days, said: ‘She will take the path of soldiering on because she sees the great duty of her and her Government is to get a Brexit deal. She will carry on for as long as she is Prime Minister doing that.

‘Absolutely the last thing the country would need now would be a Prime Minister who walked away and said “OK, choose someone else”. This is very serious.’

Addressing the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs on Wednesday night, the Prime Minister acknowledged there was ‘a desire for a new approach – and new leadership – in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations – and I won’t stand in the way of that’.

She was silent on what would happen if her deal failed to get through for a third time.

What sort of Brexit DO MPs want? Commons shows support for a second referendum, a customs union and Labour’s plan for a soft Brexit but with no clear majority for any option

The backbench plot to snatch control of Brexit hit a wall on Wednesday as none of the alternatives to Theresa May’s deal secured a majority – but MPs still showed Britain they favour a softer Brexit or a second referendum – and will never deliver No Deal.

On Wednesday evening, in an unprecedented move, politicians seized control of the Commons timetable from Theresa May to hold so-called indicative votes.

The poll showed Parliament is close to agreeing on a soft Brexit with a plan for the UK remaining in a customs union with the EU defeated by 272 votes to 264, while a second referendum was rejected by 295 votes to 268.

MPs were handed green ballot papers on which they voted Yes or No to eight options, ranging from No Deal to cancelling Brexit altogether. However, the votes descended into shambles as MPs rejected each and every one of the proposals – although its architect Sir Oliver Letwin always warned there wouldn’t be a winner first time.

Ten Tories – including ministers Sir Alan Duncan, Mark Field and Stephen Hammond – supported an SNP plan to give MPs the chance to revoke Article 50 if a deal has not been agreed two days before Brexit. Some 60 Tory MPs backed the option of remaining in the single market.

The results of Wednesday’s votes, in order of preference, were:

Confirmatory public vote (second referendum) – defeated by 295 voted to 268, majority 27.

Customs union – defeated by 272 votes to 264, majority eight.

Labour’s alternative plan – defeated by 307 votes to 237, majority 70.

Revocation to avoid no-deal – defeated by 293 votes to 184, majority 109.

Common market 2.0: defeated by 283 votes to 188, majority 95.

No Deal: defeated by 400 votes to 160, majority 240.

Contingent preferential arrangements – defeated by 422 votes to 139, majority 283.

Efta and EEA: defeated by 377 votes to 65, majority 312.

Shadow housing minister Melanie Onn resigned after Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to back a raft of soft Brexit plans, as well as a second referendum.

Some 27 Labour MPs defied the whip to reject a so-called ‘confirmatory vote’ on any Brexit deal. The party had instructed them to support the plan just hours after one of its senior frontbenchers publicly warned that it would be a mistake.

Sir Oliver Letwin, the architect of the Commons move, on Thursday insisted the indicative votes were not intended to give a precise answer right away – and will hold another round of votes on Monday.

MPs are due to hold a second round of votes – unless Mrs May can get her deal through first – after none of the eight options debated on Wednesday was able to command a majority. It could be that the eight options are cut down to the most popular.

Sir Oliver told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘At some point or other we either have to get her deal across the line or accept that we have to find some alternative if we want to avoid no deal on the 12th, which I think at the moment is the most likely thing to happen.

‘At the moment we are heading for a situation where, under the law, we leave without a deal on the 12th, which many of us think is not a good solution, and the question is ‘Is Parliament on Monday willing to come to any view in the majority about that way forward that doesn’t involve that result?”

MPs will take control of the Commons order paper again on Monday, so they can narrow down the options if Mrs May’s deal has not been agreed by then – or pass legislation to try and impose their choice on her. Speaking in the Commons after the results, Sir Oliver said: ‘It is of course a great disappointment that the House has not chosen to find a majority for any proposition.

‘However, those of us who put this proposal forward as a way of proceeding predicted that we would not even reach a majority and for that very reason put forward a … motion designed to reconsider these matters on Monday.’

