Friday's are teaching days for me this term. I like teaching. I like students. They seem to like me. Although that said, I am not sure that Friday's, teaching and students always mix as well as they might. Students seem to have an MP's attitude to Friday afternoons: they'd rather be somewhere else. And today most MPs will be in their constituencies, because Brexit cannot keep them legislating. What I do hope is that time away from Westminster gives them some time to reflect on what we may have we learned this week.
First, No Deal is a non-starter.
I have to say I think a People's Vote is as well, at least right now. Maybe not forever, but certainly right now.
Then, Parliament can't even decide to decide what it wants.
But it does know it wants to delay doing that, with the EU's permission.
And in the meantime it fully expects to reject May's deal again next week.
After which she will just have to plead for an extension on the basis of saying something.
But she will not be following Vince Cable's precedent by announcing her departure, which is a shame because her Commons performances were even worse than his this week, and his were not good.
Despite which, I think he pretty much held his party together, and that is the last thing the Tories did. To describe them as dishevelled and split asunder is to be overly kind. There is literally no discipline left. And no apparent philosophy left in common. Even the cabinet is openly riven.
Despite which the public still apparently prefer the idea (rather, perhaps, than the reality) of the Tories much more than they do Labour.
And when all is said and done, May is still running this process. Quite extraordinarily, despite having lost votes in her deal twice and having literally no control of her government, her ability to set the parliamentary agenda means that she will still table her deal again next week.
So the truth is that for all the shenanigans of this past week we have hardly progressed one iota from last week. Her plan remains the only one in town. Except she is now asking for Brexit day to be 30 June, not 29 March. And uncertainty has increased a bit because we have no idea what the EU will say in response, but I suspect very strongly that they will consent.
What else do we know that we did not? Nothing really. Apart from the fact that we are as a country out of control, without an effective government, facing crises on all fronts, led by a prime minister whose ability to listen, negotiate and deal, let alone comprehend, is almost non-existent.
And Bercow might still have to guide us through this.
It's a mess.
And what is astonishing is that after a week of debate it is effectively the same mess. We went nowhere.
What a way to run down a country.
If the government was a company it would be in administration.
If it was a local authority it would have been relieved of its responsibility.
And if a public agency its management would long ago have been sacked.
But a government can just blunder on. And without an effective opposition also able to hold its party together that's what it will keep doing.
And so the rundown will continue.
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The big lesson that must be learnt is that this must not happen again. Ever.
The FTPA needs to be repealed for a start and then there must be a mechanism for unlocking such scenarios written into the Parliamentary processes.
It seems that Parliament is now living in a world of its own, propelled by MPs whose lives are mostly more shielded from reality anyway.
Mind you, if you think we have problems, look what happened in New Zealand over night.
Shocking and thought provoking.
MP’s appear to have as many votes on the issue as needed yet w only got the one.
I am not entirely convinced that the EU 27 will come together and agree an extension if its true that Farage and some Tories have been in Europe trying to get support from Countries to vote against extension.
Then we just have to hope….
Mmmmmm…………BREXIT is going to hurt the EU as much as us.
I ask you, who would not want more time? The more messy it is, the more damage will be done to all parties. This needs to be a long goodbye – it will help everyone.
Farage’s rant the other day at the Council meeting may have pissed the EU off in equal measure but I think that they know that Farage does not speak for the whole of the UK.
The UK has not got enough trade deals to cover what we might lose.
Why?
Because the non-EU trading partners are waiting to negotiate more self beneficial deals if the UK crashes out of the EU – that’s why. They will have us over a barrel using the potential backlash of disrupted supply streams to push into one-sided deals.
What are you talking about? We have just got a deal with Fiji!!!
And I believe we have had a deal with the Faroe Islands for quite some time.
It’s all going to be fine, I tell you! Liam Fox is racking up the deals already.
Note as this is the internet. “Irony Alert”.
🙂
I imagine the EU will happily grant us an extension on the sound basis they don’t want Steve Bannon leering at them from as close as Dover, which is what I’m sure they anticipate after a no deal Brexit.
More important, what a way to ruin a planet.
School strike 4 climate is happening today in 2052 places in 123 countries on all continents, including Antarctica. https://twitter.com/hashtag/SchoolStrike4climate?src=hash with 20,000 are already on the streets of Melbourne.
“UN report finds temperature rise is ‘locked in’ for Arctic” 13 March 2019
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/433886-un-report-finds-globe-is-past-the-point-of-halting-temperature-rise?utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter
The climate is paramount. EU laws are good enough to start dealing with the real crisis. Existing MPs should revoke article 50 and declare a climate emergency. Children’s lives matter. It’s time to do what Greta Thunberg and the children demand: ‘Unite behind the science’.
Exactly. It might sound undemocratic but any responsible government or opposition would be arguing for the revocation of Article 50. There is a much, much bigger issue at stake and we simply do not have the time to waste on years of trade negotiations, when all our efforts should be focused on organizing society around a rapid decrease in carbon emissions.
We came within a couple of votes (I think -it’s hard to keep track) of the House taking control of the process.
