I think there is a chance of a deal with Swinson here - if the LDs swallow their objection to Corbyn as temporary PM of a government supported by all the opposition parties he will offer a second referendum.
If he does that and Remain wins he will lose Labour Leavers for good and Boris or Farage could win an SNP 2015 style landslide at the next general election.
If Leave win we are back to square 1 again
We have read a lot of this nonsense from you lately. Remember you wrote the Queen will not give assent to the Benn bill on Johnson's advice. We are still waiting.
I didn't, I said Boris could ask the Queen to refuse royal assent as a last resort not that he would.
In any case as I said last night Boris will simply refuse to go to Brussels as PM to ask for an extension Royal Assent or not and as Peston reported challenge the Commons to impeach him first.
Otherwise he could resign and force Corbyn to be Neville Chamberlain with all the consequences that will have for him in Labour Leave seats
I think there is a chance of a deal with Swinson here - if the LDs swallow their objection to Corbyn as temporary PM of a government supported by all the opposition parties he will offer a second referendum.
Except that the balance of power in Parliament is now held by the independents, and nearly all of them are deeply hostile to Corbyn. The TIGs pretty much exist because of opposition to Corbyn, figures like Field and Woodcock aren't going to put him in power, neither is Lady Hermon, and then we also have to ask how many of the whipless Tories are going to set aside a lifetime of convictions and give assent to a krypto-communist PM. We've clearly not heard from all of them on this matter yet, but I distinctly recall Spreadsheet Phil, for one, saying that he would rather boil his own head than vote confidence in Corbyn. Letwin has also said he'd contemplate no confidencing Johnson but not voting for Corbyn.
Excluding the Deputy Speakers, Lab + SNP + LD + Plaid + Green = 301 MPs. Corbyn needs 320 to guarantee winning a VONC. Where do the 19 independents prepared to back him come from? I don't see it happening.
If Johnson resigns and puts Corbyn into bat, then he can VONC Corbyn immediately and be almost guaranteed of success. That's how he gets out of asking for the A50 extension, and can force a GE into the bargain.
Not a tactic without risk (it legitimises Corbyn as PM and could invoke a “give him a go” mentality) but probably his best bet is to resign now and let events take their turn. I don’t think he gains anything from hanging around being hamstrung.
The risk is that Corbyn doesn’t call an election after extending, but another referendum. With whipped Labour votes and the support of the SNP and Lib Dems he might just get that through. If remain won that vote, it would neutralise the Tories biggest card for at least a little while and might make them less appealing in an election.
EDIT 2: I think he should give a VONC a go on Monday though.
The referendum is off the table this side of a general election, assuming that I'm correct and Corbyn would be successfully no confidenced immediately after entering office. Dissolution would be guaranteed following the 14-day pantomime.
I'm not sure that the Government calling a VONC in itself is a good idea. It would look ridiculous, and it wouldn't work. A straightforward resignation would be more dignified.
I think there is a chance of a deal with Swinson here - if the LDs swallow their objection to Corbyn as temporary PM of a government supported by all the opposition parties he will offer a second referendum.
And what on earth would the question be?
I've got an idea.
Do you want to Remain in the EU?
Or
Do you want to Remain in the EU?
And why not put in a "triple lock" so that anyone north of the M25 to Hardians Wall can't vote. Anyone over 50 can't vote. And anyone under an IQ under 120 can't vote (IQ tests would have to be enforced at the polling station of course)
In both cases silly, they should let the kids wear skirts and shorts. But a front in the culture war? Not seeing it.
There are some people trying to make this culture war thing a reality. Be very wary of them. They are the same people peddling fake stories about immigrant rapists, the same people peddling conspiracy theories about white people being replaced, the same people who abuse people with words like "cucks". When you see "culture war" there will usually be an thread running through it to do with sex, sexual morality, and decadence. To a large extent they don't really care about the issues themselves, they are mostly interested in "triggering" people, because it drives traffic to certain outlets and certain "thinkers" where they can sell the real message, which is about the dissolution of civil structures and the rule of law.
An interesting non-psychosexual variant was present in recent years where Facebook groups were set up to generate protests and counter protests piggybacking on the the "black lives matter" campaign. These protests and counter-protests, in places like Baltimore and Ferguson were timed and designed to create conflict, and turned out BOTH to have been instigated by the Russian state (Facebook confirmed this a while ago).
The idea is twofold: to weaken the west's geopolitical strength by creating disunity (boy has that worked), and to delegitimise the concept of liberal, rights-based democracy in order to fend off pro-democracy movements in Russia and its neighbours. Putin is a fascist, and we all know that fascism and democracy cannot survive side by side. The presence of one harms the legitimacy of the other. Hence the overt Russian support for far-right politicians throughout the west.
There's a lot of great material out there by a historian called Timothy Snyder. The important thing to note is that these propaganda campaigns, although inspired by a fascist leader, have targeted and successfully duped people on both the right and left, and its goal is not about rival economic worldviews, but about the survival of liberal democracy and the rule of law.
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
If so, can't Boris just say "this act says I need to request an extension for the purposes of implementing the previous Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement, but requires me to send a letter to the European Council that makes no reference to that agreement or the intent at all."
Indeed, the original amendment made reference to another amendment containing the relevant text for the letter, so wouldn't that mean the unamended letter is not sufficient to deliver on what was amendment 6?
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Oh the outrage, the humanity, he used the phrase girly! The woke generation are screaming to the sky and weeping wounded tears at the horrors of it all It really didn't require an intervention Jo, fauxrage is not a vote winner
The woke generation are also locking girls out of school and calling the police on them because they want to wear skirts.
Putinist klaxon. The aim here -- which you /appear/ to be buying into -- is to portray a fascist politics as a politics of innocence, by stoking psychosexual fears in the general population. In Russia, the process is mediated through the image of western politics being inherently homosexual, but since homophobia is dying in the west, different targets are chosen. So a mixture of the "great replacement" nonsense that Orban was rambling on about has been doing the rounds the last few years, and now we're moving onto the kind of stuff you're bringing up.
It's Bannonist shite, designed to turn people to the path of fear and hatred, and to smuggle in a fascist ideology. See also Putin, Zaldostanov, Bannon, Manafort.
Wokes are a bunch of fannies, they need to get a life with all this gender neutral crap. Is it any wonder the country is fecked.
I'm not going to agree or disagree with you, but you're spectacularly missing the big picture. We're all meant to be hating each other over this issue. Wings Over Scotland and Katie Hopkins are working to exactly the same goal, whether they realise it or not. I'm not taking part in it.
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
So if Johnson resigns it's an election, because who else is HMQ sending for? The Tories are out because theyve just told HMQ they can't command confidence. If Boris goes to HMQ and says he cannot command the confidence of the house and does not anticipate he could pass a QS, she will have little option but to dissolve parliament, and they will need to find a legal way to do that because of Camerons wretched FTPA
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
Boris can give him 10 minutes then, then VONC him.
