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

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, snowychap said:

MPs To Be Offered ‘Knock-Out’ Voting System To Break Logjam On Brexit

Funnily enough, if the above votes were to take place in an open ballot, I think the last one standing might well be the current WA and Political Declaration.

STV with added unicorns

[bickster]

actually, no scrap that, its a fresh vote each time? idiots.

Anyway, why are Norway and Canada being mentioned in the same breath as the current WA. It's like they don't understand what the hell is going on here.The type of Deal is for after we've left and are under the WA. Pitting them against the WA is patent nonsense

[snowychap]

[Skruff]

I wonder how much time and money that's been/will be put into the campaign and the should I stay or should a go now? 

End results? Pre brexit status quo? 

[StefanAVFC]

Official

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Offcial

1

Offal more like

[bickster]

Nearly 15% of Magic Grandpa's constituents have signed the petition to revoke A50

Jacob Rees Mogg and Liam Fox's are just below and above 7% respectively

Kate Hoey's about 12%

I hope these people remember 

[snowychap]

I see that Dodds has confirmed that the DUP won't vote for the WA.

[supermon]

Its official next Friday 29th march is no longer D-Day

[snowychap]

The FT are seriously reporting that May has come round to no deal if her agreed WA doesn't pass and that there is speculation that Europhile Tories might consider joining with Labour in a vote of no confidence against the government.

Given that the exit date is now 12th April if the WA doesn't pass, an official FTPA no confidence vote would have to be put forward and be successful next week (i.e. by next Thursday at the moment - they aren't due to sit on Friday) as there would be the 14 day period during which no one is particularly sure what happens (i.e. whether May would have to resign).

If the leader of the opposition were to put such a motion forward for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, could the government refuse to give it time on those days and schedule it for Monday 1st April?

[ml1dch]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

The FT are seriously reporting that May has come round to no deal if her agreed WA doesn't pass and that there is speculation that Europhile Tories might consider joining with Labour in a vote of no confidence against the government.

Given that the exit date is now 12th April if the WA doesn't pass, an official FTPA no confidence vote would have to be put forward and be successful next week (i.e. by next Thursday at the moment - they aren't due to sit on Friday) as there would be the 14 day period during which no one is particularly sure what happens (i.e. whether May would have to resign).

I don't think it's quite the case that nobody is sure what happens. There are fourteen days in which other parties can attempt to form a Government that has the confidence of the house. So Corbyn tries.

Presumably those Europhile Tories are doing this with an aim beyond "just ditch May and hang the consequences".

So on day one, you could have a rag-tag coalition of everyone but the DUP and most of the Conservatives, forming a short-term Government with the backing of a dozen or so Tories (immolating their political careers in the process) who say that the support in a confidence motion is dependent on an A50 revocation and an immediate General Election.

Which I reckon Corbyn would go for, given the "prize" of the latter part. But are Flint, Mann etc going to back even this nuclear plan? I'd guess probably not.

Edited March 22, 2019 by ml1dch

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

I don't think it's quite the case that nobody is sure what happens. There are fourteen days in which other parties can attempt to form a Government that has the confidence of the house. So Corbyn tries.

I don't think that's correct. That was what I originally assumed but I read some things that said this wasn't necessarily the case

I'll have to go searching back through this thread but there was something from someone of authority on the matter (maybe an Institute for Government bod?) but it in effect said that, as there is nothing clear in the legislation and it hasn't happened before, that we couldn't be sure how it would play out. They questioned whether the PM would have to resign in that situation and if the 'second vote' within the 14 days could be the government that the house said it didn't have confidence in coming back to ask the question again. I guess you'd have to have a really stubborn person in charge to press ahead so obstinately in order to try and keep their grip on 'power'.

Can anyone envisage such a PM?

10 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

So on day one, you could have a rag-tag coalition of everyone but the DUP and most of the Conservatives, forming a short-term Government with the backing of a dozen or so Tories (immolating their political careers in the process) who say that the support in a confidence motion is dependent on an A50 revocation and an immediate General Election.

You may have that but the PM would have to offer their resignation, I believe. It is not an automatic result of the success of a vote of no confidence according to the FTPA.

[Chindie]

Unfortunately I think hell will freeze over before Tories do anything that risks their being in power. Especially with the great Satan sat across from them.

[ml1dch]

1 minute ago, snowychap said:

I don't think that's correct. That was what I originally assumed but I read some things that said this wasn't necessarily the case

I'll have to go searching back through this thread but there was something from someone of authority on the matter (maybe an Institute for Government bod?) but it in effect said that, as there is nothing clear in the legislation and it hasn't happened before, that we couldn't be sure how it would play out. They questioned whether the PM would have to resign in that situation and if the 'second vote' within the 14 days could be the government that the house said it didn't have confidence in coming back to ask the question again. I guess you'd have to have a really stubborn person in charge to press ahead so obstinately in order to try and keep their grip on 'power'.

Can anyone envisage such a PM?

You may have that but the PM would have to offer their resignation, I believe. It is not an automatic result of the success of a vote of no confidence according to the FTPA.

Obviously we're all fumbling in the dark, as it's never had to happen before (I think?).

But ultimately, a Government is nothing more than the biggest group of elected MPs who are happy to (broadly) vote together. 

The day that a group of MPs who are happy to say "we want Jeremy Corbyn to sit on that side of the chamber rather than Theresa May" is big enough to vote for that, is the day that she doesn't get a choice in the matter anymore.

Although writing that last paragraph made the whole thing feel very far away again...

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I'll have to go searching back through this thread

I've had a quick look and can't see that I've quoted anything specific, though I did raise it back in December when I was thinking what might happen then.

This, however, may have been one of the pieces that I was reading around that time:

Quote

...

Under the FTPA, Parliament’s fixed five-year term can only be truncated in two ways. First, if more than two thirds of the House of Commons vote to call an election – and that means 434 of the 650 MPs, not just two thirds of those in the chamber. The second is more complicated. If a motion of no confidence is passed or there is a failed vote of confidence, there is a 14-day period in which to pass an act of confidence in a new government. If no such vote is passed, a new election must be held, probably a mere 17 working days later.

So far, so clear. But from there we start to get into uncharted territory on two fronts. One is that some of the crucial mechanisms are not set out; the other is how the operation of the Act could affect political dynamics and party bargaining.

Let’s start with the mechanisms. The 14-day period only begins if the government loses a vote of confidence; and under the Act, this has been defined narrowly to exclude budgets and Queen’s Speeches – two key votes that have long been considered an effective vote of confidence. The Commons must now pass a motion using very specific wording to trigger FTPA.

A government that lost a Queen’s Speech vote could forestall that vote of confidence by resigning and recommending that the Queen offer the PM’s role to the Opposition – in which case a new government could be formed, and attempt to govern for the remainder of the five-year term.

There is an alternative: in the past, governments which have lost major votes have sometimes used the procedures of the House to delay a vote of confidence. In 1977, this allowed Labour to forge a new pact with the Liberals, regaining a majority and continuing in government. However, following a Queen’s Speech defeat this would be highly questionable, raising big questions of legitimacy. Constitutional authorities, and the parties, have different opinions on whether a PM should resign after losing a Queen’s Speech vote.

Let’s assume the government loses a vote of confidence, triggering the 14-day grace period. Here we hit a big ambiguity at the heart of the legislation: who governs during the next 14 days? Previously, an incumbent Prime Minister losing a vote of confidence would either resign immediately, handing power to a successor; or stay in as a sort of caretaker government while a second election was held – James Callaghan did the latter when we last saw a defeat on confidence in 1979. However, the 14-day clock only stops when a new government is approved by the House – and this requires a new government to already be in place: the wording specifically says that the motion must be “confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”. And at the point when the previous government has lost a vote of confidence, it may not be obvious that their opponents could themselves win one. So must the outgoing PM immediately resign and pass the reins to the leader of the Opposition, even if their chances of assembling a parliamentary majority look slender? Or should they hang on and await the outcome of negotiations, despite having lost a vote of confidence? Both solutions would be ugly and controversial.

A PM put in this position might be tempted to make it difficult for their rival to hold a new vote of confidence, and thus to form a government. And such blocking tactics would not be without precedent: in 2008, Canadian premier Stephen Harper secured a prorogation (suspension) of Parliament in order to forestall a vote of confidence. However, prorogation would require the Sovereign to exercise this remaining Royal Prerogative in support of a government which had clearly lost confidence. This drags the Queen into political manoeuvring in a way that Buckingham Palace has been keen to avoid.

Assuming our hard-pressed PM dismisses this option, they would have one further way out. Because under our constitution the powers of government are vested in the Prime Minister, they could simply hand over the leadership to a party colleague – creating a new government that could have another go at winning a vote of confidence. This would technically meet the Act’s requirements; and our political history is full of different PMs of the same party forming new governments of slightly different composition. Ultimately, it would be up to the House to decide by voting their confidence. But again, the Sovereign would be put in a difficult position, as the Queen would have to appoint the new PM before they could put forward a new confidence motion.

Of course, all of this depends on whether party leaders use the Act in these ways. The Act has been understood as a means to allow for a new government to be formed and replace the incumbent, and there would be massive political pressures in anyone being seen to abuse its provisions. If used as intended, it would bring in a government led by the former Opposition. Yet even this would be challenging in our political culture: how many changes of government could we see without an election?

...

 

[Davkaus]

This is genuine madness. 8 days? 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/22/secret-cabinet-office-document-reveals-chaotic-planning-for-no-deal-brexit

Quote

 

The extent and range of the impact of a no-deal Brexit is revealed in a confidential Cabinet Office document that warns of a “critical three-month phase” after leaving the EU during which the whole planning operation could be overwhelmed.

