There is much naming and blaming in the Sunday papers today. But it's to no avail now. We all know who lied. As much as we also know who is only in Brexit for themselves now. We're past blaming, at least for the time being.
We are past stats too. 4.8 million signatures; 1 million marchers and 200 with Farage says it all on that issue. Enough minds have changed. That debate is over.
What we need now is action. From MPs. This week.
Meaningful vote 3 has to fail.
May has to be removed from office.
Parliament has to be given a choice that can lead - even if it requires alternative voting - to a decision.
What will they decide?
We know it will not be May.
And we know it will not be No Deal.
I don't see a general election as being on offer.
I can see a second referendum.
I can see the need to determine the leave option, which would have to be offered.
And I can see that being Norway+ (please look it up).
I also can see a two-stage vote. Revoke, Norway+ and No Deal in Stage 1. Then the top 2 in stage 2, a week later. This is French Presidential style voting.
No, we have had nothing like that before. But we have not been anywhere like this before.
And do I think unconventional outcomes possible as a result?
Yes, I do. Why? Because Bercow knows parliament does not want to crash out and does not want May. So he will do all he can to let parliament decide. This is what taking back control means. It means parliament decides.
So the only question to ask is ‘what will Bercow do?'
I suggest he will allow inductive votes that have the intention of delivering a decision.
I think he will let emergency legislation to deliver the will of parliament to be delivered, whoever tables it.
And he will not suffer opposition from a government so far from office that its only function is to be an obstacle to progress.
I do think May will go.
I do think we will get a power-sharing, and possibly national emergency government, led by people who will in all likelihood only ever serve this one time.
I do think April 12 will pass without us leaving.
Because I do think we will begin to see plans emerging by next weekend, and be finalised the week after.
And I do think we will vote again.
And we will have to be bound by the vote. Come what may this time.
I do not know what the vote will be.
I do know it could be leave.
I doubt it. I suspect it will be a Norway style deal. And that this will let us leave the international stage for many years to reorganise the nation (literally), our politics, our international relations and much else.
But we will decide. Because in the end we must.
And I remain of the view that Bercow alone can deliver this.
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PS: Bercow, as I learned last week, is the one politician who continental Europe thinks has come emphatically well out of all this.
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Norway Plus for me.
BTW – No Deal should never have existed on just a 4% difference between the vote. This was not a GE. OK folks? I understand there are calls for a public enquiry into BREXIT. I don’t know about you but I demand one. It’s got to be. The history that will emerge will I think help the world to understand how the UK went Ga-Ga between 2010-2019. But it will also help democracies deal with the anti-democratic dark forces in this world. And also show politicians the world over that you cannot play with populism without getting hurt.
Norway Plus leaves open possible re-integration in the future much on the terms we have now (no Euro please). And although the French seem to have had enough of us, other significant others have indicated their patience.
The internal scrum between the factions of the Tory party is not the concern of this country. It never was and never should have been. Let that scrum collapse and let it damage them forever. Good!
The country comes first.
It always has. It always must.
Now we know what it is like to go into black hole it seems? It’s going to be one of hell of ride even though it has been one already!
We also need to support the Speaker in my view at this time. Write and support him, encourage him I say.
Other than these comments I concur with everything you have said. I have had to say something because the tension is now building to crescendo I think.
Bercow? The Corporal Nym of the present House of Commons? Heaven or hell preserve us.
I disagree: the one key player who has, depicted his reported flaws, definitely risen in stature in this debacle
Demetrius
Bercow has a propensity for grandeur and has failings like any normal human being like you and me, but looking back at past speakers, I do not see any of those in my time being able to cope and deal with this most divided of parliaments and a slippery Government/Prime Minister as well as he has done.
You know that old saying (something like) “there is no such thing as extra ordinary people – just ordinary people finding themselves in extra-ordinary circumstances”.
Bercow has stepped up to the plate in my view. And he needs to keep doing so for all our sakes.
Sometimes we cannot choose our heroes; events choose them for us.
Agreed
Bercow has fulfilled his obligations as Speaker (which is the only matter of relevance). The test of this is that he is there; and there has been no obvious, managed or concerted attempt to unseat the Speaker, or bring motions of ‘no confidence’ in him to the House that would embarrass him into resignation. Clearly he has the Confidence of the House, and that is the final, telling test.
