andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2018-11-13 10:47 am
andrewducker) wrote2018-11-13 10:47 am
Brexit: Where are we now?
Trying to get it straight in my head where are right now.
Theresa May seems to be at the end of the negotiation agreement, and has (almost) put together a withdrawal agreement which is acceptable to the EU (complete with NI Backstop).
This withdrawal agreement is absolutely unacceptable to the Brexit chunk of the Conservative Party. Who have said they will vote against it. This includes a fair part of her cabinet.
It is also pretty unacceptable to the Remain chunk of the Conservative Party. Who have utterly failed to vote against the leadership so far, so can sadly probably be ignored.
Labour have also said that any deal which only ties us to a temporary customs union is unacceptable. And that they will vote against it. However, bits of their party are either staunch Leavers or are so terrified of No-Deal that they will vote in favour of this deal.
The DUP have said that they will vote against it.
The SNP have said that they will vote against it.
And this needs to happen pretty-much right now, if they're going to get it out to the EU27 to ratify it.
I suspect that it's going to be pretty close on whether they can pass it. I'm really hoping they can't, and that parliament is able to hold the government to account.
Of course, we'll then have to see what happens next. My gut says that in a situation where Theresa May says "Fine, it's No-Deal then" there are enough competent MPs to force her out, in one way or another.
My stockpiling will begin in January, if we haven't gotten ourselves into a more sensible situation by then.
Theresa May seems to be at the end of the negotiation agreement, and has (almost) put together a withdrawal agreement which is acceptable to the EU (complete with NI Backstop).
This withdrawal agreement is absolutely unacceptable to the Brexit chunk of the Conservative Party. Who have said they will vote against it. This includes a fair part of her cabinet.
It is also pretty unacceptable to the Remain chunk of the Conservative Party. Who have utterly failed to vote against the leadership so far, so can sadly probably be ignored.
Labour have also said that any deal which only ties us to a temporary customs union is unacceptable. And that they will vote against it. However, bits of their party are either staunch Leavers or are so terrified of No-Deal that they will vote in favour of this deal.
The DUP have said that they will vote against it.
The SNP have said that they will vote against it.
And this needs to happen pretty-much right now, if they're going to get it out to the EU27 to ratify it.
I suspect that it's going to be pretty close on whether they can pass it. I'm really hoping they can't, and that parliament is able to hold the government to account.
Of course, we'll then have to see what happens next. My gut says that in a situation where Theresa May says "Fine, it's No-Deal then" there are enough competent MPs to force her out, in one way or another.
My stockpiling will begin in January, if we haven't gotten ourselves into a more sensible situation by then.
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I'm torn between "there won't be a majority for remain even if her deal fails, so it's imperative that SOME deal succeeds" and "everyone hates this but if it fails, surely a majority will support remain over no deal?"
I keep see-sawing back and forth between "surely MPs aren't stupid and don't want to destroy the country?" and "if they had any shred of backbone wouldn't they have refused to vote for article 50 whatever the whips said?"
And I'm uncertain between "surely most people are against this now?" (imagine a re-run of the referendum with a massive get out the vote campaign, instead of people ignoring the whole thing) and "probably the leave vote would be way stronger than I think, and fixing a bad referendum with another referendum isn't better"
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Except I keep eating it, which somewhat negates its effectiveness...!
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I haven't gone full sacks-of-rice and stacks-of-tins in the back room, yet.
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It does look a bit like People's Vote will win in this case, given there's now powerful public support for it from both sides. If it doesn't win, then it looks like it could be complete constitutional chaos as something deeply against the will of the people is pushed in the name of the will of the people, resulting in god-alone-knows what.
Or May might win, kinda hope she doesn't, but fear in the Remain-ish majority might win the day for the deeply unsatisfactory deal (If the EU even allow it, and *will* it be EEA-with-a-new-hat?)
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There might be time for a people's vote before the next euro-election next summer, but it's running awfully close.
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Gotta say, not 100% confident of Jo Johnson's motives.
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Also, the implications of the Scottish case on whether the UK can unilaterally rescind Article 50 are a bit uncertain.
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I suspect I've studied civil war, revolution and rebellion way too long...............
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Stockpiling
I am looking ahead to the potential for a short but significant disruption to food supplies in the UK. I think a possible, but unlikely outcome, is that a No Deal Brexit triggers a chaotic response from our transport system caused by combination of legal uncertainty, bureaucratic overload and logistical confusion. Drivers have the wrong paper work. Lorries are stuck in queues at customs. Petrol tankers can't get to the right place. The super markets get emptied, there is panic buying and perhaps some rioting. The army is on the streets. It takes a few weeks for things to be unpicked and for a few months supplies are bit uncertain with shortages of some goods and blips in supply. Perhaps a few tens of thousand people dead.
