Explaining the Brexit Mess.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Dwoodward85


As an American I find the televised sessions of the House of Commons highly interesting and entertaining. Probably more than you would consider our congressional sessions.


I hope someone over there comes to a rational solution.

Oh I love American politics, I watched my first US Presidential race debate when Obama was running against Hillary and loved every minute. Ever since then I've been stung by the USPOTUS race bug. Love him or hate him but Trump vs Hillary was great to watch so yeah we probably both love to watch parliament and congressional sessions (always liked Ted Cruz, felt like he would make a good President).

And yeah I hope someone gets their head out of their rear and gets the job done. That's what I think we need a politician to step forward, not give a monkeys if he gets elected again and take charge and put things into motion and get it done so we can move on to getting this great nation going again.

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
a reply to: Willtell

One wonders if they don’t want a no-deal then why did the conservatives put in a no dealer as prime minister?

So this is an interesting question.

I actually really want to get into this but am a few whiskys too deep now and its getting late but there is interesting discussion that can be had around how Boris became PM

I'd be interested to hear it..when you're ready.

originally posted by: Willtell
a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

One wonders if they don’t want a no-deal then why did the conservatives put in a no dealer as prime minister?

The first PM we had began with "No deal was better than a bad deal" and ended

up three years later with a deal that was tantamount to not leaving at all

eg. transparently leaving in name only.


The current new PM seems to get it......that the people voted to leave at any

cost and he is not prepared to 'pussy foot' around the EU. who are very adept

at getting their own way.

a reply to: Willtell

One wonders if they don’t want a no-deal then why did the conservatives put in a no dealer as prime minister?

So the first thing to remember is that its not so much that they don't want a no-deal, some of them view a no-deal as the only sure path to a clean Brexit. However the question as to how Boris became PM is a interesting one, he actually attempted this back in 2016 after Cameron quit but he was unsuccessful in his leadership bid.

Very quickly the way this works is that after May quit there was a leadership contest for the next leader of the Conservative party and the next PM kicks off. The candidates (we started with 10) for the election stand and are voted on by the then 312 Conservative MPs in a series of votes in which the candidates with the least amount of votes are eliminated and others just quit the race. The first round basically got rid of 3 of the candidates with another quitting the race. Whats really interesting is what happens in the second round, somehow Rory Stewart (the only anti-no-deal candidate) gets a big bump in support of +18 votes yet in the next round this support suddenly crashes so something odd happened. It was tactical voting, Boris's supporters basically in round two voted for Stewart to take support away from one of Boris's biggest competitors Rabb leaving him at the bottom of the stack and so he was eliminated. I know its a bit complex.... but stick with me.

So they do a bit of tactical voting, the Boris camp know that they have enough votes that they can lend votes to other candidates to give them a boost thus eliminating a candidate that could be a threat to Boris. This goes on again in the third round. Its pretty much a dead cert that Boris is going to finish up top so we then essentially had MPs choosing who would be up against Boris in the last big vote. It was a choice between Gove and Hunt, Gove is a pretty popular guy (personally I think he would have been best for the job) so they want him out to give Boris a easier path to the leadership and again lend some votes to Hunt so Gove is eliminated.

Now we get to the big vote, its a choice between Boris and Hunt and all Conservative party members (not just MPs) get to pick so a little of 130,000 of them vote with Boris winning 66% of the vote. You see the thing is at this point there are a few factors at play, number one the Conservative party membership know that Hunt is not a popular guy, so part of the reasoning is that in a potential general election Boris is more likely to win. Another factor is that there are more hardcore Brexit supporters in the Torrie party that are also going to vote for him.

originally posted by: DISRAELI

If Brexit is carried through as a fait accompli, the immediate issue will be resolved.

The immediate issue will. The real issue won't.

The original analysis above missed out some important contextual points.

David Cameron couldn't give a monkey's toss about Brexit when he offered the referendum. He was the leader of a party that had been tearing itself apart for twenty years on ideological lines. Broadly speaking, the centrist wing of the party was pro-EU, socially liberal and believed strongly in the power of the market; the right wing of the party was anti-EU, socially conservative and believed even more strongly in the market. By offering the public a vote on EU membership, he was hoping to get a mandate to sideline the right and unite the mainstream of the party for a generation, long enough to shape Britain like Thatcher and Blair did. It was always primarily about the coherence and future of the Tory Party.

