|
Post by Old Badger on Feb 26, 2019 11:48:10 GMT -5
Following up on this extension story: "The UK risks hurtling into “guaranteed no deal” if MPs fail to back a Brexit agreement at the end of a short extension period, according to senior EU sources. 'It will be a no-return situation,' a senior diplomat told the Guardian. 'If there is no solution [by the end of June] it is a guaranteed no deal.'” linkOne major reason is that EU elections will be held in May. If the UK does not participate it will not have representation in when the new EU Parliament convenes on July 2, and without that they cannot be a member state. The EU would prefer a longer delay--which clearly is all but inevitable--of 9 to 21 months, with the UK holding elections and sending representatives; that would ensure continuity while the Brits decide just what the hell they're going to do. But if they ask for a short delay and the EU governments agree, then they're going to have to somehow fix their own mess. Good luck with that.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Feb 26, 2019 17:47:16 GMT -5
Anna Soubry, a Tory MP who left her party this week, explains in this interview the fundamental problems that underlie Brexit. And with just a change of a name or two, and a specific issue or two, you could have the same exact interview in the US. I've been watching this woman in House debates for weeks, and really have come to admire her:
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Feb 28, 2019 23:57:50 GMT -5
Progress! "Labour is moving towards a compromise plan that would allow Theresa May’s Brexit deal to pass but make clear that parliament 'withholds support' until it has been put to a public vote, according to multiple party sources. Those involved in talks said the Labour leadership was in favour of a redrafted amendment proposed by backbenchers Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, which would see the party abstain on the Brexit deal if a second referendum were promised on those terms...Kyle said he had spoken to a huge breadth of MPs from John McDonnell and Keir Starmer to a number of people in May’s own cabinet as well as more junior ministers, and was confident it could pass." linkThis long ago emerged as the only sensible way out of the mess the Tories have created. It seems likely that May's deal will be defeated again when it comes up for a vote, which would leave her with either a no-deal shortly thereafter or the need to beg the EU for an extension until June. But the latter is no gimme; all 27 EU countries would have to agree, and Macron has said that he's dubious unless May has a clear plan for what will happen during the delay. Alas, it seems that all she hopes to do is continue banging away at her current plan, which commands nothing at all like a majority in the House, and likely never will. Labour is about to offer her a lifeline, even at some cost to themselves. At least 20 Labour MPs are believed to be opposed to a new referendum, mostly from districts that voted heavily to leave. Their big fear is that their constituents will be angry at them if they support a second referendum, and either their local party members will try to "deselect" them (the equivalent of primarying an incumbent here) before the next election, or vote against them in the general election. (Similar fears are voiced on the other side, as well.) But the strategy that Corbyn's leadership team has been pushed and prodded, and finally stumbled into, is to continue to support the party's "soft" Brexit plan as an alternative, while allowing the "Tory" Brexit to pass by abstaining on the vote, in return for putting May's deal up to a popular vote. Instead of Leave vs. Remain the choice would be This Brexit or No Brexit.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 6, 2019 16:27:43 GMT -5
The Government had a very bad day again today:
The Attorney-General and Brexit Secretary came back from Brussels with no tweaks to the negotiated deal that would have set some kind of limit on the Irish backstop. Said the A-G: "Both sides have exchanged robust, strong views and we are now facing the real discussions." Translation from diplo-speak: "We had a shouting match and are going home to cool off before making another (probably fruitless) stab."
The Northern Irish DUP announced that they would vote against May's re-submitted deal next Tuesday without a binding limit on the backstop. See above.
May promised to go ahead with the vote next Tuesday no matter what, but without the DUP she's unlikely to change enough votes to overcome January's 230-vote loss.
Meanwhile, the Government lost two votes on Labour-sponsored motions in the House of Lords. The first would require the Government to come back to Parliament for approval of any post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, not merely hold consultations leading to the deal. It was approved 215-168. The second would commit the Government to pursue a policy of ensuring that the EU would be in a customs union with the EU post-Brexit, exactly what most "leave" Members do not want. It passed 207-141.
Parliament learned that none of the £33 million payment to Eurorail that the Government recently agreed to settle a suit involving the no-bid contract of ferry services from a firm that owned no ferries (it collapsed last week) is refundable, even if Brexit never happens. Ostensibly, the contract was to ensure the flow of health and food supplies in case a no-deal Brexit blocked regular trade flows. But the Health Minister's comments this week that the figure was a "maximum" and depended on what happened with Brexit, the House was advised to day that it's all payable, period. This is why so many members across the chamber take every word uttered by Government ministers as the gospel truth. Not.
Just another day at Westminster.