Maybe then VONC him again 20 minutes later, after the pathetic games Corbyn has played with the Withdrawal Agreement over the last few months it is time for the Tories to get their revenge
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
There’s nothing in the constitution that suggests that there needs to be a “bedding in” time before a government can be VONC’d.
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
Is there anything in statute to prevent Johnson from acting in this fashion? (That's a genuine question, not me being difficult for the sake of it.) If not, there's no reason to suppose that he wouldn't give it a go. Conventions and other niceties being set aside for the sake of political convenience seems to be par for the course nowadays.
When the Government comes back from being prorogued for the Queen's Speech on the 14th October, there is then a period of debate of that Queen's Speech. Anyone know - can a VONC be heard in that period during which the speech is being debated? Or does the Queen's speech take priority over all other business?
Isn’t the vote on the Queens Speech effectively a VONC anyway?
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They have the time to get it through next week but Labour are going to turn down all chances of a general election whatever the aveneue because they are terrified of losing.
I have lots of good betting positions but one I don't like is short Corbyn next PM at an average 4.3.
Wish I hadn't done that. Was thinking virtually no chance of him being 'put in' without troubling the voters but not so sure about that now.
Still don't really see it but gosh - imagine.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Corbyn is like having a flop of 7h 8d 9s and holding a pair of 5s right now. The hand might be good enough outright but you can also hit the IESD of him being put into post without an election.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
When the Government comes back from being prorogued for the Queen's Speech on the 14th October, there is then a period of debate of that Queen's Speech. Anyone know - can a VONC be heard in that period during which the speech is being debated? Or does the Queen's speech take priority over all other business?
Isn’t the vote on the Queens Speech effectively a VONC anyway?
Not any more because of the Cameron Clegg FTPA stitch up. Its unclear but it would have serious consequences not least grossly embarrassing the head of state
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
FWIW these are fundamentally different cases.
The Birmingham school protests were a case of rampant bigotry. The Lewes school protests are a case of dissent against (what the complainants allege to be) petty and unnecessary rules.
One's a serious human rights case. The other's just handbags.
The Venn diagram of “leave minded voters Boris wants” and “people who have an issue with those phrases” is two entirely separate circles.
It may be he’s aiming for a far too narrow coalition (I think that’s possible) but based on his strategy, this won’t worry him.
I’m not sure that is true. I’m coming across quite a few elderly women Leavers who really dislike his boorishness and lack of professionalism.
A lot of older moderates don't like Boris.
There is quite a population of older Tories who are one nation moderates, including many leavers. In my patch the marginalising of Rory Stewart will not go down well with quite a number, nationally Kenneth Clarke is respected by a lot of older voters. The complicating and under explored issue is that the referendum result by definition split the moderate centre ground vote - the very people who are centre ground Tory and Labour. Because it was 16m v 17m votes it is not moderates v extremists. It is moderates v moderates. There are not enough extremists to go round. Which is why polarising around this issue, creating caricatures, is so dangerous and TMs deal is the most reconciling possibility available.
When the Government comes back from being prorogued for the Queen's Speech on the 14th October, there is then a period of debate of that Queen's Speech. Anyone know - can a VONC be heard in that period during which the speech is being debated? Or does the Queen's speech take priority over all other business?
Isn’t the vote on the Queens Speech effectively a VONC anyway?
But if he VONCs himself on Monday and it gets through and Jezza takes over surely he will have his own Queens speech which i would imagine would be a lot different to BJs
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
If Johnson resigns then in all probability Corbyn becomes PM after being invited to form a government. No need for confidence votes etc, yes he could be subsequently no confidenced but would remain PM unless someone else could demonstrate confidence.
Hmm so a convo between Boz and Liz goes 'ma'am I cannot get your speech through parliament I must resign my government' 'Who shall I send for?' 'I do not think anybody can get a QS through, parliament is too divided, mr Corbyn would need to show you that he could otherwise an election is required and your majesty would need to convince parliament of the need to agree dissolution, perhaps an audience with the party leaders might help here?'
The Venn diagram of “leave minded voters Boris wants” and “people who have an issue with those phrases” is two entirely separate circles.
It may be he’s aiming for a far too narrow coalition (I think that’s possible) but based on his strategy, this won’t worry him.
I’m not sure that is true. I’m coming across quite a few elderly women Leavers who really dislike his boorishness and lack of professionalism.
A lot of older moderates don't like Boris.
There is quite a population of older Tories who are one nation moderates, including many leavers. In my patch the marginalising of Rory Stewart will not go down well with quite a number, nationally Kenneth Clarke is respected by a lot of older voters. The complicating and under explored issue is that the referendum result by definition split the moderate centre ground vote - the very people who are centre ground Tory and Labour. Because it was 16m v 17m votes it is not moderates v extremists. It is moderates v moderates. There are not enough extremists to go round. Which is why polarising around this issue, creating caricatures, is so dangerous and TMs deal is the most reconciling possibility available.
You cannot characterise those who would countenance a return to violence in Northern Ireland, Scotland going independent and significant damage to the British economy for Brexit as moderates. Yet those are majority positions among Leavers.
On one reading this could be true. However, the idea that there are say 8 million + 'extremists' in the UK is not plausible. One should be careful not to read data in such a way as to end with impossible conclusions. I suspect that what happens is that pollsters give people options of which they want neither - perhaps Remain and Violence in NI - and require them to choose between them, when what they actually want is both Leave and Non Violence in NI.
Would Remainers be prepared to say that they would choose 'Leave Without a Deal' ahead of 'Fascist Anti EU Violence'? False choice.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
A Nick Soames anecdote which shows I'm not sure what, except that he's an amiable bloke. One of the weirder requests I had as an MP was for two tickets to an exclusive enclosure at Ascot - the constituent said his wife had never been and it would be an experience of a lifetime for her, as a birthday present. I've never gone there and had no interest in going, and scratched my head about who to ask.
Eventually I thought that maybe Soames might know someone. We'd only exchanged a few words before, and I doubt if he knew who I was except some random Labour MP. But he obliged immediately, and I gather my constituents had a lovely day.
How did they vote? No idea.
By the way, I plan to go to day 1 of this with one or two friends:
Why do people think Jeremy will allow himself to be 'put in' simply to 'extend' and then be ejected before he's even got his bearings?
He's not a pushover just because he doesn't go around giving it the big 'I am' all the time.
Do not underestimate Jeremy Corbyn. He's the leader of the Labour Party.
You ruined it with your last sentence!
By any reasonable definition he's a nutter, but somehow the youth of our country have embraced nutter-ism. They can't defend their views, and from what I can tell they should be more LD or Green supporting than Labour given what they say. Nonetheless they'll line up behind Corbyn, much like the police-cadets behind Boris, but they'll do so of their own choice.