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confusingfuturehistorians · 7 years

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A House Divided: A Pre-Election Plea

Recently I was re-watching Lincoln and a particular quote from Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones) jumped out at me due to its relevance to our current political climate. (1) The scene takes place outside the chamber of the House of Representatives after a debate on the proposed Thirteenth Amendment (which outlawed slavery in the US) when Stevens went back on his position that he believed all men were created equal; instead insisting he believed that all men should be equal before the law. This astounded his faction of radical Republicans and prompted claims of dishonesty from most Democrats. Stevens backtracked on his position however, in order to try to get Democrats who may have been potentially sympathetic to the 13th Amendment to vote for it, as without some Democrat support, it would not have gained the two-thirds majority necessary for it to pass. Stevens therefore said what he said to ease their concerns that abolishing slavery would be too radical a move which would destroy the fabric of American society as they knew it.

After the debate he is confronted by Asa Vintner Litton (a fellow radical Republican Congressman) who says to him: “Have you lost your very soul, Mr. Stevens? Is there nothing you won't say?”

To which Stevens replies: “I want the amendment to pass, so that the constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition. For this amendment, for which I have worked all my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers... No, sir, no, it seems there's very nearly nothing I won't say.”

Of course, as the pedant I am, I have to point out that I have no idea whether this conversation ever happened (I doubt it did, or at least, I doubt there is a verifiable record of it happening); but it is certainly true that Stevens was willing to compromise his values in order to get the amendment through. This film depicts this as more shocking than it actually was (despite his undoubtedly radical positions, it was neither the first nor the last time Stevens proved himself willing to compromise in order to get results), but what I took away from it is that in the context of contemporary British politics, I think something like that would be a lot more shocking than it was in Lincoln.

Compromise is a very difficult thing, and given that I’m just as stubborn as I am pedantic, I would certainly have to admit that I am not an especially good compromiser. However, politics needs compromise because things simply don’t get done without it. And given the myriad of different opinions people can hold, even within a single political party, this is unsurprising. But one of my biggest worries about the way that the political climate has been changing recently has been the lack of willingness to compromise, particularly in progressive circles. (2) This is why in the UK, despite the fact that the Conservative lead has been massively reduced following a horrendous campaign, it looks unlikely that anyone except the Tories will win tomorrow’s General Election for the simple reason that those of us opposed to them have not done a good enough job of working together to prevent it. We already saw this happen to certain extent with Brexit, and we definitely saw it happen across the pond where a number of Democrat voters potentially cost Clinton the election by either not showing up or voting for another candidate. We would far rather argue amongst ourselves about how those guys aren’t “real progressives” because of that one thing one of their candidates said 17 years ago and so there’s “literally no difference” between voting for them and voting for Tories. It’s pathetic! And it’s not just pathetic, it’s downright dangerous.

I appreciate that most people have a clear favourite party that they support. And I appreciate the need for an active political discourse, which includes criticism of things that you find objectionable. But it’s getting to such a ridiculous extent now that people’s objections to some policies will enable situations that are far worse. From what I’ve seen, this has been most noticeable with the die-hard Corbynites for whom compromise appears to mean “everyone should compromise their values and agree with Corbyn on every issue”, but they’re not the only ones. Whether they are drawing their inspiration from Corbyn, or whether Corbyn has been drawing inspiration from them is difficult to tell. But either way, the gains made by Labour during the last month will mean absolutely nothing if Corbyn is not prepared to work with others who don’t share every single one of his policies; and this situation will not change if his most vocal supporters refuse to criticise him for this. The most obvious example is his unmoving (and seemingly un-negotiated) stance on Brexit, which completely goes against what the majority of the people likely to support him want. Most people (myself included, although I never thought I’d be saying this a year ago) would tolerate a soft Brexit if it meant it could be negotiated by a party that isn’t the Tories (or UKIP, but I’m not mentioning them after this because this Tory party is essentially the same thing). But that’s not good enough for Jezza or his comrades. It’s up to us to change our views to suit them, remember.