The classified document, seen by the Guardian, sets out the command and control structures in Whitehall for coping with a no-deal departure and says government departments will have to firefight most problems for themselves – or risk a collapse of “Operation Yellowhammer”.

“The … structure will quickly fall if too many decisions are unnecessarily escalated to the top levels that could have reasonably been dealt with internally …” the document says. It also concedes there are “likely to be unforeseen issues and impacts” of a no-deal Brexit that Operation Yellowhammer has been unable to predict.

The Cabinet Office has taken the lead in preparations for no deal and is desperately war-gaming scenarios in the event the UK leaves without a coherent plan.

The document includes a flow-chart of a routine no-deal day in Whitehall – which starts at 7am with “situation reports” from across the UK being sent to ministers and senior officials, and continues with non-stop assessments and meetings until 5.30am the following day.

 

 

That bloody cabinet, with their Project Fear.

I'm surprised we're not seeing panic buying in the shops yet.

[snowychap]

2 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Obviously we're all fumbling in the dark, as it's never had to happen before (I think?).

But ultimately, a Government is nothing more than the biggest group of elected MPs who are happy to (broadly) vote together. 

The day that a group of MPs who are happy to say "we want Jeremy Corbyn to sit on that side of the chamber rather than Theresa May" is big enough to vote for that, is the day that she doesn't get a choice in the matter anymore.

Although writing that last paragraph made the whole thing feel very far away again...

That isn't quite correct, though. See the bit quoted above.

A loss of a vote of confidence under the FTPA doesn't mean that the government falls immediately and that the PM has to resign.

Quote

The day that a group of MPs who are happy to say "we want Jeremy Corbyn to sit on that side of the chamber rather than Theresa May" is big enough to vote for that, is the day that she doesn't get a choice in the matter anymore.

Again, that's not quite right, is it?

Whilst she is PM (so until she resigns or until the Monarch decides to appoint someone else to the post), she has more of a say than she should.

[snowychap]

@ml1dch

This is from a Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report (pdf link) :

Quote

The Act provides no guidance on what occurs during the 14-day period following an Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 no confidence motion being passed. As the Clerk of the House told us, what occurs during this period is a matter politics, and not of procedure. Evidence to this inquiry and the Cabinet Manual set out that the Prime Minister would be expected to continue in office unless someone else could command the confidence of the House. If someone else could command the confidence of the House, the Prime Minster would be expected to resign. Not doing so would risk drawing the Sovereign into the political process, something the Cabinet Manual is very clear it intends to avoid. At any point during this period, a motion of confidence in Her Majesty’s Government under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 could be put down and that that would prevent the election. After 14 days a general election would automatically follow.

Quote

Section 2(3)
 

14. Te aspect of the confdence relationship between Parliament and the Government, whereby a vote of no confdence may lead to a general election, is reflected in Section 2(3).
The Act provides for a 14-day period during which confdence in the existing Government could be re-established, or established in respect of a new government, by passing the prescribed motion of confdence. If confdence in the government is established within the 14 days, the procedure under the Act is deactivated, so there is no early general election and the Parliament resumes the rest of its fve-year term.
 

Obviously, if there were another vote/motion to pass that clearly indicated that someone else, e.g. the Leader of the Opposition, would have the confidence in the house then this ought to be taken out of her hands, i.e. this should force even someone of immense obduracy to give in.

But who would allow that motion to be moved as the Government control the business of the House of Commons? That is unless or until someone gets the Standing Orders changed...

An insight, perhaps, as to how this current government might view the procedure might be gained from this bit of evidence from The Leader of the House's to the committee:

Quote

26. When asked if the Prime Minister would be under a duty to resign and to advise the Sovereign to send for the Leader of the Opposition, if it was clear that the Opposition could form a Government, rather than wait 14 days to bring about an early election, the Leader of the House said:

Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the Government, if they have lost a no confdence motion, would have 14 calendar days in which to pass a confdence in the Government motion. If they fail to do that, that then leads to a general election. You are speculating on a very complex alternative, but the fact is that it is for a confdence motion in Her Majesty’s Government within 14 days and you will appreciate that Her Majesty’s Government in spite of having lost a no confdence vote would still be Her Majesty’s Government at that point.
 

 

Edited March 22, 2019 by snowychap
To add in second and third quote

[chrisp65]

shit just got real, Uri Geller will stop Brexit.... with his mind power

might be the first time I've ever referenced the Jewish Chronicle

 

[hippo]

Don't think any progress will be made now until May resigns. Its bit like Thatcher wouldn't budge on the Poll tax - her replacement John Major repackaged the poll tax and the problem went away- nobody has tinkered with it since.

Its needs fresh impetus and that won't come from May - New Tory leader, pause, deep breath, put a tweaked deal to the country - or some combination of things that TM refused to consider (Red lines) 

I know its not TMs fault - but a very poor labour run rings around her in the last GE - wasn't it obvious she was out of her depth them.