|
|
|
Post by leftylarry on Mar 9, 2019 8:59:00 GMT -5
The only crises is the hardcore Leftists who won’t let it happen.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 9, 2019 17:58:41 GMT -5
The only crises is the hardcore Leftists who won’t let it happen. You do realize that there are many Tory anti-Brexiteers, right? That David Cameron, Theresa May, and most of the current Cabinet campaigned against it, correct? And that the most-left Members of the House, including the Labour Party Leader and most of his Shadow Cabinet actually support Brexit, yeah? Other than that, spot on.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 10, 2019 12:36:41 GMT -5
This is going to be quite a week, Brexit-wise: Eurosceptics have told Theresa May that defeat on her Brexit deal looks certain without more concessions from Brussels, even if she offers to quit in exchange for them voting to get it over the line...Some leave supporters may be tempted to go for this option to allow a Brexiter such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove or Dominic Raab to take over and have a go at negotiating the second phase – or the future relationship with the EU. However, the idea of voting for May’s deal in return for her exit was outright rejected by other Brexit supporters, with David Davis, a former Brexit secretary, saying it 'will not get the vote through'. Some of the most hardline leave backers are implacably opposed to the deal unless the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, secures a legally binding way out of the Irish backstop, which as it stands could keep the UK in a permanent customs union with the EU." linkThe fact that withdrawing from the EU would necessitate re-establishing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, in clear violation of the peace accord signed in 1998, apparently never came up during the 2016 Brexit campaign. This is no surprise; the leaders of that campaign all were English, and Brexit really is an English project, opposed by voters in both Scotland and Ulster. So, naturally Brexit has reached a dead end on this issue. The whole open-border agreement--without which The Troubles would not have ended, and likely would resume now--was premised on both countries being members of the EU. You can't have both an open border on the island of Ireland and be outside the EU; that's just simple physics. But the Brexiteers don't give a damn about Ireland, north or south, so it's easy for them to demand that the EU figure out (because they can't) how to make both work at the same time. Thus, this week we get the following: Tuesday: A vote on May's proposal, which will not be materially different from the bill that lost by 230 votes in January. Leader of the ERG and the DUP wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: “An unchanged withdrawal agreement will be defeated firmly by a sizeable proportion of Conservatives and the DUP if it is again presented to the Commons. If with the DUP just half of previous Conservative opponents vote against the deal, a three-figure majority would be expected.” The Government is set to offer as an inducement £20B of additional spending, ending its austerity program. Wednesday: Assuming defeat on that bill, a vote will be held to ban a no-deal Brexit. It's expected to pass, probably overwhelmingly. Of course, May is quite right to point out that you can't logically vote against the deal and the no-deal options, unless you want no Brexit at all. Thursday: Except that there's a fourth option: kick the can again. Hence a vote to change the Brexit law to move the March 29 deadline to a later date, while will require the approval of the 27 remaining EU members, any one of which can veto it. May wants a short extension to not later than June 30, hoping to present her bill a third time, perhaps with some concessions from Brussels on Ireland, though that seems as unlikely as it has proven to date. And then what? Assuming May's bill fails and there is an extension, short or long, it's unlikely the current deal every will pass through Parliament. May likely could get a different deal, based on remaining in the EU's Customs Union (as proposed by Labour), approved but only at the cost of splitting the Tory Party, something she's been fighting to avoid all along. Or she could take up the proposal by two Labour back-benchers that would allow her plan to pass the House, but only on condition that it go back to the voters for final approval. There's not a majority in the House for a new vote precisely because the last one was so divisive, both within and across the parties. But in the end it may be inevitable; but while Labour intends to hold off for now on a "People's Vote" amendment, the Liberal-Democrats likely will put one forward, though it's unclear if the Speaker will allow a vote on their proposal without cross-party support. What a week!
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 11, 2019 15:33:07 GMT -5
As nutty as it sounds, Theresa May took off for Strasbourg just hours before her latest version of the Brexit deal must be distributed to MPs for a vote tomorrow, ostensibly to finalize some language she hopes will mollify the ERG enough to win over their support. (Right now we're less than 2 hours from that drop-dead time, 6:30 pm ET.) Apparently, there will be separate statements by her and by the EU regarding the "temporary" Irish backstop language in the agreements. It's doubtful that this will be enough, because it seems unlikely the EU will agree to change the language in the legally-binding agreement itself, but the hope is that the Attorney-General will use these documents to claim that the UK can get out of the backstop unilaterally down the road, if it ever is imposed.
I doubt most of the ERG will swallow this, but perhaps more-moderate Brexiteers will come around. The general sense in the London media seems to be that May is going to lose by more than 100 votes again, but not by as much as the 230 from last time. It may be the ERG now are intent on blocking this deal so they can bring down the Government and install one of their own--likely Boris Johnson--who will take them into a no-deal Brexit as soon as possible. If that's the case it won't make any difference what May brings back or the A-G says about its legal status; indeed, the ERG already have set up their own committee of lawyers to give a separate opinion, which I would bet will find that any statement from the EU is not enforceable, allowing them to vote against the deal.
The BBC reports that what's in the works are these elements:
*A joint interpretative statement setting out each side's intentions that the backstop would be temporary
*Amendments to the political declaration around the ambitions for the free trade agreement
*Clarification of the procedures foreseen in the Withdrawal Agreement for disputes relating to the backstop
*A separate UK statement with British qualifications and clarifications
If that's what comes out I doubt many in the ERG will be persuaded. The political declaration is just a short paper laying out the intention to negotiate a trade deal after Brexit. What they want to see is a change in the legally-binding language of the Withdrawal Agreement that gives the UK the ability to get out of the Irish backstop unilaterally if a trade deal is not reached quickly. If the above is correct, it appears there will not be a change to the agreement itself, and that is the demand, not more additional written assurances, which already have been given.
