Followup Question:
Does the PM have to live at 10 Downing Street? What if the incoming PM has a nice house in the suburbs and enjoys sitting on his back porch drinking beer and watching his kids play in their large yard (garden? whatever you all call it). Can he say that he would just rather live there and commute?
1-Johnson has been called “evil, a clown, a racist and a bigot”. He’s very Trumpian. In The Economist’s 2018 end-of-the-year awards for the worst in British politics, Johnson received the highest award (the “politician who has done most to let down his party and country”). They also called him one of the architects of the Brexit “catastrophe”.
He’s currently under public prosecution for lying about the benefits of Brexit, citing misconduct in public office.
2-Farage can’t be in the mix. He isn’t even a member of the Conservative Party.
3-She resigned from the Cabinet, not the Party.
Why don’t they try looking outside the party for a better candidate. I hear Obama’s available…
No, Harold Wilson didn’t live there during his second term. I imagine modern security concerns would result in a lot of pressure to move, but I don’t think there’s any legal requirement, any more than there is that the President live in the White House.
More recently, Tony Blair and David Cameron lived in 11 Downing Street, as number 11 has more living space and they had larger families.
Boris is something like Trump with an Eton and Oxford education. He’s much slicker than Trump, with a self-deprecating sense of humour, and not as stupid.
But he’s totally elitist, has no principles at all, tells blatant lies without a qualm, and is uselessly incompetent beneath a superficial veneer of competence. He’s a showman, a self-promoter, and a populist without substance. He’s associated himself with the worst right-wing racists, climate-change deniers, and Ayn Randian billionaires. He almost decided to oppose Brexit before the referendum, but then changed his mind and decided he would do better for himself by supporting it.
He was incompetent as mayor of London and wasted large amounts of money. As foreign secretary, he was a total clown and had diplomats in every country face-palming.
But Brexiteers, with delusions of colonial grandeur, and great respect for arrogant upper-class twits, just adore him and think he is ‘decisive’ and ‘cuts through the bullshit’, so he has a lot of supporters. Like Trump, he’s popular with the useful idiots.
Why ‘should’ it be Rees-Mogg? Because he’‘s a Brexit true believer? He’'s as disingenuous and self-serving as any other Brexiter, just dressed up in Latin and a top hat to apparently impress the serfs.
At least Boris has some charisma and a good sense of humour; though when he used his clownish likeability to convince people to ‘take back control’ in the referendum he turned a corner I think. I think many like me won’t ever forgive him for turning his buffoonery to the dark side, all for his personal ambition.
Any leaver needs to have that stupid bus ad shown in front of her/him. Tell me again about the £350 million for the NHS.
My mother has met Johnson. Where Trump has rat-like cunning, Johnson has brains. He is seriously clever. But what he lacks is common sense.
Obviously it won’t be Farage but could it? Is there anything stating a PM must be a Lord or MP? Does the leader of the Conservative party have to be a Conservative Lord or MP or could the role of “Conservative leader” go out of house?
There’s no law, but there’s definitely a constitutional convention that the PM either be an MP or seek election to the Commons ASAP.
Alec Douglas-Home was the Earl of Home when he was appointed, but he immediately disclaimed his peerage* and stood in a by-election that happened to be pending. Had there not been a vacancy in a safe seat, he would have had to [del]bribe[/del] convince an MP to stand down.
*That was only possible for him in a one year period from 1963 to 1964. Had the vacancy come earlier or later, he would have been functionally ineligible for the party leadership, and someone else would have succeeded Harold MacMillan.
The Conservative Party can make whatever rules it likes about whom it elects as leader. I doubt that there is any formal requirement for the leader to be an MP or Lord, though it would be unthinkable that the rules permit them to elect someone like Farage who isn’t even a member of the party.
Feeling a bit les despairy today but still not sunshine and flowers.
I think we’re already seeing the Party tearing chunks out of itself in this leadership election overnight as candidates ruling out serving under other candidates. I imagine a Brexiter will eventually win, but any Tory PM has to triangulate to survive - winning the hard-right, elderly, Brexity grassroots membership almost certainly loses support from business and moderates in Parliament and the electorate.
