Cast your mind back - PBers - to about November of last year. The WA has been published, and there is uproar; in particular about the backstop.
Boris Johnson, in the Telegraph, announces that he should become Prime Minister, and the first thing he would do is ask for a six month extension to renegotiate the deal.
Now, it seems, Boris Johnson is offering a renegotiation, but is not requiring the six months of extension. Indeed, an election practically precludes any renegotiation, because the absolute earliest (assuming no coronation) would be September 12 - a scant six and a half weeks before departure. (Frankly, passing the WA after that election date would be a challenge.)
So: is Boris actually promising what he argued for in November, a majority to allow him to force the EU back to the negotiating table. (Albeit with an extension.)
Or is Boris going to the country to ask for explicit No Deal?
Or is there some other option I'm missing?
More recently in January, Boris said this:
"We don't [want] and we will not see a hard border. That would not be right.
"There are other solutions ... and we should use that [transition] period, which was called the implementation period, a period of standstill, after we come out to negotiate not just the Canada-style trade deal but also to bring in those technical solutions."
Mr Johnson said that while he would like to see an extension of the existing arrangements after 29 March on a bilateral basis between the UK and EU, he would not be in favour of an extension of Article 50.
"We would still come out but what you agree is that, subject to approval by the WTO, what you would try to do is protract the existing arrangements.
"So you have a zero tariff, zero quota arrangement for as long as it takes to get a free trade deal done."
Boris seems to think that he can have technical controls on the Border in time for the Day of the Dead, yet not possible during the 18 months left of the WA. Shome mistake shurely?
Are you really searching for consistency in the pronouncements of the blustering bufflehead ? History would suggest such an effort is futile.
Well quite. I doubt that Johnson has ever taken time to formulate an opinion or policy in much longer that the time to write a newspaper column. Or sometimes two newspaper columns.
Or is Boris going to the country to ask for explicit No Deal?
Seems like it. Pull back all those BXP voters, with Labour's vote so split.
Of course, he'll then get into government, look over the precipice, and we'll be back to begging for extensions again - or if he has a decent majority, May's deal mildly tweaked will get rammed through.
I doubt that the LibDems would poll more than 12% at a GE - with the Greens unlikely to exceed 2%. Any sign of a Boris surge will see such voters switching back to Labour.
Or is Boris going to the country to ask for explicit No Deal?
Seems like it. Pull back all those BXP voters, with Labour's vote so split.
Of course, he'll then get into government, look over the precipice, and we'll be back to begging for extensions again - or if he has a decent majority, May's deal mildly tweaked will get rammed through.
I doubt that the LibDems would poll more than 12% at a GE - with the Greens unlikely to exceed 2%. Any sign of a Boris surge will see such voters switching back to Labour.
Tories jumping in their droves for the Brexit party. and Labour voters decamping en-masse for the might LDs are somewhat different things. Both are mostly about Brexit, but there are elements which are very different, and completely hidden by the scale of the Brexit effect.
The Tories, I think, can have reasonable comfort in that if they elect a leader that manages to do the impossible of squaring the circle then they'll be fine. A plan, and if it works then good.
Labour are just in a weird place. It's like Momentum has failed to take its Viagra, but found that no-one noticed anyway.
Or is Boris going to the country to ask for explicit No Deal?
Seems like it. Pull back all those BXP voters, with Labour's vote so split.
Of course, he'll then get into government, look over the precipice, and we'll be back to begging for extensions again - or if he has a decent majority, May's deal mildly tweaked will get rammed through.
I doubt that the LibDems would poll more than 12% at a GE - with the Greens unlikely to exceed 2%. Any sign of a Boris surge will see such voters switching back to Labour.
“And the central point of British politics should not be forgotten: old people vote.”
They certainly do a lot of whining and demanding free stuff on the basis that:
A. We paid our taxes; and/or
B. We fought in the war. Despite, in most cases, being too young.
A is pretty much the point of the welfare state, and B is codswallop. If you were 18 in 1945 you'd be 92 now. You'd have to be 80+ to tell a plausible lie about it. I refuse to believe that you have heard anyone 80+ and not obviously demented making the claim. And in the days when there were lots of WW2 veterans around, their most common shared characteristic was a great reluctance to talk about it.
Thanks Alastair. This is interesting in that it's one benefit that is going to be denied to the much maligned baby boomer generation. You know, the one we're told repeatedly has had it all.
My dad (aged 73 in August) rightly points out that this is far worse for anyone who's been in receipt of the benefit than those like him (well, me actually as I pay it) who won't ever get it.
