Not only is Theresa May a bloody difficult woman, she’s also a bloody difficult woman to shift. The ERG, with all their customary Keystone Cops planning, proved once again this week that when it comes to continuing her mission, the PM has a Terminator-like resilience to her and that it takes rather more than saying nasty things in posh voices to blow her off course.
Comments
No insomnia, afternoon here😁
To avoid no-deal, she needs to get the votes for her deal in parliament. We know at least one way she can do this: TMay and SNP+LD+Lab-Remain agree on a binding Deal vs Remain Referendum. You can use the same electorate and the same rules as last time. She'd get an extension for this, so it's OK if her government falls and she fights a general election as well: Like I say, she may well win it. There may be other ways, but this is the obvious one.
How does her position look after the referendum?
If her deal wins, she's vindicated. The voters backed her policy. She just carries on.
If Remain wins, potentially some of the ERG ultras break off to UKIPv2, which brings her even closer to the centre of gravity of what's left of the Conservative Party. Somebody could try to challenge her, but from which end? The anti-EU end just got definitively rejected by the voters. The pro-EU end leave the anti-EU end spitting even more feathers than TMay does. She's still Prime Minister, the economy suddenly gets a much-needed surge, the voters are sick of talking about Brexit, and she wants to talk about something else like grammar schools or vast dystopian surveillance systems. So she just carries on.
The 2016 referendum gives a mandate for Brexit. However David Cameron gave a commitment that the result would be implemented, implying that he would negotiate an agreement with the EU. Some leave campaigners also said that an agreement with the EU would be easy to reach. Many people who voted for leave therefore did not expect a no deal Brexit.
Therefore how can MPs allow a no deal Brexit unless a second referendum has given confirmation that this is the wish of the British people?
Know many tory members do you? That might pass a focus group comprising Amber Rudd and her brother. Limited appeal elsewhere.
1) A minority of Tory MPs could no-confidence the government as soon as she suggests it. They lose the whip. She asks for (and gets) an Article 50 extension, then runs for election as the person trying to stop everything falling apart. Not optimal circumstances to fight an election, but the opposition is Jeremy Corbyn. And she may even be able to get some abstentions from opposition MPs to keep the show on the road.
2) Tory MPs replace her as leader as soon as she suggests it. First they need to openly change the rules to refight the election they just lost, then they need to win the election. But the clock is still ticking, and the non-bonkers ones know that have no better strategy: Their replacement candidate can't renegotiate or pass the deal either, so... what then?
3) Too many Tory MPs vote against the Deal+Referendum package to pass it. This is the hardest part. But *most* of Labour will like this idea, and the SNP/LD and most of misc will like it. And again, non-bonkers Tory MPs know what the alternative is, and it isn't good.
4) The Deal wins the referendum, then Tory MPs move on her. They might, but they plan to do this already. She's bought herself several months, and a personal victory. There will be a lot less moaning about the second referendum from the Leave side if it was won by the Leave side.
5) Remain wins the referendum, then Tory MPs move on her. Again, they might; There will be a sizable part of the party that really, really has it in for her. But her opponents are demonstrably out-of-step with the voters, the angriest ones will have actually left the party, and, as we saw from the attempts on her to date, they're as dumb as a bag of hammers.
The Rules for the replacement of MrsMay will, I predict, be adjusted as necessary. When /if she does "SNP+LD+Lab-Remain agree", to publically ditch the one view supported by ~80% of Tory members, she'll be instant toast.
It's true that when they want to do something the members hate they need cover, but they have cover: The rules say they can't get rid of her. And if they changed the rules, they have more cover, in the form of a secret ballot.
PS If Tory members were as powerful as you think, how did John Major manage to stay in office long enough to get the Maastricht Treaty through?
As for Rules adjustment. The 22/PartyBrd decides after 'soundings' - formal or otherwise. If MrsMay goes berserk and attempts to dynamite the Tory party in the 'national interest' she's had it.
The players all know each other, they're all on What's App, they just need to get on with the haggling.
Where sacrificial-lamb blame-shifting does work is if the outcome is OK, but the *process* is unpopular. Like... well, cutting a deal with the opposition to get what you want via a referendum that your members hate.