Surely Parliament should find a form of Brexit which has the broadest acceptance ( only need the withdrawal agreement when we go for serious negotiation ) It should then be costed and an impact assessment issued. They’ve been going over the raw data for 2.5 years. Then there should be an in depth neutral information TV program nightly for two weeks. THEN the choice should be put to a referendum. After the result we can then return to party politics and the change we need.
“And so the rundown will continue.”
The final outcome of the week’s pantomime of the grotesque at Westminster is…………… “No Change”
If this is Parliamentary democracy, it’s time for an alternative.
I’ve always been of the view that the whole project of leaving the EU was doomed to failure from the moment someone first uttered the words “Brexit Means Brexit”.
That phrase means precisely nothing. Zip. Nada. The square root of f**k all. And yet because it was said with conviction, people were fooled into believing there was a strategy, if not a plan. Well, it’s clear now that there wasn’t and there never could be.
Here are the key facts as they have been determined to date –
1) May’s deal is the only one the EU will countenance.
2) Parliament will not countenance May’s deal and nobody’s presenting an alternative in any case.
3) An extension to the A50 date therefore CANNOT achieve anything
4) Parliament will not accept a “no deal” scenario
Draw a flowchart and follow it. The only result there can be – desirable or otherwise – is that A50 is rescinded and the whole misguided project goes back to the drawing board.
That might mean another referendum (please… for God’s sake, no… this is not a matter for The People. If we asked The People whether or not we should have the death penalty we’d be building gallows at Tyburn the following morning. That wouldn’t make the death penalty right.). It might mean a General Election – although what the point of that would be I don’t know. The ethos of the entire political class at the moment seems to be “They can’t break you if you don’t have a spine”. We would need a government with the cahoneys to stand up to the people and do what’s best for the country. I don’t think we’ve a stable of representatives that can provide that kind of leadership. Although in fairness, a GE might mean we have only an ineffective government, as opposed to the current ineffective government that happened to give us lovely things like Windrush. B*****ds.
What it can’t mean is pressing on with “Brexit” no matter what.
If we feel we need to leave the EU, then so be it… but we need to accept that the process of leaving is going to take years – literally YEARS – of intense preparatory negotiations with trading partners around the globe to ensure minimum damage is done. We can’t do that with a 3 month extension to A50. If anyone thinks we can, they’re deluded. Wilfully deluded.
That’s why I think cancellation of A50 is not only the most likely outcome, but it’s inescapable.
I have to disagree
May’s deal is the only one they will countenance with her bred lines attached to it
They would countenance other deals
Quite so Richard.
Fair enough – but remove May’s red lines (no single market, no customs union) and you’ve got BRINO. Frankly, that’s pretty much the same as being in and I’m OK with that.
Anyways, my view is simply that. Others are available! Who knows what other bits can fall off this clown car before the final custard pie is thrown?
And if this continues we’ll all be on the ‘bred line’ 😉 (Freudian slip?!)
Geerakay has a point – one shared in that most remarkable of all the amendment partnerships yesterday, Angus Brendan MacNeil and Ken Clarke.
If the House sticks to rejecting ‘no Deal’ – and the slender majority for that can only grow the more it looms – AND it still doesn’t want May’s deal (entirely the fault of her red lines, I agree) then road will run out and only revocation by parliamentary vote will remain. (Sadly, I agree that a new public vote won’t get past the present shower of frit and self-serving MPs – and this will mean that they will have ‘used up’ the possibility of an extension for that purpose, with May’s piddling, short one.) For the Commons – in the increasingly stark glare of publicity, which any extension will only ramp up yet further – deliberately to bring about a ‘no Deal’ exit would plunge the entire political establishment so deep in public obloquy it might never emerge again. Then, your most extreme anxieties of public mayhem might well come to pass. That would be, even for this lot, unthinkable. Only revocation – with whatever excuses, finger-pointing and downright lies – would remain.
As I’ve said before, one can only dream – the alternatives are nightmares.
On a lighter point, I shared your love of teaching on Fridays and eventually I think my students bore it as a distinctive badge of pride. I recall that during one testy piece of college politics, a management paper appeared which seemed to create a new category of (heavy capitals) SENIOR STAFF to whom various extended powers were to be attached and a colleague with deliberate unhelpfulness queried who these might be. Equally unhelpfully I suggested it was obviously those who taught on Friday afternoons. 🙂
🙂
I have students wanting to see me all afternoon today: essay deadlines are looming!
There is talk in some quarters of a prolonged extension. 24 months would take the Brexit process through to 2021. 5 years. That is the length of time between general elections. General Elections are held every five years (or less) because it is recognised that the electorate may have changed their minds about who they want to govern the country. Perhaps in five years since the referendum, the electorate may have changed their minds about Brexit. In any case, after 5 years, a substantial % of the people who voted brexit will be dead, and a substantial % will be the young who had not voted last time and who may feel that their lives should not be determined in a referendum made at a time they were too young to vote. The Brexit referendum had been advocated by those who objected to the destiny of Britain being determined by a vote held in 1976; they could not, therefore, object to a referendum held in 2021 that was to confirm or contest the 2016 decision.
They could
They will
They should not
But should is not in their lexicon
An oppositions primary purpose is to oppose. The government must shoulder 100% of the blame for not accepting the reality of their being a minority administration.