For the record, I placed a £20 bet here at 6/1 with "archer from australia" that May would call a General Election in an attempt to get her deal approved by the electorate, having failed to get the approval of parliament. Well archer has subsequently been banned from the site so I am unilaterally declaring the bet void.
Archer got banned?
But he had important first hand insight as to how his beloved hard Brexit would benefit him and us...
I was wondering why he went quiet. What was he banned for?
A people's vote leave would win by a bigger margin IMO.
Not worth the risk.
There are two huge risks with a second referendum, either of which, to my mind, make it a really poor political option.
The first is that now there is a deal, that deal has to be on the ballot. This means one of: - Deal vs No Deal; - Deal vs Remain; - Deal vs No Deal vs Remain
In the first two, advocates of the missing option would no doubt cry 'foul'. There is a legitimate argument for the Deal/No Deal option in that the 'Leave' option was chosen in EURef1 but I'm not sure it'd be widely accepted by Remainers. There is therefore a real risk that No Deal would win, and with such a strong mandate for it, it would be extremely difficult to mitigate.
There is no good argument for Deal vs Remain, which the UKIP/Hard Brexit wing would portray as being given a choice between two types of Remain after the country voted for Leave, and hence a betrayal of the original vote.
In the three-way vote, you have the strongest democratic base for the vote, but a real risk of the weakest mandate resulting.
And that's the second big problem. Even once you get over questions of the legitimacy of the nature of EURef2, you have to deal with the practical outcomes, which would very probably be against a deal that no-one much likes and quite a lot hate. Who is going to go out to promote the deal? Who will campaign against it? And how hard? Grubby compromises might be good diplomacy (I'm not sure this one is, but leave that aside for the moment), but they're poor manifestoes. There is a very strong chance that, depending on the question, No Deal or Remain wins, in either case with a majority for a clearly different model (i.e. 'relationship with EU', or 'leaving the EU').
A second referendum would be extremely unlikely to settle the UK's European question and could well make it worse (even allowing that *not* asking the question to the public could of itself make the matter worse too). Nor would a general election, which would simply be the wrong way of asking the wrong question.
Having said all that, parliament will probably throw the deal out (as, in truth, it probably should). The benefit of parliament doing so, and doing so quickly, is that there is at least the chance of reversing that vote after further negotiations. Both the timescale and the greater force of a full public vote make that all-but impossible were the matter put to the people.
For the record, I placed a £20 bet here at 6/1 with "archer from australia" that May would call a General Election in an attempt to get her deal approved by the electorate, having failed to get the approval of parliament. Well archer has subsequently been banned from the site so I am unilaterally declaring the bet void.
Archer got banned?
But he had important first hand insight as to how his beloved hard Brexit would benefit him and us...
I was wondering why he went quiet. What was he banned for?
If Cabinet members don't resign they won't be able to stand in the forthcoming Conservative leadership election, which might leave a staight fight between May and Boris with the Conservative members left with the choice.
I don't think such a contest is possible. If May is deposed, she can't be a candidate.
Can May call a back me or sack me contest, as Major did? Unsure of the rules on that.....
I am sure she can but I do not see the need. If there is a vnoc I fully expect TM to win and then be in office for the next year
In office but not in power!
The Conservatives could simultaneously give May a vote of confidence in the Commons whilst having a leadership challenge within the Conservative party.
A people's vote leave would win by a bigger margin IMO.
Not worth the risk.
There are two huge risks with a second referendum, either of which, to my mind, make it a really poor political option.
The first is that now there is a deal, that deal has to be on the ballot. This means one of: - Deal vs No Deal; - Deal vs Remain; - Deal vs No Deal vs Remain
In the first two, advocates of the missing option would no doubt cry 'foul'. There is a legitimate argument for the Deal/No Deal option in that the 'Leave' option was chosen in EURef1 but I'm not sure it'd be widely accepted by Remainers. There is therefore a real risk that No Deal would win, and with such a strong mandate for it, it would be extremely difficult to mitigate.