Who in Parliament with any claim to judgement, would even want to replace him in the middle of this crisis with a new, wholly inexperienced Speaker? Clearly, and very wisely not enough of his peers; outside Parliament the Brexit press would love to remove him, but fortunately they do not have a vote. Inside the Commons, probably the Leader of the House would wish to remove him, but this is a ‘Leader’ with very few followers, and who has not notably risen to the challenge of her Office, actually to represent the interests of the House in Cabinet.
Can you imagine how much worse this mess would have been with a craven lickspittle in the seat instead? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
If this is his political swansong (and I think we all know it is) then it is majestic.
His manner reminds me of that immensely freeing feeling you have on your last day in a miserable job; you can treat the executive with the distinct lack of deference they truly deserve and essentially call these people out on their bullsh*t.
On the very brief list of plus points to this woeful saga (which includes the public, bruising demise of the nasty party), we can add the ascension of Bercow to constitutional protector.
🙂
I agree with John Warren. Leasdom’s total failure in her role has been the exact opposite to Bercow’s determined mastery of his – and, in a way, that rather sums up this parliament and this government – a slippery and bigoted executive set on ignoring parliamentary and democratic norms and a parliament so lacking in confidence and principle that it has had to be protected and led by a firm parental hand in order to find its feet.
However, while I agree that Bercow’s role now will be critical, I am less sure that he will succeed than Richard, who seems to have swung from deep, realist pessimism to a degree of hope he has not shown for some months. I’m sure that we are on a much better place than a week ago but May – and her craven ministers – are already showing signs of not getting the message.
May NOT bringing the deal back, suggests anolther burst of time wasting; the reports of her overthrow are leaking away like tepid bathwater; the list of supposedly indicative votes which the Business Secretary was happily saying they’d “bring forward” are already beginning to smell like an attempt to prove that there is only going to be May’s ‘deal’ left – given that she is holding back the vote on it.
This government has proved, time and time again, that their word is never, ever to be trusted. Anything other than either a Referendum on May’s deal v. Remain OR a revocation of Article 50 is a will-o-the-wisp which May will snuff out in a moment of all powerful primeministerial temper. We have proved unworthy of her – and our punishment will be her assisting the Breximaniacs in delivering us into a no deal on 12th April.
So, I agree that Bercow is critical – but the one essential to reaching either of those simple alternatives – Referendum or Revocation – is that May must go, and very quickly. How bitterly ironic that, in an era of rising knife crime, the Tory Party’s uncharacteristic reluctance to reach for the dagger is our most immediate danger.
As I understand it, a legally binding referendum would come within the usual electoral law; therefore, any breaches (financial or other impropriety) could render the result null and void. I would want to examine futher the constitutional implications of a legally binding refrendum because it unseats Parliament’s consitutional supremacy.
In my view there should not be another referendum until The House has debated and responded to the recent Select Committee report on social media.
And therefore in the mean time, A50 should be rescinded and we should have at least a long, well organised good bye with a Norway Plus deal.
A good departure is what we need in order to set ourselves up for going in another time. But not now.
I still think that a Norway Plus scenario is the most natural one for the UK at the moment and in the near future until diseases like ‘Controlofourlawsandborderitis’ and ‘NHSMillionsmania’ are brought under control and eradicated.
I am not sure there is such a thing as a legally binding referendum. Sovereignty lies solely with Parliament.
I was stunned to read you saying that you think a national government will form. It would almost certainly be best for that to happen, but I see no way that it would be possible. Maybe the numbers in principle are there in the Commons, but I am at a loss as to who they could all rally behind for any length of time, even if the sufficient size of this bloc were taken as read.
So I’m intrigued to learn that you think it’s not just possible, but (I infer) likely. What’s your thinking behind this? What is, as you see it, the path to a national government?
Right now I would imagine it lasting months, at most
It would prevent No Deal
And guide us to a longer postponement
And then EU elections
And a general election
That would be it
Simply an emergency government
Your scenario looks so reasonable that I fear it cannot be allowed to be true – and the one certain obstacle to your timetable – and to any ‘solution’, referendum/revocation/or whatever, is the fixed point of the European Elections. They must be held as already published and the European Parliament will not be constituted legitimately, with the UK still a member of the EU, if there are no UK elections to that Parliament. Therefore, whatever is done MUST include our participation in the EU Parliament Elections – and the April 12 date cannot be moved.
These 18 days (counting today) are the last days. There is no more time – unless we either Revoke or accept taking part in the European elections and secure EU agreement to why we wish to go beyond them,most probably for a new Referendum. Why else would they agree to more time?
“And he will not suffer opposition from a government so far from office that its only function is to be an obstacle to progress.”
