It’s impossible to tell what the outcome would be. Will the high level of recent Parliamentary chaos make people more or less likely to change their MP? Given that there is no clear party divide on Brexit, what will the driving factor be?
Since my MP has joined the Independent Group, her chances of winning have no doubt gone down significantly, but how that will play out I don’t really know. Perhaps a Labour win is most likely, if the Tory vote splits, but some moderate Labour supporters could switch.
As for what the polls say, they said that Labour would win the last two elections, Remain would win the referendum, and that Clinton would beat Trump. For whatever reason, polling seems to have consistently underestimated right-wing votes this decade. I think a Labour majority is more unlikely that a Tory one, but if either party were to replace their leader with a moderate, they could win.
Well, it should, in theory play out like a second referendum, with the parties setting out their vision of Brexit or no Brexit. But I’m pretty sure it won’t. Core Tory and Labour voters are unlikely to switch allegiances, the only party of no-Brexit, the Lib Dem’s, are a spent force, and are people really going to vote UKIP or this new Farage vehicle (!) in parliamentary elections (?) etc. I imagine we’ll end up in much the same position as now, with no one party able to muster a true majority.
If there is a general election, I guess that means May’s deal would be well and truly dead. I can’t see as she can possibly lead the Conservatives into an election given as she’ll essentially resign straight after, plus I can’t see the rest of the party being happy with having to campaign with her deal at the heart of their manifesto.
OB
While I’m sure there’s a multitude of subjects about which Mr. Oborne and I would disagree, that is one in which I find ourselves in perfect agreement. Maybe that is also a sign that it’s time to be concerned 
Could the House of Lords just strike Brexit dead?
Even if they technically can, they don’t have the legitimacy for it anymore than the Queen. Plus, most of them are crusty cunts and those tend to be Brexiters.
Notwithstanding the crustiness or otherwise of their Lordships, they do seem to be a pretty Remainy bunch at the moment.
Really? I thought laws still must pass through them. I realize they typically rubber stamp everything, but I believe they have the authority if they cared. And honestly, wasn’t their function to be a sort of check on momentary passions. Brexit qualifies.
When was the last time the House of Lords killed a bill that was wanted by the Prime Minister?
They can’t really kill a bill, just delay one. What they can do is send a bill back to the Commons with a large metaphorical “Are you REALLY sure you want to do this?” sticker attached. That was key when George Osborne attempted his ill-thought-out tax credits changes in 2015.
No, the House of Lords cannot kill Brexit. They could frustrate ratification of the Deal, but if no deal is agreed, then crashing out on a hard Brexit is the default unless the PM revokes Article 50.
In a general sense, the Lords strikes down a lot more legislation than is otherwise acknowledged. It rarely stops Bills, but secondary legislation, it is able and does strike things down. The last major thing I remember before Brexit was Child Tax Credit legislation being rejected by the Lords in 2015.
How does it stop secondary legislation? Is there a requirement that regulations have to be approved by Parliament?
Statutory instruments vs primary legislation, essentially. SI’s need to pass Parliament too.
There’s various different forms of statutory instruments (SIs - a form of secondary legislation), but the main two forms are negatives and affirmatives.
Negatives - SI signed by the minister and both Houses of Parliament has a set period of time in which to explicitly say ‘no’ to it, and in so doing annul it.
Affirmatives - SI signed by the minister which can only come into force once both Houses of Parliament has explicitly said ‘yes’ to it.
The Parliament Act, which governs how Public Bills can be forced through a resistant Lords, does not apply to SIs. So the Lords can - and does - occasionally block an SI from coming into law. Another famous occasion was a plan in about 2005 for super casinos. The Lords rejected that too.
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Just bumping this thread, it’s been about 10 days since Brexit was postponed, have there been any advances or new proposals from the (many) sides yet, or is everybody waiting for the next deadline to try and do a deal?
And yes, I could google/research it, but I’d like to hear the takes from our European correspondents.
Are we getting set for another round of ‘who blinks first’?
Parliament has been on vacation starting when the Brexit postponement deal with the EU was reached and returning tomorrow (this was already set as a scheduled Easter break). The negotiations with Labour will also resume tomorrow.
The object of the negotiations is to produce a plan for which there is a parliamentary majority.
The indicative votes on various ways forward which were held last month did not produce a majority for anything. The option that got closest to a majority was that Britain should be in a customs union with the EU, which lost by only 8 votes. (Second was a confirmatory referendum, which lost by 27 votes. Everything else lost by 70 or more.)
So if getting a parliamentary majority were the only concern in the negotiations, they would presumably produce some sort of customs union plan, with whatever bells and whistles the respective parties feel they need to get their own waverers on board. Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. Any move by one party towards another will likely lose more votes than it gains. Worse, any concession would likely lose votes in the electorate. A further wrinkle for Labour is that right now Brexit is a Tory problem (rightly, it was their idea) but if they sign up to a deal then they will be taking some share of responsibility for the outcomes of that deal. On the other hand, if either party walks out of the talks they look like they’re putting party above country.
So there’s no incentive to abandon the talks, but there’s no real incentive to make an actual deal either - or rather, the incentives to make a deal are dwarfed by the disincentives to make any particular deal. The talks will therefore continue, but are unlikely to get us anywhere.
In the meantime, we will be having elections to the European Parliament, on the off-chance that we haven’t left the EU by the end of June. I think both parties are braced for a kicking here, as voters take out their frustrations by opting for minor parties. There is a good chance that the elections will be seen as simply a chance to express a view on Brexit. The pro (hard) Brexit parties seem better placed to take advantage of this, not least because one of them is called The Brexit Party which is admirably clear, while the various pro Remain/Soft Brexit parties (Lib Dems, Change UK, Greens) are a) varied and b) not so clearly labelled and c) are either actual parties with a range of policies on many different issues, not single-issue campaign vehicles, or so new as to be inchoate. On the other hand, there are some suggestions that pro-Brexit voters are increasingly disillusioned and apathetic, whereas anti-Brexit voters are more energised, so turnout might favour Remain/Soft Brexit parties.
Those elections are on 23rd May, so if the parties are waiting for a clear signal from the electorate, they’ll be waiting a month (and might not get one.) We continue on, paralysed, plan-less, politically petrified, punting the can down the road one more time.
Which reminds me of another ill-thought out geopolitical project that badly failed to live up to delusional expectations, resulted in conservatives either going loony or quiet and energized their opponents: The Iraq war. When it became clear it was a clusterfuck with a lot of pain no matter what, you didn’t hear much from neocons anymore. Even Christopher Hitchens had the decency to get himself waterboarded; I like to think he was inspired by religious self-flagellation.
Now that I think about it, the US South and the Nazis must also have become disillusioned and apathetic when it became clear theirs was not just a lost cause but was always going to be doomed to become ash heaps of history.
I’m not seeing that here.
As a lurker who has found this thread incredibly informative and fascinating, can I take a second to thank all of our European correspondents for this thread? I’ve learned far more here than from all other sources on Brexit. Your explanations, knowledge, insights, and occasional humor have made this one of the best ever threads on the SDMB.