There is no good argument for Deal vs Remain, which the UKIP/Hard Brexit wing would portray as being given a choice between two types of Remain after the country voted for Leave, and hence a betrayal of the original vote.
In the three-way vote, you have the strongest democratic base for the vote, but a real risk of the weakest mandate resulting.
And that's the second big problem. Even once you get over questions of the legitimacy of the nature of EURef2, you have to deal with the practical outcomes, which would very probably be against a deal that no-one much likes and quite a lot hate. Who is going to go out to promote the deal? Who will campaign against it? And how hard? Grubby compromises might be good diplomacy (I'm not sure this one is, but leave that aside for the moment), but they're poor manifestoes. There is a very strong chance that, depending on the question, No Deal or Remain wins, in either case with a majority for a clearly different model (i.e. 'relationship with EU', or 'leaving the EU').
A second referendum would be extremely unlikely to settle the UK's European question and could well make it worse (even allowing that *not* asking the question to the public could of itself make the matter worse too). Nor would a general election, which would simply be the wrong way of asking the wrong question.
Having said all that, parliament will probably throw the deal out (as, in truth, it probably should). The benefit of parliament doing so, and doing so quickly, is that there is at least the chance of reversing that vote after further negotiations. Both the timescale and the greater force of a full public vote make that all-but impossible were the matter put to the people.
The deal doesn't have to be on the ballot if May has been replaced with somebody who doesn't support it
A people's vote leave would win by a bigger margin IMO.
Not worth the risk.
There are two huge risks with a second referendum, either of which, to my mind, make it a really poor political option.
The first is that now there is a deal, that deal has to be on the ballot. This means one of: - Deal vs No Deal; - Deal vs Remain; - Deal vs No Deal vs Remain
In the first two, advocates of the missing option would no doubt cry 'foul'. There is a legitimate argument for the Deal/No Deal option in that the 'Leave' option was chosen in EURef1 but I'm not sure it'd be widely accepted by Remainers. There is therefore a real risk that No Deal would win, and with such a strong mandate for it, it would be extremely difficult to mitigate.
There is no good argument for Deal vs Remain, which the UKIP/Hard Brexit wing would portray as being given a choice between two types of Remain after the country voted for Leave, and hence a betrayal of the original vote.
In the three-way vote, you have the strongest democratic base for the vote, but a real risk of the weakest mandate resulting.
And that's the second big problem. Even once you get over questions of the legitimacy of the nature of EURef2, you have to deal with the practical outcomes, which would very probably be against a deal that no-one much likes and quite a lot hate. Who is going to go out to promote the deal? Who will campaign against it? And how hard? Grubby compromises might be good diplomacy (I'm not sure this one is, but leave that aside for the moment), but they're poor manifestoes. There is a very strong chance that, depending on the question, No Deal or Remain wins, in either case with a majority for a clearly different model (i.e. 'relationship with EU', or 'leaving the EU').
A second referendum would be extremely unlikely to settle the UK's European question and could well make it worse (even allowing that *not* asking the question to the public could of itself make the matter worse too). Nor would a general election, which would simply be the wrong way of asking the wrong question.
Having said all that, parliament will probably throw the deal out (as, in truth, it probably should). The benefit of parliament doing so, and doing so quickly, is that there is at least the chance of reversing that vote after further negotiations. Both the timescale and the greater force of a full public vote make that all-but impossible were the matter put to the people.
I think there was a case for it if we ended up without a deal, but now we have one - far less so.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
Let the ultras on both sides and the mediaevalists of the DUP vent their spleen in the first cycle - with only the occasional moderate voice like Hague to ensure the initial narrative doesn't kill off the deal before it breathes life (the ultras key objective atm).
This allows the 2/3rd of parliament and the country that is reasonably sane to see exactly who they would be trooping through the lobbies with if they oppose this deal (as if they didn't already know what nutters Soubry and Moggy are).