Now, I do appreciate the irony of me strongly criticising a particular faction of the progressive movement while also arguing that doing so is a problem. The problem does not only exist within the Corbynite movement by any stretch of the imagination, but my experience is that this is where it has been most obvious. Moreover, it is where the problem is most significant because any alliance formed in opposition to the Conservatives would have to be led by Corbyn and so his unwillingness to compromise means that unless he wins an outright majority (which no poll, however optimistic towards his chances) has predicted, his gains mean absolutely nothing. Reducing the Tory majority will not matter if he can’t convince some Tories to work with him to vote against the Government, and even a hung Parliament won’t help the cause if he refuses to form a government with other parties. (3) Perhaps I’m doing Corbyn a disservice and Stevens in fact had it far easier, as he was looking to change his country rather than simply stopping his opponents from getting in; but ultimately I think it still comes down to the same thing. How on earth can you achieve anything in politics if you won’t compromise? And that isn’t a rhetorical question, by the way. Look through your history books and I guarantee you will not find a political movement that achieved its aims without it.

So part of this mini-essay is an attempt to plead with the like-minded people who I am aware make up the majority of my social media contacts to go out and vote for the party most likely to stop the Tories, EVEN IF it means voting for someone you would generally rather not vote for. This is the only way that we can stop what will possibly turn out to be the most destructive British government in recent years (yes, including the Thatcher years). But there is another plea that I feel I need to make. This is to centrists and the centre-right who are also refusing to compromise in a different way, in the sense that they are refusing to compromise their party identity (or in some cases their “patriotism”) in order to do the right thing. Let me be crystal clear here, I am not saying that you should change your beliefs or values to mine because mine are right and yours are wrong. So you can save your “holier-than-thou-Lefties” speech for another day. I’m happy to accept the fact that you as a moderate Tory have different values from me as someone who is a member of the Green Party. What I am saying is that this current Tory Government under Theresa May does not represent your values and that the right thing to do is admit this and vote accordingly.

Of course, we progressives don’t spend our entire time arguing amongst ourselves. We do occasionally argue with those on the Right and in the centre too, and having engaged in many of these friendly discussions myself, I’ve noticed a number of themes that often emerge in these situations. While the far-right trolls are busy hurling the sorts of insults one might expect them to, the centre-right is busy claiming that in fact, it is us who are the unreasonable ones. Those right-wing trolls are just a few bad apples, whereas the vitriol in circles which claim to be progressive is systemic. (4) These people claim that it is unfair to insist that the Conservatives are “The Nasty Party”, it’s unfair to claim that they all hate poor people and it’s unfair to claim the moral high-ground when the Left is always shutting down honest debate through no-platforming and political correctness. Meanwhile they insist that they could not possibly vote for a party that is so politically weak, so economically inefficient and so dangerous to the security of the nation (not to mention in sympathy with the SNP and the IRA). (5)

Again, I am absolutely not asking people in this case to change those views. I do disagree with them, and before now I would have been happy to have had that debate (and indeed have done so on a number of occasions). But unless something drastic happens on June 8th I refuse to debate it anymore, because I cannot believe that you are being genuine with any of those concerns. If you knowingly vote for a party that wants to bring back fox-hunting and has willingly scapegoated immigrants ever since Theresa May became Home Secretary, then yes, I do believe that it’s fair to say that you are supporting the Nasty Party. If you’re going to vote for a party which has led to deaths of 30,000 people in 2015 alone through its harsh and unnecessary austerity policies, then yes, I do think it’s fair to say that you must have something against poor people. (6) I also think it’s hypocritical in the extreme to vote for a party whose leader has refused debates and public scrutiny at every possible opportunity if you value open discourse so much. As for values of free speech, I cannot even begin to comprehend how you could truly hold those values and still vote for a leader who has openly admitted that she wants to regulate the internet. If they don’t wish to vote for a politically weak party, how can they justify voting for a leader who U-turns on everything that the Daily Mail criticises her for? If they don’t wish to vote for an economically weak party, how can they justify voting for a party who have presided over the worst decline in real wages of any developed country other than Greece? And if they really value security so much, how can they vote for a leader who is obsessed with tearing up our human rights and who has supressed a report on how Saudi Arabia finances terrorists in Britain, because it would embarrass her party? (7)