When are Millennials getting a free TV licence or university degrees?
Or is Boris going to the country to ask for explicit No Deal?
Seems like it. Pull back all those BXP voters, with Labour's vote so split.
Of course, he'll then get into government, look over the precipice, and we'll be back to begging for extensions again - or if he has a decent majority, May's deal mildly tweaked will get rammed through.
I doubt that the LibDems would poll more than 12% at a GE - with the Greens unlikely to exceed 2%. Any sign of a Boris surge will see such voters switching back to Labour.
Without a Corbyn commitment to EUref2 I doubt it
Defeating Boris would be likely to override that.
I think there's two things that need to be considered:
1. Who is the diametric opposite to No Deal Boris - is the LibDems or is Labour? 2. How much - if any - tactical voting will there be? Will Labour-ites in the South East hold their noses and forget the coalition years to vote in a LibDem MP?
Thanks Alastair. This is interesting in that it's one benefit that is going to be denied to the much maligned baby boomer generation. You know, the one we're told repeatedly has had it all.
My dad (aged 73 in August) rightly points out that this is far worse for anyone who's been in receipt of the benefit than those like him (well, me actually as I pay it) who won't ever get it.
When are Millennials getting a free TV licence or university degrees?
Are you suggesting that they need free degrees? Free TV?
I confess I'm confused. The EU have said the WA won't be renegotiated and this has been confirmed by Leo Varadkar and others.
Yet the Conservative leadership candidates (well, some of them) seem convinced there is a re-negotiation to be had - someone is right and someone is wrong.
If the WA can't or isn't amended, is it any more likely to get through the Commons with Johnson as PM than it did with May as PM? I suppose it's conceivable more Conservatives will support it but if there is still no majority, what then?
Some seem to think, based on a couple of polls, that PM Johnson will call a snap GE, win a majority and then be able to do what he likes (agree the WA or leave without a WA) with the gratitude of his new legion of MPs and the country. Maybe, but wasn't that May's strategy and that ended well, didn't it?
In any case, Farage and TBP, who are leading most polls in case we've forgotten, aren't going to sit idly by and watch Johnson take their supporters. A GE would be Farage's opportunity to win his majority as well.
So will there be an election? Johnson won't go to the country unless he thinks he will win so if the polls don't move decisively, 31/10 heaves into view. Perhaps the EU will be tired of our lack of progress and basically throw us out without a WA and the UK Government will doubtless blame the Europeans for anything and everything that happens or doesn't happen.
What if another extension (perhaps to 2022) is offered? I doubt the Conservatives would be enamoured of three more years swinging on the Brexit fish hook so Johnson basically rejects all that and we leave without a WA but having to own the consequences.
Johnson has the advantage that Corbyn wants a GE (or appears to). A shrewder LOTO would leave the Conservative PM on the hook until October - Labour are a long way from a majority and for all the insinuations of some of the Conservatives on here, there's no guarantee the LDs or SNP would prop up a Corbyn minority though I imagine the Conservatives would be happy to support a minority TBP Government.
None of this matters because I keep coming back to the conundrum - if the WA isn't going to be negotiated according to the EU and assuming changing the PM doesn't make enough difference to the parliamentary arithmetic to get the WA through the Commons, what can or will change before October? We are back to either leaving without an agreed WA on 31/10, revoking A50 or seeking yet another extension. None of the Conservative leadership candidates seem able to resolve this credibly as far as I can see.
Thanks Alastair. This is interesting in that it's one benefit that is going to be denied to the much maligned baby boomer generation. You know, the one we're told repeatedly has had it all.
My dad (aged 73 in August) rightly points out that this is far worse for anyone who's been in receipt of the benefit than those like him (well, me actually as I pay it) who won't ever get it.
When are Millennials getting a free TV licence or university degrees?
Are you suggesting that they need free degrees? Free TV?
Not sure how they've earned anything just yet.
Never used to have to earn it - it was just given to you on a plate
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
Or is Boris going to the country to ask for explicit No Deal?
Seems like it. Pull back all those BXP voters, with Labour's vote so split.
Of course, he'll then get into government, look over the precipice, and we'll be back to begging for extensions again - or if he has a decent majority, May's deal mildly tweaked will get rammed through.
I doubt that the LibDems would poll more than 12% at a GE - with the Greens unlikely to exceed 2%. Any sign of a Boris surge will see such voters switching back to Labour.
Without a Corbyn commitment to EUref2 I doubt it
Defeating Boris would be likely to override that.