It leaves the Moggites with little new to say in the next news cycle... they opposed it before they even saw the detail. Hardly considered action in the national interest.
Then with all/almost all of the cabinet on side, the real push from govt begins, choregraphed with the EU. It will be powerful, and much of it aimed at the long-suffering/bored/reasonable public.
I think Labour will be hard pressed to argue in that scenario that voting the deal down is in the national interest and not narrow party interest - particularly when May is seen to be calling the bluff of the ultras.
I could be wrong. But it's going to be great to watch the next couple of weeks. If Mrs May fails, she will go down as a failure regardless of the merits. If the pulls this off, she will (quite rightly) be seen in a much more positive light and receive credit for bridging the seemingly impossible in the face on unceasing unpleasantness.
This line of "they hadn't read the deal yet" isn't going to hold any water unless there's something in there which significantly contradicts what we expect/what the no voters are complaining about
Plus some of the ERG can't read
And what about the cabinet ? I'm not convinced that Grayling (for example) is capable of digesting 500 pages between now and Christmas, if ever.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
Landed with meaning they're in power? Or landed with meaning Tories sobbing in the media about how mean the opposition are for voting against them?
There's widespread support for a second referendum, especially among Labour voters. That implicitly means supporting voting down the deal
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
What's the timetable on the deal now - at what point does it get ponged back to Brussels ?
Cabinet today, all EU Countries receive deal detail today, the EU then convenes a Council Meeting later this month to formally confirm the deal.
The deal then goes to the HOC and EU Parliaments
It'd be economically awful for us but would be very domestically politically convienient for pretty much everyone here if a member of the EU27 threw its toys out the pram over this.
I'd say there is a non zero possibility Italy might do so.
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
Cricket more fun than the politics - what's the latest from the timeless test at no 10 - has May made much progress - she going to bat through until tea ?
What's the timetable on the deal now - at what point does it get ponged back to Brussels ?
Cabinet today, all EU Countries receive deal detail today, the EU then convenes a Council Meeting later this month to formally confirm the deal.
The deal then goes to the HOC and EU Parliaments
It'd be economically awful for us but would be very domestically politically convienient for pretty much everyone here if a member of the EU27 threw its toys out the pram over this.
I'd say there is a non zero possibility Italy might do so.
I think that in those circumstances it would be inevitable for a second referendum to take place
For the record, I placed a £20 bet here at 6/1 with "archer from australia" that May would call a General Election in an attempt to get her deal approved by the electorate, having failed to get the approval of parliament. Well archer has subsequently been banned from the site so I am unilaterally declaring the bet void.
Archer got banned?
But he had important first hand insight as to how his beloved hard Brexit would benefit him and us...
I was wondering why he went quiet. What was he banned for?
Being responsible for an over priced shite peach drink?
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
I think the answer is: not yet - maybe later......
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
No one here has yet seen it.
Yep, and we have consensus that opposing a deal you haven't seen makes you a crazy, opportunistic wingnut, whereas supporting a deal you haven't seen makes you a sensible, grown-up statesman
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
I think the answer is: not yet - maybe later......
Actually that's a very important point. Amidst all the hysteria, drama, threats, speculation, grand-standing and navel-gazing, it's very easy to overlook the fact that we don't actually know much if anything yet about what the future relationship will look like.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Chez BJO is awfully big for the 2 of us especially as Mrs BJO is confined to ground level.
Think I need a massive train set.
Or to come back on here more regularly.
Waits for FU train set purchasing advice
When I was a teenager I progressed straight from 1:72 scale to 1:1 scale.
You might not get much in your room at that scale, mind.
True and I live less than 2 miles from the real thing at Barrow Hill. I need a little plaything!
To my shame, I've not been to Barrow Hill since it's been a preservation base. I was hoping my son would show an interest in trains so I could start taking him around places, but he's more into art and science atm.
I have always wanted a say on any final deal but the problem has always been the lack of consensus on where rejecting any such deal would leave us - still in, crashing out, seeking an extension to A50 etc?