Despite Theresa May’s extraordinary attempts to avoid as much engagement as possible in an election she called after repeatedly ruling it out, her intentions for the direction she wants to take the party (and therefore the country, if they get elected) have been made clear. These are not simply the rantings of a tin-foil-hat-wearing-conspiracy-theory-loving-Left-wing-lunatic. This is public information, which you should (and in my personal experience of centre-right voters, do) know. In 2015, the severity of the impact austerity cuts were having was nowhere near as widely known and the Conservatives did not make a big thing about their plans to spy on the entire country and crash headlong out of the EU (which, incidentally, most of the centre-leaning Tories I know voted to stay part of) even with the very real-looking possibility of deal whatsoever to go along with it. Now we know. There are no more excuses. The only thing holding you back from voting against the Conservatives is not your values, but you unwillingness to compromise on who you’re voting along with. I don’t profess to know the centre-right mind-set, but there is simply no way I can grasp how anyone in that group can profess to hold the progressive values that so many of them claim to hold and still vote Conservative this time around with a clean conscience. If you really want to show us Lefties how much more tolerant you are of other people’s beliefs, now is your chance. Vote for what you believe in, even if it means allying with people like me, and I’ll believe you. Refuse to take this opportunity and condemn this country to the most draconian government Britain has had is recent history, and I will not.

I have always prided myself to a certain extent on my stubbornness and my principled nature. And for a long time, I believed that those two things were one and the same, but they are not. Principles are things which you would be willing to do anything to avoid or achieve, whereas stubbornness is being unwilling to change what it is that you are doing. In many cases they are the same, but at some point there comes a point of no return where principles can no longer be safeguarded by stubbornness. I’m sure most people can think of a situation where they put up with something that should have been unacceptable to them simply because they were unwilling to change. And I’m also sure that everyone in that situation would act differently were they given a second chance. What we need to continually be asking ourselves is “Where is our line in the sand”? I think that if they really thought about it, more people would have actually gone past that line with regard to current politics than they are willing to admit. For me, I live in the Salford and Eccles constituency, which is an incredibly safe Labour seat, so I am someone who would gain nothing through voting tactically. As a result I intend to vote for my party, the Greens. However, if I still lived where I did during the last General Election (in Oxford West and Abingdon), then I would vote for the Lib Dems, despite there being two parties I agree with more. This is because, quite simply, with the stakes being as high as they are, my principles would not allow me to be stubborn. And whichever way people plan to vote, I strongly urge each and every person who reads this to think very carefully about why they are planning to vote the way they are. And in many cases, they may well need to channel their inner Thaddeus Stevens.

1. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the scene anywhere online, so I’ll just leave this with you instead. Ad hominem attacks aren’t ever productive in reality (and indeed the real-life Stevens rarely resorted to them, at least in Congress), but it nevertheless makes for a satisfying scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Brh9iWajc

2. I’m using “progressive”, purely in want of a better term, to describe any party or set of beliefs which does not align with the far-right of Britain. This includes centrists and even the centre-right, which is why I’m avoiding “Left” as a term here. I’m not overly sure “progressive” is much better, but it’s worth arguing the semantics, as long as everyone knows what I mean.

3. I’m not making this up – he genuinely said this at a time when his popularity was at his highest. It’s times like this that make me genuinely convinced he and his supporters want to lose the election and watch the Tories dismantle the country just so they can say “See, we were right!”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/01/corbyn-vows-no-deals-no-pacts-if-there-is-a-hung-parliament

4. It’s worth pointing out here, of course, that many people who would describe themselves as card-carrying Lefties and progressives would also make the same arguments here. Rightly or wrongly, it is another example of how progressives seem far more willing to argue amongst ourselves than actually achieve our aims. The Judean People’s Front / People’s Front of Judea bit from Life of Brain springs very vividly to mind.