Many diehard Remainers now hold Corbyn in complete contempt and only held their noses to vote for him in 2017 as they thought he would try and stop Brexit or at least keep the UK in the single market. He has not and likely will not (as he wants to keep Labour Leave voters on board) so they will stick with the yellows, for them Corbyn and Boris are now as bad as each other
Enjoy the new jacket. A double warm feeling of both wearing it and knowing you're helping the homeless by doing so?
Well it's an utter disgrace that we have so many people in a country as rich as this who have no proper and secure place to live. I could not survive such a situation for long. I'd be dead in 6 months.
I confess I'm confused. The EU have said the WA won't be renegotiated and this has been confirmed by Leo Varadkar and others.
Yet the Conservative leadership candidates (well, some of them) seem convinced there is a re-negotiation to be had - someone is right and someone is wrong.
If the WA can't or isn't amended, is it any more likely to get through the Commons with Johnson as PM than it did with May as PM? I suppose it's conceivable more Conservatives will support it but if there is still no majority, what then?
Some seem to think, based on a couple of polls, that PM Johnson will call a snap GE, win a majority and then be able to do what he likes (agree the WA or leave without a WA) with the gratitude of his new legion of MPs and the country. Maybe, but wasn't that May's strategy and that ended well, didn't it?
In any case, Farage and TBP, who are leading most polls in case we've forgotten, aren't going to sit idly by and watch Johnson take their supporters. A GE would be Farage's opportunity to win his majority as well.
So will there be an election? Johnson won't go to the country unless he thinks he will win so if the polls don't move decisively, 31/10 heaves into view. Perhaps the EU will be tired of our lack of progress and basically throw us out without a WA and the UK Government will doubtless blame the Europeans for anything and everything that happens or doesn't happen.
The EU is not immune from posturing, but it would be an almighty climbdown to renegotiate now, so it seems less likely than the alternative hypothesis, that the leadership candidates are talking nonsense because they are not yet ready to admit no deal is to be the only opion if they won't pass the WA.
I think you're wrong about the going to the country - Johnson and co may not want to do it unless they think they can win, but several of them believe they will be annihilated if we don't leave by the end of October, so they simply cannot fathom extending. Therefore, a GE that is high risk now is preferable to extending and facing one soon anyway. They key would be whether BXP voters can be persuaded it is not the Tories' fault we do not leave in October, that PM BoJo would have achieved it if not for Labour and some traitors on his own side. No, it won't fool Farage nor lure back everyone else, but it might be enought to save quite a lot of Tory seats.
Thanks Alastair. This is interesting in that it's one benefit that is going to be denied to the much maligned baby boomer generation. You know, the one we're told repeatedly has had it all.
My dad (aged 73 in August) rightly points out that this is far worse for anyone who's been in receipt of the benefit than those like him (well, me actually as I pay it) who won't ever get it.
When are Millennials getting a free TV licence or university degrees?
Are you suggesting that they need free degrees? Free TV?
Not sure how they've earned anything just yet.
Never used to have to earn it - it was just given to you on a plate
I'm not sure that this is entirely true. I recall studying at least a little bit for my degree. Moreover I can unequivocally say that the credence to which my earning my degree has still to my ability in that subject is far higher than any such credence you might extend to recent graduates.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
@stodge surely both Farage and Johnson know that the greatest chance of Brexit happening is by avoiding a split pro Brexit vote?
Yes but there seems no appetite for a CON-TBP pact as witnessed by the Conservative members on here. I doubt Johnson could deliver such a thing.
The current numbers show TBP with every chance of supplanting the Conservatives as the main centre-right grouping (I doubt TBP is actually centre-right in all honesty) so this is an existential battle.
Oddly enough, I suspect IF TBP did really well its success would be transient and the Conservatives would be back in a few years. The much-discussed Canadian example saw the centre-right regroup rapidly after the 1993 debacle and 13 years later the Conservatives had recovered from 2 seats to 124 seats in the Canadian Parliament.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
I’m afraid I haven’t listened to Radio 4 in 20 years or more. I will draw a veil over what I actually do in bed.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
I’m afraid I haven’t listened to Radio 4 in 20 years or more. I will draw a veil over what I actually do in bed.
That is coming. If there is pre-Brexit general election Labour will be the party of Remain against the Conservatives offering Hard Brexit. Remain with Jeremy or No Deal with Johnson? It's going to be emotional. Can't call it.
I confess I'm confused. The EU have said the WA won't be renegotiated and this has been confirmed by Leo Varadkar and others.