Had May or anyone else said "IF you reject the A50 Treaty, it will mean a, b or c" that at least would be clear but she has deftly never clarified the consequences of rejection.
It has been left to others to come up with the "expert" ramifications of leaving the EU on 29/3/19 without a deal and this new Project Fear has clearly had an effect. Two years ago, "No Deal is better than a Bad Deal" now "Any Deal is Better than No Deal". It's been a hugely successful piece of "persuasion" (and I think the clincher was the 35% fall in house prices claim) which has terrified many Conservatives into loyal subservience.
The Express has now become an apologist for May (the Mail takes its role very seriously) which is a far cry from where it was not so long ago.
For the vast majority who don't care about "backstops" or Northern Ireland, it seems to be positive. It's a long way from what many who voted LEAVE really wanted and there are plenty of gaps on immigration policy to be filled (yesterday's employment numbers were interesting and for those harping on about a fall in the number of Eastern European workers, the numbers quoted exclude Bulgaria and Romania where the numbers coming into the UK continue to rise).
It's a sell-able deal because those who point out the obvious flaws will be forced into technicalities which will weaken their argument. Whether it in any way resolves the fundamental splits within both the Conservative and Labour parties remains to be seen and I'm far from confident it will. For all that it is frequently pointed out Labour's voters are strongly REMAIN there's a significant minority of REMAIN (25%) in the Conservative camp as well.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
Good. It was a totally stupid own-goal by the government: they've turned doing the right thing into a harmful negative story. Unless there's a bigger game at play ...
I've taken the first steps of a career change today by making an application to study a Graduate Diploma in Law. Fingers crossed!
Best of luck! I'm just starting off on an (unexpected) career break myself, and a complete change of direction is a definite option for me. And Mrs Pioneers is currently at college doing a Teaching Assistant course as part of her own career change.
How to stay sane? Don't do the exact same thing for 40 years...
What's the timetable on the deal now - at what point does it get ponged back to Brussels ?
Cabinet today, all EU Countries receive deal detail today, the EU then convenes a Council Meeting later this month to formally confirm the deal.
The deal then goes to the HOC and EU Parliaments
It'd be economically awful for us but would be very domestically politically convienient for pretty much everyone here if a member of the EU27 threw its toys out the pram over this.
I'd say there is a non zero possibility Italy might do so.
I think that in those circumstances it would be inevitable for a second referendum to take place
I thought all that was required was a majority vote - I didn't think a veto was an option.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Good. It was a totally stupid own-goal by the government: they've turned doing the right thing into a harmful negative story. Unless there's a bigger game at play ...
Good News well done those in the Government who forced the climb down
I've taken the first steps of a career change today by making an application to study a Graduate Diploma in Law. Fingers crossed!
Best of luck! I'm just starting off on an (unexpected) career break myself, and a complete change of direction is a definite option for me. And Mrs Pioneers is currently at college doing a Teaching Assistant course as part of her own career change.
How to stay sane? Don't do the exact same thing for 40 years...
There are two huge risks with a second referendum, either of which, to my mind, make it a really poor political option.
The first is that now there is a deal, that deal has to be on the ballot. This means one of: - Deal vs No Deal; - Deal vs Remain; - Deal vs No Deal vs Remain
In the first two, advocates of the missing option would no doubt cry 'foul'. There is a legitimate argument for the Deal/No Deal option in that the 'Leave' option was chosen in EURef1 but I'm not sure it'd be widely accepted by Remainers. There is therefore a real risk that No Deal would win, and with such a strong mandate for it, it would be extremely difficult to mitigate.
[snip] And that's the second big problem. Even once you get over questions of the legitimacy of the nature of EURef2, you have to deal with the practical outcomes, which would very probably be against a deal that no-one much likes and quite a lot hate. Who is going to go out to promote the deal? Who will campaign against it? And how hard? Grubby compromises might be good diplomacy (I'm not sure this one is, but leave that aside for the moment), but they're poor manifestoes. There is a very strong chance that, depending on the question, No Deal or Remain wins, in either case with a majority for a clearly different model (i.e. 'relationship with EU', or 'leaving the EU').
