Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

The Guardian marketing team are on it


Braverman is going to make a resignation statement which can be used by ex-minister to put the knife in and explain what they think is going wrong with the government. Given Braverman's general political skills, she may fuck it up and accidentally cause a rally round Truss effect. Labour have also been granted an urgent question on Braverman's resignation. They had one on Kwarteng's firing too - which Penny Mordaunt covered for the PM who, Mordaunt assured us, "is not hiding under a desk". So another fairly uncomfortable day in parliament for Truss.

Then all the MPs will go to their constituencies which may be a point everything intensifies as I think they normally use the weekend to get a sense if x scandal/issue is just obsessing Westminster or if the rest of the country has noticed. There's no doubt they have - as Truss is already the most unpopular PM in the history of polling


Separately, police have declared a serious incident as the subsea cables to Shetland are working so the islands are cut off from comms (lucky bastards). This happens for benign reasons, like accidents from fishing boats, so might be nothing - but obviously a bit suspicious given similar incident at Svalbard and the NordStream sabotage.

I mentioned before but the Royal Navy and the Norwegian navy are doing joint patrols of lots of subsea infrastructure in the North Sea. So hopefully just an accident/somethinig geological which does happen.

[Sheilbh]

Sir Graham Brady (chair of the 1922 committee of the parliamentary Tory Party) is in Downing Street. He's the one who gets letters of no confidence/is the "man in the grey suit" who tells a PM when it's time to go - but maybe it's not for that. Feels like a strong chance that Liz Truss can not, in fact, outlast the Lettuce.

Seen a couple of people saying Grant Shapps might be the unity candidate in part because he failed to get enough support to compete in the last leadership election, so he isn't tainted/associated with any faction too closely. And he has been in various cabinet/senior party roles over the last 12 years so might be seen as a "safe pair of hands" until the election. Still strikes me as a little implausible.

I think Sunak is the best option for the Tories but probably very difficult because there's a chunk of the parliamentary party that hate him. Casting around for a "unity" candidate - I wonder if Javid might be an option?

Edit: Meanwhile:

Adam Bienkov
@AdamBienkov
Liz Truss' spokesman repeatedly refuses to deny that the Prime Minister personally authorised the briefings against Sajid Javid as being "shit" and Michael Gove, as being a "sadist".

[HVC]

They still hate sunak for turning on johnson? If so that's hypocritical for a group turning on truss. Or are there other things at play? 

[Sheilbh]

They still hate sunak for turning on johnson? If so that's hypocritical for a group turning on truss. Or are there other things at play? 

Yeah. Basically the Johnson die-hards hate Sunak.

Of course the other hypocrisy is they hate Sunak for undermining Johnson, who spent three years undermining May. But that's all to be expected in politics I think.

I think, and I could be wrong, that there's roughly a third who think it has to be Sunak and a third who think it has to be Johnson (see mad Nads recent tweets) - and a third who realise that because of that, neither of those options will work and are trying to find an acceptable compromise candidate. Not clear the penny is dropping with the Sunak or Johnson supporters though.

Edit: And the party chair has  also gone into Downing Street.

[The Larch]

Yeah. Basically the Johnson die-hards hate Sunak.

Does Johnson really have die-hards? 

[Sheilbh]

Does Johnson really have die-hards? 

Yes - I think all ousted leaders tend to have loyalists especially when their successor's government is falling apart after six weeks (and frankly you probably shouldn't even count the two weeks of national mourning when, blessedly, Liz Truss couldn't do anything ).

And they're making this sort of argument - which is basically a threat to the rest of the party. It's not entirely wrong - although obviously the quasi-presidentialism is monstrous - but I think the argument for a general election ASAP is very strong (although personally I think we should probably push it to spring because this winter will be tough and I don't think it'd be wise to have an election/purdah period in the middle of it):

Nadine Dorries
@NadineDorries
One person was elected by the British public with a manifesto and a mandate until January '25.
If Liz Truss is no longer PM there can be no coronation of previously failed candidates.

MPs must demand  return of @BorisJohnson - if not it has to be leadership election or a GE.
It is inconceivable that we could continue to face the world parading the notion that we are a democracy.

A coronation is the transfer of power out of the hands of the people and into the offices of a few already extremely powerful men in grey suits. It would be an abomination

Latest wheeze - which I think might work - is that if they can't get a unity candidate for a coronation is they have a truncated contest. Basically all candidates have to agree that if they come second (so would normally go to the members), they'll drop out. MPs do all of the rounds in one day and the winner becomes leader.

Edit: Incidentally the only one to watch I think who could be a unity candidate across the party quite easily is Wallace. If he indicates he's willing to be PM then I think he'd get it pretty easily because he's impressed in Defence - even though no-one really knows much about his domestic views. Best guess is he's basically a one nation Tory - he's very close to Johnson (and was meant to run his first leadership campaign) so is probably on the broadly liberal, comfortable with spending wing of the Tories, he was a Remain campaigner - so not on the headbanger wing of the party on economics, social issues or Brexit, but I think all across the party he is respected given his tenure as Secretary of Defence.

[Duque de Bragança]

Yeah I've said it before but energy is one of many issues where British people want the lights to stay on and they want net zero, but they don't want more fossil fuel extraction or storage in the UK, or more nuclear or renewables near them, or more interconnector infrastructure.

Which Tory baron was behind the last case? The one using NIMBY-ism since it was crossing his/her property.
You mentioned it earlier, but I forgot.
As for the renewables, the only comparable hysteria here is inland wind turbines.

Do you mean the Portsmouth one? It wasn't a Tory baron. The whole of Portsmouth was opposed, Council, residents, local MPs (including Penny Mordaunt and the Labour MP). It was ultimately rejected on national security grounds as the promoter was Russian and linked to Putin (and incidentally a big Tory donor). The project was also rejected by Normandy and by the EU.

I know we all like to laugh about British Nimbyism but, you know what, not all infrastructure is good and some projects just stink. This was one of them.

 

I mentioned Sheilbh so my recollection is pretty vague.

I see another project ran into nimbyism, without being cancelled yet postponed and denying some benefits to the locals, but in a Channel Island this time, Aurigny/Alderney.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAB_Link

No such fuss for another project linking the British Isles/Hiberno-British Archipelago to France through Brittany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Interconnector

[Sheilbh]

Statement in five minutes. I, for one, welcome our new Lettuce Prime Minister.

Edit: And she'll be the shortest-lived PM by quite some distance:

[Sheilbh]

Gone. Leadership election to be completed in the next week which means they couldn't agree on a unity candidate but the situation was so bad they needed to move now.

[Richard Hakluyt]

One would have to have a heart of stone not to burst out laughing 

[The Larch]

Long live the lettuce!

[Sheilbh]

Long live the lettuce!

They've given it a crown and turned on some celebration lights

[The Larch]

    

[OttoVonBismarck]

That's wild, I appreciate our British cousins becoming as dysfunctional as we are.

[Grey Fox]

Is this the thing that will get Tony Blair out of retirement?!?