Biden still well ahead. I know there's name recognition but this is a big number. Bernie still a bit meh, miscellaneous liberals (Warren, Harris) getting squeezed, support looks like it's going to Beto.
Raw numbers here, I stopped copy-pasting at KLOBUCHAR who has SURGED 300%.
Candidate Dec. 6-9, 2018 (Oct. 4-7, 2018)
Former Vice President Joe Biden 30% (33%)
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 14% (13%)
Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke 9% (4%)
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker 5% (5%)
California Senator Kamala Harris 4% (9%)
Former Secretary of State John Kerry 4% (5%)
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren 3% (8%)
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg 3% (4%)
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar 3% (1%)
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/14/politics/cnn-poll-2020-democrats-beto-orourke-rising/index.html
It's time for someone to do a Macron and capture the country's imagination. Another Blair if you prefer. It could happen. An MP with charisma saying something different. The Brexiteers are international Pariahs. Witness Farage yesterday. They're repulsing people who haven't taken an interest in politics their whole lives. I can't remember a time when more non political people have wanted to vent their spleen about what's going on.
David also ignores the leverage exerted by businesses. They will not wait for the politicians to make their mind up. policy does not happen in a vacuum
I was thinking of your comment on Brunel being a great civil engineer and a disastrous mechanical engineer when I made my reference to Vaughan. That was one of his earlier theories. More recently I believe he's become obsessed with the idea Brunel was just a terrible engineer.
May I ask what evidence you have for this supposition?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46577152
Good article as ever though, from David and PB in general.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/12/scottish-tories-are-preparing-back-second-brexit-referendum
Just astounding nonsense from top to bottom.
Labour are not going to back May's Deal, and solidarity is very tight. Even people like Liz Kendall are sticking strongly to the line.
May is insufficiently flexible to change couse, by either A50 revocation or a #peoplesvote, and is not going to be defenestrated.
Buckle up.
In practice No Deal means the lack of enforcement of our own laws, both for practical and for logistic reasons. It is anarchy and I wouldn't expect it to last. I thinkbit likely that the WA would be signed off afterwards within weeks.
Edit/ Having Bercow in position might just turn out to be key.
Rather cold outside. Glad it hasn't rained (yet). The freezing rain forecast sounds quite unpleasant.
Good, if depressing, article, Mr. Herdson.
The difficult bit is assembling a consensus on what to do thereafter, from a bloc of MPs that would be a rainbow with people from pretty much every party. I just hope that the few clever ones like Grieve and Benn are closeted in a back room somewhere plotting out all the detail. The initiative does however need a lot more followers than leaders, and the trouble with politicians is that even the stupid ones think their opinion and input is somehow critical. They'll need to be up against the wire to get the sheep through the gate.
There seems little controversy about the fact he was a terrible mechanical engineer - and Gooch was hired to replace him in that role. The two men got on famously, which says much positive about Brunel - many great men would have hated being pushed out of such a role.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotives_of_the_Great_Western_Railway#Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel_(1835_-_1837)
As for being a terrible engineer: he was not as popular at the time of his death as he was now, and some of his obituaries were rather negative. I'd never call him a 'terrible' engineer, but he did have a habit of pushing the limits too much, of preferring the new to the tested.
Take his ships: the Great Western was novel and an outstanding success in service. If he had built three or four of these, put them in service, then the profits would have helped build other designs. Instead he only built one, and moved straight onto the much larger Great Britain. This was a technical tour de force, but they could only afford to build one for the price of several Great Westerns, and when it ran aground the company had little revenue and went bust.
He never learned that lesson, and went onto the disastrous (though marvellous) Great Eastern - the largest ship that would exist for fifty years.
He could have died one of the richest men in Britain, having set up a series of companies that would have lasted decades. Instead he ended up rather poor (his family had to sell most of his paintings), and lots of people lost their shirts investing in his projects.
Including John Scott Russell, who was another fascinating scientist and man of the period. Whilst Brunel has many things named after him, including a university, Russell has just a modern aqueduct outside Edinburgh. This shows how important it is for your descendents to promote your legacy - something Brunel's children were excellent at.
