I’d like to thank everyone participating in this thread; it’s been a huge help to me as I try to understand what is happening in the UK politically right now. I knew Boris Johnson’s name and a few things about his time int he government and that he was part of the Brexit campaign, but little else. After watching John Oliver’s piece about him, I knew that I was missing a lot of information and have been actively seeking to correct the deficiency since.
Y’all have been a big help; thanks again.
Fintan O’Toole, writing for the Irish Times, has a - somewhat fanciful - plan where Sinn Fein can achieve those ends without taking their seats:
Ultimate banter timeline if that happened. I doubt I would ever stop laughing.
Never happen, but an interesting proposal!
There’s a lot of moving parts in that plan. To simplify it, I wonder if it could be arranged to have some mini-referendum(s) to cover Sinn Fein dropping their absentee pledge solely for Brexit matters then vote as described in the article.
I always thought the main sticking point for Sinn Féin taking their seats was the the Oath of Allegiance. I can’t see any way round that.
OB
True, but voters pass judgment on those party leaders at election time. The ballots may only have the names of candidates for local MP, but voters tend to be heavily influenced by party and party leader and that they are, in effect, electing a Prime Minister. Most voters couldn’t tell you squat about the MP candidate whose name they are checking off, who to them is just a proxy for party and prospective PM.
This is a test that Boris has not yet passed. If he does manage to get elected to a majority, or pulls off a no-deal Brexit without a new election, then as CNN has speculated, he may go down in history as the last PM of the former United Kingdom.
What do they think would happen if he pulls off a no-deal Brexit without a new election? That’s what seems the most likely because it only requires the people involved to keep aboard the train for in-fighting purposes as it races towards the cliff.
There’s no difference in the consequences, with or without an election, it’s just that right now he has a super-fragile majority of just 1, and that’s with the DUP coalition. But the article was about the possibility of the breakup of the UK over Brexit, especially a “hard” no-deal Brexit. Here is the article.
He doesn’t need to “pull it off”. It will happen automatically if nothing else changes (i.e. some agreement he can persuade parliament to accept - no chance, no time, or a further extension agreed by the 27, which hardly seems likely, given the way the party leaderships are frittering away the current one, or a new government revoking Article 50 and calling the whole thing off).
Or if you mean if a no-deal Brexit that turns out not to have too serious consequences… I doubt any government could manage that, and certainly not this shower. Those that know what they’re doing (and they’re gey few) actively want a future for this country that would horrify me (and I think most of us). Chlorinated chicken and smashing up the Union might be the least of it.
Not seen that written down for, well, a gey long time…
We’ll have a gey old time!
You might even call it a “modest” proposal
Late to the thread but I’ll just throw in what I’ve said before: The only way to achieve a deal with the EU is to form a pro-Brexit party. So long as half of every party wants to stay - including the party in the majority - there is no path forward internally and that negates all work done externally.
As to Boris, my expectation is that he’s smart enough to realize that there’s no way to win the negotiations - and certainly there’s no use telling the EU, “You better make a deal with me or I’m going to punch myself in the nads! Just you watch!” They’ll just tell him to go ahead.
He’s banking on there being no genuine calamity from a no-deal Brexit. So long as he can give companies enough forewarning to know that it’s coming, they’ll adapt and be ready and there won’t be any major financial issue.
Ireland will be a problem, of course, but that’s Ireland’s problem. Your average voter just cares about the economy.
Properly telegraphed, Brexit is a long-term path to economic, political, and cultural unimportance on the economic stage. It’s not a short term calamity.
Demonstrating that Hell on Earth doesn’t unfold on day 1 of Brexit is likely enough to see Boris achieve recognition as having been “right all along”.
Assuming that he doesn’t get booted from the PM position between now and Brexit, I would say that you should expect Boris to come out looking like roses, even if he’s taking things in a direction that is ultimately harmful to the country. The average populace thinks short term and the media has sold Brexit as the Apocalypse. Failing to deal in the land of reality is harmful over the long run. That’s as true for the BBC as it is for Boris Johnson.
There are already two completely pro-Brexit parties: the Brexit Party, founded by Nigel Farage in January 2019, which got 30.52% of the vote share in the 2019 European Parliament elections; and there’s also Farage’s old party, the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Yes, but neither of them wants to achieve a deal with the EU.
The only way to achieve a deal is to have a pro-deal party that’s realistic about what deal is attainable. (Labour may be attempting to fill this slot.) The problem here is that a great many Brexit supporters are not realistic about what deal is attainable, and it will be difficult to get them to vote for a party that is. And since Brexit voters, if they are a majority at all, are a very, very narrow majority, any split in the Brexit vote between different parties is a serious problem for the Brexit cause.
There is no way the government can force the EU into further negotiations. The EU’s view remains “We agreed a deal. We are not going to renegotiate it. It’s not our fault the UK is so fundamentally incapable of sorting out its internal issues. If you don’t like the deal you agreed, it is within your power to either crash out with no deal or to put a stop to the whole thing, but it’s your choice.”
Boris can stamp his little feets and lie about how anti-Brexit people and the EU are “collaborating” but the reality is that his choices are few.
Both major parties are splitting three ways on this, in different proportions and along slightly different faultlines, which makes problems for all points of view.
The Tories split between the loyalists who accepted the deal (the biggest group in Parliament), the “nothing is good enough” Brexiteers (smaller in Parliament but noisy enough and well-enough supported among party members to get Johnson in) and those (probably fewest, but in the current Parliamentary arithmetic, enoough to put plenty of spanners in the works) who would rather stick as close to the EU as possible if they can’t get Article 50 revoked.
Labour on the other hand is just about holding together a fudgy compromise position between those who would really rather revoke Article 50 (probably the majority of party members), those who fear the political consequences of not coming up with some sort of exit deal as long as it preserves at least something like the customs union (a fair number of their MPs, even if in their heart of hearts they’d rather revoke, or at least put it back to the people), and their own small minority who are fundamentally Brexiteers from a left perspective (many of whom are in Corbyn’s inner circle).
Which leaves both Brexit and anti-Brexit voters equally at sea as between the major parties; remainers have the choice of voting LibDem or Green (or for the SNP or PC in Scotland/Wales), so their votes could well split that side of the argument. It’s like trying to decide what colour to paint the living-room by using a kaleidoscope.
Boris has the Queen ensure that Parliament won’t have as much time as it thought it would to handle the most consequential issue in years: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/opinion/suspend-parliament-boris-johnson.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Thomas%20B.%20Edsall
Certainly I think suspending parliament is. . . (how to put this politely) a dick move. But I can’t help wondering exactly what parliament thinks it would do in the next month that it hasn’t had ample opportunity to do already.