If we leave with No Deal, the ERG will think they have played it perfectly. What will the MPs who voted Remain in 2016, pledged to respect the leave victory in their 2017 GE campaigns, then voted three times against Theresa May’s agreement with the EU thereafter console themselves with?
Welcome back I Sam
Hi Charles... an unwise move on my part in all likelihood
Lets not rule out this as clever, Trumpesque, base mobilising smoke screen. Nothing more. There’s only one action top of Boris to do list, whats the alternate plan for the backstop. The backstop is there to avoid a hard border across Ireland when UK and EU are operating different customs regimes. The hard border not only breaks treaties signed up to by the UK government, in practice it will become focal for protest, likely end up with British troops manning it. The previous PMs negotiation came up with this backstop, did not come up with an alternative even in face of mortal destruction. Boris governments official policy is not we don’t like the backstop so no backstop, the only honest policy or realistic negotiation is an alternative plan to be agreed with EU replacing proposed backstop, something Boris with customary oomph agreed to have settled in just 30 days last week, accepting it was up to Britain to provide a solution, and said he was "more than happy" with the "blistering timetable" Merkel had set out. So Boris, the EU heads of state and negotiators, the British people, the whole world is waiting to hear your plan for alternative backstop, your timetable is ticking down. If the opposition parties are smart they shouldn’t allow themselves to be distracted, this is the line they should keep the pressure up with. “why are you prevaricating day after day and chucking out Trumpesque chaff?” Where’s your backstop alternative?
Welcome to PB Mr Egg.
Your point is a good one... where is that backstop alternative Boris?
Where is that backstop alternative Boris?
Don’t let him get away with Trump style distractions.
Where is that backstop alternative Boris? Should be the only question in town.
Where it has always been.
It’s up to Britain to provide a solution. Where’s that alternative backstop Boris?
Parliament has repeated voted the WA including the backstop down
So Boris has told the EU it is unacceptable
If there is no alternative that can be developed - and it would be more sensible to approach this in a collaborative manner - then there is No Deal
There is an alternative - Labour Brexit. However 2 Tory PMs have been too pig-headed to accept this.
Sounds like most of the aggression is from the virtuous people trying to stop Brexit. Funny how often self-perceived virtue and violence go hand in fist
The protesters against Brexit have been too polite until now. You need to chuck a few bricks to get noticed, like the Gilet Jaune do.
WTF?
If you think violence is the answer then you are asking the wrong question
I still think highly of John Major! He was (and is) a man of the people and it probably goes a long way to explaining his achieving over 14 million votes in a GE for a single party in 1992.
At a trivial anecdote level, I remember his holding a door open for me for some time as I struggled with various piles of papers as a very green MP. He and Ruth Kelly stood out in my mind in the early days for their exceptional courtesy.
Crikey, I could not imagine some of the other office holders doing that!
I once held a door open for TM, when she was a shadow sec of state for something. It was only then I realised how tall she is for a female! Mind you I once burned a signed letter from TM a decade before she became PM! I did not like the substance and would be embarrassed if anyone ever saw it!
I always think Ruth Kelly has a seductive glint in her eye!
I've been listening to some of the squealing about Prorogation today and am frankly underwhelmed. Johnson is only extending the usual party conference break by a few days. MPs still have ample time to act against him if they are serious.
The real issue is that they are not serious. They're dithering, just like they have been for the last three-and-a-bit years. The mock outrage from the Remain-leaning majority in the Commons has nothing to do with the violation of constitutional proprieties and everything to do with the fact that they're being squeezed into a corner from which it is less likely that they will be able to escape this time.
What they are after is an extension to A50, so that they can continue their endless and futile "debate" over which mechanism they should use to attempt to stop Brexit altogether (which is clearly the ultimate aim,) whilst forever putting off the day on which they actually have to throw the 2016 referendum result in the dustbin and face the consequences of that decision. However, Boris Johnson will never accede to this willingly, and in fact it is hard to see how they can legislate effectively to prevent his carrying on regardless. An Act of Parliament altering the Brexit date is wholly useless without a pliant executive willing both to go to Brussels and ask for an extension, and to revoke if one is not forthcoming. How Parliamentarians mean to force Boris Johnson to do this against his will goodness only knows.