So:
1. A growing push across the House to vote the deal to death this year. The deal is dead and with it May's final vestige of power and authority. She can't blackmail MPs to vote for her deal by running down the clock if her deal has already been killed
2. There is a consensus in the House that No Deal would be a Bad Thing. Constitutionally we're in known waters when there is a government in office that MPs refuse to either support on policy or remove with a short fuse burning towards an economic bomb going off.
3. There are Ways and Means for MPs to work around an obstructionist government refusing to act. Legislation does not have to come from ministers. Binding motions do not have to come from ministers. The government can act in contempt of the House and whilst we haven't seen action yet from the first one if it does so again you can imagine what will happen
4. With the deal deal the remaining options are no deal crash Brexit or revoke A50. The majority says the former is a Bad Thing which leaves the latter however unpalatable many MPs will find it
Never mind the Brexit fiasco, there is another growing fiasco in the Conservative Party. The party of government led by a Prime Minister unable and unwilling to act at a time of national crisis brought about personally by the Prime Minister. Whose MPs do not want her to lead them but who refuse to remove her. Parking their party in office whilst it refuses to do anything at all "because Corbyn". Whilst holding everyone hostage to a financial event which they know would be catastrophic.
I don't think Tory MPs are thinking straight. If their plan is to destroy the reputation of the party then they are playing a blinder...
There's very little gratitude in politics.
Interesting on Mordaunt. I can't help but feel she'd make a great successor to May as the next permanent Conservative leader.
He was, I agree, a rotten businessman, but that applies to his civil engineering too (broad gauge, anyone)?
As for Russell, he had no more relentless self-publicist than himself and was widely credited as the designer of the Great Eastern in the 1860s. What trashed his reputation was not his lack of a hagiographer but his expulsion from the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1866 following (further) accusations of fraud and embezzlement.
We would have a new solution and government, it would be sorted in about a week.
I don’t know what tablets these people are taking, but I must confess I wish I were on them. It will be said of them as it was said of the Bourbons, I think: “they have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing”.
The reality is that if the deal on the table falls apart because we have said “no”, there will not be some smooth rapid suite of mini side deals – from aviation to fisheries, from road haulage to data, from derivatives to customs and veterinary checks, from medicines to financial services, as the EU affably sits down with this Prime Minister or another one.
The 27 will legislate and institute unilaterally temporary arrangements which assure continuity where they need it, and cause us asymmetric difficulties where they can. And a UK Government, which knows the efficacy of most of its contingency planning depends, to a greater or lesser degree on others’ actions out of its control, will then have to react – no doubt with a mixture of inevitable compliance and bellicose retaliation.
https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/full-speech-sir-ivan-rogers-on-brexit/
I concur with the assessment that No Deal is the most likely outcome. The Conservative pro-EU faction must know that they risk the collapse of their own party if they thwart Brexit using Labour votes to defeat their own colleagues - not to mention the likelihood of the fall of the Government due to DUP opposition. Labour needs another outbreak of internecine conflict between Corbyn and the backbenchers like a hole in the head. And if one party (most likely the Conservatives) breaks up whilst the other remains in one piece, then it opens the way for its opponent to divide and conquer. If the pro-EU Tories want to still be in jobs next Summer then they either need to be very, very sure that the Brexiteers won't pull down the temple, or they need to agree with their Labour counterparts to bring both parties to ruin in lockstep, ditching whole lifetimes of entrenched rivalry and party loyalty in the process. All of this is possible, but would appear improbable to put it mildly.
Most likely MPs won't be able to agree on any course of action, regardless of the pressure applied to them from outside, and No Deal will go ahead by default next Spring. What happens after that depends on how severe the economic repercussions are. Anything from a damp squib to a technical recession and I think the Government carries on until 2022. Significant and prolonged dislocation, coupled with a spike in unemployment, and Labour may be able to persuade the DUP to dissociate itself from the mess and no confidence the Tories.
Where I disagree with David is that I think he underestimates the pressures to shift that default. But he might well be right and I might well be wrong.