Given what the young are actually saying then they should clearly be voting LD. When their schoolwork is corrected for obvious errors then it's Tory all the way of course.
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Why do people think Jeremy will allow himself to be 'put in' simply to 'extend' and then be ejected before he's even got his bearings?
He's not a pushover just because he doesn't go around giving it the big 'I am' all the time.
Do not underestimate Jeremy Corbyn. He's the leader of the Labour Party.
I suppose it's conceivable that he could be called and decline to serve. Does anyone know what happens in that case? If the Prime Minister resigns and the Leader of the Opposition turns down the invitation to take his place, what happens next? The country needs a Government, simply to deal with day-to-day administration and the response to emergencies. Presumably the departing Prime Minister can't be escorted back to Downing Street at gunpoint and made to stay put against his will?
Does the Queen run the show herself until after the election? Does she also have to decide to dissolve Parliament and nominate an election date herself, or would the FTPA prevent this?
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
Hmm so a convo between Boz and Liz goes 'ma'am I cannot get your speech through parliament I must resign my government' 'Who shall I send for?' 'I do not think anybody can get a QS through, parliament is too divided, mr Corbyn would need to show you that he could otherwise an election is required and your majesty would need to convince parliament of the need to agree dissolution, perhaps an audience with the party leaders might help here?'
Not enough er, er, er, ums in there for that to be a plausible conversation.
The Venn diagram of “leave minded voters Boris wants” and “people who have an issue with those phrases” is two entirely separate circles.
It may be he’s aiming for a far too narrow coalition (I think that’s possible) but based on his strategy, this won’t worry him.
I’m not sure that is true. I’m coming across quite a few elderly women Leavers who really dislike his boorishness and lack of professionalism.
A lot of older moderates don't like Boris.
There is quite a population of older Tories who are one nation moderates, including many leavers. In my patch the marginalising of Rory Stewart will not go down well with quite a number, nationally Kenneth Clarke is respected by a lot of older voters. The complicating and under explored issue is that the referendum result by definition split the moderate centre ground vote - the very people who are centre ground Tory and Labour. Because it was 16m v 17m votes it is not moderates v extremists. It is moderates v moderates. There are not enough extremists to go round. Which is why polarising around this issue, creating caricatures, is so dangerous and TMs deal is the most reconciling possibility available.
You cannot characterise those who would countenance a return to violence in Northern Ireland, Scotland going independent and significant damage to the British economy for Brexit as moderates. Yet those are majority positions among Leavers.
On one reading this could be true. However, the idea that there are say 8 million + 'extremists' in the UK is not plausible. One should be careful not to read data in such a way as to end with impossible conclusions. I suspect that what happens is that pollsters give people options of which they want neither - perhaps Remain and Violence in NI - and require them to choose between them, when what they actually want is both Leave and Non Violence in NI.
Would Remainers be prepared to say that they would choose 'Leave Without a Deal' ahead of 'Fascist Anti EU Violence'? False choice.
Except the hypothesis you gave us fanciful and the three polled on are eminently plausible.
Surely the issue of if a VONC will get through will be decided by this weekends polls. If the Tories are down 6 or 7 and lab are up 4 and lds up 3 surely Jezza and his band wont be able to resist
Why do people think Jeremy will allow himself to be 'put in' simply to 'extend' and then be ejected before he's even got his bearings?
He's not a pushover just because he doesn't go around giving it the big 'I am' all the time.
Do not underestimate Jeremy Corbyn. He's the leader of the Labour Party.
Indeed.
Jezza will still be PM on 1st April if he's PM on 1st November. I've no doubt about that.
Surely he'll lose a vote of confidence before then.
We don't "do" winter elections in this country.
And the Lib-Dems will keep him going in return for the cancellation of Brexit as will the former Con MPs while the SNP will keep him going in return for a Scottish referendum.
Whether in the end he would ever actually honour those commitments is another matter but he'll make the right noises for long enough to get his feet well and truly under the table.
The Venn diagram of “leave minded voters Boris wants” and “people who have an issue with those phrases” is two entirely separate circles.
It may be he’s aiming for a far too narrow coalition (I think that’s possible) but based on his strategy, this won’t worry him.
I’m not sure that is true. I’m coming across quite a few elderly women Leavers who really dislike his boorishness and lack of professionalism.
A lot of older moderates don't like Boris.
There is quite a population of older Tories who are one nation moderates, including many leavers. In my patch the marginalising of Rory Stewart will not go down well with quite a number, nationally Kenneth Clarke is respected by a lot of older voters. The complicating and under explored issue is that the referendum result by definition split the moderate centre ground vote - the very people who are centre ground Tory and Labour. Because it was 16m v 17m votes it is not moderates v extremists. It is moderates v moderates. There are not enough extremists to go round. Which is why polarising around this issue, creating caricatures, is so dangerous and TMs deal is the most reconciling possibility available.
You cannot characterise those who would countenance a return to violence in Northern Ireland, Scotland going independent and significant damage to the British economy for Brexit as moderates. Yet those are majority positions among Leavers.
On one reading this could be true. However, the idea that there are say 8 million + 'extremists' in the UK is not plausible. One should be careful not to read data in such a way as to end with impossible conclusions. I suspect that what happens is that pollsters give people options of which they want neither - perhaps Remain and Violence in NI - and require them to choose between them, when what they actually want is both Leave and Non Violence in NI.
Would Remainers be prepared to say that they would choose 'Leave Without a Deal' ahead of 'Fascist Anti EU Violence'? False choice.
Except the hypothesis you gave us fanciful and the three polled on are eminently plausible.
You may of course be right - though I am not sure. It is still the case that there aren't enough extremists in this country to go round. Lots of people may be silly, and give daft answers to questions, but they vote for democratic politicians, oppose violence, and on all sides love their country. A country full of political extremists would look very different from this one.
Why do people think Jeremy will allow himself to be 'put in' simply to 'extend' and then be ejected before he's even got his bearings?
He's not a pushover just because he doesn't go around giving it the big 'I am' all the time.
Do not underestimate Jeremy Corbyn. He's the leader of the Labour Party.
Indeed.
Jezza will still be PM on 1st April if he's PM on 1st November. I've no doubt about that.
Surely he'll lose a vote of confidence before then.
We don't "do" winter elections in this country.
And the Lib-Dems will keep him going in return for the cancellation of Brexit while the SNP will keep him going in return for a Scottish referendum.
Whether in the end he would ever actually honour those commitments is another matter but he'll make the right noises for long enough to get his feet well and turly under the table.
While the Tories and Boris just need to wait as their poll lead rises to 20%+ if we have Corbyn as PM betraying the Leave vote propped up by the LDs and SNP
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Ideally Boris gets the EU to agree a technical solution for the Irish border to replace the backstop and then passes the Withdrawal Agreement. If not he will not extend
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
A vendor of question marks might make a killing in these times.
