Brexit process

[Little John]

I didn't say that Johnson could win an election on any ticket. I have made no predictions other than the following one;

Any political party that continues down the road of thwarting Brexit, either on the basis of a desire to simply ignore the democratic will of the nation - or as part of some convoluted political triangulation - will pay the price of its own destruction sooner or later. In fact, this is not even about denying democracy, in the end. It is about denying the tide of history.

The Brexit party is merely the first manifestation in this country of what happens when you F--k with democracy and/or keep on ignoring the people. In time, unambiguously Left and Right versions of the Brexit party will emerge out of the rubble of our existing political arrangements.

The Left/Right dichotomy in politics will persist because it is intrinsic to what humans are. But, below that, the dominant political dichotomy of our age is now globalism versus localism and localism is going to win in the end. Not because it is efficient. But, because it is inevitable on a finite planet that has hit the limits to growth and any version of Left and Right must now express itself within the the broader political context of localism if it wants to avoid extinction.

[PS_RalphW]

I cannot see the EU treating Johnson in any other way than they treated May. He is a different face, and a reputation as a major incompetent, who will bring jingoistic bluster and nothing else to the negotiating table. He will be told there is nothing further to negotiate, and to come back if at all when he has a majority in the Commons on the already agreed deal. He will then either backtrack on no deal (likely) or lose a vote of no confidence. or both What happens then is anybody's guess. As is the result of any GE at the moment.

[PS_RalphW]

When people start talking about the tide of history I know they have completely lost touch with reality

[Potemkin Villager]

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 327839b2d5

"Tory party members would be happy to see their party destroyed if it meant Brexit was delivered, according to new figures.

A YouGov poll published on Tuesday showed 54% of the party’s membership would rather the UK left the EU than the Conservative Party survive."

Life of Brexit fever fans growing tory death wish in continuing longest political suicide note in history. May set to soon be second worst PM ever.

[UndercoverElephant]

Any political party that continues down the road of thwarting Brexit, either on the basis of a desire to simply ignore the democratic will of the nation - or as part of some convoluted political triangulation - will pay the price of its own destruction sooner or later. In fact, this is not even about denying democracy, in the end. It is about denying the tide of history.

It is the tories that the tide of history has turned against. We are watching the death-throes of Thatcherism, mixed in with Brexit Chaos. It is partly because of the legacy of Thatcherism that the UK voted to leave the EU.

The tory party is now nothing but an empty shell. It is devoid of genuine ideas, because it has had all the time in the world to implement its ideology, and the system built on that ideology has failed. Now they look at Corbyn/Momentum and see their nemesis, because that's exactly what it is. And they are absolutely petrified of it. Stopping Corbyn is the one thing they care about even more than brexit, but they will fail.

I remain 99% certain that brexit is not going to happen. Johnson will call an election, hopeful of clawing back the majority May lost, but he is going to fail miserably. The Labour-led coalition that takes over later this year will extend article 50 again in order to hold a referendum between May's deal and remain, and remain will win. The Brexit Party will then replace the tories as the largest opposition party.

What happens long-term regarding the UK and the EU is anybody's guess. Personally I suspect that the UK remaining in the EU will tip the balance towards some sort of major reform of the EU, partly to head off anti-EU forces elsewhere in Europe, and partly to try to avoid Brexit Part Two.

[UndercoverElephant]

. May set to soon be second worst PM ever.

I tend to agree. Johnson's reign is going to be spectacularly short. He will take power, call an election, and watch the tory party crash and burn. The incoming coalition government will then implement electoral reform and lock the tories out of power for a very long time.

Personally I suspect the right wing / ERG-types will permanently switch to the Brexit Party and Rory Stewart will take over the tories and attempt to be their version of Tony Blair. We will have "New Conservatives", except they will actually be the old conservatives, in the tradition of Disraeli and MacMillan.

[Little John]

Any political party that continues down the road of thwarting Brexit, either on the basis of a desire to simply ignore the democratic will of the nation - or as part of some convoluted political triangulation - will pay the price of its own destruction sooner or later. In fact, this is not even about denying democracy, in the end. It is about denying the tide of history.

It is the tories that the tide of history has turned against. We are watching the death-throes of Thatcherism, mixed in with Brexit Chaos. It is partly because of the legacy of Thatcherism that the UK voted to leave the EU.

The tory party is now nothing but an empty shell. It is devoid of genuine ideas, because it has had all the time in the world to implement its ideology, and the system built on that ideology has failed. Now they look at Corbyn/Momentum and see their nemesis, because that's exactly what it is. And they are absolutely petrified of it. Stopping Corbyn is the one thing they care about even more than brexit, but they will fail.

I remain 99% certain that brexit is not going to happen. Johnson will call an election, hopeful of clawing back the majority May lost, but he is going to fail miserably. The Labour-led coalition that takes over later this year will extend article 50 again in order to hold a referendum between May's deal and remain, and remain will win. The Brexit Party will then replace the tories as the largest opposition party.

