Will Theresa May go today? Who knows, as yet?
But, and I think it has to be noted, we will regret her doing so. Deeply unsuited to the job she has in almost every way, I suspect that she has retained her Remain conviction throughout her period in office. For all the stupidity (and I choose the word with care) of her ‘No Deal is better than a bad deal' mantra, her actions suggest she never convinced herself. The temptation she must be suffering to simple revoke Article 50 and then go today must be enormous.
And she must know this is really the last chance anyone has to prevent a Hard Brexit. Her replacement will promote a Hard Brexit as an ideal. And all they have to do is literally nothing to ensure it happens. If they bring no statute to parliament before 31 October, and nothing requires them to do so, then no amendment can be tabled to stop us leaving. And nothing that I am aware of in the House of Commons standing orders will let the Opposition or a back bencher table a Bill to prevent it. So by mere passage of time any new PM can deliver No Deal. And I think they will.
I wish I thought this other than inevitable.
I wish May would succumb to a last temptation to do the right thing with her office.
But she won't do that. And Hard Brexit will follow.
After which, let me assure all Lexiteers, there will be no upsurge of socialist support in which Corbyn will be swept to power. A government fully committed to a fascist narrative, that it will only amplify when in power, will exist. The EU will be the enemy. Any woes we suffer will be their fault. The rhetoric will be ramped to war level. And very dark days will arrive very soon. The idea that Jeremy Corbyn will have any ability to counter this is, I am afraid, laughable unless Labour moves to a firmly pro-European stance.
The hard-establishment, far-right elite - those who those supposedly wanting Brexit most despised - will have power. And they will not be letting it go. Every fevered plan that those in that elite thought of in their undergraduate days, to privatise and to slash and destroy the state, will now be rolled out. And, yes, I do now foresee tax haven England.
May was utterly incompetent. But we now face at least three years of something worse. The price will be enormous.
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Richard you seem to be assuming that a right wing clown such as Boris Johnson would be immune to a confidence motion. I’m not so sure. I think that there are enough Tories terrified of a no deal to make a vote of no confidence successful.
If they have just elected him? I can’t see it happening….
Robert Peston predicts that BoJo will become Tory Leader and thus PM but fail to secure a working majority in Parliament (as one-nation Tories split off). That will lead to an Autumn election in which Farago will stand and after the election a Farago / Tory coalition with Farago appointed as Minister of something or other. So shades of Autumn 1932 in Germany. Nobody took him very seriously either and Hindenburg (President) and von Paulen (Chancellor) thought they could control him.
That’s my fear
You never or rarely mention soft Brexit as a likely outcome. It’s always no-deal or revoke, swinging from one extreme to the other. Yet, the MPs’ indicative votes had soft Brexit options as by far the most preferred. So why not a repeat of the indicative votes with a soft Brexit outcome?
Because why do something so stupid that no one wants?
100% so far. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/24/theresa-may-steps-down-resigns-tory-leader-conservative-brexit
Did not the Supreme Court, on March 29th this year, rule that the referendum was only advisory and not mandatory after an appeal by the Leave Campaign to a previous decision was lost, as otherwise it would have been subject to Electoral Commission rules which would have rendered, especially the leave campaign, behaviour in funding and other aspects as suspect and which could have nullified the result?
However, why was there so little publicity in either the media or by politicians, especially remainers. drawing attention to this?.
Would proper publicity not have given Theresa May et al the opportunity to hold another referendum, as the previous one was ruled as only advisory and the result so divisive, with both leave and remain campaigns being been subject to the appropriate scrutiny by the Electoral Commission in line with the Supreme Court ruling?
Or would the Leave Campaign have appealed to The European Court of Justice? Oh the irony!
Very good questions
The establishment do not want to recognise this corruption
I am baffled as to why Labour do not talk about it all the time
The results of the EU election are likely to reinforce the point made about Farago and the danger he presents. His is a slick and clever machine and appeals in the gut to a considerable number of voters. The point is, even a second referendum, with Farago bouyed by EU Poll success and untrammelled by such niceties as truth and evidence could (will?) swing it NO again.
Here’s something to consider now that May has resigned. Is the 31st October leave date set in stone? The EU gave this extension to allow the UK time to pass the withdrawal agreement with progress is to be reviewed at a European Council meeting in June. If Boris or another Brexiteer wins sometime in late June/early July and declares it is their intention to re-negotiate the WA, something the EU has already rejected given the UK’s red lines, then I would expect their first meeting with Barnier to be about 5 minutes long. Not even as long as David Davies and his infamous “argument of the summer” which lasted a few hours. What then? The UK will have made its decision of a no deal hard Brexit as the default. What if the Eu then informs us to leave as soon as possible given that the UK has made its decision. Say, within 10 days. The extension was called a “flextention” and I assume it works both ways. In this scenario there’s no reason for the EU to give the UK any extra time up to 31st October to prepare for no deal and it gives the EU the additional bonus of saying goodbye to farage and his Brexit Party ilk. Let the Brexiteers reap what they have sown. Of course, the EU might want that extra time to prepare themselves, but it will certainly concentrate the minds of the new Brexiteer PM to be faced with the reality of a hard Brexit in days rather than months.
No one is talking about this, but it is complacent to believe that the 31st October is a given considering the direction the UK looks to be taking and the reasons why the extension was given in the first place.
Possible…
But unlikely, I think
The EU does not want to be seen to be expelling the UK
Richard – I applaud the decent way with which you have dealt with May in this post but I cannot match it.
Having seen the reviews of what she has said whilst in office and considering what the party she leads has done to the people of this country I do not think that even her gender excuses her from receiving nothing but the most utter and deep condemnation of the hardest and unkindest nature.
If Cameron was a wally, then she is even worse – I mean we hear of Corbyns’ failings – but it’s May’s blindness and self certainty that will usher in the new fascist dark age we are mulling over – of that I am certain.
May hasn’t just failed: she has done much worse – to me she has failed on purpose – like a kamikaze pilot being shot to pieces and then missing the target and crashing uselessly into the sea without wavering or trying a new line of attack because they are convinced that they are on some form of ‘divine mission’. Woeful. Irresponsible. Unrealistic.
And yes – whose next? Hardly the best hand I’ve ever seen in a game of cards.
Just a thought but if Boris were elected, I wonder if he could get that deal, a second referendum or a Norway deal through parliament as he is a leaver but always wanted a close relationship with the EU. Like Nixon going to China. I saw that in a blog post somewhere that that might have happened if Gove or Johnson became PM instead of May in 2016. May as a remainer had to throw down red lines and the ERG are suspicious of her. Bojo could say: ‘I’m a leaver but I’d be happy with this.’
I doubt it
And the EU will not be playing ball