This is going to be a fascinating week in UK politics. The Labour party announced today that they intend to support remaining in the customs union and there could be an embarrassing defeat for Theresa May in the Commons.
It’s an interesting strategy for Eurosceptic Jeremy Corbyn , but it could be a very effective political tactic. Continued turmoil in the Tories can only help Labour and also deflect away from the cold war spy stories hitting Corbyn.
Mrs. May has got to be worried, a defeat on her hard Brexit combined with possible massive losses in the local elections upcoming in the month of May, might be enough to push her out as Prime Minister.
But then what would happen? Jacob Rees-Mogg as Prime Minister? How the heck can he expect to ram though the hardest of Brexits? I can’t imagine yet another general election, but that would be a fascinating scenario. I don’t think Labour can win a majority in a 2018 general election but they could have the option of forming some sort of a coalition. But, of course, Jeremy Corbyn is not known for playing well with others.
It’ll be fascinating to watch as of now, neither main UK political party seems capable of governing as the Brexit countdown enters crunch time.
It will be interesting but I’m used to being pessimistic now. I expect the government will squeak through. I fear Labour’s stance will backfire and turn potential Tory rebels into loyalists as party is put before country.
Is there anyone who still thinks Brexit will be fine?
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Well, not exactly “remaining in the customs union”:
So it isn’t just the government that can fantasize about wondrous bespoke arrangements post-Brexit.
For Americans who don’t know, the Conservative government is propped up by support from the DUP (Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party) who are not overly keen on Catholics. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a Catholic. One assumes that with him as leader, the Conservative-DUP alliance would instantly collapse - it would, at the very least, be an interesting watch.
“Growing up, Rees-Mogg was raised by the family’s nanny Veronica Crook, whom he attributes as making him the man he is. Crook now looks after Rees-Mogg’s own children, having worked for the family for over 50 years…Rees-Mogg first entered politics during the 1997 general election when he was nominated as the Conservative Party candidate for Central Fife, a traditional Labour seat in Scotland. With an upper class background set against a predominantly working class electorate Rees-Mogg was criticised as being too posh, a claim he refused to acknowledge as an issue. As an eccentric figure arguing for retaining sovereignty in Westminster, he visited a housing estate in Leven, where he struggled to understand the broad Fife accent while voters conversely found difficulty with his. News stories from the time ridiculed Rees-Mogg for canvassing the area with his family’s nanny and touring the constituency in a Bentley, a claim which he later denied, insisting a it had been a Mercedes.”
The DUP has shared office with Catholics in Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2010, from 2011 to 2016 and from 2016 to 2017. Each of those arrangements came to an end, of course, but in no case was this because the DUP objected to Catholics in office.
The notion that the DUP would refuse to support a Tory government willing to meet the DUP’s terms because the Tory leader of the time was a Catholic is not a very convincing one.
Fair point. But I’m not convinced that coexisting with NI catholic politicians is the same as propping up a UK government led by a catholic PM. An interesting watch.
The DUP literally could not give a stuff who governs Britain. They are all about how the British government treats Northern Ireland. Jacob Rees-Mogg is as myopic in his atavistic unionism as he is in his brexitry. The DUP_ would love both his Irish policy and his Brexit policy.
(But I doubt the issue will arise. If there is a leadership contest in the Tory party I expect the brexiters to coalesce around a more plausible candidate.)
If JRM is our bar, that’s a pretty low bar, and there are several Brexiteers who would be marginally less ludicrous as nominees for the leadership. Ian Duncan Smith has in fact been party leader before, and he held cabinet office rank from 2010 to 2016. He’s not quite as brainy as JRM, but in this context that’s probably an asset. Other possibilities with current or previous cabinet experience would be Michael Gove, Teresa Villiers, John Whittingdale, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling. An uninspiring bunch, to be sure, but all, with the possible exception of Fox, less unimaginable than Rees-Mogg.
Oh, I don’t doubt there are plenty of people the Brexiteers would find plausible, but that’s about as far as it goes. It still looks like a choice for the faithful between David Davis and Boris Johnson. To the wider public, the rest have plenty of vulnerabilities (IDS - failure and fibber, Gove - backstabber, Grayling - where to begin with his record), which a halfway competent opposition (a big ask still) ought to be able to exploit to the hilt.
Why don’t they have a new vote on Brexit? I think it’s quite possible that Russian meddling had an impact. We’re stuck with Putin’s choice for president for 3 more years, but why should the UK be obligated to honor such a tainted and close election? Seems to me that if the Scots get multiple shots on their independence referendum, that Brexit should be reconsidered and hopefully rejected.
Every news report I’ve seen has the UK polls still showing about a 50-50 split if there were a new vote. Some have certainly switched sides, but in both directions.
They can still hope for a Brexit in name only, with existing arrangements with the EU essentially continuing under new names and their economy unruined. Or maybe May could sabotage the whole thing, with a deal so atrocious that Commons would have to reject it and leave Britain unexited.
Because there is no guarantee that the withdrawal notification can be reversed, or that if it can the other member states would agree that our existing terms of membership with all the existing opt-outs would continue.
Because there’s no conceivable Tory-led government whose back-benchers would allow them to do it, nor is it likely there would be a general election in time to do it. Even if there were yet another election soon, then short of the Tories splitting or Labour leading from the front for once, it’s not going to happen. And see 1 above - even if there were a new election and a government committed to a second referendum, there is no guarantee of anything other than that we are out on 29 March next year, come what may.
Because the whole point of the first vote was to try and detoxify the issue for the Tory party. That has failed, obviously, but if the first vote didn’t detoxify the issue then its wildly unlikely that a second vote would. And while it was both stupid and irresponsible to have the first vote to solve an internal party problem, there’s absolutely no case at all for having a second vote when you know it won’t solve the party problem.
There’s legal opinions on both sides whether the A50 notification can be unilaterally reversed - it’s not a watertight legal drafting. But that’s not the point - it’s a political thing, and it could be done if need be.
And that’s the problem. The Tories are in a death spiral of grotesque incompetence and infighting - by far the least competent bunch of charlatans to be in charge in my lifetime - presiding over the biggest issue of my lifetime. They don’t have a settled position, after all this fucking time, and several of the ministers in charge do not even seem to understand the issues involved. A government of morons.
Still at least the opposition is on top of things…oh fuck, they aren’t either. Saint Jeremy has advanced his position to thinking about a customs union. Perhaps when the silly twat listens to someone other than his old mates he’ll eventually learn about things like non-tariff-barriers and just-in-time manufacturing, and maybe have a think about what that means when it is disrupted.
Honestly though, damn Cameron for calling the referendum, and damn May for invoking Article 50 before any preparations had been made. Neither of them gave a thought to the consequence of doing so.
The annoying thing is that I don’t think Cameron ever intended to hold the referendum. I think he thought he’d be stuck in another coalition after the 2015 general election and thus he could easily backtrack on that manifesto promise.
Cameron still should have avoided the referendum. Surely he should have realised that UKIP had peaked with their 12% vote total but only 1 MP. The UK, along with most other developed countries, had a stubbornly slow recovery from the financial crisis, but the tides were slowly turning then. Cameron had 5 years to govern and he could have deflected the referendum and insisted on more time to negotiate with the EU while hoping anti-immigration fervor would die down with an improving economy. Cameron had already agreed to step down after that parliament so he didn’t have to constantly be looking over his shoulder.
The EU has been very steadily increasing its scope since it was created. So even if Britain didn’t leave now it would have left in the next couple decades, as it would reach a point of being too much for the British.