No, what this will hopefully do is to force the Brexit endgame - because the most obvious and effective route (indeed, possibly the only viable route) left open to the Commons to stop Boris Johnson's plan is to VONC him and put Jeremy Corbyn into bat. The Leader of the Opposition has neither inclination nor incentive to accede to the appointment of a grandee like Ken Clarke to act as caretaker, without Corbyn's support no other alternative PM can plausibly be installed, and if MPs turf out Johnson but fail to find a replacement then Dissolution will follow and it's all over. Were Corbyn to be installed they could then pack him off to the European Council to ask for an extension, with some prospect of success (quite likely at the cost of a promise to hold a Deal versus Remain referendum.)
If both the hardcore Tory pro-EU rebels and the Corbynsceptic Remainers on the Opposition benches are all as serious about the catastrophic effects of No Deal as they claim to be, then they will weigh No Deal against Corbyn in No.10, conclude that the latter is the lesser of two evils, and at least tolerable for a short period whilst they get their extension and either work out what the Hell to do next or have terms dictated to them by the European Council, and do the necessary.
My guess is that they aren't, that Boris Johnson will therefore stay in place as Acting PM even if No Confidenced, and so we will be leaving on schedule on October 31st.
Comments
The EU has spent the last 9 months insisting that something which Parliament has overwhelmingly rejected call ups not be changed
With a bit of flexibility may be a solution could have been found
Basically they overplayed their hand
If you think violence is the answer then you are asking the wrong question
I once held a door open for TM, when she was a shadow sec of state for something. It was only then I realised how tall she is for a female! Mind you I once burned a signed letter from TM a decade before she became PM! I did not like the substance and would be embarrassed if anyone ever saw it!
I always think Ruth Kelly has a seductive glint in her eye!
The real issue is that they are not serious. They're dithering, just like they have been for the last three-and-a-bit years. The mock outrage from the Remain-leaning majority in the Commons has nothing to do with the violation of constitutional proprieties and everything to do with the fact that they're being squeezed into a corner from which it is less likely that they will be able to escape this time.
What they are after is an extension to A50, so that they can continue their endless and futile "debate" over which mechanism they should use to attempt to stop Brexit altogether (which is clearly the ultimate aim,) whilst forever putting off the day on which they actually have to throw the 2016 referendum result in the dustbin and face the consequences of that decision. However, Boris Johnson will never accede to this willingly, and in fact it is hard to see how they can legislate effectively to prevent his carrying on regardless. An Act of Parliament altering the Brexit date is wholly useless without a pliant executive willing both to go to Brussels and ask for an extension, and to revoke if one is not forthcoming. How Parliamentarians mean to force Boris Johnson to do this against his will goodness only knows.
No, what this will hopefully do is to force the Brexit endgame - because the most obvious and effective route (indeed, possibly the only viable route) left open to the Commons to stop Boris Johnson's plan is to VONC him and put Jeremy Corbyn into bat. The Leader of the Opposition has neither inclination nor incentive to accede to the appointment of a grandee like Ken Clarke to act as caretaker, without Corbyn's support no other alternative PM can plausibly be installed, and if MPs turf out Johnson but fail to find a replacement then Dissolution will follow and it's all over. Were Corbyn to be installed they could then pack him off to the European Council to ask for an extension, with some prospect of success (quite likely at the cost of a promise to hold a Deal versus Remain referendum.)
If both the hardcore Tory pro-EU rebels and the Corbynsceptic Remainers on the Opposition benches are all as serious about the catastrophic effects of No Deal as they claim to be, then they will weigh No Deal against Corbyn in No.10, conclude that the latter is the lesser of two evils, and at least tolerable for a short period whilst they get their extension and either work out what the Hell to do next or have terms dictated to them by the European Council, and do the necessary.
My guess is that they aren't, that Boris Johnson will therefore stay in place as Acting PM even if No Confidenced, and so we will be leaving on schedule on October 31st.