I don't see the acute phase going on for longer than a couple of months because a) we're not actually fighting a war, what we are doing is coping with lots of people not knowing what form to sign to allow their lorry to move from A to B b) we are a very rich country - we can just go and buy food from the US and ship it in to Liverpool - we might break some of our international trade obligations or have to close the M6 to unauthorised traffic but equally our navy will kill anyone who actually tries to stop us moving food to the UK and c) if it goes on longer than a few months we become in need of humanitarian aid from the EU, which has less in the way of paperwork attached to it and is probably cheaper than buying the food at retail prices.
There's no problem with us being a humanitarian crisis - we're rich enough to fully fund our own emergancy aid appeal. If we're lucky Bob Geldof and Bono will go and do a fund raiser for us in Brasil or Uttar Pradesh and be out of the country for months.
In the event that things are bad and there are food riots in Edinburgh I want to be able to lock the door, bar the windows and let the army shoot the looters whilst I keep my head down.
So, my aim is to get over at worst a three week period where food supplies are very, very poor followed by a 3 month period where food supplies are unreliable.
I'm also looking for things that are easy to cook in case there are interuptions to energy supplies.
Batteries, some battery powered lamps.
Need to have a think about storing energy for mobile phone.
I have plenty of books and board games in case the TV is out. Might treat myself to a battery powered digital radio to go with the hand winding radio.
Basically this so far.
https://danieldwilliam.dreamwidth.org/176542.html
Fortunately, in terms of finances, I have the spare cashflow to do this without much pain. I'm not saying I won't notice it but I'm taking 6 months worth of food shopping and concentrating it in 3 months and then, assuming there is no crisis, releasing that food stock over the period of 9 months or a year.
The people who I think are going to die are people on Universal Credit who don't have the luxury of managing their cashflow on a week to week basis and could easily find themselves with no money and no food on the 29th of March.
Brexit Weather
If it dumps a Bawbag from the East on us at the same times as we have a three day week then we probably need more stockpiles of different things.
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Also, as you say, there are plenty of people back at home ready and willing to put a stick in the spokes before the deal gets to being ratifiied by the EU-27. I don't see a deal being ratified by the EU-27 if Jacob Rees-Mogg is in the process of bringing down the govenment.
I'm not quite as pessimistic as you about the Tory Remainers. I think, on balance, they will vote to keep a Tory Ministry in power even if that means voting for a rubbish deal, but I don't think it's a certainty. The ghost of Robert Peel is, ahem, alive and well, but what his prescence signifies is uncertain.
I'm more worried about Kate Hoey and co who are too stupid to be unprincipled.
I would not be surprised if we ended up with Keir Starmer as PM. May's government collapses. No acceptable Tory candidate. Labour MP's won't back their own Leader as PM, Starmer goes to the Palace.
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I'm pretty sure the ERG can muster 30-40 votes against and will do, and I am equally sure that the DUP will vote against.
I think the really interesting thing is going to be where the Labour Party votes. Corbyn might now pay the price here for his lack of engagement with the Parliamentary party, and some of me would like to see this happen. Party members will have to trade off their own constituency polling (and indeed general election polling), their fear of being associated with No Deal, their desire to bring down the Government and trigger an election, their personal views on a Corbyn government and other factors that I haven't thought about. I can't really call this one and would want much more detailed modelling, but I wouldn't want to be a Labour whip right now.
Am I repeating a conversation we've previously had? Am getting slight sense of deja vu. Apologies if so.
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https://www.itv.com/news/2018-11-02/voters-in-every-labour-held-constituency-support-a-peoples-vote-on-brexit/
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I think you are right about the ERG numbers. If they had more they would propose a motion of No Confidence in May as Tory Leader.
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I find it pretty hard to envisage the circumstances under which this could happen.
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But the big question in my mind is: if the bill fails, and the competent MPs force May out, who are they going to get to replace her, who'd be tolerable to them and whom the party would accept?
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Yeah, the Labour Leavers seem to be slightly more reasonable than the ERG. They want to leave, but they don't want No Deal. Whereas the ERG want to leave, no matter what, with no ties whatsoever to Europe. So the deal which is currently being made (or might have been made) is acceptable to people who want to Leave (because it gets them out somewhat) but not to ones who don't want a Customs Union, Backstop, etc. like the ERG.
I don't know that replacing May would be enough. We might need an actual vote of No Confidence. We'll see how badly the Conservatives can split shortly, I suspect.
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