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Ideally Boris gets the EU to agree a technical solution for the Irish border to replace the backstop and then passes the Withdrawal Agreement. If not he will not extend
Whatever happens the 21 Tory rebels can end their careers with their heads held high .
I’ve never voted Tory but those 21 MPs when push came to shove did the right thing for their country .
The bizarre thing about Brexit , although it’s divided the country it’s actually led to some unlikely friendships in the Commons .
They've always been normal, often sparked by joint Select Committee work or other joint activity - it's said that Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn became personal friends after they'd been to umpteen hustings together. In general MPs get on better than you might think anyway.
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
FWIW these are fundamentally different cases.
The Birmingham school protests were a case of rampant bigotry. The Lewes school protests are a case of dissent against (what the complainants allege to be) petty and unnecessary rules.
One's a serious human rights case. The other's just handbags.
I get your point. However, if they're protesting about them, then they evidently don't see them as petty (i.e. trivial). And I daresay the protesters in Birmingham also see the rules that mean that differing lifestyles need teaching to children (*) are unnecessary and wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if rampant bigotry was behind some of the Lewes protests as well.
Having said all that, I do wonder if such rules actually help or hinder the children at the school who are transgender, however well-meaning the rules are meant to be. It'd be interesting to know if they were even asked about this before the rule for new pupils was introduced two years ago.
Say we get a Labour minority government with some kind of arrangement with Lib Dems, SNP and remain/soft Brexit inclined Conservatives/Independents not to vote it out while it seeks an extension (this is without a general election). Say the EU says to Corbyn: why don't you extend to the summer, we will negotiate a soft Brexit deal and then you guys can put it to a vote in a referendum versus Remain. Wouldn't all parts of that government be quite happy with that arrangement? Corbyn gets to prove the world doesn't end when he is PM. The Lib Dems and SNP get their referendum. Soft Brexit Tories get to rule out No Deal. And the public gets closure, at least once the referendum is out of the way in June 2020. Then we have an election in the Autumn of 2020. The Tories and BXP can stand on a platform of another referendum (leave "properly" vs whatever won the 2020 referendum) if they want to.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
A Nick Soames anecdote which shows I'm not sure what, except that he's an amiable bloke. One of the weirder requests I had as an MP was for two tickets to an exclusive enclosure at Ascot - the constituent said his wife had never been and it would be an experience of a lifetime for her, as a birthday present. I've never gone there and had no interest in going, and scratched my head about who to ask.
Eventually I thought that maybe Soames might know someone. We'd only exchanged a few words before, and I doubt if he knew who I was except some random Labour MP. But he obliged immediately, and I gather my constituents had a lovely day.
How did they vote? No idea.
By the way, I plan to go to day 1 of this with one or two friends:
He was less amiable about the several hundred requests to view the mahogany balustrade he was claiming tax relief on on the basis it was available for public viewing, but it did make him decide he would pay the tax like everyone else has to instead so he didn't have to actually allow people to view it. Mark Thomas remarked he was the only person in public life he had met with no redeeming features whatsoever, a pantomime bad guy. But, there ya go, different strokes for different folks. Some people think Boz is a lovely fella, what can you do? It's the beatification of people when they are agin your nemesis I find strange. Soames was a very average backbench politician of no great career renown who may or may not be a top fella based on your experience of him.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
Well that’s fine, but they’ll have to admit that.
Personally I see little point in the government putting forward a 2/3rds majority motion on Monday, they might try their luck with a simple majority instead. It at least forces people to actually vote against it to prevent it from passing, as opposed to abstaining.
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
You big girls blouse ....
As an aside, Quentin Crisp attended my old school, and my best friend got suspended for nicking clothes from a girls' boarding house.
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Hes got a problem though. Liz will ask him during prorogation if her QS will get through parliament. If he is truthful she would suggest he consider his position. If he lies she will sack him on the 19th. To meme it One does not simply ask the queen to deliver a speech that will be voted down
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Hmm so a convo between Boz and Liz goes 'ma'am I cannot get your speech through parliament I must resign my government' 'Who shall I send for?' 'I do not think anybody can get a QS through, parliament is too divided, mr Corbyn would need to show you that he could otherwise an election is required and your majesty would need to convince parliament of the need to agree dissolution, perhaps an audience with the party leaders might help here?'
The prime minister asking the Queen to persuade the opposition leaders to vote for an election?
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
Well that’s fine, but they’ll have to admit that.
Personally I see little point in the government putting forward a 2/3rds majority motion on Monday, they might try their luck with a simple majority instead. It at least forces people to actually vote against it to prevent it from passing, as opposed to abstaining.
I think that is the plan. However, on reflection, expelling 21 may have been a boo boo if you want a simple majority.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Amazingly enough, I never mentioned polls. The very opposite in fact.
Oh the outrage, the humanity, he used the phrase girly! The woke generation are screaming to the sky and weeping wounded tears at the horrors of it all It really didn't require an intervention Jo, fauxrage is not a vote winner
The woke generation are also locking girls out of school and calling the police on them because they want to wear skirts.
Putinist klaxon. The aim here -- which you /appear/ to be buying into -- is to portray a fascist politics as a politics of innocence, by stoking psychosexual fears in the general population. In Russia, the process is mediated through the image of western politics being inherently homosexual, but since homophobia is dying in the west, different targets are chosen. So a mixture of the "great replacement" nonsense that Orban was rambling on about has been doing the rounds the last few years, and now we're moving onto the kind of stuff you're bringing up.
It's Bannonist shite, designed to turn people to the path of fear and hatred, and to smuggle in a fascist ideology. See also Putin, Zaldostanov, Bannon, Manafort.
There's lots of (paranoid) words there, but no addressing of the issue.
Why can't these girls wear skirts in school? Politically correct dogma. Simple as that.
I think the idea is to prevent boys who identify as girls wearing skirts. Far from being woke, these rules are designed to marginalise trans children.
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
A vendor of question marks might make a killing in these times.
Should merchants who deal in imported versions of the question mark be stockpiling to guard against a hard brexit¿¿¿¿¿
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
Only if they are knee-length or longer. Men in short skirts are disadvantaged by their anatomy.
Say we get a Labour minority government with some kind of arrangement with Lib Dems, SNP and remain/soft Brexit inclined Conservatives/Independents not to vote it out while it seeks an extension (this is without a general election). Say the EU says to Corbyn: why don't you extend to the summer, we will negotiate a soft Brexit deal and then you guys can put it to a vote in a referendum versus Remain. Wouldn't all parts of that government be quite happy with that arrangement? Corbyn gets to prove the world doesn't end when he is PM. The Lib Dems and SNP get their referendum. Soft Brexit Tories get to rule out No Deal. And the public gets closure, at least once the referendum is out of the way in June 2020. Then we have an election in the Autumn of 2020. The Tories and BXP can stand on a platform of another referendum (leave "properly" vs whatever won the 2020 referendum) if they want to.
