I watched the BBC Parliament channel for longer than was probably good for me last night.
May was humiliated. I could say ritually humiliated, since it was so predictable.
And then four things happened that should not have done.
First, she still claimed control of the parliamentary agenda.
Second, she proposed a motion for today that appears to pave the way for a third ritual humiliation for her proposed deal, because she still thinks that is what the country wants.
After which Andrea Leadsom refused to give any guidance on what length of extension to Article 50 parliament will be allowed to vote on.
And fourth, Jeremy Corbyn failed to seize the moment. He offered his own unicorn deal which has no chance whatsoever of being agreed by the EU when what he should have done was explain how the Opposition would get us out of the mess we're in, given that there is now no effective government.
To describe May's behaviour as diabolical is to be kind. Rarely has a person in public office appeared so deluded. She has only one duty left, and that is to resign. But I doubt it has even occurred to her to do so.
To describe Coirbyn's behaviour as a spectacular own goal is to also be kind. He had a duty to offer options that can be acted upon now. As such he should have talked about an immediate plan of action, not his 'deal' for which no one has any more enthusiasm than they have for May's. So a long extension; a People's Vote and renegotiation with an open agenda were what he should have been discussing. But he too came with a closed mind.
Whilst Leadsom showed contempt for the House, which the SNP and some Labour backbenchers out of favour with the leadership were most willing to point out.
It was a deeply depressing experience because not only have we no effective government left in the UK, what does pass for government is seeking to destroy the country, quite literally. And whilst that is happening the Leader of the Opposition is not apparently able to put forward an alternative plan of action.
The country is now utterly rudderless.
With luck MPs will amend May's motion today so that a third vote on her deal is ruled out as emphatically as No Deal should be.
And then tomorrow one has to hope that they will vote for any extension of Article 50 that the EU might be willing to offer.
The last point is important. The EU know there is no chance of a Brexit deal before May 23 when EU parliament elections have to be held. The UK government, and it would appear Labour, are desperately anxious to avoid such elections even though they now appear to be essential. In that case I strongly suspect that the EU will offer at least a 21 month extension to Article 50 on condition that elections are held, always providing that parliament is given the option to leave early if it can agree to do so. That would be a clever move on their part. It is the move that might just save the UK from itself right now, when nothing else can.
We need time to sort out this mess.
Scotland needs time to decide what to do.
And in the meantime, the UK needs to stay in the EU. They are the closest thing we have to a friend right now.
But will Parliament be so wise as to go this way? Who knows.
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And still the Tories are 10 points clear in the latest opinion poll because of the fear of hard left Labour under momentum. A centre left alternative would absolutely clean up.
I regard myself as a “moderate” member of the Labour party.
That means that I believe in a genuine mixed economy, with judicious public ownership of natural monopolies, together with real, effective regulation of the private sector that protects consumers, employees and investors. I also believe in a properly funded, effective and properly humane welfare state. I believe in proper public investment, and that money and lives should not be criminally wasted in illegal wars.
On that basis, I cannot believe that the average voter would prefer the hard right or downright unicorn views of Chris “Austerity”Leslie or Chuka Ummuna, never mind the extremists that now characterize the Tory party.
@ Karl Greenall
Karl, I have to agree with you, but then I would as I’m a member of the Labour Party, and unashamedly on the Left, but certainly not “Hard Left” – a description hurled flabbily against Corbyn’s politics, when the 2017 Manifesto would have been regarded as centrist, and even Right of centre, by Attlee’s campaign teams in 1945 and 1950. At least Jason levels the charge against Momentum, though I believe Lansman’s real objective is to squeeze out pro-Palestinian voices from the Labour Party, and would be as happy to do that from the Right as the Left.
As to your point about the “Hard Right” Tory Party – and it is “Hard Right”, as Richard’s post on vandalism made clear – it beggars belief that they can be 10 points ahead, in view of their vandalism, made up of a mix of incompetence, cruelty, and delusional behaviour, and can only sadly agree with Richard’s criticism of Corbyn, for whom I have a lot of respect and liking.