They were literally a thousand or so votes (in the right areas) from having a majority of one. Why are Remainers so eager to throw Corbyn under the bus when he doesn’t do what they demand? And then they have the nerve to be outraged when they get labelled as spoiled children having a temper tantrum! When Labour ‘moved’ to the second referendum – which had been policy since September – the hardcores over at the Guardian couldn’t praise him fast enough. There are many words to describe that type of behaviour, the politest of which would be ‘fickle’.
Fickle is the word I would use about Corbyn
And Morecambe is the one word explanation
Not as fickle as the British electorate in my view.
Maybe best if Corbyn kept out of it Richard?
He’s damned if he does; damned if he doesn’t.
And if his absence indicates his ambivalence to the EU, then his is part of a long tradition of ambivalence in the Labour party over Europe.
It is an issue that has always caused unease Left and Right. Corbyn is not an exception to that trend Richard.
“And Morecambe is the one word explanation”
When we need Wise we get Morecambe 🙂
So it goes.
Apparently Adonis is going to mention revocation in the Lords today:
http://blog.spicker.uk/the-clock-has-run-down-revocation-is-the-best-option-left/
This is at least as reasonable an analysis as any I’ve seen, but in focusing on what Bercow may or may not do it leaves to one side something altogether murkier going on behind the scenes.
a) The new ‘centrist’ movement being funded by Ali Campbell and Peter Mandelson, who also helped fund and organize the so-called People’sVoteUK is an end-run round Labour to effectively buy a middle-ground party that can dominate any government of national unity (in reality no such thing).
b) The determination of the TINGE group to avoid any kind of by-election or GE whilst trying to control any coalition government would effectively constitute an anti-democratic coup by old Blairite stalwarts.
c) If Ali and Peter succeed in their aims of subverting the leave process (using the same mysterious offshore sources of money that set up TINGE and in which we can only assume Tony Blair is involved) through the setting up of a coalition government, my guess is that you can say good bye to MMT and any hopes at all of getting a Green New Deal/Green QE going..
d) A ‘government of national unity’ (aka the Second Coming of Tony Blair) will be neoliberalism unleashed, as Chuka’s business-as-usual manifesto makes clear, and then we will be truly fucked…
Just saying…
I have no desire Fir that, as would I hope be obvious
But this is a national crisis
I still see a remote possibility of May’s deal passing. Especially if she says that she will resign on 12 April if it passes. I now think May’s Deal put to a 2ndEURef as the most likely outcome.
However, there will be an almighty battle about what it will be up against. It should be against Remain — the narrowness of the victory in 2016 means that if we Brexit it should be a soft as possible and it should be against the best possible economic deal, which is of course the one we have; however, I don’t discount the possibility that No Deal could be the other choice or there being a more complicated AV Referendum with Leave, May and Remain as the options.
We have already seen Fox and Barclay push back on the indicative votes saying that the result can be ignored, I think it is possible that with a combination of further can kicking, cabinet resignations, HoC filibustering and other shenanigans that no deal/crash out could be attempted.
If No Deal becomes the clear trajectory then a No Confidence motion will be forced and won. That will not be a solution in its own right as there is no time for a general election to save the UK in the timeframe — May will remain as PM during the process. May could try and appoint someone to replace her as PM — Liddington possibly — to see if he can win a confidence motion. He may win that, but we could be on the precipice by then and anyway, a fight will ensue in the Tories as they try and install a Boris Rees-Mogg type.
This will be the time for a Government of National Unity, which could win a confidence motion and Grieve/Benn as leader with Cooper/Letwin as deputy. They would revoke A50. The problem doesn’t go away then, it is just hurled a couple of years down the road. There would be a massive reconfiguring of the political parties, which would see the Lib Dems disappearing and being absorbed into a new Centre party, the Tories evolving into UKIP and Corbyn’s Labour retaining its name but losing its broad church and effectively becoming the SWP. The Scots will just go independent.
This country is currently like that scene in the film Carry on up the Jungle, where are ‘heroes’ dig a big hole to trap some camp invaders but forget to take their ladders with them and end up trapped themselves.
Hi, Richard
Answer me this, are we not faced with an extreme Right Wing Government at the moment, is this not the type of individual who can be locked up for extreme Right Wing beliefs, and why is no one saying this?
Christopher
Do you not think that we come across as a right wing nation these days? I think that we do, especially in our media and the way too many politicians come across.
And I will give Corbyn his due: for all his weaknesses he does not set the public against itself like May, Osbourne and Cameron have. There is something to be said for that.