5. Ignoring the completely false claims of the Left being IRA apologists, it is certainly true that there is a lot of support Scottish Independence among progressives. For me though, it’s ironic for Conservatives to take such a strong stand on this when their policy of unnecessarily pursuing a hard-Brexit is the thing that is most likely to bring about the collapse of the union. Thaddeus Stevens would certainly have disapproved.

6. This case is particularly poignant at a time when the country is mourning the loss of over 30 people in terrorist attacks, yet the government seemingly gets a free pass for killing a thousand times that many in a single year.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-02-20-30000-excess-deaths-2015-linked-cuts-health-and-social-care

7. All of the above points come with a delicious side of evidence. Enjoy!

https://www.ft.com/content/e021c208-3ede-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-workers-have-had-the-worst-wage-growth-in-the-oecd-except-greece-a7773246.html?cmpid=facebook-post

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-may-terrorism-human-rights_uk_5936ec0be4b0099e7fafd14d?1zz

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/31/sensitive-uk-terror-funding-inquiry-findings-may-never-be-published-saudi-arabia

#general election #politics #conservatives #labour #theresa may #jeremy corbyn #general election 2017 #UK politics #may #corbyn #progressive alliance #green party #liberal democrats #tories out #make june the end of may #lincoln #thaddeus stevens

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lhs3020b · 5 years

Text

Strategy

So, it’s Saturday the 13th of April, and Brexit is now running late - for the second time.

Also, there is now going to be a European Parliament election in the UK this year (unless something weird/bonkers happens, because it’s the late 2010s and weird/bonkers is the new normal, so who knows?).

Here's an opportunity to poke the Conservative Party and the Brexit lobby in the eye. We need to think seriously about what we’re going to do in late May...

It's fair to say that Brexit hasn’t gone to plan. And in fairness, it hasn’t gone quite the way I expected either - I assumed that No Deal would have been and gone by now. However, as things stand, No Deal is just delayed until November. It’s important to note that a) Theresa May is still Prime Minister and b) the Tories are still the largest group of MPs in Parliament. The basic Brexit dynamics haven’t changed. And given that, we should be careful about assuming anything else changes.

So, how do we change the dynamics? Well, there’s two upcoming rounds of elections - the local elections in early May, and then the European Parliament elections later that month. The Tories tried to keep the UK out of the Euro elections, and managed to completely-fail - Brexit Brexiting itself, almost.

One thing Tories absolutely do care about is their careers (and their salaries). And the elections thus give us a chance to punch them in a place where it hurts.

In both cases, do not vote for the Tory Party. Being blunt, the Tory Party is the crisis. But for them, this probably could have been settled by now.

(I’m also assuming that all of you know better than UKIP/the new Farage vehicle. If you somehow don’t, then please re-consider your life and how you’re living it.)

The Euro elections use a somewhat-more proportional system than Westminster elections do, so the advice I’d give for these is a bit different from what I’d say for Westminster. For Westminster, the sensible voting strategy is “whoever can beat the Tory”. For the European Parliament, we can get away a bit more with actually voting-by-conscience.

Briefly, here is what we need to see: a very, very bad night for the Tory Party, and a good one for the soft(er) Brexit parties. (Aside from the SNP and the Greens, I don’t think we actually have any overtly-Remain parties.)

Basically we need to be in a situation where Theresa May has lost two national elections in a row. That will destabilise her, and by extension will destabilise the wider Conservative Party. We want them to spend June in a state of blind panic. Ideally we need the Tories into at least third place - if we could get them into fourth, that would be brilliant.