Yet the Conservative leadership candidates (well, some of them) seem convinced there is a re-negotiation to be had - someone is right and someone is wrong.
If the WA can't or isn't amended, is it any more likely to get through the Commons with Johnson as PM than it did with May as PM? I suppose it's conceivable more Conservatives will support it but if there is still no majority, what then?
[snip for length]
... I keep coming back to the conundrum - if the WA isn't going to be negotiated according to the EU and assuming changing the PM doesn't make enough difference to the parliamentary arithmetic to get the WA through the Commons, what can or will change before October? We are back to either leaving without an agreed WA on 31/10, revoking A50 or seeking yet another extension. None of the Conservative leadership candidates seem able to resolve this credibly as far as I can see.
The headbangers' objection is not (always) to the WA itself but to the backstop. The WA is a 2-year transition agreement while a permanent deal is negotiated. The backstop kicks in only if no deal can be agreed in that time.
The obvious variant on May's WA is just to extend the transition period for another couple of years, ostensibly so that a technological solution to the Ireland border can be developed. If Boris or whoever so wished, this could be accompanied by removing Theresa May's red lines on FOM, which she plucked out of thin air.
The EU can agree to that. We can exit on halloween. Boris can win his snap election.
Then spend five years negotiating a permanent deal because even if we left tomorrow with no deal, we'd immediately have to start negotiating deals with the EU anyway, since Europe is not going away and we shan't be towing our island into the mid-Atlantic.
I think you're wrong about the going to the country - Johnson and co may not want to do it unless they think they can win, but several of them believe they will be annihilated if we don't leave by the end of October, so they simply cannot fathom extending. Therefore, a GE that is high risk now is preferable to extending and facing one soon anyway. They key would be whether BXP voters can be persuaded it is not the Tories' fault we do not leave in October, that PM BoJo would have achieved it if not for Labour and some traitors on his own side. No, it won't fool Farage nor lure back everyone else, but it might be enought to save quite a lot of Tory seats.
The ComRes poll from Tuesday has thrown the Conservatives a lifeline - choose Boris and win a landslide. The problem is that was supposed to happen with May and it didn't. As you say, rightly, they can opt for the "Cassidy & Sundance" approach and go out all guns blazing or die a slow, painful death as TBP eats them from the inside out (aided and abetted by the LDs, SNP and others).
The existential battle for the Conservatives soul will be engaged between Johnson and Farage - it's entirely possible Farage will win and I think Johnson's weakness is immigration - he was a strong supporter as London Mayor and particularly when dealing with the financial sector.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
I’m afraid I haven’t listened to Radio 4 in 20 years or more. I will draw a veil over what I actually do in bed.
Sounds kinky...
Alastair and partner playing with his ginger nuts .... biscuits of course, he doesn't like to share ....
I confess I'm confused. The EU have said the WA won't be renegotiated and this has been confirmed by Leo Varadkar and others.
Yet the Conservative leadership candidates (well, some of them) seem convinced there is a re-negotiation to be had - someone is right and someone is wrong.
If the WA can't or isn't amended, is it any more likely to get through the Commons with Johnson as PM than it did with May as PM? I suppose it's conceivable more Conservatives will support it but if there is still no majority, what then?
[snip for length]
... I keep coming back to the conundrum - if the WA isn't going to be negotiated according to the EU and assuming changing the PM doesn't make enough difference to the parliamentary arithmetic to get the WA through the Commons, what can or will change before October? We are back to either leaving without an agreed WA on 31/10, revoking A50 or seeking yet another extension. None of the Conservative leadership candidates seem able to resolve this credibly as far as I can see.
The headbangers' objection is not (always) to the WA itself but to the backstop. The WA is a 2-year transition agreement while a permanent deal is negotiated. The backstop kicks in only if no deal can be agreed in that time.
The obvious variant on May's WA is just to extend the transition period for another couple of years, ostensibly so that a technological solution to the Ireland border can be developed. If Boris or whoever so wished, this could be accompanied by removing Theresa May's red lines on FOM, which she plucked out of thin air.
The EU can agree to that. We can exit on halloween. Boris can win his snap election.
Then spend five years negotiating a permanent deal because even if we left tomorrow with no deal, we'd immediately have to start negotiating deals with the EU anyway, since Europe is not going away and we shan't be towing our island into the mid-Atlantic.
If were as simple as extending that we would be out by now. Even if it should be that simple clearly everyone has resisted it.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
I’m afraid I haven’t listened to Radio 4 in 20 years or more. I will draw a veil over what I actually do in bed.