I doubt a lot of Labour MPs from Leave seats would vote for another referendum nor would most Tories and the DUP so it would likely be voted down
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
Well that’s fine, but they’ll have to admit that.
Personally I see little point in the government putting forward a 2/3rds majority motion on Monday, they might try their luck with a simple majority instead. It at least forces people to actually vote against it to prevent it from passing, as opposed to abstaining.
Because the papers next day will be full of Corbyn is frit, etc, etc. Then all the Tory spokes people will be on the airwaves saying we want to increase spending on education, 20,000 more police officers, teachers pay up and all Corbyn wants to do is play games and give the EU 1 billion a month.
Hmm so a convo between Boz and Liz goes 'ma'am I cannot get your speech through parliament I must resign my government' 'Who shall I send for?' 'I do not think anybody can get a QS through, parliament is too divided, mr Corbyn would need to show you that he could otherwise an election is required and your majesty would need to convince parliament of the need to agree dissolution, perhaps an audience with the party leaders might help here?'
The prime minister asking the Queen to persuade the opposition leaders to vote for an election?
"Flight of fancy" is far too mild a description!
Although this Monarch had tended not to get involved, past Monarchs were much more "hands on" in previous crisis, for example the 1909 to 1911 People's Budet crisis and the fomation of the National government in 1931.
I don't think there's been a crisis as severe as this in HMQs reign but it seems unlikely she would intervene in this way.
Hmm so a convo between Boz and Liz goes 'ma'am I cannot get your speech through parliament I must resign my government' 'Who shall I send for?' 'I do not think anybody can get a QS through, parliament is too divided, mr Corbyn would need to show you that he could otherwise an election is required and your majesty would need to convince parliament of the need to agree dissolution, perhaps an audience with the party leaders might help here?'
The prime minister asking the Queen to persuade the opposition leaders to vote for an election?
"Flight of fancy" is far too mild a description!
I see then what else will he advise her? Her prerogative powers were savaged by Cameron but the process carries on as if she still had them. His advice to her would have to be 'if Corbyn can get a coalition together he might get a QS through, if not elections would be required but you can't dissolve parliament Its not good enough, shed have to intervene even if its laying out the exact position and consequences from the monarchs standpoint and leaving them to agree how to break the impasse
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Hes got a problem though. Liz will ask him during prorogation if her QS will get through parliament. If he is truthful she would suggest he consider his position. If he lies she will sack him on the 19th. To meme it One does not simply ask the queen to deliver a speech that will be voted down
I do not see him being sacked before the 19th October and HMQ cannot just sack him unless he has lost a vonc. Neither will she sack him on the 19th.
He will be subject to an immediate vonc and if the HOC can demonstrate someone else has the confidence of the house she will send for that person
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Yes although not dramatic but I think maybe the real Conservative party is burning whilst you purge the impure mps unwilling to sign the no deal oath to be able to stand at the next election. If you want to support TBP policies then vote TBP there is no need to turn the tories into TBP lite. You will regret telling your foot soldiers to piss off and join the lib dems in the longbrun
Convention is VONC leads to a General Election. FTPA just adds a 14 day cooling off period to that.
I refer you to the relevant para of the Government Cabinet Manual :
"Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, if a government is defeated on a motion that ‘this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’, there is then a 14-day period during which an alternative government can be formed from the House of Commons as presently constituted, or the incumbent government can seek to regain the confidence of the House. If no government can secure the confidence of the House of Commons during that period, through the approval of a motion that ‘this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’, a general election will take place."
That backs what I said. If no alternative government is found that can secure confidence of the house then election.
The point being that the Opposition has the scope and numbers to advise the Queen through channels that AN OTHER has the prospect of confidence and will seek the approval of the HoC and thus prevent Boris from having his general election in October which is what the Opposition desire.
I think the method if Boris doesn't tell the Queen to ask for Corbyn is soundings. Get your people to talk to relevant Privy Counsellors, to Jo, to Ken, to Mr Speaker. I'm not sure how such advice to the Queen is collated and finalised, but my understanding is there are methods, ex-Boris, to decide this.
Correct. The Private Secretary to the Queen takes soundings and advice from senior members of the Privy Council.
Also worth noting that Prorogation during the 14 days is a non starter as the Cabinet Manual states :
"While the government retains its responsibility to govern and ministers remain in charge of their departments, governments are expected by convention to observe discretion in initiating any new action of a continuing or long-term character in the period immediately preceding an election, immediately afterwards if the result is unclear, and following the loss of a vote of confidence. In all three circumstances essential business must be allowed to continue."
So in such circumstances the prorogation is itself prorogued...
Not least it is polite for the Queen to know who is writing her speech for the 14 Oct.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
Well that’s fine, but they’ll have to admit that.
Personally I see little point in the government putting forward a 2/3rds majority motion on Monday, they might try their luck with a simple majority instead. It at least forces people to actually vote against it to prevent it from passing, as opposed to abstaining.
I think that is the plan. However, on reflection, expelling 21 may have been a boo boo if you want a simple majority.
- the 21 don’t have much reason to vote against it at that point. They’ve got an election before Brexit day and a legislative pledge for a PM to extend.
- Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP et al can’t abstain and be assured that it will fail to pass. They would have to think of some tenuous reason* why a mid-October election isn’t acceptable, beyond “Oh Boris will just pull a fast one.
* I am sure they will think of something, but it will be a bit ridiculous-looking.
This is just what I’d suggest if I was advising the government.
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
FWIW these are fundamentally different cases.
The Birmingham school protests were a case of rampant bigotry. The Lewes school protests are a case of dissent against (what the complainants allege to be) petty and unnecessary rules.
One's a serious human rights case. The other's just handbags.
I get your point. However, if they're protesting about them, then they evidently don't see them as petty (i.e. trivial). And I daresay the protesters in Birmingham also see the rules that mean that differing lifestyles need teaching to children (*) are unnecessary and wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if rampant bigotry was behind some of the Lewes protests as well.
Having said all that, I do wonder if such rules actually help or hinder the children at the school who are transgender, however well-meaning the rules are meant to be. It'd be interesting to know if they were even asked about this before the rule for new pupils was introduced two years ago.
(*) IMO they should be taught.
Bigger issues in both cases. 'No Outsiders' is incoherent if it makes outsiders of significant religious traditions. The skirts/trouser thing is part of a larger campaign, not without controversy, about gender fluidity, and the idea of 'gender neutral uniform' is itself a dogmatic position which many will not support and flies in the face of common sense of having the fewest possible prohibited things and compulsory things.