Politically, we'd be better off with a strong moderate voice to counter extreme Tories and extreme Labour. But the idea that list were all titans of sound judgement is laughable.
I think that "the logistical difficulties in delivering within the space of weeks." will be solved by the EU allowing an extension for such a purpose.
Mr. Jonathan, I agree, though May is interesting in that regard. She's not a far anything in terms of political positioning, but her character is stubborn beyond the point of reason and her approach is a mixture of closed off, underhanded, and cackhanded.
For the Tories it is an absurd position - the natural party of government remember. In office. Open mutiny in the cabinet. Most of the non-payroll MPs no confidencing the PM. Who makes grand statements about what she will do only to get immediately shot down. Holding a vast 5 day debate then pulling the vote knowing they haven't won the argument. And now that the finally get dragged kicking and screaming before a house that held them in contempt, what then?
May says her deal is the only way. Her cabinet disagree. Parliament disagrees. The ECJ disagrees. Yet the party seems content to continue the open mutiny and parliament seems content to leave this fiasco in office.
Parliament might as well vote to grant every voter a suitcase full of Krugerrands and a pet unicorn for Christmas.
unworkable or even more unattractive, I don’t rule out someone trying.
How’s Margaret’s Beckett looking in the next PM stakes?
Trouble is, the “grown ups” above are Uber-remain, not much more attached to reality than JRM, and will have trouble offering something which the grudgingly-accepting-middle will back. it probably couldn’t be on a platform of No Brexit (because pitchforks), but would probably have to become more remainy (to change the balance of negotiations with the EU), it would probably need an extension (because tick-tock) and referendum (because fig leaf of democracy). In short, it has to smell enough like Brexit to please a significant subsection of the 52pc, but not drive off a cliff. The same two bikes May has been trying to ride so successfully.
Given all of that, it’s no less tall an order than May’s deal or any other solution, but as I say, we live in interesting times.
1 Full membership. If we want to be a part of the EU, influence it and be in harmony with it, then this is the target. It will include Euro and greater integration which will be off putting for some but is the best form of membership.
2 Revoke article 50 and remain on current terms. Quite why this option has any followers is a mystery. Our status as outsiders (Euro, Shengen, closer union etc) is going continue our fractious relationship with the project. The half in half out nature of our relationship is one of the major reasons we are where we are. With the EU travelling in a tax harmonising and integrating direction this option is likely to see resentment to the EU and our politicians retain high levels or increase. A future departure (or full membership) would be certain.
3 The May deal. If it is rejected by a vast majority in Parliament there is no logic in including it in a referendum. Who, apart from the lone figures of May and perhaps Rory Stewart would fight for it? How could parliament ask us to endorse something they have rejected as completely unacceptable? If it passes the government has no future the DUP will vote no confidence. This isn't an attraction to Tory MPs, as an election would follow with May as leader. There is no incentive (except splitting the DUP from May) to help pass this.
4 Leave with no deal. The default position that no serious politics will allow, but the position they are leading us towards. We might arrive by default. It is unlikely an extention would be granted for a referendum that included leave, or that Parliament would want it include leave.
It would appear there are few sensible options.
1 is probably the best but won't garner support because it requires integration
2 is short sighted and stupid sticking plaster solution to increase future resentment
3 is an unpopular compromise in parliament and the country
4 is the owner of comprehensive negative publicity but is unpopular everywhere.
5 we join USA (not a serious suggestion)
6??
EDIT in 4 popular appeared instead of unpopular
It's this threefold symmetry which is keeping us stuck.
She won’t resign but that is the only honourable course open to her to save her party. Her deal is finished with no chance of being resurrected. The problem for the Tory Party if she did resign is who would replace her. The muppets in the ERG can’t agree on their preferred candidate and neither can the extremist Remainers like Rudd, Lidlington, Soubry, Morgan Greening agree on theirs. Even if they could there would be no common ground between them,
I can’t see Labour moving a VNOC until May’s deal is dead but they have no plans of their own so pretending that Labour are any more coherent is extremely foolish. They are certainly more vindictive as their Jewish members and non Momentum supported members have found out to their cost. In office, they would make even the catastrophically bad May look good.