Ssssh, don't say "veil" too near Borislamophobe Johnson.
On the one hand, an empty podium for Boris looks bad here. On the other hand it sort of looks like all the no-hopers having a knockout round to see who will ultimately get beaten by Boris anyway.
@stodge surely both Farage and Johnson know that the greatest chance of Brexit happening is by avoiding a split pro Brexit vote?
Yes but there seems no appetite for a CON-TBP pact as witnessed by the Conservative members on here. I doubt Johnson could deliver such a thing.
The current numbers show TBP with every chance of supplanting the Conservatives as the main centre-right grouping (I doubt TBP is actually centre-right in all honesty) so this is an existential battle.
Oddly enough, I suspect IF TBP did really well its success would be transient and the Conservatives would be back in a few years. The much-discussed Canadian example saw the centre-right regroup rapidly after the 1993 debacle and 13 years later the Conservatives had recovered from 2 seats to 124 seats in the Canadian Parliament.
Raab seems to have a weird grin stuck on his face. Hunt sounds least unreasonable so far. Gove sounds a bit weird. Rory the Tory needs to come in hard from behind.
Which is exactly why all the hustings should be organised by the party, not by the media companies. He wouldn’t have had the choice of whether to show up or not.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
Conversely I wouldn't know how to look for news on Facebook. I know how to find people's home pages and read about what Fred is up to. But news? Duh.
The headbangers' objection is not (always) to the WA itself but to the backstop. The WA is a 2-year transition agreement while a permanent deal is negotiated. The backstop kicks in only if no deal can be agreed in that time.
The obvious variant on May's WA is just to extend the transition period for another couple of years, ostensibly so that a technological solution to the Ireland border can be developed. If Boris or whoever so wished, this could be accompanied by removing Theresa May's red lines on FOM, which she plucked out of thin air.
The EU can agree to that. We can exit on halloween. Boris can win his snap election.
Then spend five years negotiating a permanent deal because even if we left tomorrow with no deal, we'd immediately have to start negotiating deals with the EU anyway, since Europe is not going away and we shan't be towing our island into the mid-Atlantic.
Some object however to the very principle of the backstop itself as somehow creating even the notion of a differential regulatory environment within the UK is anathema so it's symbolic and psychological as much as it is economic and technical.
We've heard next to nothing about the permanent deal either - what would the Conservatives or Labour indeed see as the main components of the political declaration and the future economic and political relationship with the EU?
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
I’m afraid I haven’t listened to Radio 4 in 20 years or more. I will draw a veil over what I actually do in bed.
Sounds kinky...
Alastair and partner playing with his ginger nuts .... biscuits of course, he doesn't like to share ....
I don't think the ICC will be recommending holding a cricket world cup in May / June in England again.
Today’s TV audience was supposed to be the biggest TV audience for any sporting event this year. Not sure many are still tuned in to this rain-soaked anticlimax.
Apparently the prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, instructed the captain of the cricket team to bat if they won the toss. The latter did win the toss, and decided to field.
Facebook, incidentally, is a very good place of getting news if you want to find out what gets the attention of people enough to talk proactively about it to their family and friends. It often informs what I choose to write about, as with today’s piece.
You mean you lie in bed reading facebook, and not listening to radio 4? Shame on you, sir.
I’m afraid I haven’t listened to Radio 4 in 20 years or more. I will draw a veil over what I actually do in bed.
Apparently the prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, instructed the captain of the cricket team to bat if they won the toss. The latter did win the toss, and decided to field.
The prime minister? What does he know about cric.......... Oh.
Imagine negotiating with your boss over pay and threatening to resign if they don't agree with all your demands, but with no other job offer in the pipeline. They call your bluff, and then you can't pay your mortgage.
But at least you showed them you were willing to walk away...
Comments
The Tories, I think, can have reasonable comfort in that if they elect a leader that manages to do the impossible of squaring the circle then they'll be fine. A plan, and if it works then good.
Labour are just in a weird place. It's like Momentum has failed to take its Viagra, but found that no-one noticed anyway.
1. Who is the diametric opposite to No Deal Boris - is the LibDems or is Labour?
2. How much - if any - tactical voting will there be? Will Labour-ites in the South East hold their noses and forget the coalition years to vote in a LibDem MP?
Not sure how they've earned anything just yet.
Next up, a protest against Apple: smash your iPhone!
I confess I'm confused. The EU have said the WA won't be renegotiated and this has been confirmed by Leo Varadkar and others.
