Brexit process

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 18 Jun 2019, 19:51

Quite possibly.

However, he is not stupid and is right to point out that if the Tories kick the can again in October they are finished, after 200 years of existence, as a political force in the UK. To that extent, I think it at least likely he will enact Brexit no matter what.

As for whether he tries to push through a slight variation of May's shitty deal; that remains to be seen. But, if he does and if he thinks this will save the Tories, then he is mistaken. The only thing that will save the Tories, or the Labour party in the long run for that matter, is if they stop f***ing around with democracy and enact the will of the people as per the vote of 2016.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 18 Jun 2019, 20:03

Whoever wins will have to deal with a rather unsavoury and disreputable EU cretin like this. I wonder who the criminals are who are accepting the bribes?

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 18 Jun 2019, 20:13

Watching the debate.

All very tough on no-deal... apart from Rory.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Jun 2019, 03:45

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/1 ... of-remain/

Constructive ambiguity on the issue of Brexit has cost Labour dearly this year, first in the local elections in May and then in the European Parliament elections. Anyone with an ounce of political nous should have realised that this would be the case. One of the giants of the Labour movement and of the Labour left, Aneurin Bevan, once remarked, â€˜We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.â€™ This is precisely what has happened to Labour.

We have not been clear as to what our policy is on Brexit and so it is entirely understandable that the electorate angrily abandoned us at the polls in favour of parties with clear messages. But many in the Labour Party are taking precisely the wrong lesson from this, and arguing that Labour should become a full-on party of Remain, rather than upholding our pledge to respect the referendum result. This would be a grave mistake.

Almost immediately after the European elections, in which Labour came third, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry suggested Labour should now back a second referendum and campaign to remain in the European Union. Other senior figures have made similar overtures. There has, of course, been a robust, determined and well-funded Remain effort within the Labour Party since the 2016 referendum. But all the electoral arithmetic shows that pursuing a pro-Remain policy would be an electoral disaster for the Labour Party on an unprecedented scale. If this were to happen, Labour may never recover from it.

The elections this year, including the Peterborough by-election last week, show us that there is still a Leave majority in most of Labourâ€™s constituencies outside of London. There was an 8.6 per cent swing from Labour to the Brexit Party in Peterborough. In many Labour seats in the European elections, including Hartlepool, Bolsover and Redcar, the Brexit Party beat Labour by a significant margin. If Labour had been completely in favour of a second referendum, and pledged to campaign for Remain in that referendum, we would not have won Peterborough. And changing tack now would mean future Labour losses to the Brexit Party in places such as Ashfield, Dudley and Stoke, closing off the prospect of a Labour government.

A majority of Labour MPs voted to hold the referendum and a majority of Labour MPs voted to trigger Article 50. Labour promised in 2016 to accept the outcome of the referendum, and in the 2017 election our pro-Leave manifesto helped us make enormous gains in many parts of the country. The manifesto was clear that we would leave the European Union and end freedom of movement. It was on that basis that we deprived the Tories of a majority and held on to Labour Leave voters and constituencies. The voters we need to secure in the next General Election are going to be Leave voters in small towns and post-industrial towns.

But despite all this, over the past two years forces within Labour have tried to move us towards a Remain position. Party policy is now that Labour should back a second referendum, but only after all other options, including a General Election, have been exhausted. This fudge has allowed Labour to hold on to some Leave-supporting voters, but their patience with us is clearly wearing thin, as is the patience of certain MPs keen to push for a more unequivocal Remain position.

The narrative that has evolved is that Labour is losing votes to the Lib Dems and that we therefore need to support a second referendum. Peterborough showed us that this is not a wholly accurate analysis. In marginal seats like Peterborough, where the next General Election will be lost or won, Labour needs to continue with its message of accepting the outcome of the referendum. A majority of Labourâ€™s most marginal seats are Leave seats, and a majority of the seats Labour needs to win in order to achieve a majority in the House of Commons also voted Leave. Backing a second referendum and Remain will not win Labour the next election.

Those backing a second referendum say it will bring the country back together. The elections this year have shown that the opposite is true. The country is just as divided as it was in 2016 and those divisions have become even more entrenched. A second referendum would only demonstrate those divisions, not heal them. The clock is ticking down to the UKâ€™s departure from the European Union and the public is exhausted by Brexit. Most people now want the issue to be over and done with so that we can return our focus to important domestic policy.

Jeremy Corbyn has done his best thus far to resist calls for Labour to become an unambiguous Remain party. The party conference in September will see a mighty push from the Remain campaign to ensure Labour does become the party of Remain. If Jeremy is serious about becoming prime minister, with a mandate to implement Labourâ€™s radical social and economic agenda, then he must use all his authority as leader to face down those Remain voices and stand true with the British people who voted to leave the European Union. If he does this, then we will win those marginal seats and we will have a Labour government. If he fails to do this, then the Labour vote in those crucial seats will splinter and Jeremy will lead Labour to a terrible defeat when the next election comes.

Brendan Chilton

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 19 Jun 2019, 09:44

Labour are going to back a second referendum today. If Johnson wins the tory leadership then we will end up with a clear split - Tory + BXP going for no deal, everybody else going for referendum/remain. Election in August.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 19 Jun 2019, 11:15

Ge more likely on October.

Boris still likely to win.