A second referendum would be extremely unlikely to settle the UK's European question and could well make it worse (even allowing that *not* asking the question to the public could of itself make the matter worse too). Nor would a general election, which would simply be the wrong way of asking the wrong question.
Having said all that, parliament will probably throw the deal out (as, in truth, it probably should). The benefit of parliament doing so, and doing so quickly, is that there is at least the chance of reversing that vote after further negotiations. Both the timescale and the greater force of a full public vote make that all-but impossible were the matter put to the people.
The deal doesn't have to be on the ballot if May has been replaced with somebody who doesn't support it
True. But then a forced No Deal / Remain referendum is hardly likely to be any better, as you'd still end up with a result that a great many people felt cheated on. Either we remain, off a slim margin and with many people feeling compelled to vote that way out of fear of the alternative - and still wanting the sunlit uplands that Leave originally promised (or even the murky dawn of some not-very-good-but-still-workable-Brexit) - or we leave with no deal and things fall apart very badly in April.
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
I think the answer is: not yet - maybe later......
Actually that's a very important point. Amidst all the hysteria, drama, threats, speculation, grand-standing and navel-gazing, it's very easy to overlook the fact that we don't actually know much if anything yet about what the future relationship will look like.
Remember also that parliament has to vote on *both* the WA and the FR documents at the same time.
Good. It was a totally stupid own-goal by the government: they've turned doing the right thing into a harmful negative story. Unless there's a bigger game at play ...
I am being overly cynical wondering if the govt might use that as a quid pro quo for a vote in favour of the deal ?
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
I think the answer is: not yet - maybe later......
Actually that's a very important point. Amidst all the hysteria, drama, threats, speculation, grand-standing and navel-gazing, it's very easy to overlook the fact that we don't actually know much if anything yet about what the future relationship will look like.
Remember also that parliament has to vote on *both* the WA and the FR documents at the same time.
Not really, we're voting on the blueprint future relationship. The actual future relationship is years away
Good. It was a totally stupid own-goal by the government: they've turned doing the right thing into a harmful negative story. Unless there's a bigger game at play ...
I am being overly cynical wondering if the govt might use that as a quid pro quo for a vote in favour of the deal ?
The situation appears to have been laid at the feet of Esther McVey, and she's a fairly hardcore leaver. This mess may make it less likely for people to flock to her banner.
Hello everyone. I've been away for ages, for those of us not quite paying attention, how good is the deal we've got? Can we make trade deals with other countries?
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
I've long thought she may, at the appropriate time, initiate a 24hr leadership confidence vote. Straight after receiving cabinet support might be an appropriate time.... assuming she wins, it further shoots the ERG fox for 12 months and neutralises their power.
It would be bold. But offence is often the best defence.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
Many many words today. But I want to challenge that this is BINO. Norway might be, but this still counts as hard Brexit to me and I'm sure many others who've been sceptical about the whole project all along.
We're out of our EU trade deals, out of single market for 80% of economy, out of freedom of movement. That harder Brexits were on the table doesn't make it Brexit In Name Only - just look at the reaction from the Remain side to the reports. Where are the remainers saying that they feared it would be worse? Can't see any.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
Again may I refer you to Exhibit 1: The Iraq War. Tone owns it. Cons voted heavily in favour. Dun't matter.
Many many words today. But I want to challenge that this is BINO. Norway might be, but this still counts as hard Brexit to me and I'm sure many others who've been sceptical about the whole project all along.
We're out of our EU trade deals, out of single market for 80% of economy, out of freedom of movement. That harder Brexits were on the table doesn't make it Brexit In Name Only - just look at the reaction from the Remain side to the reports. Where are the remainers saying that they feared it would be worse? Can't see any.