What happens long-term regarding the UK and the EU is anybody's guess. Personally I suspect that the UK remaining in the EU will tip the balance towards some sort of major reform of the EU, partly to head off anti-EU forces elsewhere in Europe, and partly to try to avoid Brexit Part Two.

Stating with "99% certainty" that Brexit will not happen is basically synonymous with stating with equal certainty that:

Holding onto Hilary is better than the alternatives
Trump will not get elected
A populist democratic revolution will not sweep across Europe
The Brexit party will amount to nothing

But, even if Brexit is "stopped", it will be a temporary "victory" and will be bought at the price of the destruction sooner or later (and it is looking sooner with each passing day) of both main parties in this country.

It's called Global "Trumpism" in case you hadn't noticed. Trump is merely one symptom of it. Brexit is another and it is coming from both Left and Right. Though, mostly the old nationalist Right because the mainstream Left (or what now pretends to be the Left) have been so co-opted into the global-capitalist, corporate machine over the last few decades.

UE, for all of your noise about dealing with the real world, as it actually is, this little episode reveals, when push has come to shove - whether you realize and acknowledge it or not and irrespective of your protestations about being an "objective" observer who is merely being "realistic" - that you are just another bourgeois reactionary with regards to the maintenance of the status quo. Sure, you can go for a bit a bit of Corbynism. But, only so long as it occurs within the known constraints of the existing globalist world order. But, as I have already intimated, you are on the wrong side of history.

[Lord Beria3]

[

Forget the candidates and look at those who vote

The big news in the UK is that somebody who never had the slightest chance of becoming prime minister, is now not becoming prime minister. Interested in the second item in the news?

We understand why reporters are clamouring for a real contest, and why they are writing up the chances of hopeless candidates. It is an arithmetical certainty that one of the hopeless contenders will make to the final two in today's last set of polls. None of them have any hope of supplanting Boris Johnson because he is the only one with a clear message on Brexit: whatever happens, no extension.  

That said, a BBC reporter wanted to have deciphered during the TV debate that Boris Johnson had softened his position. Johnson said something along the lines that it would be eminently feasible to deliver a deal before October. The reporter interpreted the statement as meaning that a no-deal Brexit was eminently feasible, which would indeed have been a qualification of the previous position. We did not read it that way.

Perhaps the more important news story was a poll by YouGov revealing the sheer extremism among Conservative members. Remember these are the ones who will vote. The polls asked about trade-offs: would you still want Brexit even if that meant Scotland would leave the UK? 63% said yes. Or if it damaged the economy? 61% said yes. Or if Northern Ireland left the UK? 59% said yes. The most extreme answers is this: what if the Conservative Party itself were destroyed? 54% still think, yes, Brexit is worth it.

These polls are more revealing than the headline polls because they tell us how strongly the pro-Brexit feelings are. The Remain side never quite managed to get passions up that high. It also shows why Johnson has enjoyed a run-away lead.

It also explains why Johnson has no incentive to seek any Brexit extension. The chance of an early election is high, not just of Brexit but because the Tory-DUP alliance hangs on a three-seat majority. If he has not delivered Brexit by October, the chances are that the Brexit party will destroy the Tories at the next general election and hand Jeremy Corbyn a landslide victory. A Brexit extension would be a political suicide note. Johnson would stand a much better chance if he proposed elections in October, pitching his clear position for an immediate Brexit against Jeremy Corbyn's prevarication.

In this context we noted a story in the Guardian. Corbyn has just finished reading Harold Wilson's autobiography, and was particularly impressed by the former Labour prime minister's decision not to take a stance in the 1975 EU referendum and to let his colleagues battle it out. 

That seems to us the most plausible course of action for him to take. The Labour party is divided. A group of 25 Labour MPs have written to Corbyn not to support Remain. All of them would stand to lose their seats if Labour were to adopt a formal anti-Brexit position. The number of Labour MPs opposed to a second referendum exceeds the number of Tory MPs in favour, which is why we think a general election is the more likely public-vote scenario. Also consider that both Johnson and Corbyn have reasons to prefer an election to a referendum. 

So what would happen if the EU were to give Johnson a new deal and this went to parliament? We would not rule out that Johnson might unite his party and secure some votes from opposition MPs. In this scenario, we do not believe there would be a majority for a second referendum. The number of Tories in favour of a second referendum would then shrink to single digits, while the 25 Labour MPs would still be opposed to it - and glad to be off the hook. A no-deal Brexit scenario, whether intended from the outset or the result of no deal being agreed or ratified, is very likely to result in an election

[Lord Beria3]

Parliament has not ruled out no deal, yet, it remains the legal basis. And you still haven't explained how parliament would manage it without revoking article 50.

Regarding ge all I said is that polling indicates that only Boris could win a majority. Didn't say he definitely will.

