andrewducker | Brexit intensifies

I suspect the EU would renegotiate for a customs union and single market option, though I could be wrong. I don’t discount a cross-party coalition for that. I also don’t discount no deal.

My understanding is that the customs union/single market option would be part of the "future relationship" discussion, which is due to happen after the withdrawal agreement is agreed/signed.

I'm happy to be corrected though. I may well have misunderstood!

(And yes, No Deal could happen. You'd hope that there would be a very quick passing of the Withdrawal Agreement on March 28th if that looked likely though.)

Political declaration and withdrawal agreement complex interplay but profoundly shaped by May's red lines. You would hope, yes, but given the numbers tonight I am not sure I would bet the house on it.

I thinkthey would.

My understanding is the EU have gone as far as they are prepared to go starting from the position of May's desire to end free movement and have the abiltiy to negotiate bilateral trade deals. However, if the UK wanted to start again from a different set of starting positions, for example staying in the Single Market, then they would negotiate further.

Worth reminding ourselves that entering the EEA like Norway might be better from a Remain point of view than any other form of leaving but we still lose all our voting and decision making rights. This might be worth it to see the look in Rees-Mogg's face.

They've said they will update the political declaration on the future relationship, but not the withdrawal agreement.

Those two documents are pretty tied together. The latter relies on the former and the former paves the way for the latter.

I think things look different if eg Vince Cable leading a government of national unity turns up and says "We apparantly need to leave the EU but we would like to stay in the single market etc. Here's your 39 bilion. Can we re-do the withdrawal agreement starting from a position that we're joining the EEA. I understand not much changes but it does make a difference to how the Irish border works out and some other stuff. Probably worth discussing it for six months?"

A bit different. But we're in a situation where a small difference could swing lots of votes in the Commons or trash or not Northern Ireland.

(deleted comment)

Backstop not necessarily dealbreaker if going for cross party alliance.

A what now?

What are you asking?

I am suggesting that a cross party alliance is unlikely by pretending that I believe the concept is so alien that I have never heard of it.

I think a cross-party alliance probably actually means that one of the parties splits. I think this is more true of the Tories given that a) the Tories are more divided and more even split on Brexit b) they prize loyalty more highly than most.

I am not sure I think it is more unlikely than the other options on the table. I would, I suppose, observe that a third of Tory MPs voted against their Prime Minister yesterday. I think I probably agree with you re what would actually happen, but I suspect they would choose to describe it as a cross-party alliance. Might well be wrong about that, though, and not madly attached to it as a viewpoint.

I don't disagree.

There's a slight clash between two of my operating assumptions for the Brexit process, 1) that the Tories don't split and 2) Brexit may be a political singularity.

I think you are right, that whatever the substance of what happens, at the begining the Tories will call it a cross-party alliance. I think a sustained cross-party alliance will probably trigger either the Hard Brexiteers to strop off or to kick the Remainers out depending on whether they have the numbers and control of the institutions. (I'm not sure how much the Tory Party is worth compared to the Lib Dems who benefit from the Rowntree funding or the Labour Party who institutionally supported by the Trades Unions.. Therefore I'm not sure if having control of the legal entity of the Tory Party is worth much.)

You don't need to lose a vast number. If the Labour Party united behind either a second referendum or (to my thinking currently more likely) a Norwayish option then you only need about 20 members of the Conservative Party to have a majority as the SNP would support either. I shall pin my colours to the mast and hazard a guess that most or all of the 20 who voted for the Grieve amendment would choose splitting the party over a no-deal exit. Grieve has already all but said that he would.

Is the number 20? I think that depends on how stupid Labour Brexiteers are. Given that Kate Hoey is probably the stupidest person I have ever met who is allowed any form of responsibilty then, yeah, maybe 20.

20 Tory Remainers voting for EEA membership would see a majority of about 10 for it I think.

I think those 20 people would probably need to find a home in the Lib Dems or be okay with not being an MP after the next general election. I'm not sure they would have the infrastructure or the Lib Dem style know-how to fight and win effectively 20 by-elections within the next election.