Personally I think fears of a no deal are hugely exaggerated. Yes, the first few years would be painful because of the gross negligence shown by May and Hammond in refusing to prepare for it. Once we got our act together though, we’d be fine. It’s clearly not preferable. A Canada style FTA was always the sensible option, if it was available but it’s too late for that now.
Difficult to see anything other that a no deal followed by a hard left Labour Gov. every Tory MP, no matter which side of the Brexit debate they are on, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for making Corbyn and McDknnell look credible.
Entertainingly this motion is effectively a wedge between Jez and the headbangers. They endlessly bleat on about the rights of members who elected him. Yet here is a clear and specific example of the members backing a policy which Jeremy refuses to follow. I like so many members want the Leader of the Labour Party to represent the policies of the Labour Party as voted for by the members of the Labour Party at conference. Brexit policy is up to us. Not him.
Labour might bounce them into it - I think they have the numbers - but if so, expect a massacre in the North at a subsequent, indeed consecutive, General Election.
This is why crashout now looks likely.
Parliament can't agree on a solution to Brexit, so is powerless. In any event, so long as the disputatious factions of the Tory Party and their DUP allies manage to hold together, May can't be removed by it.
The ECJ has offered hope to Remainers, but obviously has no influence over the processes that might make its judgement relevant.
And so the Plank is facilitated to continue her non-leadership.
The above will be far kinder to her than no deal, especially as she won't even be around to manage the chaos and be blamed for the aftermath (like Cameron).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotunde
The argument is that Brunel worked very closely on shipbuilding with others, such as Russell, who actually founded the Institution of Naval Architects and knew what he was doing. The double-hulled structure was advanced, but was also massively expensive (*), which was why it did not become common. AIUI the GE's hull form, machinery and structure were all Russell's design, not Brunel's.
When something was a success, Brunel's supporters gave him much of the credit; when they failed, his supporters threw much of the blame onto others. Brunel's family allegedly hated Russell.
When I was growing up, Russell was a bogeyman and Brunel a hero: Russell was the reason why the Great Eastern failed, and that led to Brunel's death. As I've read up on this over the years, I've modified that view: both men were deeply flawed geniuses in different ways. It is just that a Brunel industry promotes their man incessantly, and Russell suffers for it.
It is very interesting to read the Engineer's obituary of Russell, which is rather more positive than their one of Brunel a few years earlier!
Then again, I got married on HMS Warrior, which was a ship built by Russell in 1860, so I'm bound to be a bit biased.
(*) There's a legend that when the great ship was broken up off Liverpool, they found the bodies of a man and boy, both riveters, who had been sealed up in a section of the double hull during construction. Almost certainly untrue, but a grizzly story that 'explains' the ships curse.
gilets jaunes protest running out of steam. fewer demonstators so far, though I am reliably informed its freezing in Paris
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2018/12/15/01016-20181215LIVWWW00014-en-direct-gilets-jaunes-l-acte-v-de-nouvelles-manifestations-la-crainte-des-casseurs.php
Which points to one big issue: government by Cabinet is broken. It has descended into little cliques and power-struggles for the succession that mirror the number of options available. Sat above them, a bloody-minded, bloody difficult woman who has only one answer- a deal which has the unique distinction of unifying everyone but the PM in condemning its awfulness. There is no power to direct. Frankly, the Cabinet is just a rabble.
It's worth pointing out that the gravitational pull of Boris Johnson is still affecting events at the heart of our political solar system. May remains in place only because a sizeable number of Tory MPs hate Boris so much, they would rather vote to keep May as the Ringmaster of Chaos than allow him to be appointed her successor by the membership. Any sensible group of MPs would have known that keeping May gave the EU evey incentive to keep to their deal with her. The meaningful change to the deal she promised them in order to keep her job was ALWAYS impossible for her to deliver. But hey, it kept Boris from having a try....even as it makes his wish to see the PMs deal die edge ever closer. In that at least, it seems Boris will get his wish without needing to be PM.