Who here wants to bet that Brexit extensions become another amusing quirk of British Constitutional life. Every few months an extension is granted and we carry on.
Like the Chiltren Hundreds or the annual renewing of the Army, we can add regular Brexit extensions.
Bolding is mine.
During the GE any reference made to the failure to leave on 31st Oct will be simplistic. I agree with everything you say but that won’t be what the potential electorate will be presented with and it is not what it looks like superficially.
We can’t have it both ways, we can’t assume that the electorate was not wise enough to appreciate the detail behind a potential “leave” vote on one hand and then claim they’ll be wise enough to unpick the political machinations behind parliaments blockage of a 31st exit.
Well that’s a pretty good analogy, not sure if you’ve been around many pregnant women but I certainly have at least two anecdotal data points where a woman absolutely wants that immediate uncertainty and discomfort over with, no matter what comes next. The thought of remaining pregnant for any longer was absolutely unbearable.
In a similar vein, I wonder what would happen if the EU said “Yeah, fine, you can have an extension to January 2030”. Possibly with some hedging to protect EU countries from the ongoing uncertainty, like “Any deal we will take effect no sooner than 6 months/a year/5 years after the signing”
When I first saw that analogy it was more detailed: “Like a woman wanting pregnancy over with so she can get back to sleeping 10 hours a night, reading lots of novels and going out drinking with her friends every weekend.”
Getting pregnancy/the withdrawal agreement over is absolutely what people want to happen. The idea that having got that bit over with, you can get back to how things used to be instead of having to re-arrange your life to cope with an actual baby/having actually exited the EU is where “let’s just get it over with” falls down rather badly.
It’s one thing to want it over with “no matter what comes next” - but the sentiment behind “Let’s just get Brexit done” does not have that as a rider. It’s very much presented as “and then that’ll be an end to it forever” which it really, really won’t be. There was a report from some focus groups where people had the process explained to them and when it became clear that the next step after the Withdrawal Agreement was years and years of negotiations on everything from security to trade to airspace to nuclear handling then the reaction was often “a horrified silence”.
Good God, direct democracy is stupid.
Depends. Seems to work for Switzerland.
Lack of minarets disagree with you.
No, no, Boris Johnson is the one making everything stupid:
- he loses his majority in Parliament by his crass behaviour
- he makes brash promises about leaving on Oct 31 and fails to deliver
- he demands that the full details of his Brexit agreement be agreed in a few days
- he is judged to have committed illegalities by the courts
… and worst of all he double-crosses his allies the DUP by stating at their conference “…the idea of an economic border on the Irish Sea could never be acceptable to a government led by his Conservative and Unionist Party.”
Just months later Johnson plans to establish two economic borders between Great Britain and Northern Ireland: one for customs and one for regulations. He is busily trying to browbeat, cajole and bribe the DUP into accepting something he promised them, in person, he would never allow happen.
No, it became stupid the moment David Cameron decided that government should follow and not lead. Ever since then, it’s just been iterations of stupidity.
I see nothing stupid about the minaret ban. It’s not admirable, but it’s not stupidity. People didn’t want minarets, and now they don’t have minarets. It’s hardly analogous to the current British clusterfuck.
My point is, normally, one party would be in favor of Brexit, the other party would be against it, the two parties would duke it out in Parliament and in the polls, and in the end, one party would succeed and the other party would fail. And then it would be over. That’s how representative democracy is supposed to work.
Switzerland is possibly the most conservative country in the world - the bedrock of its culture is to do nothing, change nothing, and never take any risks. It’s hardly an example of anything.
Now that Labour has agreed to an election, I’m fully expecting that Johnson will find an excuse not to hold one after all. :D
That’s all the more likely since Johnson has just lost a vote on an amendment not to limit the number of amendments (!), so the opposition parties will now add amendments to the election bill that the Tories won’t like.
If the amendments, as has been threatened, involve constitutional change - such as extending who is allowed to vote - then of course it should be pulled. Labour and the Lib Dems need to stop fucking about, and vote for a straightforward election as soon as possible.
It’s pretty clear though that these are wrecking amendments, not ones they think will be acted on, and then it will be a case of another blame game if the election doesn’t happen.
Why does there need to be a bill passed in order to hold an election? I don’t follow British politics much, but I thought the opposition parties just hold a vote of no confidence, and if it passes the prime minister is obligated to resign and schedule an election. And since the current government is a minority, that could happen at any time.
Because, for whatever reason, the opposition have confidence in this government and have repeatedly refused an election, and not called a confidence vote.
Yes and no. The the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 changed the situation to some extent.
Now a vote of no confidence can still be called, after which the opposition has 14 days to try to form a government. If they can’t, there is a general election. Otherwise, a two-thirds majority in Parliament can trigger an election at any time.
In this case, the problem for the opposition was to prevent the UK leaving the EU with no deal during an election campaign, when Parliament is not sitting. Or when Parliament was prorogued for a lengthy time. If no-deal is the default, that’s always the danger. And Johnson and his hard-liners want no-deal. The opposition parties could have voted the government out on a vote of no confidence, but Labour couldn’t form a government on its own, and the other opposition parties wouldn’t accept a unity government under Corbyn.
Also, the opposition parties didn’t want an election before the Oct 31 deadline, since Johnson would probably have done well. They wanted it after the deadline, when Johnson had failed to deliver what he promised. List of recent attempts at getting a general election.
After the EU granted an extension until Jan 31, the Lib-Dems and SNP decided to back an election in December - with some issues about the election date. Together with the Tories they could force an election, even if Labour didn’t want it, so Labour really had no choice but to go along with it.
Today it all comes down to the details of the election. Amendments have been tabled to allow EU nationals and 16-year-olds to vote. Johnson says he will pull the bill if they pass. There are also amendments about the date, and adding a second referendum. All this gets debated and voted on this evening.
It passed the House of Commons, 438 to 20. Date is December 12 (what Boris wanted). Labour was unsuccessful in changing date to December 9. It now goes to the House of Lords who are expected to wave it through. Dissolution date is Wednesday. They still need to pass spending bill for Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland legislature hasn’t operated for quite some time).
Note:
Johnson can and will blame Parliament for failing to deliver Brexit, and will obfuscate his own history of voting against the Government prior to becoming Prime Minister. Johnson’s goal isn’t Brexit, it’s to be Prime Minister with a parliamentary majority. Plan A all along has been to arrange a general election. If he could deliver a Brexit deal, then that would be terrific as it would gain him votes. However, the alternative of Johnson presenting himself as the people’s champion, getting rid of a deadlocked parliament that has failed to deliver the people’s will also works for him as an election strategy. Expect a month and a half of bashing Parliament and shouting that they failed while dodging questions about his own performance as an MP.