50 might be able to survive as a separate entity.

Again, I don't disagree that there could be 20 Remainer Tories who would rather split the party than leave the EU under May's deal or No Deal. Certainly I'd agree that there was an even chance that 20 Tory Remainers would risk splitting the party by voting down their own government given a choice between No Deal or anything to the left of Norway.

Probably more likely to get 20 or evens to get 30+ if the choice was No Deal vs a referendum.

I completely made up the number 20 for what's needed for a majority. I was trying to build a bit of randomness into Labour voting but the main point was that I think there are at least 20 Tories who will now put country before party (even if they are no longer MPs after the next election) and that might be all that's needed. This option is still dependent on the Labour Party getting its act together, and more critically it is dependent on the people who want a second vote being able to co-operate with the people who are basically sane about economics but think that the result of the referendum must be respected. I am starting to think that it will be easier to get a coalition behind Norway than a second referendum so am intrigued by your last comment. How are you defining "to the left of Norway"? And don't say "the North Sea".

On a continuum from a hostile no deal, through WTO, May's Deal, EEA to Hard Remain then anything between EEA and Hard Remain (We are forced to or embarrassed in to or decide to join Schegen as part of a a Remain process) would be "to the left of Norway".

I am really uncertain about the relative prospects of another referendum or EEA / Norway-esque.

That coalition you speak of Labour Remainers (ie would actively seek to Remain despite the Cameron referendum), Tory Remainers and economically sane MP's who currently kowtow to the result of the Cameron referendum might have different ways of approaching the choice of a referendum or seeking EEA / Norway-esque.

If you are economically sane then Norway gives you 1) respecting the result 2) economic least damage out of all the Brexit options 3) less risk that the public votes for No Deal, but an other referendum potentially solves your problems with mandates. Assuming the result of the referendum process was Norway or to the left of Norway then you can vote with your (revised) mandate and economic sanity simultaneously.

If you are a Remainer who think that the Cameron referendum result is not morally or politically binding on them, because we are a representative democracy, or the process was flawed or the negotiations have revealed that Brexit can't be done as advertised then you already are prepared to ignore the referendum result. Norway is not what you want but an other referendum might produce a second narrow majority for Leave which you wouldn't be able to ignore. Do you bank the least harm option of Norway-esque or do you risk a referendum in the hope that that is a route to fully Remaining?

And it's all iterative and herdlike because the chances of something working depend on people clustering towards it. 10 Tory Remainers hanging out for Remain will be hung out to dry by their party and still not win. 50 Tory Remainers are a different proposition.

I think 20 or thereabouts (or to acknowledge the fuzziness of the number a score) is a decent guess. Current Tory plus DUP majority is about a dozen. Take 20 off that gets you to a majority of -8, add a small handfull of Labour Brexiteers (those clever enough to spot that Norway is not actually leaving the EU really) and you get to a narrow majority for something like Norway.

(I'm mostly thinking about the arithmatic in blocks of tens, and twenties and fifeties, because shifting those sorts of numbers around tells you whether something is completely impossible or entirely possible and also tells you how vulnerable a particular position is to the whipping activity of the Whips)

Julian Smith is clearly a terribly Chief Whip and she was foolish to promote Williamson.

I was surprised that he failed to keep the defeat below 200.

My private calibration was that 200+ represented a Terrible Night for the Conservative Party. 230 was, well I genuinely had to blink before I believed it.

The whips have either called in every favour and made every threat and it's not worked or they have given up and cooked up a deal about the VONC.

Williamson is less than awesome. In a cabinet of mediocrities who are hamstrung by their own civil ware he fails to shine.

Oh, he's horrid - both nasty and stupid. But I think those are assets in a chief whip. He wouldn't have presided over a defeat of this magnitude.

