Brexit process

[Little John]

Peterborough, a pretty strong leave voting area (61%), and a Labour marginal, remains Labour. If Brexit Party are to make a significant impact in Westminster, seats like this should have been easy.

The Brexit party lost to Labour by just over 600 votes.

But, they still lost

Yes. And it is absolute vindication of Labour's fence-sitting strategy. It suggests there is a solid core of Labour voters who either agree with that strategy or care enough about momentum's socialist agenda that they'll vote Labour because of that, regardless of brexit.

Labour increased their majority even though their vote share dropped a long way.

If they are to make headway, they are going to need policies and that is where it gets tricky for them.

Yes, and selling off the NHS isn't going to do it for them.

One solution might be to field overtly "left-brexit party" and overly "right-brexit party" candidates depending on constituency political demography. They could even wear different rosettes to indicate that the Brexit party is necessarily a coalition of left and right.

Won't work. Part of their appeal right now is that their message is really simple, and Labour has been repeatedly attacked for being too complex for normal (non-political) people to understand.

Labour did not scrape over the line due to their vote. They scraped over the line due to some conservative still voting conservative.

[Lord Beria3]

Agree LJ. That's an important point.

If the Tories carry on fudging Brexit more of their vote will switch to BP.

Eurointeligence take...

Message from Peterborough

Labour won the Peterborough by-election by the thinest of margins - a few hundred votes - followed closely by the Brexit Party. The Tories were in a distant third place. The result will serve as a useful reminder for the Tories of the Brexit party’s destructive potential. Labour won the seat despite a loss of 16pp compared to the previous election. Farage managed to split the conservative wing into two, thus handing Labour what would otherwise have been an easy win for the Tories given the circumstances in which the by-election took place. Forget all the complacent talk about Farage never having won a seat for himself at a general election. This totally misses the point of what is happening in British politics right now. Even if the Brexit Party were only able to secure a small number of seats, it would still have the potential to wipe out the Tories. First-past-the-post systems leverage small political swings into huge re-distributions of seats.

The by-election will serve as yet another reminder to the Tories that they are facing a straight trade-off between political extinction and a Halloween Brexit. The UK’s political class spent the long hours ahead of the Peterborough results discussing the mechanics of a no-deal Brexit, concluding that it is not possible or realistic for a PM to prorogue parliament - the theoretical ability to suspend the House of Commons in late October. We think the main effect of this debate has been to isolate Dominic Raab, the most extreme of the pro-Brexit candidates. Moderate Tories now support Boris Johnson - just savour this statement for a moment. The contest is his to lose.

There are two scenarios that could lead to new elections. The first is a no-confidence vote that Labour said it will deliver when the new government is installed. The second would be a decision by Johnson to call elections - subject to the usual parliamentary procedures - to gain a majority for his own Brexit strategy. 

For the moment Johnson has positioned himself in the right spot: an absolute commitment to the Oct 31 leaving date, together with a willingness to compromise on an agreement. There exists no viable strategy for the Tories away from this finely calibrated line.

[PS_RalphW]

The latest yougov poll has Brexit on 26%, and flavible that this results in brexit getting 260+ seats, with the torys in fifth with 41.

Personally, I think Peterborough shows that remain voters would vote tactically, and this would restrain the number of seats Brexit wins quite sharply.

[clv101]

The latest yougov poll has Brexit on 26%, and flavible that this results in brexit getting 260+ seats, with the torys in fifth with 41.

Personally, I think Peterborough shows that remain voters would vote tactically, and this would restrain the number of seats Brexit wins quite sharply.

Yeah, I don't see a 26% vote share delivering 260+ seats!

[UndercoverElephant]

Labour did not scrape over the line due to their vote. They scraped over the line due to some conservative still voting conservative.

That is a false dichotomy. It's both. Had Labour strongly supported either revoke or no deal, they wouldn't have scraped over the line at all.

There aren't going to be any safe seats in future. That is part of the new political reality. This applies to all parties, including Labour.

[UndercoverElephant]

Agree LJ. That's an important point.

If the Tories carry on fudging Brexit more of their vote will switch to BP.

Eurointeligence take...

Message from Peterborough

Labour won the Peterborough by-election by the thinest of margins - a few hundred votes - followed closely by the Brexit Party. The Tories were in a distant third place. The result will serve as a useful reminder for the Tories of the Brexit party’s destructive potential. Labour won the seat despite a loss of 16pp compared to the previous election. Farage managed to split the conservative wing into two, thus handing Labour what would otherwise have been an easy win for the Tories given the circumstances in which the by-election took place. Forget all the complacent talk about Farage never having won a seat for himself at a general election. This totally misses the point of what is happening in British politics right now. Even if the Brexit Party were only able to secure a small number of seats, it would still have the potential to wipe out the Tories. First-past-the-post systems leverage small political swings into huge re-distributions of seats.

The by-election will serve as yet another reminder to the Tories that they are facing a straight trade-off between political extinction and a Halloween Brexit. The UK’s political class spent the long hours ahead of the Peterborough results discussing the mechanics of a no-deal Brexit, concluding that it is not possible or realistic for a PM to prorogue parliament - the theoretical ability to suspend the House of Commons in late October. We think the main effect of this debate has been to isolate Dominic Raab, the most extreme of the pro-Brexit candidates. Moderate Tories now support Boris Johnson - just savour this statement for a moment. The contest is his to lose.

There are two scenarios that could lead to new elections. The first is a no-confidence vote that Labour said it will deliver when the new government is installed. The second would be a decision by Johnson to call elections - subject to the usual parliamentary procedures - to gain a majority for his own Brexit strategy. 

For the moment Johnson has positioned himself in the right spot: an absolute commitment to the Oct 31 leaving date, together with a willingness to compromise on an agreement. There exists no viable strategy for the Tories away from this finely calibrated line.

That timeline is now quite simple. Johnson wins (maybe without a membership vote, so perhaps before the end of this month). Very soon becomes obvious that the EU won't re-open the WA. So he commits to no deal. At which point parliament has to put up or shut up. Bercow and his conspirators will try to force another extension. If it succeed in getting the extension then Johnson himself will have to call an election or admit his own policy has failed. If it fails then the anti-no-deal tories either have to support a Labour VonC, or they must accept no deal as tory policy.

[Mark]

If they are to make headway, they are going to need policies and that is where it gets tricky for them.

One solution might be to field overtly "left-brexit party" and overly "right-brexit party" candidates depending on constituency political demography. They could even wear different rosettes to indicate that the Brexit party is necessarily a coalition of left and right. The message would be that so far as getting Brexit over the line, the coalition will hold. but once enacted, the Brexit party would formally split into it's left/right constituent parts and become two parties.

Meanwhile, before Brexit is enacted, any manifesto would need to be extremely carefully crafted in order to hold that coalition together.

Exactly - the Brexit Party currently only has 1 Policy - very easy at the EU Election to give a clear message, much more difficult at a GE when you need a whole manifesto.....

Don't think much to your potential solution though..... CHUK and UKIP are sinking without a trace.... Once the Brexit dilemma is resolved, suspect that BP will go the same way whatever they do, as they have nothing else to offer....

But in the meantime, we might end up with David Icke as Education Minister, if the right collection of characters/chancers they put up for the EU elections is anything to go by....

[fuzzy]

I found something interesting today. I was curious who the other parties were, because I wonder if the gov etc. will sabotage the Brexit party with other parties. After reading about the current SDP on Wicki [if it's to be believed], I was amazed to see I am an SDP supporter. They even, allegedly, support a WTO brexit and tight immigration. Of course it's easy to say any number of sensible things with no chance of gov etc, but I would fit the choice far better than a no policy Bexit party:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_De ... €“present)

[Little John]

Yeah. I like what they have to say. A lot.

https://sdp.org.uk/

[UndercoverElephant]

Steve...you were asking about how Corbyn's triangulation was working out...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9248619/t ... stitch-up/

The Sun has every sympathy with those protest-voting for Nigel Farage. But the side-effect is terrifyingly clear.

In any election held before Brexit, ­Farage may or may not win seats. But he WILL scupper Tory chances in more places than he will hurt Labour.

That would be enough to let Corbyn sneak in, unleashing his anti-Semitic hard-Left revolution on a nation staunchly opposed to it — and all but guaranteeing Brexit’s cancellation too.

Remainer Tories should be ashamed of even thinking of crashing their own Government over a No Deal Brexit.

All Tory MPs and leadership candidates — and, yes, Farage too — should think hard now about how best to stop Corbyn and John McDonnell wrecking Britain.

[Potemkin Villager]

Agree.


I also think May resigning put the sting out of voting Tory for traditional supporters. Their is hope that a better leader will come soon to deliver Brexit by 31 October.

The tory leadership process is totally a Rocky Horror Show - perhaps an ideal candidate could be cobbled together, Frankenstein like, from various body parts of different contenders. However it would be much easier to choose the arse rather than the brain.

[UndercoverElephant]

Rumours tonight that Gove is under intense pressure to pull out, because the anti-no-deal side of the tory party think his campaign has tanked and want him to throw his weight behind Hunt (who is a secret remainer, as is Gove).

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.ft.com/content/be1243e2-892 ... cea8523dc2

The editorial board

The definition of insanity, Einstein reputedly said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Yet as the Conservative party leadership contest kicks off this week, several leading candidates’ Brexit strategy boils down to a more robust version of the failed approach that cut short Theresa May’s unhappy premiership. The 120,000 Tory party members who will choose the next prime minister should beware of falling for phoney promises. They risk propelling not just their party but the country towards an even deeper crisis.

The Brexit approach of hardliners such as Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Andrea Leadsom recalls the fabled Briton abroad who believes if only he shouts loudly enough, the foreigners will eventually understand. Through sheer force of personality — or simply not being Mrs May — and putting the no-deal Brexit threat firmly “on the table�, we are told, they will be able to renegotiate the outgoing prime minister’s flawed withdrawal deal. Should that prove impossible, they will walk Britain off the plank on October 31.

Neither outcome is achievable. There is no time to renegotiate. A new premier will arrive in Downing Street only in late July, as MPs and Eurocrats hit the beach. After the holidays, Britain’s party conference season lasts into early October. In Brussels, the European Commission will be in its final weeks before changing leadership.

The EU27, moreover, have repeatedly declined to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its Irish backstop — the biggest bar to parliamentary support for the deal. The Conservatives habitually underestimate Brussels’ determination to ensure Brexit does not reimpose a hard border in Ireland. There is no reason any new prime minister would be granted concessions Mrs May was not. EU leaders are said to be readying a tough statement making this clear at a summit this month.

The one Brexit-related majority the House of Commons has clearly demonstrated, meanwhile, is against a no-deal Brexit. Speaker John Bercow insists no premier will be permitted to force through such a departure against parliament’s will. Any who tried to do so would trigger a grave constitutional crisis. Talk by Mr Raab and others of proroguing, or suspending, parliament is dangerously irresponsible.

A prime minister faced with such a conflict would in reality be forced to call an election — the last thing the Conservatives need. A fresh leader such as Mr Johnson might deliver a boost from the Tories’ dismal European Parliament election performance; Labour is undergoing its own convulsions over Brexit. But, as last week’s Peterborough by-election suggested, Nigel Farage’s Brexit party might still peel off enough Conservative supporters to put Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn in power.

An honest approach would be to acknowledge a further Brexit extension beyond October 31 is inevitable. The withdrawal agreement is unalterable, but the political declaration on future relations with the EU could be reworked and expanded, to agree on a final destination and ensure the Irish backstop is never deployed. A new Tory leader would be in a stronger position than Mrs May to hold cross-party talks on compromises, and find ways to involve the electorate more broadly. Sadly, candidates ready to voice some home truths, such as Matt Hancock and Rory Stewart, are polling worst among party members.

It is a defect of Britain’s unwritten constitution that a few tens of thousands of people will select the country’s next leader. While many crave a swift Brexit, those with a vote in this exclusive ballot should use it wisely.

[Little John]

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/0 ... blishment/

The establishment’s gloating over the Brexit Party’s failure to win in Peterborough is surreal. Two months ago, the Brexit Party didn’t exist. It has only been campaigning in Peterborough for three or four weeks. And yet it came within 683 votes of snatching Peterborough from a party, Labour, that has existed for over a century and which has been ruling in Peterborough on and off since the 1920s. It pummelled the Conservatives, winning 2,500 more votes than this party that has been around for almost 200 years and which held Peterborough in the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1980s. Anyone who is looking at Peterborough and saying, ‘Phew, the Brexit threat is over and politics is back on its old even keel’ is either lying to themselves or really, really stupid.....

[Potemkin Villager]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingn ... 29621.html

"Boris Johnson has claimed only he can see off both Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn as he urged Tory MPs and party members to make him their next leader and British prime minister.

The leadership campaign front-runner said he would refuse to pay the promised £39 billion (€43bn) to the European Union unless better Brexit terms are on offer – and would step up preparations to counter no-deal “disruption�."

Well it is a cunning plan of sorts but I wonder how it would pan out. It is hard not to imagine all sorts of unanticipated consequences and, er, maybe things not going according to plan.