On a practical front, I imagine if you want to get teenagers wearing skirts to school the best way would be to ban them.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Hes got a problem though. Liz will ask him during prorogation if her QS will get through parliament. If he is truthful she would suggest he consider his position. If he lies she will sack him on the 19th. To meme it One does not simply ask the queen to deliver a speech that will be voted down
I do not see him being sacked before the 19th October and HMQ cannot just sack him unless he has lost a vonc. Neither will she sack him on the 19th.
He will be subject to an immediate vonc and if the HOC can demonstrate someone else has the confidence of the house she will send for that person
There are major consequences of parliament snubbing a QS that go beyond the government falling, it is in and of itself a constitutional crisis.
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Yes although not dramatic but I think maybe the real Conservative party is burning whilst you purge the impure mps unwilling to sign the no deal oath to be able to stand at the next election. If you want to support TBP policies then vote TBP there is no need to turn the tories into TBP lite. You will regret telling your foot soldiers to piss off and join the lib dems in the longbrun
The 'real' Conservative Party you seem to like so much and which refused to deliver Brexit on the date it promised to got just 9% in the European Parliament elections while the Brexit Party got 32% and came 3rd in the Peterborough by election in a seat it held until 2017.
That is the disaster facing the Tories if they allow rebels to vote for extension again and still stand as candidates for the party and Boris and Cummings will rightly not allow it
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Hes got a problem though. Liz will ask him during prorogation if her QS will get through parliament. If he is truthful she would suggest he consider his position. If he lies she will sack him on the 19th. To meme it One does not simply ask the queen to deliver a speech that will be voted down
I do not see him being sacked before the 19th October and HMQ cannot just sack him unless he has lost a vonc. Neither will she sack him on the 19th.
He will be subject to an immediate vonc and if the HOC can demonstrate someone else has the confidence of the house she will send for that person
There are major consequences of parliament snubbing a QS that go beyond the government falling, it is in and of itself a constitutional crisis.
Not sure that’s true, a QS has always been treated as a vote of confidence in the government of the day.
EDIT: a quick google tells me the QS failed to pass twice in the late 19th century and also in 1924.
A Nick Soames anecdote which shows I'm not sure what, except that he's an amiable bloke. One of the weirder requests I had as an MP was for two tickets to an exclusive enclosure at Ascot - the constituent said his wife had never been and it would be an experience of a lifetime for her, as a birthday present. I've never gone there and had no interest in going, and scratched my head about who to ask.
Eventually I thought that maybe Soames might know someone. We'd only exchanged a few words before, and I doubt if he knew who I was except some random Labour MP. But he obliged immediately, and I gather my constituents had a lovely day.
How did they vote? No idea.
By the way, I plan to go to day 1 of this with one or two friends:
Leader of Plaid a disaster for the 'Remain Alliance' on the 6pm News - "we want to break Boris and end Brexit". Not even pretending this is about preventing No Deal.
As someone who is pro deal but strongly anti no deal, I have no qualms about similar minded MPs working with remain to block no deal or leave to deliver deal.
In a divided country, whichever side reaches out to the middle wins, it is fairly obvious.
Tell that to Nick Clegg in 2015, according to Yougov he was closer to the centre as seen by voters than Cameron, Ed Miliband and Farage but if you abandon your base staying in the middle just sees you get run over
It's emotion, not geometry. You can be as extreme as you like if you aren't scary. And you can be as centrist as being right in the middle of something very centery, but if you are boring nobody turns out to vote for you.
If parents at the school are concerned about making girls wear trousers (as ridiculous a complaint as the Birmingham parents and the LGBT Lessons), then the answer is simple:
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
FWIW these are fundamentally different cases.
The Birmingham school protests were a case of rampant bigotry. The Lewes school protests are a case of dissent against (what the complainants allege to be) petty and unnecessary rules.
One's a serious human rights case. The other's just handbags.
I get your point. However, if they're protesting about them, then they evidently don't see them as petty (i.e. trivial). And I daresay the protesters in Birmingham also see the rules that mean that differing lifestyles need teaching to children (*) are unnecessary and wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if rampant bigotry was behind some of the Lewes protests as well.
Having said all that, I do wonder if such rules actually help or hinder the children at the school who are transgender, however well-meaning the rules are meant to be. It'd be interesting to know if they were even asked about this before the rule for new pupils was introduced two years ago.
(*) IMO they should be taught.
Bigger issues in both cases. 'No Outsiders' is incoherent if it makes outsiders of significant religious traditions. The skirts/trouser thing is part of a larger campaign, not without controversy, about gender fluidity, and the idea of 'gender neutral uniform' is itself a dogmatic position which many will not support and flies in the face of common sense of having the fewest possible prohibited things and compulsory things.
On a practical front, I imagine if you want to get teenagers wearing skirts to school the best way would be to ban them.
"Having the fewest possible prohibited things and compulsory things" is certainly not the experience of parents at Academy schools.
Oh the outrage, the humanity, he used the phrase girly! The woke generation are screaming to the sky and weeping wounded tears at the horrors of it all It really didn't require an intervention Jo, fauxrage is not a vote winner
The woke generation are also locking girls out of school and calling the police on them because they want to wear skirts.
Putinist klaxon. The aim here -- which you /appear/ to be buying into -- is to portray a fascist politics as a politics of innocence, by stoking psychosexual fears in the general population. In Russia, the process is mediated through the image of western politics being inherently homosexual, but since homophobia is dying in the west, different targets are chosen. So a mixture of the "great replacement" nonsense that Orban was rambling on about has been doing the rounds the last few years, and now we're moving onto the kind of stuff you're bringing up.
It's Bannonist shite, designed to turn people to the path of fear and hatred, and to smuggle in a fascist ideology. See also Putin, Zaldostanov, Bannon, Manafort.
There's lots of (paranoid) words there, but no addressing of the issue.
Why can't these girls wear skirts in school? Politically correct dogma. Simple as that.
I think the idea is to prevent boys who identify as girls wearing skirts. Far from being woke, these rules are designed to marginalise trans children.
I actually read, no citation I’m afraid, that this all came about because they couldn’t stop the girls wearing ridiculously short skirts and shorts and the thought this would solve the problem
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
Is there anything in statute to prevent Johnson from acting in this fashion? (That's a genuine question, not me being difficult for the sake of it.) If not, there's no reason to suppose that he wouldn't give it a go. Conventions and other niceties being set aside for the sake of political convenience seems to be par for the course nowadays.
Um, logistics. Firstly Corbyn has to become PM. Then Boris has to table a VONC vote. Then the vote has to be held. Then the vote has to be won. With the best will in the world, I can't see the process taking less than 24hrs, and more realistically 48hrs. More than enough time for Corbyn to request an extension.