It is also worth noting - and I think this is now as far as I go in terms of prediction - that May will have to be removed for this to happen. I would bet my house that in a straight choice between no deal and a second referendum then she would choose the former, and that's nothing to do with party before country; it's what she regards her obligation as being. I tend to think that any attempt on her part to lead cross-party talks is going to fail quickly because I don't think she'll abandon her red lines and I don't think there's any majority available within them.

She's already said that cross party talks won't involve Corbyn.

(insert screaming here)

I wonder what she thinks cross-party means.

I agree! Seems incapable of dealing with any disagreement.

Would you bet the content of your wardrobes? Or are you not that certain?

Again, I agree. May will stick to delivering Brexit. Nothing I saw or heard in her Commons statement (or her entire life) made me think that her "consultation" would be anything other than May going round Grieve, Starmer, Cable, Umanu, Soubry, Blackwood et al being baffled that they won't just agree with her that the only way for Brexit to happen is to support her deal. Her sense of honour and duty would be admirable if she weren't so blinkered as to forget that other people also have made promises they feel honour bound to keep at all costs.

So I think what happens next is

1) May survives the VONC

2) May goes back to the EU

3) The EU tell May they won't renogiate

4) May comes back to the Commons in 1-3 weeks with essentially the same deal

5) that is rejected again

6) Labour moves a second VONC

7) ??????

Either May goes, or the Tory Party goes to the country, or I win £500 on my bet that Keir Starmer is the next Prime Minister and we go dancing on the proceeds or Rees-Mogg is caught felating a life size blow up doll of himself whilst being whipped by the other Teressa May and the whole country dies of hysterical laughter.

I agree with this entirely up to your (7).

At some stage it will be so close to March 29th that enough of the 20 who voted for the Grieve amendment will vote against her in a VONC. Why do you pick Starmer? I mean, I think it would be a great outcome but I don't see any evidence that he would be a more likely candidate than any other.

I picked Starmer because about 18 months ago it occured to me that he may be quietly trying to steer Corbyn towards Remain whilst enacting Brexit in a way that meant he could position himself to still be a credible continuity Remainer should Corbyn and May (oh dear) fall under a bus and since then he's become a sort of ironic short hand for the sort of outcome one would get from the sort of constitutional crises (UK & Tory Party, Labour Party governing documents) that Brexit is producing.

Then my mate Keni phoned me up and said he was putting some money on a horse, had spotted Starmer at 100-1 to be next PM and would I like him to put on a fiver for me.

He's just the emblem of the singularity that I happened to get a great price on.

At 7 something breaks but I do fear that such is institutional arrogance of the Tory Party and their form of British Nationalism that it remain inconceivable to them that Britain might not win this one and we might, in fact, turn out to be the bad guys.

So, probably you are right and the Grievites break with May but maybe they need to loop round that VONC process three times rather than twice.

Which is worrying because we're then so close to the 29th of March that individual errors could rapidly shift us from No Deal to Remain and any point in between at random. (On this point I have finally persuaded MLW to actually start stockpiling food.)

I think the shortness of the Grieve amendment timeframe makes me think that they will decide on when to break in terms of time left before 29 March rather than May's schedule. But could be wrong.

Again, I think you are probably right but I think they are constrained by the various constitutions in which they operate.

They can't get rid of May via ejecting her from leadership of the Tory Party because she has immunity.

The government has to lose a significant vote before a VONC is admissible (probably). May has two weeks after losing a VONC to sort things out. It's not entirely clear who gets to decide how and when things are considered sorted out.

Which is why I think there is a second constitutinal crisis nestling like an unexploded bomb in the middle of the Brexit crisis. It's not clear and clearly and authoratiatively writen down who gets to decide about regularising disorderly Prime Ministerial transitions.

VONC lost triggers two week count down. To avoid a General Election there must be a postive vote of Confidence in *A* government but who gets to decide who has first go at forming that government? What is the order of succession? Who decides when the confidence vote happens? There might be competing claims between Corbyn and David Liddington?

