politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The man who helped stop a No Deal Brexit earlier this year is confident there is a majority in Parliament for dealing with Brexit first and having an election after
There’s a fascinating interview with Oliver Letwin today, the man who helped prevent a No Deal Brexit earlier on this year.
Read the full story here
Comments
The only problem with your conclusion is that current data contradicts it, and moreover shows big shifts over the past 6 months.
Compare the pattern in the Opinium data from March 2019, with that from September 2019. In March, only 4% of 2017 Labour Leave voters (and only 2% of 2017 Labour Remain voters) had switched to the Conservatives. Now, in September 2019, 22% of 2019 Labour Leave (and 1% of Labour Remain voters) have switched to Conservative.
That is a big recent switch of Labour Leave voters to the Conservatives, and it is even more significant when you consider that back in March there was no Brexit Party to hoover up their disaffection as an alternative to the Tories. Taken as a group, in a forced choice Labour Leavers as a whole also now prefer Johnson to Corbyn as PM by 36% to 24%, so there is plenty to infer that the 19% who have switched to the BXP are just as likely to eventually vote Con as they are to vote Lab. Again that's in complete contrast to March 2019, when only 11% of Labour Leavers preferred May and 30% preferred Corbyn in the same two way choice.
Who says politicians only focus on Brexit?
Edit: Turns out it is not law yet - best hold off that election until late next year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47457758
Granted its only new builds, but small steps.
This will probably end up going as well as the Poll Tax did!
I note that Mark Pack (who has popped up on PB in the past, particularly in the podcasts) is standing for Lib Dem party president.
I note also that Layla Moran's agent and general fixer has retweeted his announcement, which presumably means that (contrary to speculation earlier this year) she isn't standing.
Which I think it would - enough people hate a deal of any kind, or have changed their mind, or would stay home in disgust, to see remain win.
Or such is my general view at any rate. Clearly different lawyers are taking different views even in Scotland, and I'll trust the collective view of the court. But it seems quite possible they could conclude the government was being less than honest and yet no law was broken.
If it's the only way the Commons can be told again by the people to vote for a compromise Leave deal then I reluctantly accept it as the only alternative.
Really not hard to see now that Boris resigns to avoid asking for an extension, the EU offer a long extension rather than the 3 months to the caretaker PM (Corbyn or otherwise). Limited plan of government agrees to put the existing May deal through against remain in a legally binding second referendum, with an election to follow soon after the result.
Boris will resign if his Big Deal is rejected and will advise HM to send for Corbyn who can hardly decline to form a government - what else is he for? Having done so the Tories will leave him swinging in the wind, unable to legislate and unable to govern.
Lovers of precedent might refer to Ramsey MacDonald's first government in 1924. Boris could be the Baldwin of our age, rather than the Churchill.
Edit: and in a pleasing symmetry Corbyn might be the last Labour PM, following the pattern of the first.
However, it's not why Dominic Cummings went into politics. If his hand is forced by the Supreme Court next week, at the same time, Boris may go for two reasons, and it may be out of his hands.
How the new Leave campaign conducts itself will be crucial. If it's "tell them again" or "honour the vote" they could win fairly clearly.
If Farage, Banks, Francois and others all shout betrayal from the rooftops, say staying would be better than this, and argue for abstention or more direct action, it will be over before it starts.
2. Without an election does Boris still want and need a longer suspension?
3. 2 mini deals already agreed on air and fish. The third mini deal stops all talk of medicines not getting through as part of no deal, proving my argument Boris could do himself a lot of good recalling Parliament earlier to help get this sort of planning across
Tell them again only appeals to Leavers.
But further exposure and discrediting will be a good thing.
The 2020 referendum will be BINO V Remain which the latter will win following a leave boycott only deepening the bitterness and division in the country. The Tories will then move to a position of honouring the 2016 result without a further referendum.
I think people overestimate the influence of 2016 on any new referendum. There are remainers who believe the original vote should have been respected, and leavers unhappy with the precise leave they will be offered, but I tend to think that people will be pretty practical and regardless of whether they accepted the 2016 vote or not, will recognise a new vote is time for a new decision, and if they still believe remain is best won't change that view to honour an older vote.
That'll fire up the leave voting masses of 2016.
Why expect the third to be any different ?
Instead we’re trapped in this never-ending Brexit hellscape where a vision of Brexit that would never have won the referendum had it been the only one on offer has become the only Brexit & the rest of us are just supposed to accept this, otherwise we’re “Remoaners” who want to “deny the will of the people”.
May has a lot to answer for frankly - if she had reached across the floor in the first place, there would have been a clear majority in Parliament for a Brexit that clearly fulfilled the terms of the referendum & we could all have moved on.
That is all :-)
WE should allow a whole year for all the stages.
Rather than a full time piss head I suppose.
Anyhow - if we remain from here they must know we will turn into a European SNP - determined to make as much mischief as we can.
I’m not wrong about that, the leave remain referendum was wrong, just as if I fail to convince you its all democracy, direct or representative, but some methods just damn stronger ways of doing things, you wont be wrong either. And the fact we wont agree isn’t wrong either. That’s the whole point of democracy.
But that’s not really the point of what brexit has become. It was a bastard from birth. What did Ruth say in a parting shot, this mess came about because asking the nation that question was cop out, an abdication of leadership? It was marketed as sorting this issue out once and for all. Does anyone today believe having a remain leave referendum sorts this out once and for all. Does anyone believe if we brexit in some way that’s the end of it?
Bottom line is People doing things, in the case of Patrick here saying things, in the name of democracy that is in fact for politics not democracy, they are choosing not to recognise this and modify their behaviour like good democrats need to make democracy work.
Denying a second referendum legitimacy and ensuring a remain total significantly below the 17.4m for leave is probably the only way of keeping the Brexit cause alive.
This looks like a very plausible sequence to me.
The referendum doesn't get any more sensible on repetition, but the second exercise is no less democratic than the first.
A third condition is that we must still be in the EU when the referendum takes place. Thanks to the Benn Act we might still be in according to British law but out according to our friends and colleagues in Brussels. It would be a sort of reverse-Taiwan situation.
Get a grip.
And though I would not expect it, just image May's reaction if her deal were to win.
If no deal hadn’t been shoved down the throats of Remainers then perhaps we could have just moved on .
The Tories forced the referendum on the country , own the chaos and division , even when they lost their majority they acted as if a deal should be delivered just for the Tories and not the whole country .
Then at the last minute May decided in desperation to try and find a compromise , only then the no dealers had already hijacked the vote .
So why on earth should Remainers accept that . .
https://twitter.com/Plaid_Cymru/status/1172217956316733443
https://twitter.com/BBCRichardMoss/status/1172235497957142531
The whole theory is predicated on the same basis as all those super clever plans to get fig leaf changes from the EU to fool the ERG or get Labour brexiters on board, which fail because everyone can read the papers.
Given we have experienced 3 years of effective non-government due to Brexit, I think we can cope with a further 6 months.