As a specific case in point of these things, look at what happened in 2014 - when UKIP came first in the UK’s European elections that year, that was when the narrative started to tilt toward Brexit. It was also when the BBC started giving UKIP preferential air-time, which helped them enormously. (The BBC seems to have got rather right-wing over the last five years - I’m led to understand that the moderates inside it have lost internal-politics ground to the recent Tory appointees - so it’s unlikely that the BBC would ever swing behind Remain. However, if we won a national election, the BBC wouldn’t be able to ignore us either, and anything helps when it comes to media exposure.)

As for specific thoughts on strategy for the Euro elections, it’s hard to say. I have some misgivings about Labour’s Brexit stance - they’re more Brexity than I’d like. On the other hand, they’re not Brexit accelerationists the way the Tories are, so Labour are a plausible choice in that sense. Plus, losing to Labour would add to the sense of decay and panic within the Tory ranks. (”The monster Corbyn - the monster! the monster! - who, uh, got more votes than we did. Fuck.”)

As for the minor parties, I’m past the point where I’d endorse the Lib Dems for anything. Vince Cable didn’t bother himself to turn up for a key Brexit vote, and that was quite telling about their real priorities. And given what we know now about Tim Farron’s actual views on homosexuality - well, fair to say that party is no friend of ours. The parliamentary portion of the LDs hasn’t acted like it strongly-cares about Remain, and in fact I strongly suspect they’re lining Remainers up for another reverse-ferret like they did with tuition fees. Plus they performed very poorly indeed in 2014 - only one MEP! - so it’s very questionable if they’re worth the bother of voting for.

ChangeUK/TIG or whatever it is called this week ... well, their sort of austerian centrism isn’t my thing. But on the other hand, if you’re a Right-leaning voter who struggles with the other choices, then perhaps they might be a reasonable home.

The SNP and Plaid Cymru I don’t really know enough about to comment on - and anyway, if you’re an English voter, they’re not directly-relevant. But on the other hand, if you live in Scotland or Wales, then the calculation may be different.

The Green Party tend not to win many elections, which is frustrating as they seem to be the most Remainy party in England, at least. However, in 2014 they did win seats in the South West, in London and in the South East - so if you live in those areas, they’re a plausible choice. (And it’s worth noting that 2014 was very much UKIP’s night - if the Greens did well then, then they might do better today, now that the UKIP boom has been and gone.)

But the key thing is to remember to turn up and vote at all. Only four million people voted UKIP in 2014, whereas six million people signed the Revoke petition. I genuinely suspect that we could have won in 2016, but a lot of us sat it out because “oh it’s Cameron scheming” or “they’re all the same” or “oh it’s not like it will matter”. We got lazy and complacent - yes, me as well! I cringe looking back at some of the ambivalent hand-wringing stuff I wrote back in early 2016! We mustn’t make that mistake again.

#UK internal politics #Diary of a disaster #We do need to think seriously about the Euro election #It's another chance to further-derail the Brexit process

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lhs3020b · 7 years

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It’s been a long couple of weeks in British politics.

The current situation reminds me a lot of a quote from Ken Macleod - as I recall it was from The Sky Road and it was something to the effect of “It’s like entropy - nothing’s changed, but everything’s gone up a few levels, so the coming crash will be even worse.” (Don’t quote me on the exact phrasing there, but it was words to that effect.)

So, the House has hung. They’re still 8 votes short and everyone still hates them.

But, Mrs May still has the slenderest of toe-holds on power. The DUP apparently loathe Mr Corbyn even more than the Daily Mail does - apparently it’s the Northern Irish sectarian thing, or something. (Please don’t ask me to try to explain this stuff, because like most mainlanders, I find it utterly baffling. NI stuff really does feel like the politics of another planet.) As such it seems the DUP will do anything to prop the Tories up - plus, also, they managed to screw an extra billion pounds in taxpayers’ money out of Mrs May. Mrs May, incidentally, told a nurse during the campaign that there were “no magic money trees” from which public sector payrises could come. Apparently she thinks £100 million per DUP MP is more of a mundane sappling, then?