What happens if the government refuses to make time for a third VONC after the Grievites cross the floor and join the Lib Dems and instead avoids any significant votes?

At some point the Queen has to exercise some judgement which is going to spark some sort of constitutional crisis.

That's very interesting.

Does the government have to consent to a VONC? I mean, why does any government ever do so?

The government has some control over the business of the House. That's Leadsom's job as Leader of the House.

They couldn't block it forever but they could probably delay a second by claiming that there had just been one, the government survived and there hadn't been a significant defeat since the last VONC.

Which is where it bumps up against some the stuff Grieve has been doing which forces the government to submit policy to a vote.

Even without that sort of thing a very hostile House could make government impossible by using procedural motions all the time to stop anything happening.

So, some practical ability to manage the timing of a second VONC but on the other hand Her Maj could call Teressa May in at any time and sack her. So there's a limit to the sort of shennanigans they can get away with. (Although the actual conversation would be between May and a senior equery with said equery pointing out to May that it might be better if she resigned before the Queen was forced to ask her to resign.)

I am finding it hard to imagine the circumstances under which the Queen would step in.

It would be a rare and special and probably one time only event. Depends a bit on how much she has to step in and how visibly.

Generally her role in Prime Ministerial succession is to confirm the outcome of some other process where that process has concluded, has a clear outcome and where the legitimacy of the process is not contended. And mostly people don't push things. (For example whilst it is constitutionally possible for someone to be Prime Minister but not Party Leader I don't know of anyone who has lost their party leadership and not resigned as PM before losing a VONC instigated by their own party.

What we have here is the potential (unlikely but possible) for May's Prime Ministership to fail and either a clash of mandates exists between her potential successors or for a process of removing May to start, but not to have finished before some other crisis interposes itself. If both happen at the same time, then the Queen moves from being the signatory to a decision maker.

A scenario such as 1) May loses a VONC on 24th March 2) she shapes to take the whole two period trying to prop up her ministry or run down the clock for a general election 3) 48 hours later its clear that neither May nor Corbyn will be able to able to win the confidence of the House - meanwhile there are already food riots - does the queen allow the clock to run down for a General Election or does she boot May, by-pass Corbyn and appoint e.g. Keir Starmer?

The Queen might be able to send a functionary to tell May that she has until noon on the 27th to resign or the Queen will sack her and keep that quiet but if May calls her bluff then the Queen might have to do something in public.

As I say, it would be a unique event in the UK Constitution. We won't have seen the like since Victoria and Melbourne. But the risk of this sort of nonsense happening is driven by the poor quality of our constitution.

I still find it impossible to imagine a woman of ninety-two taking this action. What would precipitate it? Who would be the adviser telling her that she should step into the political arena, who is not the Prime Minister?

Prince Charles would be my top bet.

I would not have guessed that she listens very seriously to his advice but could well be wrong. Not a specialist in this.

I don't know if she listens to him either. I know I don't.

He does have a right of access to HMQ and government ministers, he does take an interest, and he is an activist monarch. So he'd be top of my list to bowl up in front of her telling her she needs to sort things out.

I think he's also (just to unpack the third nested constitional crisis that is looming) the most likely Regent in the event that the Queen is rendered incapax.

I don't know a lot about this so my view should be taken with an extreme pinch of salt, but I find it hard to imagine. The discourse has so strongly been that she is right not to interfere and he wrong to do so that I think it would be hard for him to convince her even if (perhaps especially if) he was fully convinced. But I could well be wrong.

This is the very thing that makes it a crisis. I am contemplating an extreme and unlikely set of circumstances.

HMQ is very much in the dis-active reigning not ruling mode. I think she's watched how her uncle was dealt with and decided to mostly keep herself as the symbolic Mother of the Motherland.

But she is, as I am given to undertand, a sharp minded woman and has taken an interest. She's not been above offering a bit of advice or a sharp rebuke to her Prime Ministers in the past.

