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The now-enacted will of (some of) the people


blandy

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1 hour ago, desensitized43 said:

Taking back control and all that...

Indeed. That was always the biggest lie of them all.

We now, effectively, have the architect of a messy, no deal Brexit (Cummings) in charge of government policy. Potentially all of his christmases have come true. Worryingly, a lot of us will be the dogs that get tied up in a bag and dumped in the local river the week afterwards.

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19 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Indeed. That was always the biggest lie of them all.

We now, effectively, have the architect of a messy, no deal Brexit (Cummings) in charge of government policy. Potentially all of his christmases have come true. Worryingly, a lot of us will be the dogs that get tied up in a bag and dumped in the local river the week afterwards.

It's already happened/happening.

My dad was served his redundancy notice this week as the company he works for ceases to exist the day after no deal. They deal in EU import licenses, complicated stuff I don't fully understand. He's been told that if the circumstances (i.e. we stayed in/got some sort of satisfactory deal, somehow) changed the company would continue and he'd be re-employed on a short term contract.

I went to a meeting with the CEO of a company the other day who import protein shakes and distribute to the EU and she said "if it's no deal we'll need to relocate our warehouse to the EU as our product contains whey and we have no framework for exporting animal products to the EU". 4 people made redundant overnight.

Edited by desensitized43
typo fool!
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11 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

It's already happened/happening.

By Cummings's christmases, I didn't mean Brexit or even a messy, no deal Brexit but the aftermath and the potential opportunity that affords to fundamentally change the nature of this country and its institutions.

Cummings is about tearing shit down and not necessarily rebuilding it.

This is far, far bigger than Brexit and our relationship to the EU for the likes of him. That was just a vehicle (as Johnson is).

Edit: That didn't come across as properly sympathetic to those who will and are suffering already. Sorry. I know there are many in that predicament (or worrying that they will be) but it might turn out to be as nothing compared to what may come down the line.

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13 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

My dad was served his redundancy notice this week as the company he works for ceases to exist the day after no deal. They deal in EU import licenses, complicated stuff I don't fully understand. He's been told that if the circumstances (i.e. we stayed in/got some sort of satisfactory deal, somehow) changed the company would continue and he'd be re-employed on a short term contract.

Sorry to hear that - but I guess the silver lining in his particular case is that people with the skills and experience in international trade administration are going to be highly sought-after in the months to come. 

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7 minutes ago, snowychap said:

By Cummings's christmases, I didn't mean Brexit or even a messy, no deal Brexit but the aftermath and the potential opportunity that affords to fundamentally change the nature of this country and its institutions.

Cummings is about tearing shit down and not necessarily rebuilding it.

This is far, far bigger than Brexit and our relationship to the EU for the likes of him. That was just a vehicle (as Johnson is).

Edit: That didn't come across as properly sympathetic to those who will and are suffering already. Sorry. I know there are many in that predicament (or worrying that they will be) but it might turn out to be as nothing compared to what may come down the line.

No sympathy needed! My dad will be fine as he has enough money away to get through and is quite close to retiring anyway, although I can't speak to the warehouse workers!

It's more just that you do hear from the odd VT'er who voted for Brexit and the general consensus around multitudes being out of work is that "it won't happen", "the BoE and treasury are always wrong" etc. There are real consequences to this ****, my family are feeling them. It's worth it because the EU is "undemocratic" and we're "taking back control"....tell me how that's worth people being out of work.

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57 minutes ago, snowychap said:

the architect of a messy, no deal Brexit (Cummings) in charge of government policy

It came up on my twitter earlier, where Dominic Grieve was saying in some TV interview, that Cummings understanding "is simply wrong" on the whole VONC and what happens next thing.Grieve was fairly insistent that (as I blearily understood him) if Johnson lost a VONC, then a crash out Brexit could absolutely be stopped.

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1 hour ago, blandy said:

It came up on my twitter earlier, where Dominic Grieve was saying in some TV interview, that Cummings understanding "is simply wrong" on the whole VONC and what happens next thing.Grieve was fairly insistent that (as I blearily understood him) if Johnson lost a VONC, then a crash out Brexit could absolutely be stopped.

As has been discussed earlier, it can be stopped (so Cummings is wrong in saying that it couldn't) but it will require specific things to be done and specific circumstances to arise in order for that to happen.

Cummings's claim, as far as I'm aware, is that as there is no legislation that instructs a PM to resign then they can just carry on and on and on if they want to. What Grieve was saying was that if there were another administration that would be likely to command the confidence of the house then he would be under an obligation to resign. I only saw a brief 2 min clip so he may have gone on to develop his point more.

I think the problem with Grieve's position (and again he could well have developed it beyond that clip) is that it relies upon too many reasonable assumptions about how people should and would act. Same goes for a lot of the descriptions about the FTPA, how the FTPA interacts with convention, &c. and that's before one has to make guesses about just how Corbyn would act in all of this. For example, if Corbyn thinks that the result of him tabling a motion of no confidence in the government is likely to lead to a new administration that won't have him in charge of it (or even in it) then how likely is he to move that?

Given the back and forth between a lot of the commentariat (the constitutional lawyers, academic experts, Institute for Government, &c.) that I've read yesterday and today, I think the only thing that is clear is that no one has said or can definitively say what will happen.

Edited by snowychap
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46 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Given the back and forth between a lot of the commentariat (the constitutional lawyers, academic experts, Institute for Government, &c.) that I've read yesterday and today, I think the only thing that is clear is that no one has said or can definitively say what will happen.

This. We are sadly heading into new territory with absolutely no idea what should happen and how people will act. Throw Boris, Cummings and Farage into the mix, we are in a massive heap of trouble.

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1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Given the back and forth between a lot of the commentariat (the constitutional lawyers, academic experts, Institute for Government, &c.) that I've read yesterday and today, I think the only thing that is clear is that no one has said or can definitively say what will happen.

another extension I reckon

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2 hours ago, snowychap said:

I think the problem with Grieve's position (and again he could well have developed it beyond that clip) is that it relies upon too many reasonable assumptions about how people should and would act. Same goes for a lot of the descriptions about the FTPA, how the FTPA interacts with convention, &c. and that's before one has to make guesses about just how Corbyn would act in all of this. For example, if Corbyn thinks that the result of him tabling a motion of no confidence in the government is likely to lead to a new administration that won't have him in charge of it (or even in it) then how likely is he to move that?

This is absolutely the problem with Grieve's idea. 

*************************************************************

I'm not at work today, so I've written a long and very probably boring post setting out my feelings on the 'politics of stopping No Deal'. For the benefit of those who aren't *that* interested and those scrolling quickly on phone browsers, I've hidden it in spoiler tags.

Spoiler

 

First, we need to start with some base assumptions. Since Brexit is very complicated, and there are disagreements about what can and can't happen with the Parliamentary timetable, some of these are just assumptions, and can be proven wrong. 

1) The government is in control of the Parliamentary timetable, and will (attempt to) avoid tabling legislation that can be hijacked by the anti-No-Deal majority in Parliament;

2) Johnson won't call an election that happens on or before October 24th (this may be the most rickety of these assumptions, but it may not matter anyway);

3) It is already too late, or will be very soon (before it might happen) for Conservative moderates to resign the whip and vote against Johnson in a VONC. Even if this happens twice - as appears to be necessitated by the Fixed Term Parliament Act to force an election - Johnson could call an election whose campaign period went over October 31st (Cummings has suggested this, though it's incredibly risky);

4) The way Dominic Grieve is talking about preventing No Deal outside of the 'VONC route' or the 'amending legislation' route is through the 'Government of National Unity' (GONU) route;

5) A GONU would require 320 MP's to visibly form a cross-party alliance, and then be invited by the Queen to form a government;

6) GONUs normally happen when the nation is at war and under threat of invasion;

7) Brexit is not a war, and the UK is not at risk of invasion. Brexit is a political project of the ruling Conservative Party;

8 ) A No Deal Brexit is supported by approximately 40% of the population in national opinion polls. It is predicted by experts to be very damaging to the UK economy. However, other political projects that were predicted by experts to be damaging to the UK economy (for example, George Osborne's austerity budgets) were not considered a sufficient crisis to need a GONU; very much the opposite in fact. 

From these assumptions, we can then consider two questions: 1) How would a GONU be formed, and is it likely? and 2) Is a GONU a good idea?

My understanding of the process of forming a GONU fundamentally comes from this tweet thread, and as such might be completely wrong:

'A public document signed by a majority of MPs' in this case would probably be a letter to the UK's semi-instutional newspaper, The Times. It would presumably state the case for interrupting normal Parliamentary democracy, and would state the name of A.N. Individual who would lead this GONU. 

How likely is it to be formed? Well, it would need 320 MPs, which means that it would need MPs from across the chamber. So we have to do some parliamentary maths. The immediate and largest problem is that the Labour party would obviously have to form the majority of members of this 320, which is why all the opinion columns suggesting this have suggested Labour figureheads (so far I've seen Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper and Margaret Beckett all mentioned; doubtless there are others). The person conspicuous by his absence in these fantasy government scenarios is Jeremy Corbyn. This is because of two converging priorities; firstly, for Labour centrists to take an action that would be incredibly controversial and unpopular, there needs to be a big prize, and the only prize that would interest them is using a GONU to remove Corbyn as leader. Secondly, a GONU not having Corbyn as a leader would be a pre-condition for Conservative moderates to join it. So a GONU needs Labour MPs to be the majority of its Parliamentary membership, but cannot be led by the current Labour leader.

So how many Labour MPs are sufficiently disloyal to/opposed to (delete as preferred) Corbyn to do this? Well, when the much-mocked 'Corbyn loyalty list' was released in 2016, fewer than a hundred MPs were ranked as actually 'hostile' to Corbyn, and the number may have declined since then as a result of the election and of retirements. Don't forget as well that there's a big jump from 'I would prefer a different Labour leader' to 'I would support a GONU as an opportunity to remove this Labour leader' and there may be a large number of Labour MPs in the first group but not the second. 

In the Conservative party, the numbers are even sparser. To support a GONU would be, even in the most optimistic scenario where there are enough MPs to form one, a resignation from the Conservative party and the likely end of your Parliamentary career at the next election. Johnson openly and repeatedly stated that a No Deal was a real possibility during his leadership campaign, and received the support of well over half of Conservative MPs. All of the other leading contenders did likewise, and you have to go down the list to Rory Stewart to find a candidate who was openly opposed to No Deal. At his best, he received the support of 37 MPs, and it's very doubtful that all of those would support a GONU; that number is more like a maximum ceiling. 

That leaves us with something like 100 MPs from the two main parties as a rough potential pool of support for a GONU, which is quite impressive in its own terms, but is nowhere near the 320 required to actually form a government. Obviously you would assume that other, minor parties would join a GONU if its only action was to take power, then call an election and a referendum, but this is still fewer than another 100 MPs, leaving this potential pool more than 100 MPs short of its target. This is where the fact that Brexit is 'politics', not 'national emergency', really does matter. 

The second question, whether a GONU would be a good idea, is therefore likely redundant, but is worth addressing anyway. It seems to me that the prevailing dynamic through the 'Brexit era' has been that of the 'adults in the room' frustrating the self-harming will of the right of the Conservative party. At various points, those 'adults' have included EU leaders, opposition MPs, the Speaker, judges both in the UK and in Europe, 'moderate' Tories like Grieve and Letwin, and sometimes even May herself. The problem is that as time has gone on, the methods the 'adults' have turned to, or had to turn to, have had less obvious democratic legitimacy. I see people hoping for a judicial review that forces the government to apply for an extension, or hoping for a GONU, and I see the headlines about the centrist coup writing themselves. The jokes aren't hard to make:

In the most pessimistic scenario, UK politics could end up like a bit of a reflection of Thailand, where Thaksin Shinawatra was a populist ruler widely despised by urban elites but with large support among the rural poor. He was forced out in a coup, and then his relatives and successor political parties have won every election since then, only to be removed in coups. The UK could see a joining of populist outrage by Conservatives and left-wing Labourites, united by nothing except the feeling of having power illegitimately stolen from them in a coup, forming an alliance against an embattled urban elite withholding democracy out of fear of what it might produce. In Thailand, the urban elite do this with constant reference to their support from the twin power sources of the monarchy and the military. I already see plenty of people in British politics fantasising about the Queen making a decisive intervention; hopefully I never have to see anyone in this country asking the Army to get involved. 

In the end, it may be that the Conservatives need to be allowed to go to the edge of the No Deal precipice and look over it. They will keep running on the idea that they've been 'betrayed' by the adults as long as the adults keep finding ways to step in. If we can avert a No Deal through a VONC, great - that is clearly democratic. If we can avert one through reasonable Parliamentary procedures such as amendments, I'm also fine with that. But a GONU is a step too far for me. 

 

 

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Hopes For Good UK-US Trade Deal Are 'Delusional', Warns Former Obama Adviser, Larry Summers, the former director of the US National Economic Council.

Summers, who was also US Treasury Secretary during Bill Clinton’s time in the White House, said: “Look at it from America’s point of view. A: Britain has much less to give than Europe as a whole did, therefore less reason for the United States to make concessions.

“You make more concessions dealing with a wealthy man than you do dealing with a poor man.

“Second, Britain has no leverage. Britain is desperate. Britain has nothing else.

“It needs an agreement very soon. When you have a desperate partner, that’s when you strike the hardest bargain. The last thing you do is quit a job before you look for your new one.”

He added: “If Britain thinks that the American financial regulators who have great difficulty coming together on anything are going to come together to give greater permissions and less regulation of UK firms, I would call that belief close to delusional.” 

 

Huff

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32 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

How likely is it to be formed? Well, it would need 320 MPs, which means that it would need MPs from across the chamber. So we have to do some parliamentary maths. The immediate and largest problem is that the Labour party would obviously have to form the majority of members of this 320, which is why all the opinion columns suggesting this have suggested Labour figureheads (so far I've seen Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper and Margaret Beckett all mentioned; doubtless there are others). The person conspicuous by his absence in these fantasy government scenarios is Jeremy Corbyn. This is because of two converging priorities; firstly, for Labour centrists to take an action that would be incredibly controversial and unpopular, there needs to be a big prize, and the only prize that would interest them is using a GONU to remove Corbyn as leader. Secondly, a GONU not having Corbyn as a leader would be a pre-condition for Conservative moderates to join it. So a GONU needs Labour MPs to be the majority of its Parliamentary membership, but cannot be led by the current Labour leader.

So how many Labour MPs are sufficiently disloyal to/opposed to (delete as preferred) Corbyn to do this? Well, when the much-mocked 'Corbyn loyalty list' was released in 2016, fewer than a hundred MPs were ranked as actually 'hostile' to Corbyn, and the number may have declined since then as a result of the election and of retirements. Don't forget as well that there's a big jump from 'I would prefer a different Labour leader' to 'I would support a GONU as an opportunity to remove this Labour leader' and there may be a large number of Labour MPs in the first group but not the second.

That whole post is absolutely outstanding, and there is very little I would disagree with.

And obviously you're correct on the above, it doesn't work without near-unanimous Labour support, and it would be near-impossible for anyone non-Labour (particularly the Conservatives) to support Corbyn, and even harder for any Labour MP to support anybody but Corbyn. 

I'd argue though with one possible exception, Caroline Lucas. Given that the hypothetical GONU would be there only long enough to request an extension until after the election and nothing more, she's the one person I can think of who inflames few enough passions on any side to support her as the token figurehead, without anybody feeling usurped, undermined or that they were tacitly supporting a Corbyn Government.

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24 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

This is absolutely the problem with Grieve's idea. 

*************************************************************

I'm not at work today, so I've written a long and very probably boring post setting out my feelings on the 'politics of stopping No Deal'. For the benefit of those who aren't *that* interested and those scrolling quickly on phone browsers, I've hidden it in spoiler tags.

  Hide contents

 

First, we need to start with some base assumptions. Since Brexit is very complicated, and there are disagreements about what can and can't happen with the Parliamentary timetable, some of these are just assumptions, and can be proven wrong. 

1) The government is in control of the Parliamentary timetable, and will (attempt to) avoid tabling legislation that can be hijacked by the anti-No-Deal majority in Parliament;

2) Johnson won't call an election that happens on or before October 24th (this may be the most rickety of these assumptions, but it may not matter anyway);

3) It is already too late, or will be very soon (before it might happen) for Conservative moderates to resign the whip and vote against Johnson in a VONC. Even if this happens twice - as appears to be necessitated by the Fixed Term Parliament Act to force an election - Johnson could call an election whose campaign period went over October 31st (Cummings has suggested this, though it's incredibly risky);

4) The way Dominic Grieve is talking about preventing No Deal outside of the 'VONC route' or the 'amending legislation' route is through the 'Government of National Unity' (GONU) route;

5) A GONU would require 320 MP's to visibly form a cross-party alliance, and then be invited by the Queen to form a government;

6) GONUs normally happen when the nation is at war and under threat of invasion;

7) Brexit is not a war, and the UK is not at risk of invasion. Brexit is a political project of the ruling Conservative Party;

8 ) A No Deal Brexit is supported by approximately 40% of the population in national opinion polls. It is predicted by experts to be very damaging to the UK economy. However, other political projects that were predicted by experts to be damaging to the UK economy (for example, George Osborne's austerity budgets) were not considered a sufficient crisis to need a GONU; very much the opposite in fact. 

From these assumptions, we can then consider two questions: 1) How would a GONU be formed, and is it likely? and 2) Is a GONU a good idea?

My understanding of the process of forming a GONU fundamentally comes from this tweet thread, and as such might be completely wrong:

'A public document signed by a majority of MPs' in this case would probably be a letter to the UK's semi-instutional newspaper, The Times. It would presumably state the case for interrupting normal Parliamentary democracy, and would state the name of A.N. Individual who would lead this GONU. 

How likely is it to be formed? Well, it would need 320 MPs, which means that it would need MPs from across the chamber. So we have to do some parliamentary maths. The immediate and largest problem is that the Labour party would obviously have to form the majority of members of this 320, which is why all the opinion columns suggesting this have suggested Labour figureheads (so far I've seen Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper and Margaret Beckett all mentioned; doubtless there are others). The person conspicuous by his absence in these fantasy government scenarios is Jeremy Corbyn. This is because of two converging priorities; firstly, for Labour centrists to take an action that would be incredibly controversial and unpopular, there needs to be a big prize, and the only prize that would interest them is using a GONU to remove Corbyn as leader. Secondly, a GONU not having Corbyn as a leader would be a pre-condition for Conservative moderates to join it. So a GONU needs Labour MPs to be the majority of its Parliamentary membership, but cannot be led by the current Labour leader.

So how many Labour MPs are sufficiently disloyal to/opposed to (delete as preferred) Corbyn to do this? Well, when the much-mocked 'Corbyn loyalty list' was released in 2016, fewer than a hundred MPs were ranked as actually 'hostile' to Corbyn, and the number may have declined since then as a result of the election and of retirements. Don't forget as well that there's a big jump from 'I would prefer a different Labour leader' to 'I would support a GONU as an opportunity to remove this Labour leader' and there may be a large number of Labour MPs in the first group but not the second. 

In the Conservative party, the numbers are even sparser. To support a GONU would be, even in the most optimistic scenario where there are enough MPs to form one, a resignation from the Conservative party and the likely end of your Parliamentary career at the next election. Johnson openly and repeatedly stated that a No Deal was a real possibility during his leadership campaign, and received the support of well over half of Conservative MPs. All of the other leading contenders did likewise, and you have to go down the list to Rory Stewart to find a candidate who was openly opposed to No Deal. At his best, he received the support of 37 MPs, and it's very doubtful that all of those would support a GONU; that number is more like a maximum ceiling. 

That leaves us with something like 100 MPs from the two main parties as a rough potential pool of support for a GONU, which is quite impressive in its own terms, but is nowhere near the 320 required to actually form a government. Obviously you would assume that other, minor parties would join a GONU if its only action was to take power, then call an election and a referendum, but this is still fewer than another 100 MPs, leaving this potential pool more than 100 MPs short of its target. This is where the fact that Brexit is 'politics', not 'national emergency', really does matter. 

The second question, whether a GONU would be a good idea, is therefore likely redundant, but is worth addressing anyway. It seems to me that the prevailing dynamic through the 'Brexit era' has been that of the 'adults in the room' frustrating the self-harming will of the right of the Conservative party. At various points, those 'adults' have included EU leaders, opposition MPs, the Speaker, judges both in the UK and in Europe, 'moderate' Tories like Grieve and Letwin, and sometimes even May herself. The problem is that as time has gone on, the methods the 'adults' have turned to, or had to turn to, have had less obvious democratic legitimacy. I see people hoping for a judicial review that forces the government to apply for an extension, or hoping for a GONU, and I see the headlines about the centrist coup writing themselves. The jokes aren't hard to make:

In the most pessimistic scenario, UK politics could end up like a bit of a reflection of Thailand, where Thaksin Shinawatra was a populist ruler widely despised by urban elites but with large support among the rural poor. He was forced out in a coup, and then his relatives and successor political parties have won every election since then, only to be removed in coups. The UK could see a joining of populist outrage by Conservatives and left-wing Labourites, united by nothing except the feeling of having power illegitimately stolen from them in a coup, forming an alliance against an embattled urban elite withholding democracy out of fear of what it might produce. In Thailand, the urban elite do this with constant reference to their support from the twin power sources of the monarchy and the military. I already see plenty of people in British politics fantasising about the Queen making a decisive intervention; hopefully I never have to see anyone in this country asking the Army to get involved. 

In the end, it may be that the Conservatives need to be allowed to go to the edge of the No Deal precipice and look over it. They will keep running on the idea that they've been 'betrayed' by the adults as long as the adults keep finding ways to step in. If we can avert a No Deal through a VONC, great - that is clearly democratic. If we can avert one through reasonable Parliamentary procedures such as amendments, I'm also fine with that. But a GONU is a step too far for me. 

 

Not boring at all - really interesting!

This part somewhat troubled me though:

Quote

8 ) A No Deal Brexit is supported by approximately 40% of the population in national opinion polls. It is predicted by experts to be very damaging to the UK economy. However, other political projects that were predicted by experts to be damaging to the UK economy (for example, George Osborne's austerity budgets) were not considered a sufficient crisis to need a GONU; very much the opposite in fact. 

Is it 40%?! Which polls are these?

I do also agree with the maths of parliament though for a GONU. It seems highly unlikely enough moderate Tories will cross over to support Labour whilst Corbyn is in power, and not enough Labour MPs want to get rid of Corbyn. I don't think there will be enough common ground within parliament, as the series of "indicative votes" showed last time. I would be interested to see how the 10 Independents would vote though in a VONC; for if they all would vote against Boris, then he only has a working majority of 1 and thus it would only need 1, say Ken Clarke or Dominic Grieves? That is realistic; certainly Boris is a divisive enough character for a couple of Tory MPs to vote against him. 

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

I'd argue though with one possible exception, Caroline Lucas. Given that the hypothetical GONU would be there only long enough to request an extension until after the election and nothing more, she's the one person I can think of who inflames few enough passions on any side to support her as the token figurehead, without anybody feeling usurped, undermined or that they were tacitly supporting a Corbyn Government.

Whilst you are right, in that Caroline Lucas is possibly the most neutral choice, even she would be hard to swallow for a number of Tories. I think a VONC followed by a general election most likely. We then just have to get around the Fixed Term Parliament Act... 

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3 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

I do also agree with the maths of parliament though for a GONU. It seems highly unlikely enough moderate Tories will cross over to support Labour whilst Corbyn is in power, and not enough Labour MPs want to get rid of Corbyn. I don't think there will be enough common ground within parliament, as the series of "indicative votes" showed last time. I would be interested to see how the 10 Independents would vote though in a VONC; for if they all would vote against Boris, then he only has a working majority of 1 and thus it would only need 1, say Ken Clarke or Dominic Grieves? That is realistic; certainly Boris is a divisive enough character for a couple of Tory MPs to vote against him. 

Don't forget that independent doesn't automatically mean anti-Tory. Charlie Elphicke is technically an independent but still votes Conservative on every bill.

Also don't forget Hoey, Flint, Stringer, Barron etc. There's no way to assume they'd back the VONC in these circumstances.

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2 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Don't forget that independent doesn't automatically mean anti-Tory. Charlie Elphicke is technically an independent but still votes Conservative on every bill.

Also don't forget Hoey, Flint, Stringer, Barron etc. There's no way to assume they'd back the VONC in these circumstances.

Yeah I wasn't sure how many were pro-Tory or not as couldn't easily spot their background/voting record etc. Nonetheless the numbers are very, very tight... 

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2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

hopefully I never have to see anyone in this country asking the Army to get involved

gavin_williamson.jpg&f=1

 

Cracking post, btw. :thumb:

I'm not sure I agree with it all but it's a fine contribution to the debate.

Edited by snowychap
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