Oh the outrage, the humanity, he used the phrase girly! The woke generation are screaming to the sky and weeping wounded tears at the horrors of it all It really didn't require an intervention Jo, fauxrage is not a vote winner
The woke generation are also locking girls out of school and calling the police on them because they want to wear skirts.
Putinist klaxon. The aim here -- which you /appear/ to be buying into -- is to portray a fascist politics as a politics of innocence, by stoking psychosexual fears in the general population. In Russia, the process is mediated through the image of western politics being inherently homosexual, but since homophobia is dying in the west, different targets are chosen. So a mixture of the "great replacement" nonsense that Orban was rambling on about has been doing the rounds the last few years, and now we're moving onto the kind of stuff you're bringing up.
It's Bannonist shite, designed to turn people to the path of fear and hatred, and to smuggle in a fascist ideology. See also Putin, Zaldostanov, Bannon, Manafort.
There's lots of (paranoid) words there, but no addressing of the issue.
Why can't these girls wear skirts in school? Politically correct dogma. Simple as that.
I think the idea is to prevent boys who identify as girls wearing skirts. Far from being woke, these rules are designed to marginalise trans children.
I actually read, no citation I’m afraid, that this all came about because they couldn’t stop the girls wearing ridiculously short skirts and shorts and the thought this would solve the problem
Skirt length (hair too) has been a school battleground since I was a nipper...
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Tomorrow nights polls will be a lot of fun.
Certainly will, this week might not be quite the 'disaster for Boris' the commentariat think
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
Well that’s fine, but they’ll have to admit that.
Personally I see little point in the government putting forward a 2/3rds majority motion on Monday, they might try their luck with a simple majority instead. It at least forces people to actually vote against it to prevent it from passing, as opposed to abstaining.
I think that is the plan. However, on reflection, expelling 21 may have been a boo boo if you want a simple majority.
- the 21 don’t have much reason to vote against it at that point. They’ve got an election before Brexit day and a legislative pledge for a PM to extend.
- Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP et al can’t abstain and be assured that it will fail to pass. They would have to think of some tenuous reason* why a mid-October election isn’t acceptable, beyond “Oh Boris will just pull a fast one.
* I am sure they will think of something, but it will be a bit ridiculous-looking.
This is just what I’d suggest if I was advising the government.
Wait what?
The 21 have the biggest reason of all to vote against. The moment there is an election they are unemployed.
Actually the QS thing is interesting. Boris needs to assure liz he can get it through, it would be a monumental political error of judgement to embarrass the queen with a failed QS
The QS is on the 14th October and it usually takes 5 days through the HOC and guess what date follows, 19th October the day for Boris to seek an extension and that is maybe one of the most important dates in recent history
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
Hes got a problem though. Liz will ask him during prorogation if her QS will get through parliament. If he is truthful she would suggest he consider his position. If he lies she will sack him on the 19th. To meme it One does not simply ask the queen to deliver a speech that will be voted down
I do not see him being sacked before the 19th October and HMQ cannot just sack him unless he has lost a vonc. Neither will she sack him on the 19th.
He will be subject to an immediate vonc and if the HOC can demonstrate someone else has the confidence of the house she will send for that person
There are major consequences of parliament snubbing a QS that go beyond the government falling, it is in and of itself a constitutional crisis.
Not sure that’s true, a QS has always been treated as a vote of confidence in the government of the day.
EDIT: a quick google tells me the QS failed to pass twice in the late 19th century and also in 1924.
But it's a matter of embarrassment to the monarch and no PM should be inviting her to make a QS he KNOWS he cannot win, that is the crisis. She will be asking him before Oct 14 if he has the confidence of the house. You dont use the queen like that, he cannot ask her to deliver a QS
Genuine question, is the “notwithstanding FPTA the next election will be on X date” solution a no-go now? The rebel bill took about 4 days to go through parliament - I thought that the government could get a bill through in a day if it needed to?
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
They don't have a majority to get anything through at all. Never mind in a day.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
They are enjoying seeing Boris' bluster crash and burn? While the Tory Party falls apart?
What? Every current poll gives a Tory lead and big swings from Labour to the Tories in Coventry and Cumbria local by elections last night
Yes although not dramatic but I think maybe the real Conservative party is burning whilst you purge the impure mps unwilling to sign the no deal oath to be able to stand at the next election. If you want to support TBP policies then vote TBP there is no need to turn the tories into TBP lite. You will regret telling your foot soldiers to piss off and join the lib dems in the longbrun
The 'real' Conservative Party you seem to like so much and which refused to deliver Brexit on the date it promised to got just 9% in the European Parliament elections while the Brexit Party got 32% and came 3rd in the Peterborough by election in a seat it held until 2017.
That is the disaster facing the Tories if they allow rebels to vote for extension again and still stand as candidates for the party and Boris and Cummings will rightly not allow it
Life is not about the survival of the Conservative party I’m afraid I’ve met tories like you who, when I actually had a small bit of influence tried to stop me using that influence. Not because they disagreed with what we were trying to do but in their own words ‘if we let you do that we would be out of power for a generation’
Comments
In any case as I said last night Boris will simply refuse to go to Brussels as PM to ask for an extension Royal Assent or not and as Peston reported challenge the Commons to impeach him first.
Otherwise he could resign and force Corbyn to be Neville Chamberlain with all the consequences that will have for him in Labour Leave seats
I'm not sure that the Government calling a VONC in itself is a good idea. It would look ridiculous, and it wouldn't work. A straightforward resignation would be more dignified.
"How did Mugabe get away with it?
There's one terrible fact that sums up the tyrant's wickedness
Douglas Murray"
https://unherd.com/2019/09/how-did-mugabe-get-away-with-it/
When you see "culture war" there will usually be an thread running through it to do with sex, sexual morality, and decadence.
To a large extent they don't really care about the issues themselves, they are mostly interested in "triggering" people, because it drives traffic to certain outlets and certain "thinkers" where they can sell the real message, which is about the dissolution of civil structures and the rule of law.
An interesting non-psychosexual variant was present in recent years where Facebook groups were set up to generate protests and counter protests piggybacking on the the "black lives matter" campaign. These protests and counter-protests, in places like Baltimore and Ferguson were timed and designed to create conflict, and turned out BOTH to have been instigated by the Russian state (Facebook confirmed this a while ago).
The idea is twofold: to weaken the west's geopolitical strength by creating disunity (boy has that worked), and to delegitimise the concept of liberal, rights-based democracy in order to fend off pro-democracy movements in Russia and its neighbours. Putin is a fascist, and we all know that fascism and democracy cannot survive side by side. The presence of one harms the legitimacy of the other. Hence the overt Russian support for far-right politicians throughout the west.
There's a lot of great material out there by a historian called Timothy Snyder. The important thing to note is that these propaganda campaigns, although inspired by a fascist leader, have targeted and successfully duped people on both the right and left, and its goal is not about rival economic worldviews, but about the survival of liberal democracy and the rule of law.
