Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

As I said, the small c conservatives are maybe a 2% voter base.

The middle class is dwindling or in danger, and with it moderate politics.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know. As I say all of Johnson's more out there actions like prorogation or breaking the law have about 55% approval of Leave voters and Tory voters. Normally theres 25% who approve and, presumably, another 20% of don't knows who are probably weighing up if they'd rather face all of this nonsense or a Corbyn government.

That's not great, but it's not what I'd want as my base of a "unite the leavers" strategy.

[Sheilbh]

Meanwhile Dominic Cummings, having quit his blog, is now just dictating them to the Spectator. Imagine receiving this in texts

How Number 10 view the state of the negotiations
James Forsyth
7 October 2019

Earlier today, I sent a message to a contact in Number 10 asking them how the Brexit talks were going. They sent a long reply which I think gives a pretty clear sense of where they think things are.

So, in the interest of trying to let people understand where Number 10 reckon the negotiations are, here is their response:
    'The negotiations will probably end this week. Varadkar doesn't want to negotiate. Varadkar was keen on talking before the Benn Act when he thought that the choice would be 'new deal or no deal'. Since the Benn Act passed he has gone very cold and in the last week the official channels and the backchannels have also gone cold. Varadkar has also gone back on his commitments — he said if we moved on manufactured goods then he would also move but instead he just attacked us publicly. It's clear he wants to gamble on a second referendum and that he's encouraging Barnier to stick to the line that the UK cannot leave the EU without leaving Northern Ireland behind.

    There are quite a few people in Paris and Berlin who would like to discuss our offer but Merkel and Macron won't push Barnier unless Ireland says it wants to negotiate. Those who think Merkel will help us are deluded. As things stand, Dublin will do nothing, hoping we offer more, then at the end of this week they may say 'OK, let's do a Northern Ireland only backstop with a time limit', which is what various players have been hinting at, then we'll say No, and that will probably be the end.

    Varadkar thinks that either there will be a referendum or we win a majority but we will just put this offer back on the table so he thinks he can't lose by refusing to compromise now. Given his assumptions, Varadkar's behaviour is arguably rational but his assumptions are, I think, false. Ireland and Brussels listen to all the people who lost the referendum, they don't listen to those who won the referendum and they don't understand the electoral dynamics here.

    If this deal dies in the next few days, then it won't be revived. To marginalise the Brexit Party, we will have to fight the election on the basis of 'no more delays, get Brexit done immediately'. They thought that if May went then Brexit would get softer. It seems few have learned from this mistake. They think we're bluffing and there's nothing we can do about that, not least given the way May and Hammond constantly talked tough then folded.

    So, if talks go nowhere this week, the next phase will require us to set out our view on the Surrender Act. The Act imposes narrow duties. Our legal advice is clear that we can do all sorts of things to scupper delay which for obvious reasons we aren't going into details about. Different lawyers see the "frustration principle" very differently especially on a case like this where there is no precedent for primary legislation directing how the PM conducts international discussions.

    We will make clear privately and publicly that countries which oppose delay will go the front of the queue for future cooperation — cooperation on things both within and outside EU competences. Those who support  delay will go to the bottom of the queue. [This source also made clear that defence and security cooperation will inevitably be affected if the EU tries to keep Britain in against the will of its government] Supporting delay will be seen by this government as hostile interference in domestic politics, and over half of the public will agree with us.

    We will also make clear that this government will not negotiate further so any delay would be totally pointless.  They think now that if there is another delay we will keep coming back with new proposals. This won't happen. We'll either leave with no deal on 31 October or there will be an election and then we will leave with no deal.

    'When they say 'so what is the point of delay?', we will say "This is not our delay, the government is not asking for a delay — Parliament is sending you a letter and Parliament is asking for a delay but official government policy remains that delay is an atrocious idea that everyone should dismiss. Any delay will in effect be negotiated between you, Parliament, and the courts — we will wash our hands of it, we won't engage in further talks, we obviously won't given any undertakings about cooperative behaviour, everything to do with 'duty of sincere cooperation' will be in the toilet, we will focus on winning the election on a manifesto of immediately revoking the entire EU legal order without further talks, and then we will leave. Those who supported delay will face the inevitable consequences of being seen to interfere in domestic politics in a deeply unpopular way by colluding with a Parliament that is as popular as the clap.

    Those who pushed the Benn Act intended to sabotage a deal and they've probably succeeded. So the main effect of it will probably be to help us win an election by uniting the leave vote and then a no deal Brexit. History is full of such ironies and tragedies.'

Now, this is—obviously—only one side of the negotiations view of things. It does, though, make clear Downing Street's pessimism about getting a deal this week and its thinking about how to handle the coming extension and election campaign.

Again it does feel like panic to me. If you're explaining your 5D chess moves it feels like they're not working how you want

Edit: Eg People on the news saying it's basically the madman theory. But I don't think they had Kissinger sending fevered Telexs to the Weekly Standard every few weeks to set out his thinking and how it's all going very well.

And of course for all those threats - they don't have a majority. So the way around it is for Parliament (which is sovereign) to legislate.

[Josquius]

Still trying to spin the nonsensical argument that the threat of no deal somehow helped the UKs position.

[mongers]

snip .....

Again it does feel like panic to me. If you're explaining your 5D chess moves it feels like they're not working how you want

Edit: Eg People on the news saying it's basically the madman theory. But I don't think they had Kissinger sending fevered Telexs to the Weekly Standard every few weeks to set out his thinking and how it's all going very well.

And of course for all those threats - they don't have a majority. So the way around it is for Parliament (which is sovereign) to legislate.

Kissinger's words/theory was backed by nukes, Boris's threatened doomsday involves a figurative mass slashing of their/our own wrists (economic lifelines)

[Tamas]

Sounds like No.10 has deemed their own efforts enough to play the Blame Card. They claim Johnson talked to Merkel on the phone and got convinced that there's no chance for a deal on account of the EU being unreasonable.

[Maladict]

I'm going to miss Tusk.

Donald Tusk
‏Verified account @eucopresident

.@BorisJohnson, what's at stake is not winning some stupid blame game. At stake is the future of Europe and the UK as well as the security and interests of our people. You don't want a deal, you don't want an extension, you don't want to revoke, quo vadis?

[Zanza]

[Duque de Bragança]

They forgot the World Cup in 1966, or maybe it is an implicit recognition of its "bought" status. 

[Valmy]

How about honor your agreements with Ireland?

[Josquius]

Leave.eu really does parody itself better than any attempt at parody actually could.

[Sheilbh]

How about honor your agreements with Ireland?

No deal on the table honours the Good Friday Agreement. This is one of the issues.

Obviously disgusting by Leave EU, but par fot he course by them and got what they wanted. Everyone I saw sharing it on social media was expressing their disgust but they were sharing it on social media and some like, say, Gary Lineker have a few million followers.

Interesting analysis today by the British Election Study, including a comment by Sir David Butler who's been studying UK elections since the 40s who said he's never been so confused about what will happen. Basically everyone is volatile:

Current stats have up to 50% of people considering voting for another party than they did last time. Which on an aggregate level would put us up in the 1918/1931 territory here:


And interesting piece on point I mentioned earlier:
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/bloc-politics-a-split-remain-vote-may-not-equal-a-large-conservative-majority/

Basically the Tories strategy is win all the Leave Vote (though the Brexit Party are still polling around 10-15%). In FPTPT, they should win if they do this and the Remain vote splits 50/50 Lab/Lib Dem (plus Plaid and SNP). But the Leave split isn't very efficient, so Tories tend to well in the same areas the Brexit Party should do well, while Labour and the Lib Dems don't really compete.

So of the Lib Dems top 100 target seats: 12 are Labour; 82 are Tory. Of the Brexit Party's top 100 targets: 23 are Labour, 76 are Tory. This is why I don't get the entire Tory strategy of writing off Scotland and Lib Dem-ish Remain areas, purely to focus on the Brexit Party vote and, potentially, Labour Leavers

[Sheilbh]

In more No. 10 are panicking and don't know what to do news. Their new line is he won't resign even if Johnson loses a vote of no confidence and the rest of the House chooses a new Prime Minister and the Queen, as a constitutional sovereign, has no power to sack him. Especially because, they argue, this based on the Lascelles Principles.

They basically, I think, want to flip Lascelles Principles (named after bit-part player in The Crown and the King's Private Secretary Tommy Lascelles). Which said that the monarch could refuse to grant a new election if certain conditions were met. But basically said if there's a viable Parliament, and an election would cause a crisis (at that point: Sterling), and there was another Prime Minister then the monarch could refuse an exercise of the prerogative power to dissolve Parliament. This was based on similar examples in South Africa and Canada and came up after the 1950 election when Labour was returned with a 5 seat majority, which eventually resulted in the 1951 election.

They have since been largely dropped from the Cabinet Office's rules since the 90s and totally replaced by the Fixed Term Parliament Act.

As I say, I think the walls are closing in and they don't have an idea what to do. But, presumably, Johnson's argument would be you flip those principles. The Queen would have to follow the advice of her PM (constitutional sovereign and all that) and he would refuse to resign on the basis that it would cause a crisis and that there is no viable alternative.

This is batshit. I can't even work out the way they want to use the Lascelles Principles, they're long redundant and now totally dead, the rules around dissolution of Parliament and votes of confidence are in the FTPA. And we have a conservative PM dragging the monarchy into politics (again) who has reached the point of desperation where they're now searching for constitutional precedents to keep a PM in place who loses the confidence of the House

I saw yesterday they were threatening to make it a battle with the Queen by refusing to resign so making the monarch fire a PM for the first time since Lord Melbourne. Again I'm not convinced by the strategy of a Tory MP confronting the monarchy, in general. But more particularly, Johnson's approval rating is -15%. Last set of polls I saw (when Harry got married) the Queen had something like 75-80% approval - I mean a third of the country has either seen or met the Queen personally

Edit: It is weird how all of this is moving in sort-of parallel with the Trump thread, except in the space of, what, three months since Johnson became PM.

[crazy canuck]

Edit: It is weird how all of this is moving in sort-of parallel with the Trump thread, except in the space of, what, three months since Johnson became PM.

The accelerated pace in the UK is because there is no Boris friendly branch of government in the UK. 

[frunk]

Edit: It is weird how all of this is moving in sort-of parallel with the Trump thread, except in the space of, what, three months since Johnson became PM.

The accelerated pace in the UK is because there is no Boris friendly branch of government in the UK.

Yeah, Trump would already be gone if it weren't for his enablers in the Senate.