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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Let’s not forget that Johnson’s precarious parliamentary situa
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Let’s not forget that Johnson’s precarious parliamentary situation is largely self-made
The reason that Johnson is in such a weak parliamentary position stems directly from two big decisions that he has made. First there was the reaction to his first Commons vote when he stripped 21 of his party’s MPs from the whip. Then there was his Brexit agreement with its changes for the status Northern Ireland which have resulted in the DUP’s 10 MPs moving entirely to the other side.
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I’m not Bercow’s greatest fan, and it’s undeniable that he has pushed the envelope, but Johnson has tried to rip it up and thrown it away...
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/23/poll-biden-trump-wisconsin-055929
The assumption that Biden is going away is flawed, I think. And if he does, the Democrats have something of a problem.
The arrangement with the DUP he inherited was always going to be testing, once it got to the sharp end of a Brexit Deal to remove the immoveable backstop. That he didn't get a deal they liked was, again, a replay of the position he inherited from May.
The "outrage" over a prorogued Parliament looks mightily overdone when they returned and, er, did nothing - because in that period there was no response from the EU. As was said at the time. Boris's deal was done after the House would have resumed under that initial prorogation timeline. But at least he got to discover who his enemies were.
And it is a strange reading of history to suggest that the Speaker only increased his power grab against the executive once Boris was elected. It began once there was no majority after June 2017.
Remarkable how the next week or so has such a range of plausible paths.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/mitt-romney-versus-trump/600508/
https://twitter.com/PRCA_UK/status/1187057333194633217?s=19
So I don't think it's fair to criticise May for that. In the end, it wasn't I think decisive there anyway. What did for the Tories was the collapse of the last Labour stronghold in Ystradgynlais and that is a Wales-wide phenomenon that would have happened whoever their candidate was.
Johnson boxed himself in and I can just imagine Dominic Cummings deciding on the spur of the moment to throw Northern Ireland to the dogs. The shabby treatment of the DUP, whatever one thinks of their politics, are the movements of two totally unprincipled shysters: Johnson and Cummings.
We all knew it would come home to roost, just not many of us imagined it would happen so quickly.
There's a marked contrast to the way this has been handled with Labour and their leavers. Corbyn's tightrope act may have looked ridiculous at times, but Tuesday was a brilliant piece of deft balancing by the Labour Whips. There was a moment when Corbyn turned and nodded to Gloria de Piero. This was to acknowledge that he would NOT withdraw the whip when they voted for the 2nd reading but the quid pro quo which he encouraged would be their support for rejecting the timetable main motion. This was brilliant politicking and must be largely thanks to Nick Brown (whom I know many inside Westminster rate very highly). It's such a contrast to those berks Cummings and Johnson. In these incredibly tight margins you HAVE to know when to let something pass, when to drop your red lines, when to turn a blind eye. You have to know what your battle lines really are: when is the moment to say, 'No this one counts.' The No 10 machine got it hopelessly wrong. Kicking out the rebels was a huge huge tactical error.
The end result, which the Daily Mail have typically misjudged, is that it's No 10 now currently in an internal war and the Labour party which is relatively relaxed. Corbyn does want an election but he's also got Johnson back on the ropes. He can afford to insist that the Brexit Bill be brought back and let it be amended before an election. By an extraordinary twist of events, it's Labour that can now be seen to be pushing for a Brexit deal and the Conservatives who are delaying or blocking it.
Labour rode high in Parliament this week. Whether it will last, remains to be seen.
And you want to talk misjudgment?
The detail on impeachment suggests that positions on either side have hardened, and its particularly interesting that of those who have read the call ‘transcript’, over half support impeachment:
https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2019/10/23/new-marquette-law-school-poll-finds-increased-support-for-trump-impeachment-hearings-since-the-spring-while-opinions-about-trump-have-changed-little/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-trumps-defenders-now-approached-benghazi-back-then/600556/
The reality is that if Pompeo, Jordan, and House Republicans had received the kind of bombshell testimony we heard from Taylor yesterday, they would have immediately moved to impeach the president.