Yes I'm long of Lab overall majority too. At 20 which is silly IMO.
@Black_Rook
No, Johnson cannot 'put Jeremy in' and then immediately VONC him. He gets a crack only if he has the confidence of the House for a decent period - which must be longer than 5 minutes. Johnson cannot go taking the piss out of the Queen.
He was only putting right colonial wrongs evidently...
This is a betting site after all.
If they put the date as, say, 15 October doesn’t that neutralise the “we need to be sure we will get an extension first” argument?
If so, can't Boris just say "this act says I need to request an extension for the purposes of implementing the previous Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement, but requires me to send a letter to the European Council that makes no reference to that agreement or the intent at all."
Indeed, the original amendment made reference to another amendment containing the relevant text for the letter, so wouldn't that mean the unamended letter is not sufficient to deliver on what was amendment 6?
Would be a great plot twist!
Make everyone, of whatever gender, wear skirts.
Wings Over Scotland and Katie Hopkins are working to exactly the same goal, whether they realise it or not. I'm not taking part in it.
If Boris goes to HMQ and says he cannot command the confidence of the house and does not anticipate he could pass a QS, she will have little option but to dissolve parliament, and they will need to find a legal way to do that because of Camerons wretched FTPA
Maybe then VONC him again 20 minutes later, after the pathetic games Corbyn has played with the Withdrawal Agreement over the last few months it is time for the Tories to get their revenge
He's not a pushover just because he doesn't go around giving it the big 'I am' all the time.
Do not underestimate Jeremy Corbyn. He's the leader of the Labour Party.
The Birmingham school protests were a case of rampant bigotry. The Lewes school protests are a case of dissent against (what the complainants allege to be) petty and unnecessary rules.
One's a serious human rights case. The other's just handbags.
Fascinating interview with Ian Smith
https://youtu.be/t1OzfpPtJoQ
Jezza will still be PM on 1st April if he's PM on 1st November. I've no doubt about that.
'Who shall I send for?'
'I do not think anybody can get a QS through, parliament is too divided, mr Corbyn would need to show you that he could otherwise an election is required and your majesty would need to convince parliament of the need to agree dissolution, perhaps an audience with the party leaders might help here?'
Would Remainers be prepared to say that they would choose 'Leave Without a Deal' ahead of 'Fascist Anti EU Violence'? False choice.
But what is the argument at that point? I thought the current reason for a refusal was “we don’t trust Boris to set the election date after Brexit day”.
Eventually I thought that maybe Soames might know someone. We'd only exchanged a few words before, and I doubt if he knew who I was except some random Labour MP. But he obliged immediately, and I gather my constituents had a lovely day.
How did they vote? No idea.
By the way, I plan to go to day 1 of this with one or two friends:
https://howthelightgetsin.org/london
Anyone else going?
By any reasonable definition he's a nutter, but somehow the youth of our country have embraced nutter-ism. They can't defend their views, and from what I can tell they should be more LD or Green supporting than Labour given what they say. Nonetheless they'll line up behind Corbyn, much like the police-cadets behind Boris, but they'll do so of their own choice.
Given what the young are actually saying then they should clearly be voting LD. When their schoolwork is corrected for obvious errors then it's Tory all the way of course.
https://twitter.com/andrewyang/status/1169812022697046016?s=21
Does the Queen run the show herself until after the election? Does she also have to decide to dissolve Parliament and nominate an election date herself, or would the FTPA prevent this?
If the Tories are down 6 or 7 and lab are up 4 and lds up 3 surely Jezza and his band wont be able to resist
And the Lib-Dems will keep him going in return for the cancellation of Brexit as will the former Con MPs while the SNP will keep him going in return for a Scottish referendum.
Whether in the end he would ever actually honour those commitments is another matter but he'll make the right noises for long enough to get his feet well and truly under the table.
What does he do, what does the opposition do, and ??????????
I wouldn't be surprised if rampant bigotry was behind some of the Lewes protests as well.
Having said all that, I do wonder if such rules actually help or hinder the children at the school who are transgender, however well-meaning the rules are meant to be. It'd be interesting to know if they were even asked about this before the rule for new pupils was introduced two years ago.
(*) IMO they should be taught.
Wouldn't all parts of that government be quite happy with that arrangement? Corbyn gets to prove the world doesn't end when he is PM. The Lib Dems and SNP get their referendum. Soft Brexit Tories get to rule out No Deal. And the public gets closure, at least once the referendum is out of the way in June 2020. Then we have an election in the Autumn of 2020. The Tories and BXP can stand on a platform of another referendum (leave "properly" vs whatever won the 2020 referendum) if they want to.
But, there ya go, different strokes for different folks. Some people think Boz is a lovely fella, what can you do?
It's the beatification of people when they are agin your nemesis I find strange. Soames was a very average backbench politician of no great career renown who may or may not be a top fella based on your experience of him.
Personally I see little point in the government putting forward a 2/3rds majority motion on Monday, they might try their luck with a simple majority instead. It at least forces people to actually vote against it to prevent it from passing, as opposed to abstaining.
As an aside, Quentin Crisp attended my old school, and my best friend got suspended for nicking clothes from a girls' boarding house.
To meme it
One does not simply ask the queen to deliver a speech that will be voted down
"Flight of fancy" is far too mild a description!
I don't think there's been a crisis as severe as this in HMQs reign but it seems unlikely she would intervene in this way.
Her prerogative powers were savaged by Cameron but the process carries on as if she still had them.
His advice to her would have to be 'if Corbyn can get a coalition together he might get a QS through, if not elections would be required but you can't dissolve parliament
Its not good enough, shed have to intervene even if its laying out the exact position and consequences from the monarchs standpoint and leaving them to agree how to break the impasse
He will be subject to an immediate vonc and if the HOC can demonstrate someone else has the confidence of the house she will send for that person
Not least it is polite for the Queen to know who is writing her speech for the 14 Oct.
- Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP et al can’t abstain and be assured that it will fail to pass. They would have to think of some tenuous reason* why a mid-October election isn’t acceptable, beyond “Oh Boris will just pull a fast one.
* I am sure they will think of something, but it will be a bit ridiculous-looking.
This is just what I’d suggest if I was advising the government.
On a practical front, I imagine if you want to get teenagers wearing skirts to school the best way would be to ban them.
That is the disaster facing the Tories if they allow rebels to vote for extension again and still stand as candidates for the party and Boris and Cummings will rightly not allow it
EDIT: a quick google tells me the QS failed to pass twice in the late 19th century and also in 1924.
https://youtu.be/0-iRW1SjKTc
The 21 have the biggest reason of all to vote against. The moment there is an election they are unemployed.
It looks like Old Trafford has just released tickets for stand A7 if anyone's interested in buying tickets for Sunday.