andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2019-01-15 08:15 pm
andrewducker) wrote2019-01-15 08:15 pm
Brexit intensifies
So, today the only government ever to be found in contempt of parliament lost a vote by the largest margin ever suffered by a British government, losing by 230 votes (previous "winner" was Ramsay Macdonald's minority Labour government, losing by 166 votes).
Immediately afterwards, Corbyn lodged a vote of no confidence in the government. The DUP have said they will back the Conservatives, which almost certainly means that the vote will fail*.
The EU wants us to make our mind up, and has now repeatedly said that the withdrawal deal is not open for renegotiation. Which greatly reduces the options we have remaining. So once we the no confidence fails I can't see what else Labour can do but move towards a second referendum.
Which is, according to all recent polls, what the people want. (46% to 28% last I checked).
*It's _possible_ that a few Conservatives will rebel. But incredibly unlikely.
Immediately afterwards, Corbyn lodged a vote of no confidence in the government. The DUP have said they will back the Conservatives, which almost certainly means that the vote will fail*.
The EU wants us to make our mind up, and has now repeatedly said that the withdrawal deal is not open for renegotiation. Which greatly reduces the options we have remaining. So once we the no confidence fails I can't see what else Labour can do but move towards a second referendum.
Which is, according to all recent polls, what the people want. (46% to 28% last I checked).
*It's _possible_ that a few Conservatives will rebel. But incredibly unlikely.
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What are you asking?
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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)
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Julian Smith is clearly a terribly Chief Whip and she was foolish to promote Williamson.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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(insert screaming here)
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I wonder what she thinks cross-party means.
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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That's very interesting.
Does the government have to consent to a VONC? I mean, why does any government ever do so?
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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.)
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I am finding it hard to imagine the circumstances under which the Queen would step in.
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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.
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