But with only 16 Days to F-Day (Fall-out Day, when we fall out of the EU? Or F****-Up Day) on March 29th, we needed an immediate plan of action, not a recap of Labour’s proposals (which the EU have shown FAR more sympathy for, and which PM Corbyn, had he won in 2017, would probably have been agreed by now – or possibly not, given the “headless chicken” nature of the current Commons, offering a perfect example of Francis Bacon’s REAL experiment, when some headless chickens really did, I believe, run about briefly, before collapsing.)
As to your strictures on Umunna and the “unicorn” proposals they have come out with, including “National Service” for 16-year olds (presumably to tackle the NEETs problem = “Not in Education, Employment or Training”), and two proposals already comprehensively trashed by Richard
a) drawing back from renationalisation of natural monopolies, and the abolition of tuition fees, on the grounds of their being too expensive, so TOTALLY ignoring both MMT and the Multiplier, and
b) the idea of a hypothecated tax for the NHS!!!???
Not just rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, but assuring passengers that going full steam ahead we can outrun the effects of the collision, while offering lessons in swimming without a lifejacket!
Andrew
As is often the case, I find much to agree with there
Richard
I am not sure what you mean by ‘hard left’.
I think that it is quite an emotive term which means different things to different people.
Please can you define what you mean by your use of the term?
Thanks in advance 🙂
I always understood that politics was the art of the possible.
The current set of politicians – or at least most of them – are actually engaged in the art of the impossible.
Me too, Richard. Let’s get May out of the way first – would that we could in reality! Her death-grip on the premiership is hideous to behold. She has not the slightest sense of honour, still less of respect for principle or the constitution (such as it is/was). There has never been a worse PM – even Lord North knew when to go. Corbyn’s performance was utterly despicable and Barry Gardiner’s craven mumbling later on Newsnight – I wacthed in search of expiation – was straight from the whines of a kindergarten. On Channel 4, that great booby, Richard Burgon, chuntered on about an ‘extension’ only until early May! Ye Gods, I see why they need official cars, for they surely would find a bus route too challenging.
However, stupidity/incompetence is too kind a charge. They actually think that these childish posturings are their own route to power. Their motives are entirely selfish and are apparently so strong that they blind them to the obvious facts – namely that any Brexit will damage severely or very severely the lives of their constituents and the futures of the next generations of their country, and that their behaviour has turned the electors against them already, for they lag disastrously in the polls against the worst Tory government of all time. All of this is filtered out to enthrone their farcical claim to the fruits of office. The sight before us is nauseating.
The arrogant assumption that the EU will agree to whatever ‘extension’ the UK – government/parliament (who knows which) – asks for, is about to be tested to destruction. The only hope – I agree with you – is that the EU will insist on a real purpose for the extension, if granted. A sensible one, given the inability of the UK’s parliament to come to a conclusion, would be that the UK is obliged to put the current ‘deal’ – which is, after all, the EU’s deal as well as the hapless May’s – to the electorate in a fresh referendum – The Deal v. Remain. Alas, I suspect that would be bodge too far – though they might try wrapping it up by giving time only for EITHER a General Eelection OR a Referendum. One might as well,dream.
As to Scotland… we will go when the time and circumstances are right. The only certainty in all this stramash is that the Union is over. Only the timing, and the manner of the obsequies, remain to emerge.
And with regards to Scotland as a proud Englishman we will be glad to see you go
It would be good if there is a 21 month extension offered by the EU and that we have European Elections in which the UK takes a full part. As these elections are run on a proportional basis and not on the stifling first- past- the- post system of Westminster, it means that smaller parties including SNP, Plaid and Greens have a good chance of gaining seats seeing, as you have pointed out, that Tory and Labour are totally discredited in their handling of Brexit and havn’t a clue where to go from here. At least the smaller parties want to remain in the EU which is the only sane option. True there are crititisms that can be made of the EU but it would be easier to make improvements to the EU through the EU Parliament, Council of Minsters, EU Commission etc rather than the shambles and economic mayhem of a no deal crash out that the extreme right (ERG group and rightwards) are angling for.