And only 18 days left.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 12, 2019 9:13:33 GMT -5
So, the A-G has reported on his legal analysis, and found that: "The risk of the UK being tied to EU rules after Brexit 'remains unchanged' despite the latest changes to the PM's deal, the attorney general has said. However, Geoffrey Cox said the new agreements reinforced the legal rights available to the UK if subsequent talks broke down due to 'bad faith'. His updated legal advice is seen as vital to determining whether Tory Brexiteers and the DUP back the deal." linkPredictably, the ERG pounced: "The European Research Group say they are not convinced by legal assurances secured by the PM in 11th hour talks with EU officials...ERG chairman Jacob Rees-Mogg said: 'We've always been able to ask to leave the backstop, that is not in any sense an improvement or a development.' In a statement, the group said: 'In the light of our own legal analysis and others we do not recommend accepting the government's motion today.'" linkNo word yet from the DUP, but my guess is that they'll reach the same conclusion as the ERG. In the end, May's plan likely will fail, though by a lot smaller margin than the 230-vote loss in January. But that's poor consolation, given that the earlier loss set a record for a Government motion's margin of defeat. The Brexit chaos just gets worse and worse. EDIT: "The Democratic Unionist party has rejected Theresa May’s bid for support for her Brexit deal, in another serious setback for the prime minister. Hours after the attorney general revealed that his legal advice over the Irish backstop remained 'unchanged', the party said it would not be supporting her at Tuesday night’s crunch vote. Their decision could have a devastating domino effect on the outcome of the vote with many in the Eurosceptic European Research Group led by Jacob Rees-Mogg likely to vote the same way as the DUP." link
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 12, 2019 14:23:31 GMT -5
Vote result:
Ayes - 242 (Cons - 235 + 2 tellers; Lab - 3; Ind - 4)
Noes - 391 (Cons - 75; Lab - 238 +2 tellers; Ind - 17; SNP - 35; L-D - 11; DUP - 10; PC - 4; GRN - 1)
Note: Tellers are paired, two from each side, and record the votes of other members passing through the voting lobby. Technically, their own votes don't count.
The Government has taken another big loss, this time by 149, and there's not likely to be another shot at passing this deal. Much of the ERG and DUP would prefer to crash out on March 29, but tomorrow the House is almost certain to vote against that, creating the conundrum that they will have turned down the negotiated agreement AND the alternative of leaving with no agreement, essentially boxing themselves in on all sides. Amazing! On Thursday they're supposed to vote to request an extension to the deadline from the EU, which will agree after getting assurances that it won't be more of the dawdling that's been going on since November.
After that the only two possible outcomes are a "soft" Brexit, with the UK staying in the Customs Union (thus preserving an open Irish border, but effectively becoming a non-voting member of the EU, which is worse than where they are now), or a turn by May to the Labour backbenchers who have proposed to allow her deal to pass on the condition that it goes to the voters for a confirmatory vote, with remaining in the EU as the alternative. Either of those could split the Tory party permanently, which is what May's spent nearly 3 years trying to avoid.
BTW, Larry's claim that the deal would be defeated by "leftists" turns out to be wrong. Had the Tories and DUP Members who voted no sided with the Government, the outcome would have been 327 - 306, and the deal would have passed. The real problem here is that extremists among the Brexiteers, such as Boris Johnson, who argued today for a no-deal exit, sank May, and possibly any exit at all. Ironic, because this whole disaster has been staged, from Cameron's promise of a referendum all the way to today's vote, to placate Johnson, Rees-Mogg, and that lot. Some good it did May.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 13, 2019 9:34:27 GMT -5
So today (tonight London time) the Commons takes up where it left off yesterday. Having defeated May's deal decisively, it now will vote on a motion submitted by the PM to prevent a no-deal exit on March 29, but oxymoronically noting that a no-deal exit remains the "default position" without a deal. Five possible amendments have been submitted, though it's unlikely all will get a vote. In the House, the Speaker decides which amendments are voted on, and the informal criteria for selection give priority to those coming from Members of multiple parties or the Leader of the Official Opposition (amendments typically are filed by backbenchers). So the most likely amendments to be taken up are: • No no-deal ever - Tabled by the West Midlands MPs Caroline Spelman and Jack Dromey and backed by senior figures from all sides of the Commons including Sir Oliver Letwin, Hilary Benn, Nick Boles and Yvette Cooper, as well as all 11 members of the Independent Group, this amendment simply rejects a no-deal Brexit at any time and under any circumstances. • Revoke article 50 - Tabled by the Scottish National party’s Angus MacNeil and backed by Europhile MPs including the Tory grandee Kenneth Clarke, Labour’s Keith Vaz and Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts, this amendment calls on the government to halt Brexit by revoking its notice of intention to leave under article 50 of the EU treaties. The first presents a logical bind because the EU legal protocols and the UK law invoking Article 50 set the leave date as not later than March 29; this cannot be changed by the UK Parliament on its own, so it's hard to see how this amendment would be enforced--or for that matter how the underlying motion by May can be enforced. Both assume the EU will grant an extension, but today the EU leadership made clear to its own Parliament that the agreement already reached is "done and dusted" and if the UK wants more time it must come up with a plan for how to end its own impasse or there's no reason for an extension. Several Member countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe, whose emigrants to the UK were vilified in the runup to the referendum, seem to be willing to veto any extension, leaving the Brits to stew in their own uber-nationalist juices. The second effectively would end Brexit. Full stop. Once revoked, there is no chance an Article 50 withdrawal will be revived for the foreseeable future, not after watching this wrenching exercise. Personally, I would love to see this pass, but it's not likely to happen precisely because it would obviate the referendum and all the blood, sweat, and tears that flowed from it. It's possible that a compromise is in the works. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e., Treasury Secretary) just gave his spring update on the state of the economy today and in his speech talked about reaching "a deal" through consensus, not May's deal, and dropped some shade on the ERG. So perhaps in the back rooms at Westminster there's a soft Brexit deal being cooked up between the Tories and Labor, which likely means keeping the UK inside the Customs Union, but not formally in the EU. As a certain President likes to say, we'll see.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 13, 2019 13:41:38 GMT -5
Well, the Speaker did not select the amendment to revoke the Article 50, but instead: •Malthouse compromise - Tabled by a group of Conservative MPs drawn from both leave and remain wings of the party, this amendment calls for a delay to Brexit day from 29 March to 22 May to give time for preparations to leave without a deal. It says the government should then offer a “standstill” agreement with the EU and its member states, lasting up to the end of 2021 at the latest, during which the UK would pay into EU budgets and observe legal obligations while a permanent relationship is negotiated. The debate is more heated than even yesterday's debate on the Government's deal. Emotions are running high, and many of the comments are pointedly personal, with remainers, in particular, going after those who pushed the leave campaign, citing promise after promise they made that have not been met. No wonder even "experts" on Parliament insist they cannot predict what will happen between now and the end of the month. Meanwhile, over in Brussels Nigel Farage is doing everything he can to undercut the British government: "Leading Eurosceptics are lobbying right-of-centre governments in Europe to see if they would veto a British extension of article 50 and so ensure the UK drops out of the EU at the end of the month without a deal. In theory, only one country is required to wield its veto for any British request to be rejected. It is highly unlikely this lobbying will succeed as the governments in countries such as Hungary, Italy and Poland have other more important battles to fight with the EU. But the lobbying underlines the precariousness of the British position. Leave.EU touted its connections with Eurosceptic forces in Europe on Wednesday, tweeting: 'The British establishment would do well to remember the Eurosceptic scene is a close-knit group across the continent and on the rise – some are now in power! If our politicians betray Brexit and vote for delay, Matteo Salvini can defend the 17.4 million and veto!' Salvini is Italy’s deputy prime minister and a Eurosceptic." linkOne of those is Nigel Farage, a Member of the European Parliament elected to represent the UK. This is as if a Member of Congress were lobbying at the UN to defeat a motion by the US Government. Amazing!
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 13, 2019 15:17:52 GMT -5
The amendment for no-deal ever was supposed to be made by the main sponsor, a Tory backbencher. Under pressure from the Cabinet she agreed not to move it for a vote, but one of the Labour co-sponsors moved it instead. Despite the Government's whipping to defeat the amendment it passed by 312-308. That's an amazing defeat. It also means that the choices for the Government have been further narrowed.
The Malthouse compromise (named for the guy who came up with it) failed miserably, 164-374, with a lot of Members not voting.
The main motion, as amended, passed, 321-278.
With the second loss of May's proposal yesterday, and with a no-deal exit under any circumstances now (theoretically) off the table, the House has killed May's longstanding framing of the choice before them: "You may vote for the deal we've negotiated or we will leave with no deal on March 29." Not surprisingly, the Tory speakers already today were arguing: "It's the Government's deal or we'll have to revoke Article 50," which presumably was meant to scare Conservative back-benchers, but was taken up heartily by many in the Opposition, although an amendment to that effect was not voted on. But that's just a motion; to take effect requires an amendment to the legislation under which Article 50 was invoked two years ago, and to get the agreement of all 27 EU members.
It would be possible for May to try now to do what she's failed to do for 2 1/2 years, which is to work out a Brexit acceptable to Labour to get a consensus agreement that can pass, but that would break her party. So, instead she's proposing that if the House votes tomorrow to ask for an extension, the Government would come back next week to try to pass her deal again! This is unbelievable.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 14, 2019 13:01:48 GMT -5
The Government barely won, 312-314, rejection of a cross-party backbench amendment to its motion on next steps that effectively would have given the House to take control over the Brexit deal away from the Prime Minister. That's a remarkable show of weakness by the PM, indicating that a number of her own party members must have supported it. She's barely keeping control, but apparently intended to come back to the House with the same deal that was defeated by record numbers twice. The fig leaf being worked out by the Attorney-General would try to construe the deal she worked out as somehow allowing the UK to pull out of the Irish backstop provision unilaterally under "unforeseen circumstances" by defining failure to reach a final trade agreement as such a case--even though he argued just last week that this is a foreseen possibility. The hope is that the DUP will back this tortured interpretation and thereby bring along enough of the ERG to secure a positive vote next week. Many doubt this will work, but you never know.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 15, 2019 10:00:19 GMT -5
This is an excellent, politically neutral video summarizing what's just happened and where things are going (and why):
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 18, 2019 14:01:47 GMT -5
In a bombshell decision, the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled today that the Government cannot keep bringing up the Brexit deal that was defeated last Tuesday unless the new bill is "substantially" different from the one defeated by 149 votes. He noted that the House has operated under this rule since 1604, with ample precedents right up to the 1920s. This decision destroys May's most recent strategy, which was to keep bringing the same deal to the floor time after time, while using the periods between votes to threaten, cajole, and even bribe (through coming budget changes) Tory and--especially--DUP Members to switch and vote for her bill. That's now out, and she's left having to come up with something new. Speaker Berkow has just provoked a constitutional crisis, and possibly forced May to end this session of Parliament to call a new one, which would allow her to re-submit her bill. You cannot write novels with this many twists without losing credibility.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 19, 2019 10:01:56 GMT -5
The UK Government now agrees with critics: they're in a "crisis" over Brexit: "Asked whether May agreed with the solicitor general, Robert Buckland, who described the situation after Bercow’s ruling on Monday as a 'constitutional crisis', her spokesman said: 'If you were to look back at the speech the prime minister gave, just before meaningful vote two, she said that if MPs did not support meaningful vote two we would be in a crisis. 'Events yesterday tell you that that situation has come to pass.'” linkWell, to be fair they've been in a political crisis ever since the lightweight PM David Cameron agreed to hold a referendum on EU membership in order to ease his way to re-election as Tory leader, setting off a chain of events that has consumed the entire political class for three years, with no sign it's going to end soon. But at least the Government finally is admitting it. Today the Cabinet agreed to send a letter to the EU requesting an extension to Article 50, but has not said yet for how long and for what purpose the request will be made. May had hoped to get her deal through the House before the meeting of EU heads of government later this week so she could ask for a short extension to complete legislation needed to carry it out; but without an agreed deal it may be that EU leaders will insist on a much longer delay to allow the Brits to figure out what the hell they're doing. That could mean 21 months--until the end of the next EU budget period--and that in turn means the UK will have to hold elections to the EU Parliament in May, something they'd hoped to avoid because of the cost (more than £100m) and the likelihood that the UKIP or Farage's new anti-Brexit party will win a number of seats--these are low-turnout elections in which the anti-EU voters are more likely to turn out than the pro-EU faction. But The Guardian reports: "It is likely, however, that the leaders will agree on a nine-month extension on condition that European elections are held – with an option to leave after three months without British MEPs being elected if the deal is ratified next week." linkOy, what a mess!
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 19, 2019 16:31:39 GMT -5
Here's how bad it is in London right now: "Theresa May will be forced to write to EU leaders on Wednesday and beg them to delay Brexit, with her cabinet deadlocked over the best way out of what Downing Street now concedes is a 'crisis'...Ministers discussed Brexit for about 90 minutes at what several sources said was a testy cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Insiders said opinion was more or less evenly divided, between those who favoured requesting a short, three-month extension, leaving in place the prospect of a no-deal Brexit in the summer, and those who want to see a much longer delay. Several sources said ministers emerged from cabinet unclear about what May’s personal position was on the best way forward." linkMeanwhile, the race already is on to succeed May after either her bill passes or fails altogether. Brexit's almost beside the point now, as one MP, a former Tory Government Minister, summed up: “No one is talking about anything else but the leadership in the tea rooms. There isn’t anything more to say about whether May’s deal will pass because we are just waiting for the DUP. There is a really strong anti-Boris feeling but all the Brexiters may get on board with him if they feel the wind is blowing in his direction because they will want jobs.” Besides Johnson, a number of others are openly campaigning to be one of the two finalists MP will put forward to the party's membership for a vote on the new leader. Some Tory's already are threatening to quit the party if he's selected. As one Tory MP put it: “You have cabinet ministers going round offering people jobs and May has not even resigned yet. It is fair to say the race is already under way.” link"On Tuesday afternoon, Corbyn and a Labour team including the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, had what a party spokesman called constructive talks with the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, the Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable, Liz Saville Roberts from Plaid Cymru, and the Green MP Caroline Lucas... In a joint statement afterwards, Blackford, Cable, Saville Roberts and Lucas said they had mainly impressed on Corbyn their desire for a second referendum. It is understood Cable invited Corbyn to join a People’s Vote campaign rally on Saturday calling for a fresh referendum, which was declined by the Labour leader...A Labour statement said the group agreed their joint opposition to both May’s plan and to a no-deal departure. If there was no majority in parliament for the deal or a second referendum, Corbyn wanted the other parties to 'engage constructively to find a parliamentary majority for a close economic relationship with the EU that can work for the whole country'." link So, the Tories remain divided between no-deal and "hard" Brexiters, May is too shell-shocked to provide them leadership and her Members already are moving on to the next leader, the small opposition parties want a new referendum in hopes of ending Brexit, and Corbyn wants to push his own version of "soft" Brexit. No wonder EU officials and their government leaders are in despair! Here's the Mother of Parliaments behaving like a congregation of screeching cats. There is an obvious solution: pass May's bill on condition it goes to a public vote. Honestly, there's no way out of this that's more democratically legitimate.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 20, 2019 9:23:53 GMT -5
"Theresa May has written to the EU seeking a brief delay to Brexit until the end of June, telling MPs that a longer delay would mean “a failure to deliver” on the result of the 2016 referendum. Speaking at the start of prime minister’s questions, May said she would present her Brexit plan to the Commons for a third time, and if it was passed the delay would allow time to implement it. If it was again defeated, parliament would have to decide how to proceed, May said...The letter said May had planned to bring her deal back to the Commons this week for a third vote, but did not specify what would happen if the vote was lost." linkThe definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results. OK, it's an old saying, and not really true, but it aptly describes what's happening with Theresa May. Apparently hard-Brexit members of her Cabinet threatened to resign if she had asked for a longer delay, which clearly is what the EU would prefer at this point. That would allow time for May (or some new PM) to reset the plan so that it can command a majority in the House, which likely means something closer to Labour's proposal of remaining in the customs union and single market, while adopting any strengthened EU workers' rights and environmental standards as they evolve. Or putting her plan to a public vote. None of which the hard-liners want to see, even though they do not have the votes for the current plan, either. The UK officially has gone through the looking-glass now.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 20, 2019 17:06:06 GMT -5
You cannot make up the Brexit story: no publisher would accept it as a novel because it's just totally beyond belief. And yet, here we are. In today's installment, Theresa May, unable to get her deal through the House, finally sent off her letter to the EU's Council President Tusk, just in time for tomorrow's meeting of the heads of government, asking for a delay up to June 30 in order to try--again--to get her deal through. Then she went off to the House for PM's Questions, where she effectively excoriated the MPs for not approving her deal, as if she were not the leader of the government, and therefore had no responsibility to solve the problem.
But even as she was speaking, Tusk was in Brussels telling a press conference that at most the EU will give the UK an extension only until May 23--the EU Parliament election date--and then only if May gets her deal approved by next week. There's virtually no chance of that happening, so panic ensued in London. Leaders of the opposition party were called to attend a meeting in the PM's office to discuss a way out of the deal, but when they got there Jeremy Corbyn became apoplectic that one of the renegade Labourites who had left to join others in an independent caucus, was there to represent that faction. Corbyn stormed out of the meeting, arguing that this was a change in the basis on which party leaders had agreed to attend the meeting, since this other guy is not a party leader. Other party leaders agreed he was technically correct, but though he just was looking for an excuse.
At this point May huddled with the ERG and DUP, but failed to come up with an agreement they could support. Little wonder: there's a good chance that their dream of leaving without a deal on March 29 is going to come true, after all, so why back down now? Apparently, May's never seriously considered that creating a drop dead date actually encourages opponents of her deal to vote no and kill it. She's not very imaginative.
With all that behind her, May announced she'd be making a statement this evening. MPs were discussing twitter rumors that she was about to call new elections, or possibly just resign. One long-time Tory MP gave a heartfelt speech in which he decried the long series of misleading statements coming from Cabinet members, and May's effort to blame everyone else for the dead end into which she's driven the House. He announced that he was "ashamed" to be a member of the Conservative Party, and having watched him for weeks now I can understand why.
So, it appears that the endgame finally has arrived. It's not clear that May's run-down-the-clock strategy--inadvertently revealed in a slightly-inebriated pub conversation by one of the bureaucrats working on the deal--will work, or what happens if it doesn't. There's some talk of a third ironically-named "meaningful vote" on Tuesday, after which the EU would hold an emergency meeting to agree to an extension if it passes; or if it doesn't either the whole thing ends on Friday, or May is forced to admit defeat and revoke Article 50, at which point the Government certainly would fall, and there likely would be new elections. But after three years, still no Brexit.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 20, 2019 18:32:38 GMT -5
Well, who could have seen this coming? "Theresa May is facing a furious backlash from her own backbenchers and calls for her resignation after she blamed squabbling MPs for delaying Brexit. In a defiant statement on Wednesday night she told the British public: 'I am on your side,' and now hopes to force her deal through parliament next week at the third time of asking. Less than an hour earlier, she had been warned in a private meeting with Conservative MPs that her bid to delay leaving could end up losing her even more votes from her own party. 'She is going into an ever narrower cul-de-sac,' said one former minister... "Her statement was delayed by more than 20 minutes as she met around 20 MPs in parliament, many of whom had switched to vote for her Brexit deal at the second vote. One MP described it as their 'worst day as a member of this party' and said May had faced unrestrained anger at the meeting, including from party moderates warning against a Brexit delay. Several MPs, including Stephen McPartland and Ben Bradley, said the prime minister’s request to delay article 50 had made it actively more difficult for them to back her deal at the next vote. 'I have never been in a meeting like it, the atmosphere was extraordinary,' one MP said. 'She looked like Alice in Wonderland when she drank that potion, shrinking in her chair.' MPs said they believed May’s speech blaming her colleagues for the impasse had been counterproductive. 'It might be true but you don’t bloody say it,' one former minister said. Another MP accused her of 'acting like President Trump'." linkGood lord! At the most crucial moment in her fraught Premiership, May actually seems to have lost more votes for her deal, even among those inclined to support it! It was extraordinary for a Prime Minister to blame the very Parliament she heads for failing to convince a majority to support her deal. She is not like our President, institutionally and electorally separate from Congress. She's the head of the Conservative Party, as well as a sitting Member of Parliament. Her job is to fashion majorities for legislation; if she can't figure out how to do it she's failed. Actually, instead of trying to find a working majority from across the House, especially after she lost her party's majority by calling an unnecessary election, she focused on trying to win over to her deal the very Members who most wanted to crash out without a deal. Now they're within days of reaching that goal, and she's still not trying to build a cross-party coalition, despite her clear understanding that a no-deal Brexit will be a disaster. And then there was the tone of her televised speech. "Other MPs accused May of irresponsibly stoking public anger against them, at a time when many already feel under threat. Wes Streeting, the Labour MP for Ilford North, tweeted: "I’ve thought long and hard before saying this, but @theresa_may knows that MPs across the House are subjected to death threats - some very credible. Her speech was incendiary and irresponsible. If any harm comes to any of us, she will have to accept her share of responsibility." Indeed. What the hell was she thinking?
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 21, 2019 9:56:28 GMT -5
In an extraordinary move, the heads of the Trade Unions Council and the Confederation of British Industry (analogous to the US AFL-CIO and Chambers of Commerce) wrote to Theresa May today urging her to find an alternative to crashing out of the EU next Friday. They are laying the blame for such an outcome squarely at her door: "Third, ‘the current deal or no deal’ must not be the only choice." It's quite blunt as these things go, and a rarity for these two bodies to present a joint face to the PM:
Together we represent millions of workers and tens of thousands of businesses. It is on their behalf that we are writing to you to ask you to change your Brexit approach. Our country is facing a national emergency. Decisions of recent days have caused the risk of no deal to soar. Firms and communities across the UK are not ready for this outcome. The shock to our economy would be felt by generations to come. We ask you to take three steps to protect the jobs, rights and livelihoods of ordinary working people.
First, avoiding no deal is paramount. Businesses and employees alike need to see their government clearly acknowledge the reckless damage no deal would cause and recommit itself to avoiding this outcome.
Second, securing an extension has become essential. 88% of CBI members and a majority in parliament agree this is better than no deal. But at the same time an extension must genuinely allow a way forwards, and be long enough for a deal to be agreed.
Third, ‘the current deal or no deal’ must not be the only choice. A Plan B must be found - one that protects workers, the economy and an open Irish border, commands a parliamentary majority, and is negotiable with the EU. A new approach is needed to secure this – whether through indicative votes or another mechanism for compromise.
We cannot overstate the gravity of this crisis for firms and working people. We request an urgent meeting with you to discuss our concerns and hear your response.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 21, 2019 15:22:51 GMT -5
Yesterday it was reported that the EU would not be willing to grant an extension until June 30, as requested, but only to May 22, the day before EU elections begin; and that only if the UK had approved the negotiated deal by next week. However, after extensive discussions today it appears that not even this will be offered. Leaders instead were considering May 11, a Saturday, because France and Belgium wanted some time to deal with a no-deal Brexit before their voters go to the polls to elect new MEPs two weeks later. Then France asked to make it May 7 because the 8th begins the annual holiday celebrating victory in WWII. The exception would be if the UK notifies the EU not later than April 11 that they will hold MEP elections, in which case they could extend to the end of the year. This is important for the EU because they can't have the UK continuing for months as a member but not represented in the Parliament, which would raise legal questions over any legislation or other decisions by that body. All of this now is spooking London: "Cabinet ministers believe there is now a real risk of a no-deal Brexit, with sources close to them describing the mood in government as depressing and No 10 as 'run by lunatics'. Senior members of the cabinet from both sides of the Brexit argument are understood to think the chances of the UK leaving without a deal have substantially increased after the prime minister set herself against a longer extension to article 50. One aide to a cabinet minister said No 10 was in 'full on bunker mode' and the prime minister’s speech from Downing Street shows 'they have all taken leave of their senses'. Another soft Brexit cabinet source described the mood as 'depressing' and said of no deal: 'The risk is now very real.'” linkTheresa May's strategy all along has been to create a crisis in which it's her deal or no deal, and that's where they are now. If the EU sets the terms that now are being leaked, it would mean that next week is not the drop-dead date for a vote, which May apparently was (and still may be) planning to hold on Thursday, just hours before Brexit is scheduled to occur. But it would mean for all practical purposes that the UK would have to decide by April 11 what it's going to do. Withdrawing Article 50 would take an Act of Parliament, and it's now clear that May's government is never going to offer that option. The only way that's likely to happen is if Remain and Soft Brexit Tories join with MPs from the Opposition parties to take control of the House, effectively splitting the Conservative Party, and likely forcing new elections. And those would be more rancorous than the referendum itself was. The failure of leadership here is utterly stunning.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 21, 2019 17:14:30 GMT -5
The EU leaders have pushed back a press conference by at least two hours while trying to decide how to deal with Brexit...without May in the room. What was supposed to be a move to give back to the UK the power to make its own decisions has devolved into one where the EU is making the decisions for them: "[EU] Sources have dismissed Theresa May’s plea for more time to deliver a form of Brexit she and parliament can live with as '90 minutes of nothing'. My colleagues, Daniel Boffey, Heather Stewart and Jennifer Rankin, report that, according to a source, the prime minister 'dismally' failed to offer any answers as to what she would do if the deal was blocked by MPs again. One aide is quoted as saying: 'She didn’t even give clarity if she is organising a vote. Asked three times what she would do if she lost the vote, she couldn’t say. It was awful. Dreadful. Evasive even by her standards.' When leaders asked May what she was going to do if her deal was voted down, an official added that the prime minister replied that she was following her 'Plan A' of getting it through. It was then the EU decided that 'she didn’t have a plan so they needed to come up with one for her', the source added." linkIf you've ever worked in a bureaucracy you know that when your bosses/colleagues explicitly start to make decisions for you, you're time is up.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 21, 2019 17:40:52 GMT -5
So, here's the EU's offer to the UK: "According to the Press Association, EU leaders are set to offer the UK a plan that would delay Brexit from 29 March to 22 May on condition that MPs approve Theresa May’s withdrawal deal. If the deal is rejected in its third “meaningful vote” in the Commons, the UK would be given until 12 April to come to the European Council with its proposals for the way forward. If the UK agreed to take part in European Parliament elections in May, the possibility would be open for a further extension of several months." link
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 22, 2019 17:00:57 GMT -5
If it seems I'm obsessed with Brexit it's because the story has more layer of drama than even the Trump Administration--although today's submission of the Mueller report will ratchet up interest back on this side of the Atlantic. Consider what's developed today in the aftermath of Theresa May's disastrous meeting with the EU Council yesterday: "Pressure on Theresa May has reached new heights as ministers backed attempts to let parliament take control of the next stage of the Brexit process and MPs openly speculated that her time in office could end within weeks. As a beleaguered May returned from Brussels, MPs suggested her deal could lose by an even higher margin, with several saying the timing now required the prime minister to 'fall on her sword'." linkBut, "Theresa May told Boris Johnson she had no intention of stepping aside to help resolve the Brexit impasse at a high-stakes meeting earlier this week with the man seen as the favourite to replace her. In the meeting, the former foreign secretary, who remains opposed to May’s Brexit deal, demanded to know how the prime minister would change approach, which was interpreted as a coded message that he believed she should quit. May responded by saying she was drawing up plans in case her Brexit deal was carried through by the House of Commons, including a 'restructuring' of the Department for Exiting the European Union, signalling she anticipated staying put." linkAnd now there's a leaked report that's damning: "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. linkSo, even as some members of her own Cabinet are prepared to take control of the Brexit process from her, May insists that she intends to stay on and try for a third time to push through the deal she negotiated in an attempt to placate the ERG, having manifestly failed in that effort. Assuming the deal fails again--and all sides are saying that will happen--"Ministers conceded on Friday that MPs would be likely to be given a free vote...Conservative Brexiters were seething at the prospect. Steve Baker, one of the key figures in the European Research Group of hard Brexiters, said it would be 'a national humiliation'. Marcus Fysh, another Tory opponent of May’s deal, said it was 'the most ludicrous, childish and unrealistic idea I have ever seen'." How the current state of play can be described as anything but "a national humiliation" is beyond me. Hell, the EU just effectively re-wrote UK law by setting two dates for withdrawal which the UK will have to accept in legislation next week. Meanwhile, outside Westminster things are not going any better: "An online petition calling on the UK government to revoke article 50 and remain in the EU has hit 3.5m signatures, adding 2.5m signees in less than 24 hours." link And the number keeps rising, adding more than 67,000 since that article was posted. Tomorrow hundreds of thousands are expected to march on Parliament Square to demand a People's Vote on any leave agreement. It's just chaos, and May's dogged persistence in pursuing an agreement she negotiated in virtual secrecy, and tried to push through with a badly split minority government has been a major factor in creating the mess.
