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

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.

Stephen Bush yesterday was saying 'you can't accuse Cameron of irresponsiblity and then back putting 'food shortages - y/n' on the ballot'. Three-way referendum is an awful idea but I assume the point is to split the Leave vote in two (something that Brexiters would very quickly cotton onto).

Don’t know you could argue for Remain in that instance if the two Leave votes > the Remain vote.

I know a few people who, having been not especially political before, were Corbynized and became his biggest fans and they are also fanatical and hysterical Remainers - something's got to give eventually.

starry eyed reactions to Anna Soubry from the usual crowd AGAIN

hey, at least she voted against this one. first time this much talked-up Tory anti-Brexit rebel has actually rebelled against Brexit?

but my foot is going to go through my monitor one of these days when I see the usual "ohh you're one of the good ones, you'd be very welcome in another party!" #FBPE stuff, because, nope

Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
Consistently voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
Consistently voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits

etc (theyworkforyou, which isn't up to date on Brexit votes, or I wouldn't need my question mark up there)

xps I wish the original ballot had offered some kind of fudging or at least clarity wrt the SM/CU questions, but if any new ref happens then a completely different counting method will be seen as moving the goalposts, surely? though Leave have moved their damn goalposts all over the place since the ref, of course ("nobody is talking about leaving the Single Market" etc)

The problem is the same as it was over two years ago - there’s barely been any shift in rhetoric or the arguments made and the polling suggests the same about voter attitudes. Another vote would be a horrible idea in this situation.

Stephen Bush yesterday was saying 'you can't accuse Cameron of irresponsiblity and then back putting 'food shortages - y/n' on the ballot'. Three-way referendum is an awful idea but I assume the point is to split the Leave vote in two (something that Brexiters would very quickly cotton onto).

I thought that most ppl were assuming some kind of single transferable vote thing for a three-way referendum - it's hard to see it being done of the basis of a plurality vote - trying to imagine a scenario where e.g. 'stay in the EU' gets 40%, 'May's deal' and 'no deal' get 30% each and we remain in the EU despite there now being two referendums where a majority voted for some form of brexit?

whatever Tory scum think of brexit, they can go fuck themselves forever for every ruinous, disabled killing, poverty enabling bill they've helped through in the last 8 years, and the ones in Labour as well tbf!

not especially political before, were Corbynized and became his biggest fans

This is a bit beside the point but it’s incredible more than a year after the election that people are still pushing the “voters only voted Labour begrudgingly cos they knew he wouldn’t win” line again - no less a source than the British Election Study found the exact opposite. People who thought labour could or would win a majority were more likely to vote Labour.

I mean, I know a few parties that that voting record would be welcome in at various times.

when I see the usual "ohh you're one of the good ones, you'd be very welcome in another party!" #FBPE stuff, because, nope

It kills me when they claim to be disgruntled Labour voters/ex-members when they carry on like this about people whose voting records would be anomalies in the actual Labour Party. Tells you what they’re in it for.

I think that trying to make that (very large) demographic choose between Corbyn and Remain is likely to be seriously counterproductive for Remain and anyone who's really pushing at that faultline is an idiot. But I'm pretty sure the Labour leadership understand that they can't afford to lose those voters - not that there's anywhere for them to go right now.

I'm sure that C+P doesn't really show the full hideous spectrum of the Soubry voting record, she's just as bad as most of them despite the moderate One Nation rhetoric iirc.