Don't confuse the backstop with the future relationship which is yet to be negotiated. The backstop is only an insurance policy. The ultimate direction of travel is towards something more like BINO.
I've long thought she may, at the appropriate time, initiate a 24hr leadership confidence vote. Straight after receiving cabinet support might be an appropriate time.... assuming she wins, it further shoots the ERG fox for 12 months and neutralises their power.
It would be bold. But offence is often the best defence.
I'm much less convinced, I'd like to think Julian Smith would have a good idea of any potential anti-deal revolt in the Conservative Parliamentary Party.
I find it hard to believe that IF May wins a VoNC one day and loses her deal the next she could possibly remain as PM or Conservative leader.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
I dont think so, Brexit is a wholly owned by the Tories project.
There are similarities though to Blair getting the Iraq war approved only via oppisition votes. Nobody holds that against the Tories, but it is poison for Blairites.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
Again may I refer you to Exhibit 1: The Iraq War. Tone owns it. Cons voted heavily in favour. Dun't matter.
I'm looking at situation where Labour effectively block the deal. If it is Labour, DUP , Tory nutters and high stakes remainers defeating May then the blame will not be on her or majority Tory side.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
I dont think so, Brexit is a wholly owned by the Tories project.
There are similarities though to Blair getting the Iraq war approved only via oppisition votes. Nobody holds that against the Tories, but it is poison for Blairites.
Labour cannot lose on this one.
With respect your last sentence is the ultimate art of complacency
Asked this a couple of threads back but asking again in case somebody knows:
If there's a deal, what now needs to happen on what timetable? Apparently it has to go through the UK parliament - is there any particular deadline on that, or is it enough for it to be passed at some time before the exit date?
The related question is, say the Conservative Party decided that it wants to enjoy a long, relaxing leadership contest, would that blow up the process in some way, or could the EP and everybody else carry on considering the deal as if the UK were going to accept it, then give whatever unlucky person ends up as UK PM a choice of taking it or leaving it?
He was superb in that interview. I couldn't help contrasting how well he defended the government's position with the poor advocacy of Mrs May.
He gave the graduation speech at the University where I work in the summer. It was all the things a good graduation speech should be; witty, inspiring and short.
What's the timetable on the deal now - at what point does it get ponged back to Brussels ?
Cabinet today, all EU Countries receive deal detail today, the EU then convenes a Council Meeting later this month to formally confirm the deal.
The deal then goes to the HOC and EU Parliaments
It'd be economically awful for us but would be very domestically politically convienient for pretty much everyone here if a member of the EU27 threw its toys out the pram over this.
I'd say there is a non zero possibility Italy might do so.
Someone on here was telling me it is only EU Parliament, not the individual legislatures, who need to approve a WA?
I'm looking at situation where Labour effectively block the deal. If it is Labour, DUP , Tory nutters and high stakes remainers defeating May then the blame will not be on her or majority Tory side.
It may not be but I think of those groups, it will be 1. Tory nutters; 2. DUP = May's Government that gets the blame and hence May. They are, after all the ones in government so it will be perceived to be up to them. If May can't even convince her own party and allies, how on earth is Labour supposed to be convinced by it.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
A lot of the pressure to vote against will be from People's voters, not Corbynistas
What's the timetable on the deal now - at what point does it get ponged back to Brussels ?
Cabinet today, all EU Countries receive deal detail today, the EU then convenes a Council Meeting later this month to formally confirm the deal.
The deal then goes to the HOC and EU Parliaments
It'd be economically awful for us but would be very domestically politically convienient for pretty much everyone here if a member of the EU27 threw its toys out the pram over this.
I'd say there is a non zero possibility Italy might do so.
Someone on here was telling me it is only EU Parliament, not the individual legislatures, who need to approve a WA?
A majority in the European Parliament and QMV in the Council.
I'm looking at situation where Labour effectively block the deal. If it is Labour, DUP , Tory nutters and high stakes remainers defeating May then the blame will not be on her or majority Tory side.