It’s hard to know what else to say. It really is.
The only silver lining is that No Deal stands to be taken off the table – as it should be because it was never meant to be the end result – even by the BREXITERS themselves
No doubt the ERG will say that leaving at the end of March is law and we cannot mess with that (expect lots of activity and hot air around this point).
But why Parliament cannot listen to its own researchers and decide that BREXIT is a bad idea (and also rather dodgy) and stop it, is beyond me.
Going back to the people is seen as an act of Alexandrian proportions, but I do not think it is going to be as clinical as the great man himself was with the Gordian knot. It could be messier still.
That is my bone of contention with Parliament and Labour. BREXIT should be cancelled.
Time and time again I hear that we’ve had x amount of time to sort this out, when in fact what we have had is a change in information that seems to be ignored as well as a referendumb being treated like a binding GE result.
I can see that in better, more moral times, such a PM with so little credibility would have walked so I can see why Labour pursue say the GE route. Keeping Labour out is just as much part of Mays’ motivation as keeping her party together.
But in the end it comes down to our system of Government which might explain why we have groups of MPs seeing the situation in so many different ways.
Cancelling Brexit is the obvious thing to do
Labour should have the courage to say so
And in the meantime say it will fight European elections
You want to cancel Brexit as opposed to delay? Interesting. On what grounds? What if the EU insist on joining the euro? Or taking control of fiscal policy? Would you be happy with that? Think about the designs of the EU, ultimately they want control of monetary and fiscal policy and a federal Europe. Try putting your vested interest to one side for a moment.
The EU won’t do those things
Because there is no precedent for them doing so
And they do not want to do so
Why not relate to the world as it is?
“No precedent for them doing so”.. are you joking? Have you witnessed what happened with Greece?
Greece was in the euro by its own choice
We are not
And there is no requirement that we will be
We should cancel BREXIT Jason because the referendumb was conducted so badly – as badly as any foreign nation Britain has sent invigilators to during elections – usually African and South American countries where the ‘superior West’ and England with its ‘Mother of Parliaments’ was worried about democracy.
Examples of bad conduct include:
1) The infamous NHS bus – how much a week?
2) The fact that even Daniel Hannan was saying the BREXIT did not mean coming out of the trade zone
before the vote but now all of a sudden it does.
3) Mrs May declaring ‘BREXIT means BREXIT’ before Parliament had ratified the result (it was not her
decision).
4) Cambridge Analytica / Dominic Cummings and the illegal use of data mining on social media to send
out negative campaigning messages to boost Leave.
5) Why is a hard or no deal Brexit being considered when 48% wanted to stay? Surely a soft BREXIT is
really the only way to be truly democratic about the result?
6) Campaign funding – is there a Russian connection? Aaron Banks etc.
7) Racially motivated campaigning from UKIP?
8) Why are their members of Parliament such as Jacob Rees Mogg who are involved when they stand to
gain financially from leaving? Is that right?
9) Many voters are extremely ignorant of how the EU works and we should have had a proper debate about the EU before we left, and not treated it like a general election.
I could go on but really Jason we have not made a good job of this at all. We are a laughing stock.
The ‘mother of all parliaments’ of ours increasingly looks like Les Dawson’s caricature of matriarchy more like the ‘Mother in Law of all Parliaments’ I think.
Agreed
With Greece I was referring how the EU took over fiscal policy
Because they were in the euro
And had lied about their debts
We are not remotely in the same situation
If parliament votes to leave with no deal, that is that.
Otherwise, we need a government. We don’t have one now. That means a general election in very short order.
If that produces a government with a majority that can deliver something, good.
