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

[villa4europe]

i dunno, i think "whats the **** point" will hit the tory lower class supporters harder than it will hit the labour young middle class change the worlders

[desensitized43]

Sky News have a little lookup thing so you can see how you're MP votes. Not surprisingly my MP James Adolf Morris voted for "No Deal" only...absolute piece of human filth.

What's very interesting is the number of Tories who simply voted No to every option...I suspect there's a protest element in there of MP's who wanted to give the whole Indicative Votes process and the method by which they've come about a kicking. Hardly a mature way to vote though is it? Voting no to every option.

[The_Rev]

2 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

Sky News have a little lookup thing so you can see how you're MP votes. Not surprisingly my MP James Adolf Morris voted for "No Deal" only...absolute piece of human filth.

 

That stuff is public domain. https://www.theyworkforyou.com

My guy, Tory who looks like he wants to climb the ladder, also voted no to everything except leaving with no deal. 

[HanoiVillan]

 

[VILLAMARV]

5 hours ago, cyrusr said:

From the article:

The whole thing is like the scene where they bump into the Campaign for Free Galilee in the tunnels.

 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

they couldn't possibly run a worse campaign and manifesto this time round with a different leader,

Not sure,  depends on the slogan they go for this time,  the leader and how big the bus is that Boris drives into the waiting reporters or similar.  

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

and I'm not sure Corbyn will generate quite the same support again.  

He is well busy on Masterchef,  finals week and all that.

[snowychap]

On 27/03/2019 at 00:44, VILLAMARV said:

Quite. Like you said, hardly a person anyone ever thought they'd side with. A bit like Diane Abbott when she said his racist attitudes were pretty shocking even by the standards of 30 years ago

 

This appeared on The Grauniad's website yesterday about Letwin:

Quote

Oliver Letwin: the unlikely Brexit rebel

At the heart of Tory policy for decades, his move to give MPs indicative votes is a rare revolt against the party

Sir Oliver Letwin, the unlikely leader of parliament’s Brexit takeover, has been at the heart of Conservative policy-making for so long that papers he once wrote for Margaret Thatcher have been released by the National Archives.

Those who know the Eton and Cambridge-educated MP say it is entirely characteristic of Letwin, 62, to be intimately involved in such a complex scheme as directing the next steps of Brexit by means of indicative votes among MPs.

“He has no shortage of ideas,” said one colleague at Westminster. “But the trouble is four of them will be complete duds – and one of them will be absolutely brilliant.”

Poll tax was an idea Letwin almost single-handedly kept alive in the mid-1980s. In a 1985 memo, he suggested it could be introduced in Scotland first as “a trailblazer for the real thing”. Once introduced, first in Scotland and then elsewhere, it proved so unpopular it helped bring down Thatcher.

Three years ago, Letwin was forced to apologise after it emerged he had co-written a paper telling Thatcher that providing financial assistance for black unemployed youth following the 1985 riots would only end up in the “disco and drug trade”. The memo, Letwin admitted, was “badly-worded and wrong”.

In his own memoir, Hearts and Minds, written in 2017, Letwin was honest enough to admit mistakes he had made in his 20s. “I am ashamed for [Thatcher], and ashamed of myself … I don’t believe she ever really took on board the extent to which some people are victims of the society.”

But the path to moderation was not smooth. Letwin was forced into hiding in 2001 by a desperate Conservative party, after being outed as the minister who had promised £20bn of tax and spending cuts in an anonymous interview with the Financial Times, far beyond the party’s manifesto at the time.

It culminated in a bizarre episode when he was tracked down by Jeremy Vine, of Newsnight, to his constituency where he had agreed to take part in a Roman-themed novelty hustings. The TV cameras found him dressed in a toga, at which point he was also confronted by the singer Billy Bragg, who was dressed as a Roman soldier.