It may not be but I think of those groups, it will be 1. Tory nutters; 2. DUP = May's Government that gets the blame and hence May. They are, after all the ones in government so it will be perceived to be up to them. If May can't even convince her own party and allies, how on earth is Labour supposed to be convinced by it.
Labour needs May’s deal to get through Parliament without its support but with the Tories split. Anything else is problematic and potentially disastrous. But it’s hard to see how it happens.
This is exactly right. The problem Labour has is that to keep all sides of their coalition on board they need to vote against the deal, but only if they don't quite defeat the government. If the deal fails because they successfully defeat the government with the help of their friends in the ERG and maybe the DUP, then they risk getting landed with the fallout, likely to be either the utter chaos of a no-deal crashout, or the utter chaos of trying to reverse the result of the People's Vote.
I can't think of anything the Labour leadership would like more than inheriting utter chaos from the Tories. Its straight out of the Marxist playbook - the worse the chaos the greater the opportunity for imposing the kind of revolutionary change McDonnell has spent his whole life dreaming about.
That might be so. But there are some sane Labour MPs.
Richard you always forget that sane or bonkers, the raison d'etre of Lab MPs is to get into power so they can have a go at f*cking it up for themselves.
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
Precisely. Labour is the opposition, its role is to oppose.
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
You may be in for a surprise
I agree - this is high stakes and if the perception develops that Labour are playing "silly b-s" for party gain or Corbynista purity they will be heavily damaged.
A lot of the pressure to vote against will be from People's voters, not Corbynistas
Comments
The first is that now there is a deal, that deal has to be on the ballot. This means one of:
- Deal vs No Deal;
- Deal vs Remain;
- Deal vs No Deal vs Remain
In the first two, advocates of the missing option would no doubt cry 'foul'. There is a legitimate argument for the Deal/No Deal option in that the 'Leave' option was chosen in EURef1 but I'm not sure it'd be widely accepted by Remainers. There is therefore a real risk that No Deal would win, and with such a strong mandate for it, it would be extremely difficult to mitigate.
There is no good argument for Deal vs Remain, which the UKIP/Hard Brexit wing would portray as being given a choice between two types of Remain after the country voted for Leave, and hence a betrayal of the original vote.
In the three-way vote, you have the strongest democratic base for the vote, but a real risk of the weakest mandate resulting.
And that's the second big problem. Even once you get over questions of the legitimacy of the nature of EURef2, you have to deal with the practical outcomes, which would very probably be against a deal that no-one much likes and quite a lot hate. Who is going to go out to promote the deal? Who will campaign against it? And how hard? Grubby compromises might be good diplomacy (I'm not sure this one is, but leave that aside for the moment), but they're poor manifestoes. There is a very strong chance that, depending on the question, No Deal or Remain wins, in either case with a majority for a clearly different model (i.e. 'relationship with EU', or 'leaving the EU').
A second referendum would be extremely unlikely to settle the UK's European question and could well make it worse (even allowing that *not* asking the question to the public could of itself make the matter worse too). Nor would a general election, which would simply be the wrong way of asking the wrong question.
Having said all that, parliament will probably throw the deal out (as, in truth, it probably should). The benefit of parliament doing so, and doing so quickly, is that there is at least the chance of reversing that vote after further negotiations. Both the timescale and the greater force of a full public vote make that all-but impossible were the matter put to the people.
No doubt that will only be published at the very last minute with the excuse that the 500 pages of text take a long time to consider.
Boil the frog slowly is the tactic.
I'm not convinced that Grayling (for example) is capable of digesting 500 pages between now and Christmas, if ever.
Chez BJO is awfully big for the 2 of us especially as Mrs BJO is confined to ground level.
Think I need a massive train set.
Or to come back on here more regularly.
Waits for FU train set purchasing advice
The deal then goes to the HOC and EU Parliaments
There's widespread support for a second referendum, especially among Labour voters. That implicitly means supporting voting down the deal
I'd say there is a non zero possibility Italy might do so.
