Keiran Pedley is joined by Mark Pack of the Lib Dem Newswire to discuss this week’s Lib Dem conference. Keiran and Mark discuss how the conference went and where the party goes from here and Mark gives everyone an outside tip on who the next Lib Dem leader might be when Vince Cable steps down.
Comments
I'm sure it fleetingly shows Layla Moran MP walking along a canal bank with little Owen Jones?
"Ruth Davidson - saved the day in 2017, but not in the Commons."
So, clearly not been updated with last week's news.
"Rory Stewart - acquired taste. Might bid but won't succeed this time round."
To quote OGH, it is all piss and wind.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-45568086
He worked for Hague, IDS, and was junior minister under Camo and May.
If she’s losing loyalists, she’s struggling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Penning
https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1042501040795471872
Brexit Doomsayer Ryanair Forges Ahead With U.K. Expansion Plan
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/brexit-doomsayer-ryanair-forges-ahead-with-u-k-expansion-plan
Assuming, as I currently do, that a modified Chequers is agreed with the EU and then presented for approval to parliament, what are the chances that TMay will make it a confidence issue?
And if she does will the ERG still vote against in sufficient numbers to bring the Government down?
Or will she hope to draw sufficient Labour rebel support if she does not make it a confidence issue?
Just asking.
Of course most polls still have Cruz a few points clear, but exciting times nonetheless. The current odds (GOP 1/3, Dems a little under 2/1) seem fair to me.
"Rees-Mogg confirmed that he would vote against the Chequers deal in the Commons but that he hoped the government would not make it a confidence matter, adding that to conflate the two would be a mistake."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/11/brexiters-jacob-rees-mogg-no-deal-chuck-chequers
The Lib Dems don’t even hold the balance of power in the Lib Dems never mind parliament.
However, I expect this is the most likely scenario but who knows anything in this whole sorry mess.
And from the other replies it is clear that I (and possibly JRM) misunderstood the FTPA. It will not be a confidence motion but, assuming she can cut a deal with the EU, I think sufficient MPs from across the House will vote for it because the alternative is far worse.
I reckon May will swing in. It will be put up or shut up: sign a deal which is EEA-lite or screw the economy. Anyone even vaguely sane will take it.
https://twitter.com/stevebakerhw/status/1042530515323183105?s=21
Have a relaxing nights rest Ben, and all my fellow posters
Good night folks
The people that can make it a confidence issue in the Government are the DUP.
Even if a no confidence motion is passed, there are still 14 days to reverse it. It is a bit ambiguous but in theory May could lose a VONC, resign as PM and another MP (a Tory in this case) could form a Government and win a VONC within 14 days. This may be relevant if the DUP vote out May over the backstop. The PM does not have to be leader of the Conservative Party.
May might threaten to call a GE if she loses her deal, but she can’t.
The issue is: what replaces it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAfm5L_DOLM
I remain baffled as to why, if there are viable other directions, that the MPs implacably opposed to Chequers, and there are plenty, have not acted. Waiting for May to present Chequers-lite and voting it down still seems a waste of preperation time - even if enough want no deal (and even if those who want other options eg GE or referendum cannot organise sufficiently to prevent default no deal) surely they'd want as much time as possible to manage that, not all that preposterous 'it's a terrible, idiot plan, but I am in no way against the PM' crap, which I can only presume is the same as the claims Cameron could stay on as PM if the EUref was lost - everyone who said it knew Cameron would politically be castrated and need to stand down, so they could publicly appear loyal by saying it, while being confident he would still go.
She can of course, as Labour en masses some to see Corbyn as PM, the rest as the only way to be rid of him, and pro-Chequers anti ERG Tories will vote for it.
She cannot accept anything less than Chequers, because her party will support neither it nor her - which ends up with the EU talking to Boris or somesuch, and most likely they will get a diamond hard Brexit and no cash.
So the EU is left in the position of having to offer her something MORE than she asked for.
Which, if that was her intended position all along, then as a negotiator, I have to take my hat off to her. But I just can't believe it was that thought out - or that it is very likely to be delivered...
However, that doesn't mean they care enough to bend on the key points, and I certainly don't believe that would have been the strategy all along - I don't buy the theories that May is, essentially, the sharpest political operator of the modern age in that she formulated this plan, will have had to have fooled her Cabinet into thinking she had some other plan or was still trying to come up with one (since if they knew it would leak, and not all would have gone along with it), and then executed it all perfectly.
As you say the chances of it being delivered do not seem great. More likely she is, as she appears, operating on surviving day to day, and she put off the decision as long as possible to hold the competing factions together, and hopes in a mad dash to the finish line no one has the time or coordination to scupper whatever the hell she can cobble together from the EU.
I would agree that there's little political sense in the Lib Dems apologising for the Coalition. And that's despite the fact that I personally think the Coalition's record was generally horrendous, think these so-called "moderates" who bore on about how it was a golden period of government are out of their minds, and also think the Lib Dems were laughably weak and cowardly in their dealings with the Conservatives.
But, even so, I can't see how the LibDems saying "we also admit we messed up, we're sorry" is going to gain votes. I don't think when a politician apologises that the public hears the humility, I think they just hear the admission of wrongdoing. I thought the same during all the calls for Labour to apologise for supposedly "overspending" during the last government - apart from, in my view, being completely untrue, it seemed ridiculous as strategy.
The letters will go in the moment that is confirmed.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/09/19/leaked-tory-dossier-reveals-secret-plan-replace-theresa-may/
Fun as never-ending speculation can be for some people, it really isn't getting anyone anywhere.
I am waiting until the end of the process before reaching a judgement. There is still so much that can and will change.
The ERG are in the position of having to give May more than she asked for...
I think we should do what they did on The West Wing to avoid saying the word 'recession' - they replaced it with 'bagel'
So perhaps we can agree to refer to Brexit as Bagel from now on. Talking about baked goods might be more entertaining.
Also, it is taking a very long time to actually do the counting - considering it was closed at 5pm and there are only 3 centres...
We seemed to have entered an era where ‘bloke no normal person has ever heard of equivocates about something no normal person understands’ is considered news.
If it wasn't, it certainly should have been!
https://twitter.com/DarranMarshall/status/1042570314440474629