Parliament has hung, but as usual, the supposed ~180 “moderate” Tories are nowhere to be seen. These people could reign in the fanatics in the Europe Research Group, but they never actually show up to any fights, so the ERG lot always win by default. So as a result Mrs May lurches on in her role as the human-shaped glove-puppet of the ERG.

However, while the Tories have survived for now, they’re back into David Cameron mode. What I mean by that is, they manage to win individual battles, but they have no strategy to go with it, so each narrow victory leaves them in a more vulnerable position. Cameron was like this every day from 2010 to 2016, and of course it finally caught up with him on the morning of June the 23rd. (It’s just a real pity that his final disastrous bit of self-out-manouevring also took the entire country down as collateral damage.)

Basically, the country hates DUP-Deal. It has some of the worst polling figures I’ve ever seen associated with the Tory Party. Mrs May’s leader ratings are so far underwater that they’re on the seabed, leaking forlorn bubbles. And the opinion polls are now showing consistent Labour leads. (A case in point: YouGov’s panel is now retruning the highest Labour score since the panel’s creation: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9927 This is also notable as YouGov’s turnout model was one of the sole few that spotted the imminent hanging parliament prior to polling day.)

Also there’s public sector pay cap. Despite DUP-Deal, it’s still in effect. It hasn’t even been relaxed a little. There’s always money to prop up Tory careers, of course, but not a penny to help real people in the real world.

Oh yes and, rhetoric aside, austerity is still Very Much A Thing.

In addition, well, Grenfell Tower. The Government’s handling of the disaster was lazy, callous and useless. It’s re-inforced a (justified) perception of a toxic and aimless administration whose only interest is in self-promotion and which cares nothing for the public good of the country.

(Relatedly, I’ve found my own feelings have moved on. At first I had some sympathy for Mrs May as a human being - I got the sense that she was basically an introvert who was in over her head. I had no sympathy for her policies or the government she was leading, but there was a sense that perhaps the specific human being was caught in a tight spot. Now, however? Her behaviour has outed her as a truly-foul person, not just a bad leader. She’s arrogant, short-sighted, greedy and spiteful. When her fall arrives, I will enjoy it without qualms.)

While the opinion polls can be justifiably treated with some scepticism given past records, there are also indicators like this: the A Very Public Sociologist blog periodically tracks local by-election results - actual elections where actual voters cast real votes for actual candidates, not voodoo polling - and something grim seems to have happened to the Tory vote since June, namely a 20pt drop. If replicated at a general election - if! - not only do they lose power, then the Tories become the new Lib Dems. (Under our electoral system, ~22% of the vote might net you barely a couple of dozen seats, if even that many.)

Aaaah yes, and now we move onto the Lib Dems, whom I’m getting a little worried about.

It’s not attracting much press attention, but they appear to be about to crown Vince Cable as party leader - without an actual ballot. (So much for the “democrats” bit in the name, then.) During the Coalition years, Cable was a somewhat more sympathetic figure than Nick Clegg, and sometimes Cable did seem to have a bit of discomfort with some of the things the Coalition was doing. (Clegg never showed any hint of remorse - if you read the fine print, his apology was literally “Oh I’m sorry you thought I’d made a promise”, not “I’m sorry, I fucked up”.) But, throughout all of the work capability assessments, the grinding austerity, the push for random foreign wars, the bedroom tax, the tuition fees, apparently none of it was ever quite bad enough for Mr Cable to put supposed principle ahead of salary. So, I don’t trust him.

And now, from what I’m seeing in the LD blog-o-sphere, it appears that Mr Cable wants to put opposition to Brexit under the bus. (The new weasel words are apparently “extreme Brexit”, which is presumably somehow distinct from hard Brexit? Don’t ask me, I only live here.)

Apparently getting 7% of the vote in June was too popular, and the LDs would like to try for 0%.

If they do what they look like they’re about to, then they fully deserve what will happen. (Full disclosure: I voted LD in June, solely on the basis of opposition to Brexit. If they do what they’re threatening, then they’ve certainly lost my vote.)