Nobody including you UE knows how a ge would evolve in terms of the final result.

[Little John]

Javid out

The result of the 4th ballot:

Javid 34

Gove 61

Hunt 59

Johnson 157

Johnson now has more than 50% of the Tory MP's votes. And, whomever he stands against in the final ballot of the members, he will win that ballot by a landslide.

[UndercoverElephant]

UE, for all of your noise about dealing with the real world, as it actually is, this little episode reveals, when push has come to shove - whether you realize and acknowledge it or not and irrespective of your protestations about being an "objective" observer who is merely being "realistic" - that you are just another bourgeois reactionary with regards to the maintenance of the status quo.

That is a really bizarre reading of my position, given that I have just said I think Thatcherism is dying and that we are on the brink of a political revolution in this country. All you can see is brexit. I'm looking at the whole political landscape, way beyond brexit, and I see changes even bigger than you anticipate. Of the two of us, it is you who is closer to the status quo.

[UndercoverElephant]

Nobody including you UE knows how a ge would evolve in terms of the final result.

Sure, nobody knows for sure. But if I had to bet, I would bet on the worst result for the tories/BXP combined since 1997.

[Little John]

UE, for all of your noise about dealing with the real world, as it actually is, this little episode reveals, when push has come to shove - whether you realize and acknowledge it or not and irrespective of your protestations about being an "objective" observer who is merely being "realistic" - that you are just another bourgeois reactionary with regards to the maintenance of the status quo.

That is a really bizarre reading of my position, given that I have just said I think Thatcherism is dying and that we are on the brink of a political revolution in this country. All you can see is brexit. I'm looking at the whole political landscape, way beyond brexit, and I see changes even bigger than you anticipate. Of the two of us, it is you who is closer to the status quo.

No, what I see is democracy. The most revolutionary tool there is.

If we do not have democracy, we have nothing. Left... Right... these become meaningless without democracy.

Without democracy, there is just raw, naked power, who wields it and who must endure it

[UndercoverElephant]

You can go on about democracy until the cows come home, it will not change the parliamentary maths.

But the bottom line is this: I hate both the EU and the tory party, but of the two of them I hate the tories more. I find it hard to believe that a working class person from the north-east of England can't understand that.

Democracy, regarding brexit, has already been thwarted. It was thwarted when the tories put a remainer in charge of brexit, and that remainer totally f***ed up the whole article 50 process and delivered a pigshit deal that nobody in their right mind actually wants. We cannot rewrite history. I do not believe that the current government, or any government likely to be elected at the coming election, can honour the result of the referendum. It's not that they merely won't; they can't.

Will there be consequences? Yes. The conservative party will split and Farage will become a fixture in British-European politics for the forseeable future. Every time I say this you say "Labour will also die." It won't. Brexit was not Labour's project and they are not responsible for its failure.

It looks very likely that we are about to see the most important General Election deliver the most revolutionary government since 1945. The question of the UK's long-term relationship with the EU will be shelved for a few years. But it will not go away unless the EU itself (assuming it continues to exist) takes on board its own responsibility for causing this brexit mess, and reforms itself in response (in other words, gives the UK the opt out of freedom of movement it should have given us in 2016).

[Little John]

You can go on about democracy until the cows come home, it will not change the parliamentary maths.

If parliament continues to spit in the face of its electorate, it most certainly will have an effect on parliamentary maths. Additionally, you keep banging on about how the government cannot enact Brexit. It seems you need reminding, once more of the following legislative facts:

A) Parliament has already voted to leave the EU via Article 50

B) Parliament has already voted for the EU withdrawal act.

The only reason the withdrawal date has been moved several times is due to the Prime Minister (May) choosing to do so. Any Prime minister could also choose to not move that date and there is absolutely nothing parliament could do to force them to change their mind. In other words, the only thing that caused May to do so was political pressure and her own fundamentally remain/Brino agenda. Johnson has made it absolutely clear, however, he has no intention of moving the date and so there are, in legislative terms, only two ways of forcing that date to be moved:

1) A vote of no confidence, bringing the government down, in turn causing a GE which, if a Remain dominated Party won, could lead to the repeal the withdrawal act. However, all of that would need to happen (including the repeal of the withdrawal act/revocation of A50) before October 31st.

2) Parliament voting, before October 31st, to revoke A50.

If either of the above two happen, the vast majority of MPs know only too well what would happen to them in any GE. All of which can only mean you either are pretending to not understand the above, you are in denial of the above or you clearly have more faith in the possession of a spine, even to the extent of acting against their own personal interests, in the majority of MPs than I do.

Bearing in mind that the primary political dichotomy in this country is now Leave versus Remain (which, itself, is a proxy for the Globalism versus Localism dichotomy I have already mentioned previously), a real world result of that dichotomy having already recently played out in the EU elections and on the basis that you appear to have a very short memory, here is a little reminder of Leave versus Remain mapped along constituency lines: