Category: Brexit

Brexit

The unity candidate

Brexit, Conservative Party, Labour Party, Party politics, Shenanigans, Westminster Parliament
6 Comments

The Sunday Times reports,

Jeremy Corbyn ‘would support John Bercow as unity PM’

This is some new meaning of the word “unity” not previously known to me. I do not believe I am alone in preferring the honest fanatic Jeremy Corbyn to John Bercow.

Jeremy Corbyn has privately told allies that he will step aside and allow someone else to become prime minister if Boris Johnson is forced from power.

Sources say the Labour leader has concluded that he would not win the support needed to lead a government of national unity. Corbyn has signalled to allies that he might support another candidate as long as it is not a Labour or Conservative MP.

John Bercow, a Tory MP before becoming Speaker of the House of Commons in 2009, has emerged as the Labour leader’s favoured compromise candidate after he ruled out Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, who was expelled from the Tories last month.

I suspect that this is a trial balloon designed to make Jeremy Corbyn look good by comparison, but if John Bercow does “emerge” his way into being Prime Minister it will make his decisions made as Speaker during the last three years look as if they were nothing but a conspiracy to gain power, a process of emergence from the shadows brought to the threshold of completion by his recent meeting with the EU’s President-of-whichever-bit-of-the-EU-he’s-president-of, David Sassoli.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Boris Johnson, Brexit
4 Comments

Boris Johnson is about to go into a tunnel, apparently. I think that means something like: the EU has agreed to properly sit down and have a talk about that deal they said was the final possible deal.

What will Boris come out of the tunnel with?

  • A deal that gets us properly out of the EU but without any unpleasant trade restrictions?
  • A deal that is Brexit in name only?
  • No deal.

There is a faint possibility that Boris is so good at politics he will get a deal that is just Brexit-y enough and just un-Brexit-y enough to stay in power and get back to business as usual politics with no realignment.

Righty ho, Guy

Brexit, EU Parliament, European Union, Historical, Media
1 Comment

Just when the Remain side had got some traction for their line about the evils of inflammatory language with that embarrassingly crude tweet from Leave.EU that called Angela Merkel a “kraut” and invoked the two world wars, along comes this soon-to-be-viral nugget from the European Parliament’s Brexit Co-ordinator.

The Independent – not the Express, not the Telegraph, not the Mail, the extremely pro-EU Independent – reports:

Brexiteers ‘are the real traitors’, EU’s Guy Verhofstadt says.

The European Parliament’s Brexit chief has branded Brexiteers “the real traitors”, in a significant escalation of rhetoric from Brussels.

Speaking in a debate in the EU’s legislature Guy Verhofstadt accused Boris Johnson of blaming everyone but himself for the situation the UK found itself in.

“The real reason why this is happening is very simply: it’s a blame game against everybody. A blame game against the European Union, against Ireland, against Mrs Merkel, against the British judicial system, against Labour, against the Lib Dems, even against Mrs May,” he said.

“The only one who is not to be blamed is Mr Johnson himself, apparently. But all the rest are the source of our problems. That is what is happening today. All those who are not playing his game are ‘traitors’ or a ‘collaborator’, or ‘surrenderers’.

“Well in my opinion, dear colleagues the real traitor is he or she who risks bringing disaster upon his country, its economy, and its citizens, by pushing Britain out of the European Union. That is in my opinion, a traitor.”

Let us hope the Liberal Democrats invite him back soon to do some more campaigning for them, so we can see how that line goes down on the doorsteps of Britain. Even in Camden it might be a hard sell.

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”

Brexit, European Union, Irish Republic, Northern Ireland
4 Comments

Earlier today Robert Peston, the Political Editor of ITV News, tweeted:

This feels very big. PM spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at 8am this morning. According to Downing Street source, she told the PM that there will be no Brexit deal with the UK unless Northern Ireland is in the customs union “forever”.

The source insists that the word “forever” was repeated on multiple occasions.

A short while later Kate McCann of Sky News responded:

A Number 10 source on PM call with Germany’s Merkel: “If this represents a new established position, then it means a deal is essentially impossible not just now but ever. It also made clear that they are willing to torpedo the Good Friday Agreement.’

James Forsyth of the Spectator has relayed a statement from what I suspect is the same “contact in No. 10”:

‘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.’

Bear in mind that all this comes from anonymous briefings to Lobby journalists. But if even half of it is true, that word “forever” will probably go down in history as sounding the death knell of a Brexit deal.

And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, Show’d like a rebel’s whore

Brexit, Brexit Party, Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Other political parties, Party politics, Shenanigans, Westminster Parliament
7 Comments

The Independent‘s John Rentoul is scarcely likely to be happy at what the latest poll by Opinium says, but dutifully tweeted it anyway:

Opinium poll for Observer, Cons back to 15-pt lead:
Con 38% +2
Lab 23% -1
Lib Dem 15% -5
Brexit 12% +1
Green 4% +2
2,006 UK adults 3-4 Oct, change since last week

So after all those Remain victories in Parliament and the courts, Boris Johnson’s Tories are slightly more popular and the Liberal Democrats are significantly less popular? How can this be?

I thought Chancellors of the Exchequer were supposed to understand this sort of thing

Brexit, Conservative Party, Media, Westminster Parliament
13 Comments

In theory I ought to like Independent MPs. In practice they are often cranks. So strong is this correlation that I begin to suspect that there might be causation involved. Perhaps the bites on the neck that the party Whips administer to all MPs weekly under the pretence that it is an “old Parliamentary tradition” actually transfer a dose of sanity serum. Without that saving vampiroid saliva, the derangement to which everyone in Westminster eventually succumbs comes all the sooner.

Philip Hammond, former Conservative Chancellor and current backbench Independent Conspiracist has claimed in the Times that

… he is backed by speculators who have bet billions on a hard Brexit — and there is only one outcome that works for them: a crash-out no-deal Brexit that sends the currency tumbling and inflation soaring. So they, at least, will be reassured to see no evidence at all that his government has seriously pursued a deliverable deal; still less that it has been pursuing a deal that could get us out by October 31. The time available means that the only deal with any prospect of delivering that outcome is the deal that they have already rejected and that many of them have voted against.

There is an excellent fact-filled response to this nonsense by Frances Coppola writing in Forbes: The Mythical Bets On No-Deal Brexit.

Does Dominic Cummings look bovvered?

Brexit
5 Comments

Last night Dominic Cummings was questioned by a Sky News reporter. He looks quite happy.

We’ll see what we do about the Benn Act when we get to the right date. […] I don’t have a master plan. People say all sorts of things. You say all sorts of things. You don’t know what you’re talking about. So everyone watching at home should know: don’t watch the news because it’s almost all bullshit.

Sounds about right to me. In particular, note his demeanour: he thinks this worked-up self-important journalist is hilarious.

There is more Dominic Cummings at a book launch. He is not under pressure. He just smiles when asked about the idea of keeping the Working Agreement but without the backstop, but he does not answer. I suspect it is out of his hands anyway.

Prorogation unlawful

Brexit, Westminster Parliament
8 Comments

The supreme court ruled that the prorogation was unlawful. It is unclear what the implications of this are, besides that Parliament will sit for more days than expected and that future prorogations will be subject to similar scrutiny as to motive.

We seem to be in an interesting situation in which Parliament is divided on other-than-party lines (it is not aligned with itself). The executive can not pass legislation (at least not Brexit-inclined legislation) because it does not hold a majority. It can not get a majority because the Fixed Term Parliament Act prevents an election. However the speaker allows the (Remain) opposition to pass legislation which appears to bind the executive into specific courses of actions.

It is a very odd situation. Either parties must split and the Great Realignment occur, or else the issue on which they are split must resolve and the parties re-join and continue as they were.

Update: Raphael Hogarth explains the court’s reasoning.

We have had enough of experts. Yes, really.

Brexit, Conservative Party, European Union, Historical, Quotes & snippets
2 Comments

Michael Gove’s famous or infamous quote about having “had enough of experts” has often been held up as an example of anti-intellectualism. Perhaps if Faisal Islam had spent less of the next half minute in outraged repetition of the words “Had enough of experts?” he might have heard what Gove said next about the particular experts in question having been wrong before. FullFact belatedly acknowledged that the full quote about specific experts with a bad record was a good deal less incendiary than the truncated version about experts in general, when the site made this correction:

We’ve updated this piece to source the full quote from Michael Gove. Previously it read “People in this country have had enough of experts.”

But you know what? Even the simplistic, cut-off-mid-sentence version of Gove’s quote does well enough. The referendum result demonstrated that a lot of people had had enough of anything billed as expert opinion in the field of economics, and no wonder. Predictions of equal accuracy to theirs could have been obtained from expert astrologers. Matthew Goodwin has written a piece for UnHerd that talks about why the record of economic and political experts is so dismal:

How political bias blinds us: Ideological cocoons prevent experts from seeing, and engaging with, the wider world.

When the referendum arrived in 2016, another survey of nearly 600 experts delivered a remarkably clear view. Nearly 90% expected Remain to win. Just 5% felt that Brexit was the most likely outcome. Journalists were noticeably worse: 97% predicted Remain and just 3% Brexit. And most expected Remain to win by at least 10-points. There were simply too few people willing to question and challenge the herd thinking.