You might not get much in your room at that scale, mind.
https://twitter.com/gilescoren/status/1062648206738239488
His best friend is really intro trains though.
I wonder if we could swap ...
Good luck!
The Grinch
No kids to be seen either
Then straight into Peterloo
Think that's about workers being exploited and killed for wanting portable lavatory facilities
Oh dear....
I have always wanted a say on any final deal but the problem has always been the lack of consensus on where rejecting any such deal would leave us - still in, crashing out, seeking an extension to A50 etc?
Had May or anyone else said "IF you reject the A50 Treaty, it will mean a, b or c" that at least would be clear but she has deftly never clarified the consequences of rejection.
It has been left to others to come up with the "expert" ramifications of leaving the EU on 29/3/19 without a deal and this new Project Fear has clearly had an effect. Two years ago, "No Deal is better than a Bad Deal" now "Any Deal is Better than No Deal". It's been a hugely successful piece of "persuasion" (and I think the clincher was the 35% fall in house prices claim) which has terrified many Conservatives into loyal subservience.
The Express has now become an apologist for May (the Mail takes its role very seriously) which is a far cry from where it was not so long ago.
For the vast majority who don't care about "backstops" or Northern Ireland, it seems to be positive. It's a long way from what many who voted LEAVE really wanted and there are plenty of gaps on immigration policy to be filled (yesterday's employment numbers were interesting and for those harping on about a fall in the number of Eastern European workers, the numbers quoted exclude Bulgaria and Romania where the numbers coming into the UK continue to rise).
It's a sell-able deal because those who point out the obvious flaws will be forced into technicalities which will weaken their argument. Whether it in any way resolves the fundamental splits within both the Conservative and Labour parties remains to be seen and I'm far from confident it will. For all that it is frequently pointed out Labour's voters are strongly REMAIN there's a significant minority of REMAIN (25%) in the Conservative camp as well.
How to stay sane? Don't do the exact same thing for 40 years...
They are not (paid, expected, voted in) to ponder the issue and eventually give the Tories the benefit of the doubt. Their premise is that we would not be in this mess if it had all been left to the Labour Party to sort out in the first place. That view is not time-limited or subject to change depending on circumstances.
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1062656784404529152
slot machines that take your £20s
How about we wait until the Cabinet meeting is over and we know if anyone’s resigned before speculating further?
Then we can all get something done today
Wisconsin company giving every employee a handgun for Christmas
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/416571-wisconsin-company-giving-every-employee-a-handgun-for-christmas
Anyway, nearly all Labour MPs are remainers and most of them think that voting down Mays deal will lead to a second referendum which will reverse the result of the first. And this view is also held by the vast majority of Labour Party members. So the chances of Labour supporting the deal are in the region of zero.
AMD have announced a new processor, Zen 2. They have named it 'Rome':
As Rome wasn't built on one die.
Award yourself 100 geek points if you get it.
It would be bold. But offence is often the best defence.
We're out of our EU trade deals, out of single market for 80% of economy, out of freedom of movement. That harder Brexits were on the table doesn't make it Brexit In Name Only - just look at the reaction from the Remain side to the reports. Where are the remainers saying that they feared it would be worse? Can't see any.
I find it hard to believe that IF May wins a VoNC one day and loses her deal the next she could possibly remain as PM or Conservative leader.
There are similarities though to Blair getting the Iraq war approved only via oppisition votes. Nobody holds that against the Tories, but it is poison for Blairites.
Labour cannot lose on this one.
If there's a deal, what now needs to happen on what timetable? Apparently it has to go through the UK parliament - is there any particular deadline on that, or is it enough for it to be passed at some time before the exit date?
The related question is, say the Conservative Party decided that it wants to enjoy a long, relaxing leadership contest, would that blow up the process in some way, or could the EP and everybody else carry on considering the deal as if the UK were going to accept it, then give whatever unlucky person ends up as UK PM a choice of taking it or leaving it?