“In front of his bemused constituents,” Vine wrote in his memoir It’s All News To Me, Letwin “removed the toga to reveal a tie and neatly press shirt underneath. He then conducted a serious Newsnight interview with me while being heckled by a Roman centurion.”

In many respects, the best periods of Letwin’s career were in the policy engine room, not least when he acted as David Cameron’s fixer, when he was a cabinet office minister in the coalition government. His influence went far beyond the ministerial title.

Then he wrestled with issues such as the future of press regulation in the aftermath of the Leveson inquiry. Letwin’s big idea, to deal with the fact that newspapers refused to accept statutory regulation, was to create an independent regulator backed by royal charter. It was neat, but the mainstream press refused to accept it.

Once his indicative votes amendment was passed on Monday night, some wounded Tory MPs on the other side of the argument seemed to suggest Letwin had effectively taken over the country, and not just the parliamentary agenda to allow MPs to vote on their preferred Brexit option on Wednesday.

David TC Davies, a Conservative backbencher, asked: “Since he now seems to have installed himself as a kind of jobbing prime minister, could you tell me how we can hold him to account in this house?”

It was the culmination of a Brexit journey that has taken him from being the ultimate loyalist to serial rebel, beginning in January, when he voted with Labour to give May a two-week deadline to debate Brexit next steps if her deal was voted down.

“My right honourable friend Sir Nicholas Soames, who is sitting next to me, and I have calculated that we have been in the house, collectively, for 56 years, and we have only ever, either of us, voted once against the Conservative whip,” Letwin said.

A month later, his concerns had hardened, as demonstrated in a Commons speech in which he worried that “when the chips are down” the government “would prefer to do what some of my esteemed colleagues would prefer to do: head for the exit door without a deal”. It was, he added, “a terrifying fact” – and one he resolved to prevent.

On Monday, Letwin said he had “swallowed his concerns” about May’s Brexit red lines until that point. Then, he became “so concerned that I started to work on a cross-party basis with many colleagues on both sides of the house to try to find a solution”.

Andrew Mitchell, a former Conservative chief whip, said he first met Letwin at university 40 years ago. On Brexit, he said he expected his colleague to dig in until he found a way for parliament to agree a way forward: “He’s a man on a mission and will not easily be diverted.”

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by snowychap

[VILLAMARV]

2 minutes ago, snowychap said:

This appeared on The Grauniad's website yesterday about Letwin:

 

I liked this snippet from the crystal maze article I mentioned earlier

Quote

First though, we went through the formalities of prime minister’s questions. A formality not just because Theresa May is Leader in Name Only but because Oliver Letwin was the de facto prime minister for the day. For Lino, it seemed like something of a release.

The school’s new timetable didn’t get off to the most promising of starts. After Letwin had apologetically read out the lessons for the day – he does everything apologetically, even on rare occasions like this when he has nothing to apologise for

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/27/brexit-westminster-is-like-the-crystal-maze-on-crystal-meth

[snowychap]

 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

This really needs to be the end to the idea that the reason Labour aren't backing a second referendum is Jeremy Corbyn. Not only did he vote for it in the indicative votes, but this is not a list of Corbynites either. The only available conclusion from this list is that any other Labour leader would have been doing the same attempted party-management job over the last two years. 

Hardly. It's a demonstration of his deviousness. Labour party policy is a second ref (once all other options - GE, His deal) are off the table. This indicative non-binding vote allows him to look like he's compliant with party policy, but when it comes to the actual "it counts" voting etc. his actions and words are very different. He's still behaving like an arse, because he is an arse.

[HanoiVillan]

32 minutes ago, blandy said:

Hardly. It's a demonstration of his deviousness. Labour party policy is a second ref (once all other options - GE, His deal) are off the table. This indicative non-binding vote allows him to look like he's compliant with party policy, but when it comes to the actual "it counts" voting etc. his actions and words are very different. He's still behaving like an arse, because he is an arse.

Well, since 'all other options' are not 'off the table' - in fact, from the votes last night, a CU is the most likely option to secure a majority - they shouldn't push a second referendum on its own. Probably the two leading options (CU + confirmatory referendum) need to be combined to get a majority in the House. 

I don't understand the point about 'when it counts'; if it didn't count last night, when does it count?

[snowychap]

If correct, I imagine this puts the kibosh on tomorrow's vote.

[mjmooney]

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

If correct, I imagine this puts the kibosh on tomorrow's vote.

I’m pretty sure that splitting them would be pointless anyway, since according to the Withdrawal Act 13(1)(b),  the House needs to approve both parts – if the future declaration isn't passed as acceptable then the Withdrawal Act cannot become law.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/

[VILLAMARV]

32 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I know it's the obvious go-to but I can't help think it's somehow relevant

[blandy]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't understand the point about 'when it counts'; if it didn't count last night, when does it count?

Yesterday was non-binding, indicative voting which places absolutely no obligation on anyone to do anything. I'm pleased it happened and next monday is happening again, as it might indicate what parliament does, or could support, rather than what it doesn't. But that's all it can do (unless further steps are taken by backbenchers, cross party, to actually sieze control). 

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yesterday was non-binding, indicative voting which places absolutely no obligation on anyone to do anything. I'm pleased it happened and next monday is happening again, as it might indicate what parliament does, or could support, rather than what it doesn't. But that's all it can do (unless further steps are taken by backbenchers, cross party, to actually sieze control). 

Of course. However, that doesn't mean that the votes 'don't count'. The party suffered resignations yesterday evening; the resignations aren't any less real just because they're indicative votes. 

[tonyh29]

 

2 hours ago, mjmooney said:

quite appropriate really considering his critics often  accused him of distorting reality

Edited March 28, 2019 by tonyh29

[blandy]

34 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Of course. However, that doesn't mean that the votes 'don't count'.

It does in the context in which I used it . In an indicative vote, he voted for it, in a meaningful vote he didn't.

[mjmooney]

Quote

WHAT'S NEXT?  THE 20 MOST LIKELY BREXIT SCENARIOS   By Fallows Mencken 

 1. May asks European Union for 12 month delay 

 2. May resigns 

 3. May negotiates with Corbyn 

 4. May blames Tory rebels. Bo-Jo blames Muslims. Rees-Mogg blames Chavs 

 5. Chavs revolt. Essex secedes from UK 

 6. Michael Gove assassinates May. Frames Polish plumber. Appears on Andrew Marr to say he should be PM 

 7. Top Google search: "Is Michael Gove gay?" 

 8. Spinless Corbyn pleads with NHS to cover spine implant 

 9. Bo-Jo plot to assassinate Theresa May fails after he gets distracted, drinks two bottles of sherry, shags nearest secretary 

 10. Dominic Raab kills May. Gives tearful speech at funeral. Leaks to press he's the frontrunner to replace 

 11. Top Google search: "Who is Dominic Rabbit?" 

 12. "Prime Minister's Questions" audience: 72 viewers. "Love Island" audience - 72 million 

 13. Nation Googles "Irish backstop" but gets distracted by Hello Magazine. Spends rest of day clicking through Pippa bum pics, feeling bad about themselves 

 14. Amber Rudd goes on television to promote her candidacy for PM. National emergency declared after her appearance puts entire nation to sleep 

 15. Jeremy Hunt drowns May in Number 10 toilet. Leaks to press he's the frontrunner to replace 

 16. Top Google search: "Do posh people call it toilet or loo?" 

 17. Ghost of fiddle playing Emperor Nero appears outside Number 10 

 18. Telegraph top story: "Prince Edward sets Donkey Kong record"  

 19. Crazed ax-wielding David Davis kills Theresa May, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd, Alan Cumming and One Direction 

 20. Financial Times. Wednesday, July 2nd, 2078 - "Key Brexit vote next week" 

The English Paper