the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

cable should straight-up resign

b-but I thought the whole LolDem raisan d'etre was to prop up Tories at any cost to the party.

lads dont make us send the corkmen up there to sort ye out again

― dele alli my bookmarks (darraghmac), Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Fun!

So, the fine has been levied. Vote Leave and BeLeave illegally colluded in order to overspend in the run up to the vote. On to of LeaveEU's transgressions. An organised, deliberate attempt to buy the process. This happened. This is real. The result is fraudulent. Happy Tuesday.

— Fraser Campbell (@FraserC69) July 17, 2018

Good thread here as well.

I'm not sure "the result is fraudulent" holds up when a 'clean' re-run would likely deliver the same result, but the rest of it is pertinent.

tbf Farron was giving a talk on religious homophobia, pro of course!

I’m honestly shocked that this was what happened. They have said that Cable and Farron had permission not to be there as they thought Labour would abstain, which seems reasonably logical but I can’t get why a Lib Dem, of all parties, wouldn’t see how this looks. Just hideous optics all round.

Anyway the Tory remain rebels are bringing a customs union backstop amendment tonight which Labour will be supporting - hopefully there aren’t any pressing village hall talks about marriage equality going on.

Seems pretty obvious now that Labour's main objective is to inflict a govt-shattering defeat and force an election, I think they will vote against whatever the government proposes that isn't out-and-out soft Brexit, or as close to it as possible, and they might just vote against everything.

This appears to have gone over the head of the FPBE idiots who have been hammering Corbyn for months but they just look like utter clowns when their cult leaders can't be bothered to turn up to a crucial vote.

I'm not sure "the result is fraudulent" holds up when a 'clean' re-run would likely deliver the same result, but the rest of it is pertinent.

I don't think it's reasonable to read it as "and so in fact the opposite of the original vote is the settled fact" - though I'm aware there are a lot of the unreasonable about.

Tim Farron'll never be played by John Simm now.

xp they’ve trailed them voting down the final deal for a long time now, your analysis is otm.

Don’t worry about the fbpe crowd, they’re already latching onto the thing about Labour abstaining as though this absolves them.

And Chequers was dead - the EU weren’t going to wear it. If May has used her leverage over the Remainers, then she’s got even less breathing room than before.

*if* they can force a general election and of course much bigger if win it, an incoming Labour gov will have no choice but to make some pretty inflamatory decisions about how to Brexit - surely not whether to tho. a workable majority ought to give them 4 years breathing space and the ensuing depletion of the Full Brexit crew via strokes and coronaries might just shift the agenda away from them.

A lot depends on whether the EU can be persuaded to offer the UK an extended transition period, otherwise I'm not sure Labour are going to be thanked by the electorate for breaking the government with the cliff-edge approaching, even if we were about to go over the cliff anyway.

yeah this would be my big concern, it's almost worth leaving them with the unpinned grenade in their own hands at this point

yeah, it feels like the uk is going to suffer some kind of fairly serious injury one way or another over brexit and, in a lot of ways, ensuring that the tories are the ones at the wheel when the collision occurs might actually be the best course of action in terms of forging a clearer path for a corbyn led government (or coalition) away from it further down the line

Another amusing subplot here is May's attempt to bring the summer recess forward several days to head off any leadership challenge, which is a pretty dumb open goal for her opponents on all sides from what I can see.

what's the opposite of machiavellian

Maychiavellian.

just heard May described as a "mouse in a maze with no exits", this was always going to be her end-game because she is a hopeless politician. Although I'm not even sure a more decisive and dynamic Tory leader (nobody fits that description atm tbf) would have done much better with this clusterfuck!

i believe that "merely cunning, baldrick-style" is canon

just heard May described as a "mouse in a maze with no exits", this was always going to be her end-game because she is a hopeless politician. Although I'm not even sure a more decisive and dynamic Tory leader (nobody fits that description atm tbf) would have done much better with this clusterfuck!

― calzino, Tuesday, 17 July 2018 12:59 (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the better politicians avoided the fuckin job

What happens if today's amendment passes? I've completely lost track but does that trump or invalidate yesterday's vote?

oh god did u have to

it's almost worth leaving them with the unpinned grenade in their own hands at this point

v. much feel this is Labour's strategy now: let the Tories own Brexit rather than have to choose themselves between different levels of economic disaster vs begging to the EU (and the corresponding different flavours of betrayal narrative and being blamed for decades after)

at least, they don't seem to have been sticking the boot particularly hard into this eminently bootable omnishambles, although media coverage is rubbish of course so maybe I just don't know about it, and with fixed-term parliaments maybe it wouldn't make any difference

and nothing absolves the LDs of anything, yesterday their priorities were of course v v poor and stupid and fuck everyone involved tbh, and I doubt there was an actual plot to tell anyone the wrong thing (much more likely just the usual untogetherness all round), but if any of the above is true then Labour probably love chances to look vaguely oppositional while not risking any actual governmental collapse

(although is it true that 14 Labour MPs also didn't turn up, on top of the 4 who voted with the govt? read that on Twitter but can't find a list of who voted which way and am too lazy to do the sums)

anyway fingers crossed for today's vote, though I have also lost track how all these amendments add up or cancel out and the possible consequences of any of them, or whether they could be reversed anyway given the current white paper is only an interim fudge which will never get past the EU anyway

Of this list:

Abrahams recovering from surgery
Buck chaired bill committee so couldn’t vote
Foxcroft was a teller
Pidcock is on maternity
Smith just gave birth
Hoyle and Winterton are deputy speakers
Watson was in hospital

Others may have reasons toohttps://t.co/kSCnvXs4E3

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) July 17, 2018

(unclear also what state the pairing system is in: i assume not so broken down it doesn't still take care of tellers and dep speakers)

Another amusing subplot here is May's attempt to bring the summer recess forward several days to head off any leadership challenge, which is a pretty dumb open goal for her opponents on all sides from what I can see.

thanks, mark!

apologies to anyone I may have briefly thought might have slacked off (ha ha, I'm writing this at work) when in fact they were on leave for medically advised bed rest, a somewhat better excuse than Farron's. also apologies for getting the numbers wrong and using "anyway" 3 times in the same sentence

Watson was also paired with someone.

pairing = we intend to vote in opposing directions, so if you can't show up, I won't?

Basically. I thought pairing was suspended for these votes given how tight they could (and did) turn out to be.

John Woodcock (currently suspended) and Jared O’Mara didn’t vote either way.

Scratch that - pairing is still in play. So other Lab MPs could have missed the vote if their opposite number was paired.

Seems pretty obvious now that Labour's main objective is to inflict a govt-shattering defeat and force an election, I think they will vote against whatever the government proposes that isn't out-and-out soft Brexit, or as close to it as possible, and they might just vote against everything.

This appears to have gone over the head of the FPBE idiots who have been hammering Corbyn for months but they just look like utter clowns when their cult leaders can't be bothered to turn up to a crucial vote.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, July 17, 2018 11:35 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

two-footed tackle on the ex-ilxor host of the remainiacs podcast

Let's say we adopt Greening's proposal, and the first round votes split as follows: 37% EU; 31% May's deal; 32% no deal. Then if 60% or more of the "May's deal" voters choose "no deal" as their second preference, we're going out to WTO terms. Is this scenario worth risking?

— Lafargue (@Lafargue) July 16, 2018

this seems like a real danger wrt the possibility of a second referendum? I don't understand the thinking of the FBPE types pushing for a second referendum, are they so overconfident in their chances of getting a majority to vote to stay in the EU that they think a no deal brexit is a risk worth taking? and anything short of an overwhelming victory for the 'stay in the EU' option would just lead to immediate calls for a third referendum, winning by a narrow majority wouldn't settle anything

spot on btw and has been apparent to everyone except the hammerheaded follow back pro piss-boilers for ever

are they so overconfident

apart from the ones that are mainly in it as a stick to beat Corbs & Co with as previously noted, i'm going with this in a kinda "the glass of our centrist lib goldfish bowl is really foggy" way

Really enjoying Jay Rayner (?!?!) tearing a strip of Tom Watson for not being there - even though Watson was a) paired and b) in hospital. Considering that Labour MPs literally entered the commons being wheeled in last time to vote because the government wouldn’t honour the nod through system, a bit of benefit of the doubt wouldn’t go astray here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_(parliamentary_convention)#United_Kingdom

tho this^^^ says only in place for unimportant votes, but i don't know who gets to decide which are important and which aren't -- there was a fuss not that long ago, the vote when naz shah had to come in from her hospital bed, when the tory whips were accused of reneging on the usual practice? this is why i wondered if it had broken down entirely

obviously individual MPs can make agreements with their opposite numbers w/o the whips having to sign it off

multiple xp and my point made several times since for some reason it took me 15 mins to write accurately

They took such a lot of flak for that from normally pro-Tory sections of the press that I wonder if they haven’t quietly reinstated it.

Also great to see numerous actors and the like uncritically engaging with the “gender critical” crowd just because they’re anti Corbyn. Great to see lads, truly ye are the last defenders of liberalism.

i imagine they also get a lot of flak from MPs tbh, it's an entirely sensible cross-party practice which makes everyone's life easier, including the whips themselves

xp examples? like to keep my gulag spreadsheet up to date

Sure but they knew they’d get criticised by them when they did it and did it anyway. They probably didn’t see themselves starring in a twitter moment or being slagged off by the Times and the Sun.

It does leave a sour taste in the mouth to see FBPE March people shouting “where’s Jeremy Corbyn!” only several days after the Tory ‘rebels’ they lauded fell in line behind May yet again. As someone who voted Remain, it is utterly embarrassing and puts me off their cause.

— Calum Sherwood (@CalumSPlath) June 23, 2018

They took such a lot of flak for that from normally pro-Tory sections of the press that I wonder if they haven’t quietly reinstated it.

― gyac, Tuesday, July 17, 2018 4:11 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think I read somewhere that in the past when incapacitated MPs had to show up for tight votes it would normally be allowed for them to be driven into the HoC carpark and someone would come out to confirm their presence, but in this case they were made to actually go through the division lobbies, hence Naz Shah being pushed through in a wheelchair etc?

yes i think that's the fuss i'm actually thinking of: not a pairing issue exactly, tho a related cross-party convention re who counts as present

"Is this scenario worth risking?" is an odd question, as if this was something that all sensible people would fear rather than the cliff that the current lunatics are half-way through pushing us off.

Yes, “nodding through”. Stretcher vote most famously employee during the Maastricht votes iirc?

"this scenario" is the same cliff

albeit by a more intricate route

Yes, that's what I mean - possibly missing a comma after cliff.