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 23, 2019 11:13:29 GMT -5
About 1 million Brits turned out to support a "People's Vote" on May's Brexit deal, while more than 4 million have signed a petition to the same effect. Some great signs, Brit humour at work: That last one is my favorite, but hard to read. It says "British tits" with pictures of varieties of such birds, and at the bottom a pic of David Cameron labeled "Colossal".
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 25, 2019 11:58:03 GMT -5
Theresa May is speaking to the House as I write. It's not going well. She just keeps repeating the same thing, in the same words, that she has for months. It's not working. The DUP leader--and their 10 members in Westminster--has turned down supporting her deal, even at this late date. So have most of the ERG members in her own party. It's so bad that she's had to admit she does not have the votes even to bring her deal to a vote this week. She's conceded that the House will cast "indicative votes" on Wednesday, without committing to doing anything with them. Imagine if a Speaker of the US House held votes and then said, "I don't agree, so these votes don't count"!
One piece of good news: Leaks from a Cabinet meeting this morning say she started out by telling them that she's not going to allow a no-deal Brexit if her deal fails to pass. This could have been a genuine position or posturing to get the hard-liners to vote for her deal, but if it's true that means that she's going to have to extend the deal to (a) hold a general election, or (b) agree to a "people's vote".
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 26, 2019 11:16:50 GMT -5
May continues to flog her defeated deal, but she's also called a meeting of the Tory MPs for Wednesday night, amid speculation that she will tell them that if they pass her deal she will resign and allow a new PM to take on the negotiation of future UK-EU relations. It's not clear this will work because the Tory remainers aren't going to support her, and a DUP MP reminded an interviewer that “They maybe see Brexit as the greater issue, rather than the union. We see the union as the big issue, the priority.” Translation: We don't have a strong view on whether the UK is in or out of the EU, but we definitely don't want to be tied to EU rules via the Ireland backstop while the rest of the country is on its own--down that road lies absorption by the Republic, God forbid! linkOn the plus side for May, Rees-Mogg now says that he can see a "hierarchy" of outcomes: "no deal is better than Mrs May’s deal, but Mrs May’s deal is better than not leaving at all." And how did he reach this conclusion after months of fighting May? Honestly, this is his explanation: " perhaps the thought processes that people like me hadn’t gone through before is the thought that Brexit is a process rather than an event.” Can you imaging a full-grown adult, and a Member of Parliament, no less, admitting that for years it had not occurred to him that getting out of a web of treaties more than 50 years in the making would be a process rather than a one-off event? No wonder then we have this report: "Only 7% of the public believe the government has handled the Brexit negotiations well, according to research. Frustration is shared across the referendum divide, with 80% of leave voters and 85% of remain voters believing ministers are not doing a good job of overseeing Britain’s departure from the EU. The research also found both leavers and remainers were as likely to think the prime minister’s deal is a bad one – 66% and 64% respectively – up from 20% and 56% in 2017." What's remarkable is that over the past two years support for the Government's approach by leavers has so dropped dramatically, effectively catching up with the also-falling confidences of the remainers. This gives statistical support to the ironic joke that, as she promised, May has brought both sides together. linkOne key finding: "the research found that 55% would have voted to remain had a new vote been held in February this year." That's significant because the possibility of a new vote has gone up sharply in the past few days. A Troy minister who resigned to vote against the Government last night in order to force "indicative votes" on a possible compromise told colleagues "that both revoking article 50 and a second referendum were now on the table." If things continue to spin out of control, it could be that the only real compromise will be one that's been available for weeks now: remain MPs helping to pass May's deal in return for a public vote, with remain as an option. Voilà!
|
|
|
Post by Old Badger on Mar 27, 2019 13:59:28 GMT -5
Brexit has taken down Theresa May, at last. Today she confirmed at a party meeting that she will resign as PM after she gets her bill through the House (presumably also if she fails to do so). This was an effort to get Boris Johnson, who wants her job badly, and other ERG Members to vote for her deal, perhaps as early as tomorrow, effectively turning over to the hard-liners the job of negotiating the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU.
This does not guarantee her deal will pass; the DUP still opposed the Irish border arrangement, and some Tories continue to insist they will not support her deal, no matter what--which means she may need substantial support from Labour back-benchers. And the Speaker still may rule her deal out of order under the rules, as he warned again today, though I'm dubious about that, and they could get around it procedurally, if they have the votes to pass the main motion.
But the odds have improved that her deal will pass, and then she will be forced to leave, likely having to face one of her tormentors as the next PM. All of them will be remembered poorly by history, I'm sure.
|
|