Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

The north east assembly referendum as a dry run for brexit? Errr... Wut?

This is where the lack of decent northern focused media really hurts. I'd love to see an actual proper right up of that shambles but instead all you get is southerners looking at the headline figure and coming to strange conclusions.

[Sheilbh]

Long but interesting article about Dominic Cummings :

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/14/intoxicating-insidery-and-infuriating-everything-i-learned-about-dominic-cummings-from-his-10-a-month-blog

Agreed. I thought that was a really good piece - I always like David Runciman - and I think it captures Cummings a lot (though I don't subscribe). To be honest he reminds me a bit of a similarly panto villain, slightly less camp Tory Peter Mandelson - and I would absolutely subscribe to Lord Mandelson's substack

It's always a very unique mix of petty grievance/grudge-settling, genuinely insightful/really good points and bullshit. I think it was catastrophically stupid of Number 10 briefing against Cummings when they forced him out because, as Sam Freedman (who worked with Cummings at the Department for Education) put it - why would you pick a petty, vindictive fight with someone who has a PhD in petty vindictive fights, has nothing to lose and has loads of shit on you?

Also that feels like the shoe that hasn't dropped for me - Cummings has regularly said that Number 10 had a party in the Downing Street flat the night that he was fired (which was during covid restrictions) and I keep feeling like details of that are going to come out and possibly be even more damaging because there's no defence of "it was outside" or "it was spilling out after work" etc. It was in the private residence bit and they apparently invited people.

Separately I quite liked Tom Fletcher's take on the parties - he was a FCDO civil servant who worked in Number 10 (and later became ambassador to Lebanon) and said how the different PMs he worked with would have reacted

Tom Fletcher
@TFletcher
I worked for three PMs in No 10.

"Boss, lockdown party. Drop in, say few words?"

TB: Bad, bad idea. Talk to JP/PM/AC. No.

GB: If I see hint of party I will kill you. Work on global vaccination. Get @POTUS on phone, now.

DC: WTF? Talk to Ed: you'll be happy in Mongolia.

Separately why, despite being unelected and wrong in principle, I'm not convinced the House of Lords doesn't work constitutionally - fourteen defeats for the government on the policing bill and as I don't think any of it was in the Tory manifesto at the last election I'd expect the Lords to keep amending it if the government don't accept their changes:

UK upper house votes to make misogyny a hate crime
House of Lords hands Boris Johnson a series of defeats in late-night session.
By Louis Westendarp
January 18, 2022 11:12 am

The U.K.'s House of Lords voted Monday night to make misogyny a hate crime in England and Wales, in one of a series of defeats handed down by peers to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government.

Categorizing misogyny as a hate crime passed the house by 242 to 185 votes. The bill will return to the House of Commons for MPs to have their say.

Lords also rejected other measures proposed by the Tories in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, with Labour calling some of the plans "outrageous" — proposals, for example, to punish people who lock themselves on to objects with up to 51 weeks' imprisonment.

Conservative peer Baroness Newlove drove the move to amend the bill to make misogyny a hate crime — in the face of opposition from her party colleagues.

"Too often when it comes to violence against women, society demands the perfect victim before we act," she said. "As a society, we have rightly taken steps to acknowledge the severity of racist or homophobic crimes, but have not yet acted on crimes driven by hatred of women."

Johnson himself had rejected the motion to make misogyny a hate crime back in October 2021, stating that police should instead focus on "very real crimes."

Once misogyny becomes a hate crime, judges would have scope to impose stronger penalties if prejudice against women is proved to be the motivation. It would also require the police to record whether crimes were motivated by a hatred of someone's sex or gender.

The Tories suffered a total of 14 defeats in the late-night session Monday, including one, by a vote of 261 to 166, over plans to give the police new powers to stop protests in England and Wales if they are deemed to be too noisy and disruptive. Labour peer Lord Hain said that government proposals was "the biggest threat to the right to dissent and the right to protest in my lifetime."

[garbon]

I don't think I'll ever understand the interest in Cummings. I had started reading that piece the day it came out and then closed it part way through as I just felt disgusted and disinterested.

[Sheilbh]

This is really good and pretty extraordinary news - Scotwind (part of the Crown Estate) auctioned leases for seventeen off-shore sites for wind projects. They were hoping to receive bids of 10GW of generation.

In the end they received 70 bids, ended up getting projects with 25GW of generation and £700 million for the leases. The impact in terms of carbon is around 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year - or over 10% of Scotland's annual emissions. It's going to largely be floating wind farms which will provide more consistent power than on-shore or coastal wind farms.

But basically this is the latest I saw on the current state of planned off-shore wind energy - and Scotland's just added another 25,000 on top of the 4,000 already planned:


For the UK it feels like big off-shore wind farms is almost certainly the best renewable option and I also feel like it's probably an industry that'll be best developed from the same towns that previously had an oil boom - it's broadly going to be in the North Sea, plus some Atlantic sites on the far-north and west of Scotland.

There's also something really weird/interesting about the intersection of Scottish nationalism and energy politics. Scottish nationalism really kicks off in the 1970s with the discovery of oil and the politics of English governments wasting Scotland's windfall. The economic prospectus for the 2014 pro-indy campaign was almost entirely based on expanded oil and gas production, plus new discoveries - and Alex Salmond began his career as an oil economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland. So it's interesting seeing wind emerge now, especially when you think back to Salmond's (pretty dodgy) remark that Scotland should aim to become "the Saudi Arabia of wind". I don't know quite what to make of it but it's an interesting side of the independence argument.

[mongers]

First significant knife goes in the front/back:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60036435

PM who lied to Parliament would normally resign - Dominic Raab

Dominic Raab has said a prime minister found to have deliberately lied to Parliament would "normally" resign.

The comments come after the PM's former chief aide Dominic Cummings accused Boris Johnson of misleading MPs last week over a drinks party held in the Downing Street garden during lockdown.

But Mr Raab, the deputy PM, said his leader had "made clear" he had not known about the event in advance.

He added that he believed Mr Johnson would remain in power "for many years".

[Sheilbh]

Interesting:

Dan Bloom
@danbloom1
BREAKING Boris Johnson will resign if he misled Parliament - but only if he did it 'knowingly'

Now I don't quite understand how you could unknowingly go to a party, so presumably the defence is he's got the memory of a goldfish and can't remember if he went to the parties or was warned about them being parties and not "work events".

And another one mongers - Sunak say he believes Johnson's explanation, Sue Gray should be allowed to conduct her investigation and he's not going to get into hypotheticals - but "the Ministerial Code is clear on these matters". And then walked out of the interview as he was being asked "do you support the Prime Minister?"

Interesting Channel 4 poll of Tory members - it had Sunak on about 65% v Truss on 35%.

Edit: And interesting that Sunak has throughout this probably been the cabinet minister distancing himself most from Johnson. He's clearly calculated that it's worth doing the literal bare minimum to support Johnson - which says something about how likely he thinks it is that Johnson can survive.

Edit: The clip - including the walk-out: https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1483409013136150533?s=20

[mongers]

Interesting:

....

And another one mongers - Sunak say he believes Johnson's explanation, Sue Gray should be allowed to conduct her investigation and he's not going to get into hypotheticals - but "the Ministerial Code is clear on these matters". And then walked out of the interview as he was being asked "do you support the Prime Minister?"
.....

[Tamas]

This is kind of a great line for the others I guess, certainly in their own minds - they maintain their loyalty but also laying groundwork to maintain their distance and moral superiority to the eventual admission by Johnson that he did in fact lie to the Commons when he resigns.

[Tamas]

Q: Will you resign if it is shown that you have misled parliament?

Johnson says they should wait to see what the Sue Gray report says.

Rigby asks again if Johnson will resign if the Gray report finds against him.

Johnson again says people should wait to see what is in the repor

I mean, how can one get away with such BS? If you want people to wait for a report on your own actions before wanting you to acknowledge those actions it can only mean that you did the deed and right now just hoping the report will miss this fact, as your last chance. It's quite incredible.

[The Brain]

There is nothing voters cannot do.

[Sheilbh]

Also Jeremy Hunt here cosplaying as Michael Portillo and basically launching his leadership bid. "Stop! ME?! Conservative leader - no I've never even thought....I couldn't. No! Stop - you're too much."

Eleanor Langford
@eleanormia
NEW Jeremy Hunt has said that while his "ambition hasn't completely vanished" when it comes to running for Conservative party leader, "it would take a lot to persuade me to put my hat into the ring"

This is kind of a great line for the others I guess, certainly in their own minds - they maintain their loyalty but also laying groundwork to maintain their distance and moral superiority to the eventual admission by Johnson that he did in fact lie to the Commons when he resigns.

Yeah it's very transparent. They're not openly stabbing him in the back, which would be seen as disloyal and might be unpopular in the Tory party (plus, bluntly, they might not be ready and don't want an accidental replay of the 2016 Labour leadership challenge ). But they're setting the bar for him going at something we all know is the case and is probably only a matter of time - they're also positioning it as a resigning matter rather than something where the cabinet/parliamentary party needs to actually remove him.

I mean, how can one get away with such BS? If you want people to wait for a report on your own actions before wanting you to acknowledge those actions it can only mean that you did the deed and right now just hoping the report will miss this fact, as your last chance. It's quite incredible.

Well the points he is using as a defence are things that Sue Gray is not and cannot report on - that's what they're trying to do. I don't think it works because it relies on multiple people (Cummings and two sources for Rigby) lying about having warned about this event in advance (and, I could be wrong, but I suspect Cummings raised it because he's either got evidence or other people who can back him up) and Johnson not being able to recognise that he was at a party.

At best - assuming Johnson's actually right on this - it's an incredibly technical defence that doesn't work politically. But watching that clip it looked to me very much like a man realising his time might be up - or as Starmer put it "the pathetic spectacle of a man who's run out of road".

Edit: The clip (there's a few) definitely has man running out of road vibes:
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1483431073619005440?s=20

Edit: Just watched the whole Rigby interview - she is very good - I think he's totally boxed himself into a corner and is basically trapped now. Also the line doesn't even work - because at that point according to the covid rules there was no such thing as a "work event". You were only supposed to be at work if "absolutely necessary and it couldn't be done from home". I don't see how a social "work event" with booze - even if we accept the line it wasn't a party - was lawful

Edit: Probably the most brutal clip of the Rigby interview
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1483433554960920577?s=20

[Sheilbh]

Tory circular firing squad starting.

There's been reports today of a group of Tory red wall MPs from the 2019 intake meeting. One of them has confirmed that they're discussing Johnson's future (they're at "different stages" of the journey) - some are still backing him, some have submitted letters of no confidence, others have written them but not sent it yet. Basically it's a mini-caucus of MPs from quite marginal seats talking about the leadership, which you'd expect given the current situation. It may prove critical because there's about 20 of them and you only need to get to 54 letters of no confidence to trigger a vote.

Someone in the cabinet took it badly:

Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
The Red Wall plot to remove Boris Johnson - with Tory MPs meeting to discuss submitting letters - is not going down well in Cabinet

'It's pretty sickening. They were only elected because of him. Most of them are a load of fucking nobodies. It's nuts'

A senior Tory backbencher (not in the 2019 group) quipped to Adam Payne that "many think that applies to this Cabinet". Atmosphere/mood at PMQs tomorrow should be interesting.

Meawhile, Sue Gray has spoken to Dominic Cummings for her report.

I still don't think the revelations are finished - one of the other shoes left to drop is the photos from the official photographer. Given how well timed and judged all the previous leaks have been, my guess is that the Gray report will drop and then that afternoon there'll be a leak to Pippa Crerar or Paul Brand of a party that Gray didn't know about/wasn't in her report

Edit: It feels like when national museums are openly mocking you it might all be over:

The Mary Rose
@MaryRoseMuseum
"Nobody warned me that it was a bad idea to make a sharp turn with the gun ports open..."

[Sheilbh]

From Telegraph's Political Editor (and Royal Yacht botherer) Christopher Hope:

Christopher HopeMemo
@christopherhope
EXC As many as 20 Tory MPs from the 2019 intake are planning to submit letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson tomorrow.
The number could breach the 54 letters required for a confidence vote. One 2019 Tory MP told me it could be the PM's "D-Day", adding: "His time has gone."
The 2019 Tory MPs decided their plan at two meetings yesterday and today.
If the no confidence number is not breached tomorrow they say this could happen after the Sue Gray report is published.
The MPs say the Government whips are unaware of this. This is denied by the whips.
The trigger appears to have been the @Telegraph's revelations about the party at 10 Downing St on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral last year. One told me the "sickening" party was "the final straw".
The group considered a joint protest letter to the PM but rejected it.
The rebels might not get their way though and the PM could limp on, damaged by the fall-out from 'partygate'.
Read more coverage in The Daily Telegraph tomorrow and the @Telegraph's website as well as my analysis in Chopper's Politics Newsletter, out tomorrow afternoon.

Let's see. A bit may hang on his performance at PMQs.

This will trigger a Tory party vote of no confidence, which happened to Theresa May (and which she won). It is likely Johnson would win that vote - but it's a secret ballot so who knows.  But government whips apparently saying it's a matter of "when and not if".

I think the risk for the Tories is that Johnson doesn't strike me as likely to do the "decent thing" - I expect he'd always try to hold on in the expectation that something might turn up. If he wins a no confidence vote then there can't be another one for a year and I think the damage he could to the party/brand over another year is quite strong.

This will increase the pressure on the challengers. If they make it clear that they're ready to take over/step down from cabinet then they might be able to force Johnson out; if they don't and he hangs around it's not clear what they'd need to do to actually get him to resign.

It definitely feels like things are coming to a head.

[Valmy]

Is anybody going to quote Cromwell during the No Confidence Vote: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go"?

[Sheilbh]

Is anybody going to quote Cromwell during the No Confidence Vote: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go"?

If only.

Of course Leo Amery shouted that at Chamberlain in the Norway debates. But this will all be internal party politics - not the Commons.

So instead of a moment like that in public we'll get a few more weeks of Tories fiercely briefing against each other and in-fighting like ferrets in a sack. An example after this report about the 2019 intake making their move - one Tory MP texting a journalist: "These 109s [that's the WhatsApp group of 2019ers]are a load of arrogant twats who believe their own hype. Boris won those seats for them.  It wasn't their good looks and charm." (Of course it wasn't Johnson either - Corbyn deserves at least an assist).

Edit: And re. the meaninglessness of "woke" in British discourse - from Gabriel Pogrund: Furious Red Wall MP says of colleagues submitting letters: "They're woke and they're wet"