So I completely agree that her habit will be to continue to not play an activist role.

Even if Charles is in her ear giving her yap about his (ahem, I mean her, definately her) constitutional rights and duties.

I'm not sure how that survives a situation where May, Corbyn, Blackwood, Dodds, Cable and company turn up at Buckingham Palace claiming that the rule book is broken and none of them can agree who chairs the meeting that re-writes the rules and meanwhile London is on fire and people are actually starving to death.

And whilst she is seen as being correct for not being an activist monarch in the ordinary day to day events (which for this context include contested Prime Ministerial successions like 2010 and whatever was going on with Callaghan - before my time) she does have one job in the UK Constitution which is picking who gets first go at being Prime Minister in the event of an off piste crisis.

That would be uncontroversial in the event of a Brighton Bombing type event which killed half the Cabinet including the PM. A bit more controversial where the current government's majority was on 6 and amongst the dead were a dozen MP's with marginal seats. Yet more controversial where the difficulty is founding a two-fold clash between Party constitutions and the UK Constitution (as we have now, perhaps).

So, we might get to a situation where HMQ might be right to take a more activist position and pick a PM where it is unclear who that ought to be. We might get to a situation where it would be much, much better for HMQ to do the actual picking a week earlier than strictly necessary in order to allow their first pick to fail and still have time for their second pick to at leat manage a functioning government. She, herself, is reluctant. Charles is in one ear. A more conservative councillor is in another. All the likely Prime Minsters and king makers are in front of her. What is a 92 year old woman whose husband has just been in a car crash to do?

(About the only thing that could make Brexit more fun is if the Queen has a stroke or Prince Philip dies and she is devastated with grief.)

"HMQ is very much in the dis-active reigning not ruling mode. I think she's watched how her uncle was dealt with and decided to mostly keep herself as the symbolic Mother of the Motherland."

Have you seen The Crown? If not, I really highly recommend it.

I have - I am eagerly awaiting Olivia Colman although I'm not sure anyone could top Matt Smith's Prince Philip.

I really don't think Johnson could form a government. He would instantly lose at least Clarke, Soubry, Grieve, Wollaston, Allen, Sandbach, Lee, others. There'll be others in that category too, probably not all of the 20 but enough to mean he can't summon a majority even with the DUP and the lunatic Labour MPs.

He probably can't form a successful or long lived government but he might be able to get himself made PM. Which is all he really wants.

Corbyn withdrawing his amendment was a bad sign, though I’m slightly comforted that Blackford did too.

I think that there was an agreement behind the scenes that putting forward amendements to fail wasn't going to help anyone, and they should just get on with voting No.

(Or so I'm picking up from the commentariat. I suspect it'll be a while before we know for sure.)

Yes, I think perhaps you're right and it's less depressing if so. I do not have a lot of faith in Mr Corbyn, though.

Me either!

I am reliably informed that they had decided to pull all the amendments as none of them were going to pass and therefore they wanted to get to the main event.

The one amendment that was not withdrawn was treated with some contempt.

Me either. The more I look at him the more I think he and I think orthagonally to each other which makes understanding him and trusting him pretty difficult.

He also remains very, very bad at the job of Leader of the Opposition at it has been understood for the last 50 years and not very good (perhaps actively bad) at doing the job of Leader of the Labour Movement as I think he conceives it for the 21st Century.

It's like watching someone play chess using the rules for backgammon whilst unable to find their own arse with both hands tied behind their back.

I don't actually think it makes a difference to the Irish border - because no matter what we say _at this moment_ the EU will want a backstop against us changing our minds next month.

The WA is our divorce agreement, and while, yes, the intentions beyond that point will affect it in a few minor ways, the divorce agreement isn't going to contain the new agreement, and it's going to contain the divorce bill and how we make sure that Northern Ireland still gets to see both parents.

And as the backstop is the main bone of contention, I don't see how this will change anything.