Yet the Conservative leadership candidates (well, some of them) seem convinced there is a re-negotiation to be had - someone is right and someone is wrong.
If the WA can't or isn't amended, is it any more likely to get through the Commons with Johnson as PM than it did with May as PM? I suppose it's conceivable more Conservatives will support it but if there is still no majority, what then?
Some seem to think, based on a couple of polls, that PM Johnson will call a snap GE, win a majority and then be able to do what he likes (agree the WA or leave without a WA) with the gratitude of his new legion of MPs and the country. Maybe, but wasn't that May's strategy and that ended well, didn't it?
In any case, Farage and TBP, who are leading most polls in case we've forgotten, aren't going to sit idly by and watch Johnson take their supporters. A GE would be Farage's opportunity to win his majority as well.
So will there be an election? Johnson won't go to the country unless he thinks he will win so if the polls don't move decisively, 31/10 heaves into view. Perhaps the EU will be tired of our lack of progress and basically throw us out without a WA and the UK Government will doubtless blame the Europeans for anything and everything that happens or doesn't happen.
What if another extension (perhaps to 2022) is offered? I doubt the Conservatives would be enamoured of three more years swinging on the Brexit fish hook so Johnson basically rejects all that and we leave without a WA but having to own the consequences.
Johnson has the advantage that Corbyn wants a GE (or appears to). A shrewder LOTO would leave the Conservative PM on the hook until October - Labour are a long way from a majority and for all the insinuations of some of the Conservatives on here, there's no guarantee the LDs or SNP would prop up a Corbyn minority though I imagine the Conservatives would be happy to support a minority TBP Government.
None of this matters because I keep coming back to the conundrum - if the WA isn't going to be negotiated according to the EU and assuming changing the PM doesn't make enough difference to the parliamentary arithmetic to get the WA through the Commons, what can or will change before October? We are back to either leaving without an agreed WA on 31/10, revoking A50 or seeking yet another extension. None of the Conservative leadership candidates seem able to resolve this credibly as far as I can see.
*stares menacingly*
Only that was the Russian government.
I think you're wrong about the going to the country - Johnson and co may not want to do it unless they think they can win, but several of them believe they will be annihilated if we don't leave by the end of October, so they simply cannot fathom extending. Therefore, a GE that is high risk now is preferable to extending and facing one soon anyway. They key would be whether BXP voters can be persuaded it is not the Tories' fault we do not leave in October, that PM BoJo would have achieved it if not for Labour and some traitors on his own side. No, it won't fool Farage nor lure back everyone else, but it might be enought to save quite a lot of Tory seats.
The current numbers show TBP with every chance of supplanting the Conservatives as the main centre-right grouping (I doubt TBP is actually centre-right in all honesty) so this is an existential battle.
Oddly enough, I suspect IF TBP did really well its success would be transient and the Conservatives would be back in a few years. The much-discussed Canadian example saw the centre-right regroup rapidly after the 1993 debacle and 13 years later the Conservatives had recovered from 2 seats to 124 seats in the Canadian Parliament.
The BBC can’t afford to pay for all those over that age , they should blame the government for the decision.
The obvious variant on May's WA is just to extend the transition period for another couple of years, ostensibly so that a technological solution to the Ireland border can be developed. If Boris or whoever so wished, this could be accompanied by removing Theresa May's red lines on FOM, which she plucked out of thin air.
The EU can agree to that. We can exit on halloween. Boris can win his snap election.
Then spend five years negotiating a permanent deal because even if we left tomorrow with no deal, we'd immediately have to start negotiating deals with the EU anyway, since Europe is not going away and we shan't be towing our island into the mid-Atlantic.
The existential battle for the Conservatives soul will be engaged between Johnson and Farage - it's entirely possible Farage will win and I think Johnson's weakness is immigration - he was a strong supporter as London Mayor and particularly when dealing with the financial sector.
If even Fox thinks you hawkish on foreign policy...
We've heard next to nothing about the permanent deal either - what would the Conservatives or Labour indeed see as the main components of the political declaration and the future economic and political relationship with the EU?
Either make it subscription based or play adverts. There is plenty of choice available quite literally.
But at least you showed them you were willing to walk away...
I don't know whether he's coking with the pressure...
1. Stewart - Doing well
2. Javid - Ok plus
3. Gove - Trying too hard
4. Hunt - Anonymous
5. Raab - Bad first part.
It won’t be as funny as Roy Hattersley being replaced with a lump of lard.