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Free vote already ruled out again
Unconfirmed reports that the vote of No Confidence in May has reached the required thresholdComment
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Who the hell is going to take her place? Gove??Comment
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The thing is, it's not like I believe any of them are thinking:
"Oh golly gosh, I don't think Theresa's actions are benefiting the country and she needs to step down to avoid this!"
I believe they're thinking:
"Excellent! The fool has taken the fall and made herself look bad and now I will step in and become the leader!"
It's like the Tory party is exclusively staffed by a load of Starscreams.
They've had flippin' months to voice their disapproval, they just want to be PM, presumably to pad out their CV for future jobs.Comment
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Reportedly Tory whips are being recalled back to London likely to brace for the leadership challengeComment
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Right - Let's play What If?
This may well get overly long but let's see:
If events were to unfold in a way that it led to a rushed and last minute second referendum it is quite possible that Remain would win but highly unlikely that it would be by a significant margin. This highlights the continued bind the political parties are in where they feel they can't move for alienating huge numbers of voters without taking a hit so they've been sticking closely to 'respecting the vote outcome'.
However, with the Deal scenario collapsing around them and taking the Government with it we're approaching a point where the only option on the table will be to crash out of the EU blindly or to reverse the decision somehow, either way creating a hell of a voter crisis.
This brings us to the idea of this what if scenario.
The Tories will take a hit but they need an option that covers as many bases as possible.
Now, there is no way at all that you can reverse Brexit without keeping the option to leave in future on the table. Any sense that the last two years has been so bad that it can never be allowed to happen again will be rejected as the right to leave would remain and should public support be strong enough politicians would need to act should times change be it ten years or five hundred years from now. Every EU nation has the right to trigger their own exit and the UK would need to preserve that right but more so from fearful politicians scared of putting their neck on the line the same way Cameron did.
At the same time, MP's are supposed to have a duty to national interest so, this may be impossible guess work but, how would this scenario fly?
On the basis that no agreeable Brexit deal exists and therefore a transitional deal is no longer viable, in March 2019 the UK formally withdraws Article 50 with the EU27 presumably accepting this and the UK continues as a full member of the EU. No referendum is given on the matter with the decision to withdraw Article 50 passed through on the basis of protecting national interests due to the complete absence of a viable exit strategy. A small committee or group is commissioned to continue work on the two year deal, Ireland and trade issues to create (what should have existed all along) a contingency plan so that should Article 50 be triggered again in future a lot of the common groundwork is pre-existing and multiple possible outcomes are already planned for meaning that business sectors, public services etc could be suitably advised in advance and decision making be much more clean cut to avoid another last minute collapse.
That would leave a need to satisfy public unrest about the overturning of the referendum result, business concerns about the reliability of the UK as a market and the EU concerns about the UK remaining in the union and not retriggering the process out of the blue. Instead of another referendum, perhaps tied with the census, every ten years all UK citizens are required to state if they agree that the UK should remain within the EU. Should the findings of this simple tick box (given it should cover the vast majority of the population if mandatorily tied with the census) show that public opinion for leaving exceeds 66% (and therefore an uncontestable majority), whatever party is in power is required to trigger Article 50 and the preplanned contingency strategy automatically thereby still adhering to public opinion without the need for a biased focused campaign and without any of the debate or arguing as it would be a simple we're in for ten more years or not (plus you'd likely be able to trace trends over a very long time to anticipate outcomes).Comment
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I think some unrest could be settled by splitting a new referendum into many options. Like: take the deal, no deal Brexit, delay deal to make a better deal, no Brexit at all. I think you're right that the no Brexit would only win by a small margin but, if you split the Brexit camps in the referendum, it would expose things for what they are: that it is not one united camp. So by comparison, remain will likely look significantly bigger.
Then yes, absolutely work up a plan to leave but it should be something that is long term. I could see it taking at least 8 years, all things considered. The right to leave is always there and any country can do it but, as pointed out before, you can't be part of a union for more than a couple of decades and expect to walk out like it's an easy thing to do. The basic practicalities show that to be impossible. If an exit was genuinely on the table, it should have been planned for over the course of many years so that the "if we leave" deals are mere technicalities by the time a referendum happens.
Then once there is an actual plan, put to the vote again but this time with actual realities.
And in the meantime, there need to be laws put in place to hold referendum lies accountable. We have the same rubbish in Ireland - it seems to be the only time when nobody is accountable for straight out lying and yet that's when it counts the most.Comment
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The Queen to May, Gove, Johnson & Mogg: "Please step into this office to discuss leadership."
*Walls fall off to show they're caged, cage blasts off into space and Queen pulls off her mask to reveal Tom Cruise.
Mission: Impossible theme plays*Comment
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Hats off to the Tories and Teresa May, they said it couldn't be done and I didn't believe it either but here we are and they've accomplished the impossible...
I'd completely forgotten about Trump for 24hrsComment
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Reports are that EU leaders have absolutely no intention of renegotiating anything with either the Tories or Labour no matter how much each party talks about options still being on the table. The EU's stance from here on is leave with no deal, use the one May has or cancel it all.Comment
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Decisions like this should never be put to the general public - the whole point of having a representative democracy is for the MPs (who supposedly know what they're doing) to make decisions that are in the best interest of the country, then constituents, then party.
We're failing on all counts at the moment, especially on the best interests of the country part where politicians are scrambling for personal ambition above all else.Comment
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Gove is staying, apparently believing that resigning would be a “nihilistic act, not a constructive one”. Because leaving something and having no influence is more destructive than staying in it and actually having a say, right?Comment
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