To be fair most people can’t, unless their arms are remarkably long.

I suggest an series of empirical studies to settle the issue.

I saw it said that not having earlier amendments and skipping straight to the main vote would make it harder for the Tory Whips, as they wouldn’t know who the nailed-on rebels were. Not that, in the end, it mattered.

Edited 2019-01-16 00:45 (UTC)

Another referendum would require an extension of Article 50 though surely? And the EU would need to agree that.

They've signalled that the two things they'd extend for are a referendum and an election. (At least, that's my understanding)

They might also extend by a week or two at short notice if the necessary UK legislation wasn’t quite all passed in time.

I think the EU has said that they'd agree to an extension if it lead to greater political certainty, as a further referendum should. (Should. Not would...)

Hah, yeah, I'd be more keen on another vote (ref OR election) if I thought either would actually put us in a significantly different position!

I think a second referendum probably brings lots of clarity about what we do over the next five years with regard to the EU.

The question or questions are going to have to be pretty narrow. With a one question referendum then the questions can be

Leave / Remain

May's Deal / No Deal

May's Deal / Remain.

I don't think a referendum question "Should the UK still leave the EU?" would be accepted but if it were it would be de facto May's Deal or Remain.

There are lots of ways of doing a multi-question referendum, two questions or using ranked voting but I think they mostly boil down to

May's Deal

Remain

No Deal

and possibly EEA membership and some sort of process that exhausts the options until there is only one.

At that point we have a winner. It might be a winner by a narrow amount but we would have been through a process of an intial referendum, a two year negotiation, a second referendum once all the facts were in - even if the result is a narrow win for one position we all probably have to accept that and move on with it.

What we do with a country where we have had a very contentious set of referendums that have resulted in a narrow win for one position which has finally been delivered and almost no one is happy is a difficult position to be in. It's certainly not clear that second referendum will bring harmony or acceptance if the result is a narrow win and it's not clear how politics would fall out following Brexit happening or not happening.

I think you are right about a general election not resolving anything.

Likely outcomes

Tories win 20 seats - small majority

Labour win 20 seats - small majorty

SNP / Lib Dems / Plaid win 20 seats - minority government with a Pro-EU tint

??? Sein Fein lose 7 seats to the SDLP

or thing stay pretty much exactly how they are.

But we have a chance that the Tory Party and perhaps the Labour Party might run on split manifestoes.

I agree that another ref is more likely to be helpful than an election. But I fear that a) remain won't be in the options or b) remain will lose again because a lot of people have apparently decided that changing their minds is antidemocratic :(

That may be the case but we would at least have certainty.

If Remain lose again then, it's pretty clear that the majority of electors in Britain want us to leave the EU even if the withdrawal deal and future arrangements are sub-optimal.

We'd then spend the next 20 years quietly blaming Brexiteers for every ill in the country. Or rather, we (you and I and Andy) would spend 20 years paying not attention to the English whilst they did that whilst enjoying life in the People's European Socialist Democratic Republic of South Scandinavia.)

The only fly in that ointment is that I think a substantial minority of indy supporters don't want to be in the EU either. Mind you, if we crash out with no deal I expect the resulting chaos will soon make more or less everyone in Scotland decide they're done with being ruled from Westminster!

Not necessarily. The Greek referendum in 2015 took eight days to organise from start to finish. You couldn’t do a legally binding referendum that quickly, but since the second referendum wasn’t legally binding, a third one to undo it doesn’t need to be.

The Electoral Commission (who have an eye on the substance of our constitution and not just the letter of it) would take a really, really dim view of us trying to organise a referendum in less than six months. I would not be surprised if they resigned en masse if it were attempted.

Yeah, I was just going to say, we're not Greece and I can't see that flying with the Civil Service even if parliament thought it was a good idea!

I'm disappointed that WHISKY! doesn't seem to be one of your options.

A no deal Brexit probably makes whisky cheaper.

Perhaps.