Also, one has to wonder - have the LDs been looking at DUP-deal and thinking “Oooh, we missed out on a coalition there?” I mean, they have 12 MPs, so the maths works. The country would hate them, but it would land them five years of some ministerial salaries - Deputy Junior Undersecretary for Nothing Whatsoever in the Department of Aimless Nothing-burger-ness, or whatever. I’d genuinely thought they’d learned their lesson after 2015 and had changed for the better, but it appears the critics were right on the LDs.

But there’s a further worry. The LDs have 12 seats. If they implode, will they open the door to 12 new Tories? (That’s what their well-deserved implosion in 2015 did, after all.) If they blow themselves up on Brexit, will they hand Mrs May another barebones majority, say in a putative December election? Now there’s a nightmare scenario for you!

Oh yes, and then there’s the Labour Party. There are signs that they’re reverting to the pre-election factional infighting between Progress, Momentum and the various other hangers-on. I could write about this at length, but I’m just too fucking depressed by it :(

Let’s just say that this is the most vulnerable condition that the Tories have ever been in - one good push and this government could fall. And the best Labour can do? Squabble over factional ideologies that no-one outside the party cares about.

Meanwhile, there’s Brexit itself. The iceberg on the horizon, toward which the ship is sailing at ever-increasing speed.

Bizarrely, Leave!Twitter seems to be in a state of complete despair at the moment. Frankly this is baffling - they’re getting everything they want and nothing is stopping them, so why all the whining? But then, the Leave campaign and reality do have a bit of a strained relationship - £350 million for the NHS, anyone? - so maybe their state of persistent delusion is no real surprise.

Some Leavers have actually convinced themselves now that Brexit isn’t actually going to happen at all. For once, I’d be delighted if they were right, but I really can’t see how. I mean, the two main parties are Brexiteers, and it seems the LDs are trying to sneak into the Brexit Social Do via the back window, so who exactly is left to oppose it? The SNP and the Greens only have 36 MPs between them, after all, out of 650. They can’t stop anything the others all want.

In fairness, Labour’s position could still evolve on Brexit, I think. While their current position is rather incoherent, they have marketed themselves as more moderate than the Tories. And if the LDs implode, as they might, then that opens up some fresh space on the Left. If the Tories carry on getting worse - which they probably will - then paradoxically that makes it easier to move leftwards. Plus we now know from the election that an actual socialist platform isn’t any kind of electoral poison - in fact one took 40% of the vote, produced a net gain of dozens of seats and chased the Tories into minority - so that anti-left argument is null-and-void now.

But, the question is, will Labour’s position evolve? And how? Also, if they do go anti-Brexit, how do we actually stop it? What do we do, who do we talk to, what do we organise? These are all questions that need answering.

I’m not entirely convinced there’s much merit in a second referendum. It might just give BoJo another opportunity to preen in front of the cameras, and end up generating the same result. A better strategy would be to take it to the country in a general election, on an explicitly anti-Article 50 platform.

Cancelling Article 50 would (in my opinion) would require direct democratic intervention of some sort. Just doing it by political fiat would cause the mother of all storms - frankly, Leavers would have a legitimate complaint there, and whatever the actual merits, it would look like the paragon of all corrupt backroom fix-ups. I mean yes, constitutionally, no parliament can bind the hands of its successor and no act of parliament is so magically-special that they can’t be repealed and in theory referendums are only advisory - but legal niceties don’t mean that it’s practically-possible to just waive inconvenient realities away.

Plus just randomly-cancelling A50 would have one very obvious side-effect: it would bring UKIP back from its deathbed. And the last thing anyone in their right mind wants is to have to go through all this nightmare again, in 5-10 years’ time!

It was a lack of effective democracy that got us into this mess, in my view - that’s why “Take Back Control” had so much emotional resonance! It also means that any solution to this disaster has to be democratic in character.

#UK internal politics #Diary of a disaster #A quick summary of the current mess #long post

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