In a blatant display of hypocrisy, Pompeo has refused to cooperate with Congress’s impeachment investigation and has blocked other State Department officials from testifying. Jordan has spent his time attacking the impeachment proceedings, bizarrely suggesting that the Democrats have something to hide.
It's no different from what May did to the previous Chancellor.
The reason Boris finds himself in such a precarious position is that May threw away Cameron's majority and allowed a total breakdown in discipline and collective responsibility.
May never came as close as Boris has to getting a deal through Parliament.
If you face a problem the first step to dealing with it isn't to pretend like May did that the problem doesn't exist and just stick your head in your sand. Yes Boris nominally has fewer MPs he can rely on than May did but in reality he has more.
The question is how that plays out come an election.
There's an interesting article here about the Democrats and Wisconsin:
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/10/hillary-clinton-bloody-sunday-speech-selma/
"in November 2016, the black voter turnout rate dropped from 79 percent in 2012 to 47 percent, the lowest black voter turnout in the state’s recorded history."
Boris' complaints about parliament are disingenuous. He was a serial rebel under May. He created chaos deliberately as PM. He created the people vs. parliament narrative and unleashed forces that will damage us for years to come. And yet he plays the victim.
None so blind.....
The Sweden Democrats today record a record high VI figure, while the Liberals and Greens are still in deep trouble (parliamentary threshold is 4%):
(change since Swedish GE 2018; approx UK sister-party)
Social Democrats (Blairite Lab) 24.5% (-3.8)
Sweden Democrats (Bxp, UKIP, BNP) 22.7% (+5.2)
Moderates (Tory wets) 17.9% (-1.9)
Left (SF, Momentum, Comm) 9.1% (-1.1)
Centre (LD rural) 8.6% (nc)
Christian Democrats (social conservatives) 6.8% (-0.5)
Greens (Greens, SNP, PC, SDLP) 4.9% (+0.5)
Liberals (LD urban) 3.9% (-1.6)
TV4 Väljaropinion October
Note: although the Sweden Democrats are often likened to UKIP or the BNP, they are actually a very different beast. They have without doubt the most gifted leader of any party, and he is no raving idiot. They are *not* in favour of Swexit. At least, not for the time being.
Johnson's cabinet is demonstrating world-class incompetence on the Tory basics of sound management, fiscal prudence and mastering individual briefs: look at yesterday's mega shit show on what, exactly, the processes will be for trade between NI and GB. The last thing the Tories need is the permanent exile of the only member of May's team who's properly numerate: it's clear from his performance so far that Javid doesn't, and probably can't, count.
The only parallel I can find for Johnson's shooting his own side when he needs all the help he can get is the dying days of the Third Reich
(And very shrewd as well.)
Shame about the last sentence...
It’s totally different . May did not strip Osborne of the whip .
The first is that in reality there never was a majority in Parliament for leaving and all Boris has done so far as his own party is concerned is expose the reality. What is the point of letting people who will not vote for your central policy retain the whip and the security of membership of the party? If May had taken a similar line with the loons in the ERG at an earlier stage we might not be, well we would be in a different mess.
Boris' second problem is the DUP. There is simply no solution to the Irish border which (a) actually involves the UK leaving the EU in any meaningful sense (May's version of the UK wide backstop didn't in this respect) and (b) retains the all Ireland economy. The 2 are simply incompatible. Boris had to choose between the ERG by giving them a much harder leave for rUK or the DUP. He chose the former because they had more votes and these friends of the Union followed him without a backward glance.
So to say that Boris has thrown away his majority is unfair. It never really existed. The outcome of his decisions will be a much more united party after the next election with a significant strand expunged. Whether that more united party can still attract votes across a wide enough spectrum remains to be seen.
What I accept is completing missing from every part of the political spectrum at the moment is a consensus builder. Rory Stewart auditioned for the role but got only modest support. The superficially binary choice of Brexit has divided us and the reluctance of both sides to compromise on a soft Brexit (such as May put to the House 3x) has greatly damaged our politics. The more we see the consequences play out the more angry I get at the fuckwits who didn't vote for it on both sides of the divide.