But demand will soar - we'll all be driven to drink!

Putin will send leave voters vodka and Mexico will pay.

It's rather a shame that the EU can't just decide that the UK is incapable of governing itself and put in trustees.

I wish DW had a Like button for this.

Ditto the above!

Speaking as a meddling outsider, better a "No Brexit" deal than a "no-deal" Brexit.

Seconding this.

So much yes! But then no Brexit has been my preferred option all along

Fascinating. I actually went to Hansard and read the final debate.

A point that some of the speakers came close to making is that the deal they were voting on is not the Brexit that the Leavers voted for, not even close. Neither is "no deal." So, since the idealized Brexit that won the referendum is not on offer, the only proper course is to back up and start over.

That idea of an 'idealised Brexit' implies perfectly spherical frictionless Brexit voters of unit mass and radius who all voted for exactly the same outcome for the same reasons. Instead we have Leavers who say they didn't vote to chuck foreigners out and Leavers who say they did. Ditto for bendy bananas, unelected bureaucrats, the extra money for the Health Service etc. etc.

Brexit was always a nebulous vision of the world to come with the True Believers projecting their own disparate wishes on the outcome. The only view of reality, bad things will happen if we vote Leave was derided as Project Fear and studiously disparaged and ignored.

And none of that disparaging and ignoring made the fact go away.

No, that's far more complex an analysis than necessary. And I don't think there was anybody on the Leave side who supported "unelected bureaucrats" or the EU's banana rules. The issue at hand is the trade agreement. It was clear at the time of the referendum that the Leave campaign was advocating 1) complete frictionless trade agreements between the UK and EU, while 2) removing the UK from mandatory subjugation to EU regulations. That's the combination that quickly became clear wasn't going to happen, most immediately because of the government's initially lazy approach to negotiating 1), the equivalent to what would have developed over 45 years if the UK had never joined the EU in the first place. You can't write that overnight.

The term 'Committee of Public Safety' begins to circulate my historian's mind alarmingly!

I think May will survive the VONC. My estimations are

90% - May survives

5% - May loses but wins the VOC in two weeks time (some Tories and / or the DUP administer a punishment beating)

3% - May loses and is replaced by another Tory who wins the VOC

1% - May loses and Keir Starmer or Vince Cable form a government of national unity

1% - there is a General Election.

If there is a General Election then I think the likely outcomes are each a 1/4 chance

Small Tory Majority - Tory Party still split

Small Labour Majority - Labour Party still split

SNP/LD/PC increase seats - Pro-EU influence on minority government

Things stay the same.

(There is of course the chance that the Tory Party splits, de jure on rival manifestoes or de facto through UKIP or that UKIP win 5 seats and cost the Tories 50, or the Lib Dems win 40 seats or some other crazy thing happens but not likely.

So I'm making a Corbyn Labour Government 0.5% chance of happening. More likely outcomes in my view are a Keir Starmer or Boris Johnson government.

However, and it is a huge however, I saw nothing from May that indicated that she was prepared to change her policy. There is nothing from the EU that suggests they will change their policy on May's Deal. So in 95% chance we end up with May remaining as PM we are probably looking at another vote on the same deal in about 2 weeks followed, probably defeated and followed by a second VONC immediately afterwards.

A General Election IIRC takes 6 weeks. That six weeks can't start until the Fixed Term Parliament Act two week grace period has finished so the earliest we have an election is the 14th of March with the result not known until the 15th and perhaps not clear until the next week, week starting 18th of March. T-minus 11 days.

May can remain Prime Minister for those eight weeks if she chooses and can remain PM until the new Parliament meets. See Gordon Brown passim.

I don't think I've ever looked forward to April so much in my life...

It's like a really exciting, important, football game. I'm both enthralled by the action but desperate for a result, and for my side to have won in the end.

However, I'm not just a spectator but also the ball I'm not enjoying stuff too much.

That is a very accurate analogy

Brexit intensifies

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject