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

[Chindie]

May would back a second referendum if it somehow saved her arse or helped her. Until such a point, it's her deal or nothing. And I'd expect a resultant referendum to at least be attempted to be fudged in her favour (i.e. Her Deal or No Deal). Which should be out of her hands but she's a power mad evil witch.

[HanoiVillan]

20 minutes ago, Chindie said:

May would back a second referendum if it somehow saved her arse or helped her. Until such a point, it's her deal or nothing. And I'd expect a resultant referendum to at least be attempted to be fudged in her favour (i.e. Her Deal or No Deal). Which should be out of her hands but she's a power mad evil witch.

I see no way in which a referendum would 'save her arse'. She would immediately lose her confidence and supply arrangement for a start. 

[HanoiVillan]

This article and comments have been getting a lot of play on Twitter this afternoon:

This comment just about sums it up for me:

 

[Chindie]

35 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I see no way in which a referendum would 'save her arse'. She would immediately lose her confidence and supply arrangement for a start. 

Yes, hence 'somehow'. It was more a comment on May's nature

I personally don't expect a second referendum, and am not really in favour of one.

[Chindie]

 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I agree that's the only way it's possible, but I think the notion of May suddenly backing it is pretty much unrealistic at this point. 

It'll be out of May's hands if it happens, if it happens, it will be because of Tory and Labour rebel plus the others, it won't come from either leadership

[HanoiVillan]

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

It'll be out of May's hands if it happens, if it happens, it will be because of Tory and Labour rebel plus the others, it won't come from either leadership

That doesn't work. There can't be a referendum that the executive doesn't support, because the executive is solely in control of the Parliamentary timetable. 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

The flaw in your assumptions is that 'No deal is a non-starter'. It isn't; it's the default outcome. 

It's the default if no one does anything. But...

4 hours ago, blandy said:

There has to be a cataclysm of some sort which renders the current assumptions and understandings obsolete

I believe that there is a majority in parliament for "No Brexit deal" disaster being prevented. So at some point, as I said, once May's version is voted down, the complete clusterpork scenario, which nobody (bar the nutters) wants to happen will be prevented, and then it's (as I said) 

4 hours ago, blandy said:

enough Labour, Tory, SNP & other MPs having enough voting power to create a new option - either a ref, or some other off the shelf version of Brexit (e.g Norway), probably after a hauling back of the A50 expiry process.

No deal is so bad, that people will act once the tory loyalty to May (perhaps after she resigns, or acceeds to demands to allow parliament to have a genuine say) is put aside.,

[blandy]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I agree that's the only way it's possible, but I think the notion of May suddenly backing it is pretty much unrealistic at this point. 

Yes, I think that too. She will have to effectively step aside from backing it. SHe doesn't want no deal either. SO in a choice between no deal and a ref, she'll go with ref (or something else - Norway, whatever). Because for all that she's putting party first, no deal will utterly screw the tories for decades (and Labour too). Every cloud, I suppose...

[snowychap]

54 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

That doesn't work. There can't be a referendum that the executive doesn't support, because the executive is solely in control of the Parliamentary timetable. 

That seems right to me apart from perhaps the government bringing forward a bill that they don't support but that they allow a free vote on? A bit twilight zone, I guess.

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

That doesn't work. There can't be a referendum that the executive doesn't support, because the executive is solely in control of the Parliamentary timetable. 

Absolutely. 

Anyone who says "no-deal can't happen because Parliament won't allow it", what are the specific permutations that are going to result in the Prime Minister, be it May or AN Other, rescinding the Article 50 notification?

That is the only thing over which the UK has full control against not crashing out. 

[OutByEaster?]

I'm hoping that's worked as a link. There's a fair bit of sense in it, I was particularly drawn to this:

Quote

So far, the Brexit process has been a frustrating affair, with the Tories constantly shying away from the moment when they have to choose between sovereignty and free trade. For a party that has based its modern identity on the twin pillars of nationalism and capitalism, the decision has the potential to tear the party asunder and cannot be put off much longer.

Put like that, having to make a choice between nationalism or capitalism was always going to cause a divide in the Conservative party; it's picking which of their children they want to live. It makes call-me-dave's idea all the more ridiculous in hindsight.

 

 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

 

I can vouch for the JLR figure, or at least I can vouch that that is the figure JLR quoted even internally that a line stop costs. I used to work with the Procurement Finance team and part of the department dealt with suppliers who might be going bust or other things that would stop them delivering. JLR would often pay to bail a company out of financial difficulty because it would be cheaper than dealing with the fallout.

A line stop was the absolute worst thing that could happen, and the £30k a minute figure was always the figure that we were told it cost the business.

[HanoiVillan]

37 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's the default if no one does anything. But...

I believe that there is a majority in parliament for "No Brexit deal" disaster being prevented. So at some point, as I said, once May's version is voted down, the complete clusterpork scenario, which nobody (bar the nutters) wants to happen will be prevented, and then it's (as I said) 

No deal is so bad, that people will act once the tory loyalty to May (perhaps after she resigns, or acceeds to demands to allow parliament to have a genuine say) is put aside.,

 

35 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yes, I think that too. She will have to effectively step aside from backing it. SHe doesn't want no deal either. SO in a choice between no deal and a ref, she'll go with ref (or something else - Norway, whatever). Because for all that she's putting party first, no deal will utterly screw the tories for decades (and Labour too). Every cloud, I suppose...

I'm not seeing your timetable here. 

If we take your first assumption - that May's version will be voted down, which certainly seems likely but I'm not completely prepared to write it off until closer to the vote - then we will be in a situation where there is no deal on the table. You say that 'people will act', but as I said above, the executive controls the parliamentary timetable. Since May cannot now be challenged via an internal VONC - and she would in any case be replaced by someone who wants a 'no deal' scenario - what 'people acting' looks like in practical terms is lots of Tory MP's choosing to vote in a parliamentary VONC in the government, hopefully precipitating an election (which as I understand it is not automatic). 

In your aside above, you mention 'perhaps after she resigns, or acceeds to demands to allow Parliament to have a genuine say', but these are not solutions to the dilemma. A May resignation, without an election, would lead to a Conservative leadership contest. As we now have stark evidence for (this was obvious before, but remainers haven't been talking about it much for some reason), it is clear that the winner of a Conservative leadership contest would embrace a 'no deal' scenario. The only way to avoid that would be to have a stitch-up scenario like when May won, in which the party voters never get to have a say. But there certainly doesn't seem to be a consensus 'remain-adjacent' candidate waiting in the wings, nor is it likely that Hunt, Javid or A N Other would provide opposition as feeble as Leadsom did. The second part here, Parliament having a genuine say, is also not a way out of this mess as there is no majority for any particular form of deal in Parliament, and in any case it is very doubtful that the EU would agree to an article 50 extension on the basis of a Parliamentary vote asking for a different kind of deal, without an election or a referendum. 

This seems to me to leave three potential scenarios. The first is that the heavily dramatised No Deal trial runs in the next 10 days are such a colossal shitshow that enough backbench Conservatives and Labour MPs vote for May's WA in a spirit of national emergency. The second is that May loses the vote, and concedes that she couldn't win a re-run either. Backbench Tories who hate the idea of No Deal resign the whip and vote, with the combined opposition, for a VONC in the government. Sarah Woollaston, quoted in a tweet further up the page, seems to suggest that this remains a possibility, but as Chindie (I think) and I have observed, Tories who say this seem to be leaving a hole big enough to drive a coach and horses through when they say 'If [No Deal] became the main government policy objective for Brexit then I and many colleagues would resign the party whip' (it surely will never be 'the main government policy objective'), but we'll wait and see. The third option is for May's WA to fail, May to do nothing but cling on to power as usual, and for the country to 'brace for impact' of No Deal as it becomes clear that the government will not try again, will not get a bill passed, will not rescind Article 50, and will instead concentrate on disaster preparation. 

Doubtless I'll end up being wrong through missing something (Snowychap suggested one possibility, which seems too far-fetched to me, but who knows these days), but I'm not seeing a referendum being one of these paths. 

[markavfc40]

 

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm hoping that's worked as a link. There's a fair bit of sense in it, I was particularly drawn to this:

Put like that, having to make a choice between nationalism or capitalism was always going to cause a divide in the Conservative party; it's picking which of their children they want to live. It makes call-me-dave's idea all the more ridiculous in hindsight.

 

 

As he often does Bragg talks a lot of sense. The first part is pretty irrelevant but he is right we are now getting to the stage where both major parties have to make a choice.

Labour have perhaps in the hope that the Tories would completely implode by now sat on the fence and waffled for the last 18 months but it isn't going to wash now and I can't believe Corbyn is still spouting the line about going back to the EU at this late stage and getting a better deal. He is living in cloud cuckoo land. 

May won't get anything legally binding in terms of assurances on the back stop so comes back to parliament with exactly the same deal she had weeks ago. The only difference now is that she can use the threat of time and the only other option being no deal. That was all this delay was about in scaring a few more MP's into voting for her deal for fear of the consequences of not doing so. I can't see that washing with enough MP' and her deal won't get the support it needs.

The ball is then in Labours court as much as the Tories to make a stand as no deal can't be allowed to happen and by sitting on the fence they will be as culpable as the Tories. They will have to call for the clock to be stopped, article 50 rescinded and due to stalemate in parliament another referendum held.

The Tories will need a way out of this mess and whilst the leadership/cabinet won't want to be seen to instigate another referendum I think in the end with no other viable alternative they will have to allow a vote on it and I think a majority of MP's would support another referendum.

Edited January 4, 2019 by markavfc40

[LondonLax]

Corbyn is also pro Brexit and against a referendum, I don’t see where the second referendum is going to come from.

It looks like ‘no deal’ is going to land by default. 

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

The ball is then in Labours court as much as the Tories to make a stand as no deal can't be allowed to happen and by sitting on the fence they will be as culpable as the Tories. They will have to call for the clock to be stopped, article 50 rescinded and due to stalemate in parliament another referendum held.

The Tories will need a way out of this mess and whilst the leadership/cabinet won't want to be seen to instigate another referendum I think in the end with no other viable alternative they will have to allow a vote on it and I think a majority of MP's would support another referendum.

Labour can 'call for' anything they want, but they have no power in this situation, beyond calling a VONC. 

'Allowing a vote' on a referendum would be seen by the Conservative membership as instigating the referendum. Rightly, in all honesty, because the executive has the power to kill any momentum towards a referendum by refusing to allocate parliamentary time to the bill it would need to be brought into existence. The point I'm trying to make here is that a referendum cannot happen by like-minded backbenchers ganging together and just having a go at it, the executive has to specifically allow it to happen. 

12 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

As he often does Bragg talks a lot of sense. The first part is pretty irrelevant but he is right we are now getting to the stage where both major parties have to make a choice.

Labour have perhaps in the hope that the Tories would completely implode by now sat on the fence and waffled for the last 18 months but it isn't going to wash now and I can't believe Corbyn is still spouting the line about going back to the EU at this late stage and getting a better deal. He is living in cloud cuckoo land. 

Labour are indeed nearing the time at which they will likely have to make a choice, between disappointing the Remain-supporting membership or the northern heartlands. It's an unenviable position, but there is certainly no need to come down on one side of the debate or the other until we know the result of the 'meaningful vote'. Doing so now - for the sake of, what, ten days - simply blows apart their parliamentary party, and removes half of their tactical optionality, for literally no benefit whatsoever. 

[markavfc40]

@HanoiVillan if Mays deal is voted down what do you see happening?

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

@HanoiVillan if Mays deal is voted down what do you see happening?

I had a go at this about three posts up mate, but I make no great claims as to its predictive accuracy

[markavfc40]

26 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I had a go at this about three posts up mate, but I make no great claims as to its predictive accuracy

I just can't see even the Tories being incompetent enough to allow no deal to actually happen. Of your choices then if Mays deal gets voted down that leaves a vote of no confidence in the government. 

I think the trouble with all the scenarios is it is easy to make an argument against all of them. Bottom line is it is a mess and I am amazed given what we know now there are still plenty of people who would vote to leave which means even another referendum may still see us heading up shit creak without a paddle.