I do not agree with her stance on brexit but full marks to her and her integrity on this
It makes a refreshing change
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1187266915921731584
At the moment he only retains any serious support in Parliament because of loyalty to the Conservative Party as a point of principle. His personal loyalty must be almost zero (this was never true of past Tory leaders). But he’s stretching the elastic to it’s limits. Not unlike Trump to many extents.
Pillock.
Enjoy it while you can, Dr. Sarah.....
However, the significance with her statement, apart from her honesty, is that it looks like the Lib Dems are on board for a GE, and as you say with their polling they have a real chance of making considerable gains
So Boris calls a GE, the SNP and Lib Dems endorse it are labour mps going to try to stop it and face polling sub 20%
It was not the Post EU vision sold of a plucky but important nation punching above its weight.
And this will be the case for most things for the foreseeable future.
But bottom line is it isn't humiliating to wait on the others when we are so conflicted we asked for more time.
People are too quick to see humiliation for the country or hope for it in their opponents.
And at that moment we will have left the EU.
I note I'm not the only one struggling with the notion that May gifted Johnson some sort of legacy as PM which he has somehow squandered.
I read it as him pointing out that if you take them at their word that they should feel humiliated, and their lack of humiliation and indeed eagerness for the French to step in is a sign of their insincerity. That the Leave rhetoric is nothing but that, and all their talk of freedom and Britain alone is just sloganeering in an attempt to ride a political payout for them alone.
But that's just me.
Blinkered, empire-nostalgic idiots.
We've been integrated far more than most people wanted, and the public were never consulted. And for those who wrongly allege General Elections permitted this, a GE has every other aspect of national politics involved, it isn't a single issue event. On top of that, the public were promised a vote on Lisbon, probably the last such time that we could've signalled dislike of ever-increasing integration short of withdrawal, and then denied it by contemptible politicians who considered manifesto pledges as optional.
The political centre ground was pro-EU, and moved significantly in that direction away from common ground with the electorate. One of the reasons this will rumble on for a long time, whatever happens in the next week, is that disentangling ourselves will be very difficult, and the political class remains far more pro-EU than the general population (though it's worth noting events have helped kickstart a significant pro-EU movement more widely).
The next week may very well be turbulent and bitter, but there'll be lots more rancour and argument afterwards too. The week ahead will not resolve anything, it might simply be the moment we take one turning instead of another.
If pro-EU people had actually fought against the argument the public was hearing and not the strawman they invented, they might have won the referendum...
I think a French veto is unlikely. Sure, Macron would rather be dealing with other things and cba with Brexit any more, but he is using up his political capital on other things (and losing friends along the way), so he cannot afford to use more on us when he has Big Plans for the EU.
I feel sorry for civil servants in the Cabinet Office who are no doubt doing their best to advise and keep informed, but realistically expect the whole thing to be a complete sh*tshow. And god knows what happens if it snows...
It is likely that this is the motive behind a GE to ensure conservative mps are elected fully committed to this deal.
1. They believe he has the best chance of implementing the variant of Brexit that they want to see. In this group are, for example, the ERG backbenchers who were urging the government to bring another programme motion back and schedule sittings through the night and over the weekend.
2. They believe he has the best chance of helping them to hold their seats at a general election.
What he is, is a great salesman, who gets people to believe what he wants but never delivers.
"The Prime Minister must seek to obtain from the European Council an extension of the period under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union ending at 11.00pm on 31 October 2019 by sending to the President of the European Council a letter in the form set out in the Schedule to this Act requesting an extension of that period to 11.00pm on 31 January 2020 in order to debate and pass a Bill to implement the agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, including provisions reflecting the outcome of inter-party talks as announced by the Prime Minister on 21 May 2019, and in particular the need for the United Kingdom to secure changes to the political declaration to reflect the outcome of those inter-party talks."
S3 (1)
If the European Council decides to agree an extension of the period in Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union ending at 11.00 pm on 31 October 2019 to the period ending at 11.00pm on 31 January 2020, the Prime Minister must, immediately after such a decision is made, notify the President of the European Council that the United Kingdom agrees to the proposed extension.
Stop victim blaming.
Laughable.