If not, we will need immediate electoral reform to transform parliament into something that can produce an effective government. This will have to be done in a matter of days not months.
The request for an extension to BREXIT can be made on the basis that this is what is going to be needed. maybe the EU will be generous. But I think a plan of that sort will be needed to convince them that we have a plan.
They must be sick of us. You can imagine Barnier’s heart sinking when May is back knocking on his door. Can we go over this again?
It appears that new depths of perfidy are being plumbed by May assisted by Gove.
According to a clash that has just taken place in the Commons, the only amendment which is unequivocal in taking ‘No Deal’ off the table is merely Caroline Spellman’s – already passed in the January debate – and that the government is whipping against it, while allowing a free vote on the Malthouse amendment in the name of May’s former toady Damian Green. The promise of a real vote to remove ‘No Deal’ has been trashed. May – and her party and government – are truly beyond despicable.
If this is the standard of probity today, we can only expect further and even more devious dishonesty tomorrow. That makes it seem extremely unlikely that anything will emerge in relation to an ‘extension’ which the EU – all 27 – would touch with a bargepole. This does indeed make ‘No Deal’ extremely likely – and the only alternative – as you rightly point out is the sanity of the revocation of Article 50. That would return the UK to the status quo ante – as the ECJ judgement in the ‘Scottish’ case made clear – so Jason can still his beating heart re the Euro.
Hi Richard. Apologies for this off topic.
I have no financial background, but have become more educated by following your blog for years.
I came across this today. Can you comment on its validity? It claims to calculate an individual’s contribution to the EU.
https://euworthit.uk/
Many Thanks
Bill
My instinct is it understates the sum, but not massively
I shake my head and wonder how it is that we have reached this stage of political chaos.
Could it be that we are where we are simply as a result of the will of a prime minister and close colleagues who have developed a slavish devotion to the result of the 2016 UK referendum?
I seem to recall that the same referendum is characterised by:-
1. It was an advisory referendum – not mandatory.
2. The Electoral Commission found many irregularities in the area of campaign funding in the run-up to the referendum. Some of these amounted to illegality, and, had the referendum been mandatory it would have been stuck down. Because of the purely advisory nature of the exercise this is not possible.
3. The UK-wide result was very close at 52%/48% and so should have been interpreted with extreme political caution. Such a result cannot, with reason, be considered an unquestioned mandate for action.
4. Two identifiably separate parts of the parliamentary union which is the UK, namely Scotland and Northern Ireland, voted by a substantial margin to remain in the European Union but this is treated as of no consequence. The Scottish Parliament in particular has been assiduous in its efforts to exercise a moderating influence while its every attempt to offer advice to the Westminster government has been at best ignored and at worst rudely repelled.
5. The information given to voters about the implications of leaving the EU was grossly inadequate to allow a meaningful public debate to take place. From memory, it was more akin to ‘show business’ than to in-depth political debate.
In light of all this it seems that the whole business of the so-called Brexit process is tinged with mass insanity. Watching the televised proceedings of the House of Commons over the past two days has, for me, only deepened this impression.
Having got this out of my system, I think I’ll just return to my enforced passivity and continue shaking my old Scottish head.
🙂
Well, well!!
Can we get much lower?
Yet another load of voting shenanigans tonight.
Tell me: Is this the most inauthentic Prime Ministerial personality ever, leading the most inauthentic political party of our times in one of the most inauthentic processes ever?
And then, on Channel 4 Nigel Farage’s rant got more airtime that Corbyn’s response to May’s taunting!!
I have been fortunate to read Hugo Young’s epic 1997 UK/Euro tale ‘This Blessed Plot’ and all I can say (besides recommending to you all that you get a copy) is that this issue has been a scab on an unhealed sore for a long time.
David Cameron came along and knocked that scab off and the pus has not stopped flowing since. It really is flowing everywhere and covering everyone and infecting the country.
We are only fit for intensive care, yet we carry on regardless making an enemy of our future.
Deplorable.