I think a fair deal, but not everything, hinges on the results of the EU elections to be announced tomorrow. If the Brexit Party does less well than expected, then it will embolden moderate Tory MPs to stand against a no-dealer PM. Possibly even accept that the price of saving the country is their party and their seat in Parliament.
Hell, even if the Brexit Party do well, it won’t take a large number of Tory MPs to topple the government by siding with the Opposition in a confidence vote.
I’ve seen indications that turnout in the election has been varied all over, with slumps in highly Brexity areas and great spikes in Remainer areas. Who knows though.
Whoever becomes the next Prime Minister is almost guaranteed to fail.
Parliament will remain unchanged, and the support of Parliament is needed for any possible outcome. There is no support for no-deal, and no support for half-in, half-out like May’s deal. There is no support for any solution that doesn’t address Northern Ireland. The EU is not going to offer better terms or drop the backstop. And the Tories are rightly afraid of holding a general election.
So the next PM will be in exactly the same position as Theresa May. The facts won’t change. The end result will be another failed PM. The only way out will be another referendum, followed by revoking A50.
Depends on what you consider ‘failing’, I suppose. Those still supporting Brexit would see leaving with no deal as paramount success.
THe problem for any leader is that every path seems blocked:
No Deal: Arguably the most easy to achieve as does not require the specific consent of parliament, however there is a good chance parliament might rebel to actively block it, possibly bringing down the government in the process
Negotiated withdrawal: The current agreement has already been rejected by parliament and May’s attempt to put measures to win agreement ended her premiership. The EU has indicated it is unwilling to negotiate further and there is little time left anyway.
Breaking the deadlock with a 2nd referendum: Out of all the options, the most favoured in parliament, but not by a majority. The biggest issue is that it is opposed by many Tory MPs and their members/voters, which too was an important factor in bringing down May.
Breaking the deadlock with a general election: Currently the Tories will be worried about being wiped out. Would also be highly questionable if there enough time and may require consent of the EU for a further extension.
Outright revoking Article 50: Neither strong support among the majority of MPs for the two largest parties to unilaterally revoke the public vote and would need a majority in parliament.
I think the likely forward is for the issue to be forced: a PM heading for No Deal with either that being the outcome or parliament or less likely the the EU actively intervening to prevent it. No Deal will be very bad for the UK and bad for the EU.
It’s also not clear that it would fix anything.
If Parliament can’t make a decision on a course of action, it probably also can’t make a decision on what definite course of action should be put to the voters. So a second referendum would probably put a mystery option (“Norway plus,” “Canada plus plus,” “no deal,” who knows?) before the voters once again. And if they select it (which the last poll I saw indicates they might well do), nothing has changed.
I think that Parliament will always have the ability to vote to revoke A50, whatever the situation.
If it comes down to a straight choice between no-deal and revoke at the 11th hour, I believe they will choose to revoke. They won’t sit passively and let no-deal happen by default.
I don’t think that is the issue: currently the UK has only 3 realistic options: accept the current deal, reject it and go out without a deal, or revoke article 50. How exactly those options should be put might cause some debate, but I don’t think a further option such as re-negotiate with the EU would make it on to the ballot or command the support of the public if it did. The biggest issue is that I think it is questionable whether a Tory leader could even put it to parliament without undermining their support in their own party and whether it could command a majority.
I think the most likely outcome is that Boris will be the next PM, the biggest impediment is likely to be whether there are enough Tory MPs opposed to Boris to risk the wrath of the members by preventing him from being one of the two candidates that members will vote on. I think Boris will go for No Deal, not for ideological reasons, but because that is now the platform his has chosen and also as a possible gambit against the EU. I think when the issue is forced parliament will have to decide whether it wants to block No Deal, even at the cost of outright revoking Article 50.
Actually, the only person who might have the chutzpah to make a 180 degree turn, cheerfully shaft his own party, and then claim it as a great victory… is Boris Johnson. 