I'm calling it for Gove to get final 2. Odds look juicy on betfair.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Jun 2019, 18:18

Stewart is out and Jonhson increases vote share to mid 140s

3rd round results:

Boris Johnson: 143 votes -- +17

Jeremy Hunt: 54 -- +8

Michael Gove: 51 -- +10

Sajid Javid: 38 -- +5

Rory Stewart: 27 -- -10

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 19 Jun 2019, 18:19

This is boring now. Hunt vs Johnson in the last round, might as well just give it to Johnson and get on with it.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Jun 2019, 18:23

Sajid Javid making an absolute tit of himself on LBC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9uAVgO ... ture=share

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 19 Jun 2019, 19:16

UndercoverElephant wrote:This is boring now. Hunt vs Johnson in the last round, might as well just give it to Johnson and get on with it.

Not sure that is in the bag yet UE.

Gove might still pull it off. Very tight between Gove and Hunt.

Stewart's votes will mainly go to Gove who is most weak on no-deal. That will leap Gove beyond Hunt.

Sajit votes are key - presumably Sajit will support Johnson but some will peel off to Hunt and Gove.

The wild card is a dark arts operation by Team Boris to swing it for Hunt over Gove.

All to play for

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Jun 2019, 19:46

If Gove "pulls it off", it will be a Pyrrhic victory since we are then surely looking at the Brexit party completely destroying the Conservative party at the next GE

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 19 Jun 2019, 19:47

Latest odds for Gove getting into final 2 are collapsing (shame there isn't a cash out option!).

Hard Brexit odds are also collapsing... everything going my way

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 19 Jun 2019, 23:46

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... on-reality

Stewart, like the rest of the parliamentary party, will now have to choose who to endorse from the four remaining candidates. We can assume Boris Johnson is off-limits, and Sajid Javid has tried too hard to scoop up Raabâ€™s votes by talking up no-deal. That leaves the singularly unimpressive Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt.

The first is a dyed-in-the-wool Brexiter, the second a zealous convert. Perhaps Hunt is the less fundamentalist of the two, but neither has shown the bravery or honesty to admit any of Brexitâ€™s necessary trade-offs, and neither will defeat the runaway favourite Johnson. Their essential delusion is equal and unshakeable. Stewart may as well choose which fictional character should govern a parallel universe.

Stewartâ€™s colleagues may now be cheering his demise, but they are in for a shock. The problem he faced is the same one they will face in a few months. In essence, only Tory members can win you a leadership election, but only non-Tory members can then win you a general election. The two electorates are diametrically opposed when it comes to no-deal and you cannot placate them both.

Stewart enjoyed popular appeal and viscerally opposed no-deal, and as such could never have won the leadership contest. The next prime minister will experience the problem in reverse. By winning this leadership election, that person all but guarantees he loses the general election which shortly follows.

The only possible conclusion of Stewartâ€™s defeat is that the Tories have finally given up on reality. They donâ€™t want to hear the truth because they canâ€™t afford to. Brexit has become the partyâ€™s lifeline: the Conservatives have absorbed and locked it into their DNA. The moment they unravel a tiny thread, as Stewart did, the whole edifice comes crashing down. As such there is only one thing they can do â€“ tense themselves, focus and keep lying. For now it is a condition of survival. It wonâ€™t hold much longer.

Yep.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 20 Jun 2019, 06:44

Utter bollocks.

Stewart had no plan beyond trying what May had failed to do 3 times.

By ruling out no deal RS effectively kept us in the eu until either the eu kicked us out or parliament revoked article 50. By that stage most tories would have defected to the Brexit party.

Choosing RS would have been political suicide.

Boris is the best option.

He understands why we have to leave the eu by 31 October or shortly afterwards and polling suggests he can win a majority at a ge if that becomes inevitable this year.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 20 Jun 2019, 08:40

Lord Beria3 wrote:Utter bollocks.

Stewart had no plan beyond trying what May had failed to do 3 times.

It's not bollocks, Beria. Firstly, Stewart did have another plan -- the citizen's assembly, which wouldn't have worked. But more importantly, the fact that his plan would not have worked doesn't change the fact that his criticism of the other candidates' plans was bang on the money.

By ruling out no deal RS...

But it wasn't him ruling out no deal. He only had one vote in parliament, and no power to rule out no deal. He was pointing out, correctly, that parliament has ruled out no deal.

effectively kept us in the eu until either the eu kicked us out or parliament revoked article 50. By that stage most tories would have defected to the Brexit party.

Choosing RS would have been political suicide.

Boris is the best option.

And sometimes the best isn't good enough!

He understands why we have to leave the eu by 31 October or shortly afterwards and polling suggests he can win a majority at a ge if that becomes inevitable this year.

He's not going to win a majority. He's going to be pulverised.

If the tories don't do a pact with Farage then they will be anihiliated and the Brexit Party will win fewer than 100 seats. But if they do do a pact then the BP will lose most of the labour leavers and the tories will be reduced to about 150 seats.

They are f***ed, Beria. I realise there are a lot of tories who think Johnson can save them, but he can't. From my POV, this is just perfect. The tories are running headlong into a deathtrap which most of them cannot see. We are on the brink of a political revolution.

The really bizarre thing is that even people like Little John (apparently) can't see it, and yet he has been predicting a massive re-alignment of British politics for the last year. Not only is Corbyn going to win the election that is surely coming, but the tories will remain split in opposition.

I have no idea why you or Steve think Boris's tories and the Brexit Party can win an election on a no deal ticket. Win at all, let alone comfortably. The total amount of the electorate who want no deal is less than 40% and a significant chunk of those voters are lexiteers who hate the tories and won't vote for the BXP if there is a pact. It's nowhere near enough to deliver them a majority. If that's the general election that is coming, I predict a small labour overall majority or a hung parliament with labour as the largest party and a comfortable majority for a lab-LD coalition.