Theresa May stepped in with wto objectives. First, keep the Tory Party together. Second, deliver a version of Brexit that necessarily involved compromise. She called an election in 2017 to get a mandate for her vision and, like Cameron, she got her political teeth handed back to her in a cup. Cue the Tory Party at each other's throats and, significantly, the emergence of a really hard faction on the right that wanted to bury Cameron's legacy forever. The European Research Group is part of that faction - socially conservative, economically way beyond Milyon Friedman. Their preferred economist is Patrick Minford, who believes that you must destroy an economy in order to save it.

However, this kind of Tory Party is hugely unpalatable to the British public. British populism tends to the left, to a (non-existent) golden age when the state could keep crime down, fix the roads, pay your pension, house your kids and keep you in hospital for a week when you had your tonsils removed. Hence the Tory right's equivocation and smoke screens.

As if grasping the wrong end of two sh*tty sticks wasn't bad enough, May then had to deal with Parliament.

Now, British Constitution for Dummies page one, line one - Parliament is sovereign. The Government cannot act without Parliament's permission. End of.

Parliament decided to flex it's muscles and remind May who was in charge. The non-dom billionaires behind the pro-Brexit MSM in the UK started calling them traitors, enemies of the people, collaborators etc, stirring up controversy and muddying the political waters. Parliament, rightly, put it's foot down and forced Theresa May into a series of votes.

Remember, this is as much about Tory Party unity as Brexit. So Tory MPs vote in the interests of their own faction, often against their own leader. However, when the Party as a whole is threatened, they close ranks to keep the Opposition in its place. That's why so many MPs voted for and against the same proposition at different times.

Whatever you think of Theresa May, you have to give her credit for taking an old-fashioned moral approach and giving it her best shot. However, her approach put a serious strain on the integrity and coherence of her party: when it looked like the party was reaching a tipping point, she was strongly invited to leave.

Then we had the Tory leadership election. It was an interesting contest, with some refreshing candidates who spoke truth to power, but we ended up with a crowd pleaser as unelected Prime Minister. Not someone with a grasp of detail, Boris has since promised or implied all things to all people. Despite the state of our public finances and the global economy, we have been promised tax cuts and huge increases in public spending. We have been told that Britain is now going to play hardball with the EU, despite Brussels holding a clear and firm line since day one. We have been told that the backstop - proposed by British in case there is no technical solution to the Irish border conundrum - is undemocratic and unnecessary because we there are unspecified technical solutions we can use. We have been told that leaving under WTO rules will be fine, despite the head of the WTO telling us it would be a very bad idea. And so on.

The Tory Party is content. The centre of the Party is content with socially liberal Boris. The right of the Party is content with economically hard line Boris and his even harder cabinet. The whole party is happy because he looks electable.

So here we are, having voted in 2016 to take back democratic control and restore sovereignty to Parliament: an unelected PM with a less than useless parliamentary majority of one with no mandate for anything, let alone for a hard WTO-based Brexit, threatening to sideline our sovereign Parliament to deliver a Brexit that will unleash the violent economic forces that Patrick Minford and the like are so keen to see.

But the Tory Party is content. That's what it was all about all along and screw everyone else.

So what next? We will leave with no deal because, let's face it, Theresa May's offer was as good as Brexit could get. If Boris calls an election before we leave the EU, we have an even bigger constitutional crisis because he cannot tie Parliament's hands in future. If he calls an election after we leave the EU and the sh*t hits the fan, he stands a very good chance of sinking his own party.

If he pulls off a real stroke and wins the election, our troubles will really begin. The history of the last fifty or so years shows that serious economic turmoil brings a considerable social reaction. Thatcher gave the working class a kicking then dressed its wounds with North Sea oil money and EU grants. Boris doesn't have a big pot of money and the EU won't be giving us any more money. I was at a seminar last autumn where some serious players were predicting that the government, regardless of party, had little room for manoeuvre. It can't squeeze the poor any more because there is little left to squeeze. It can't squeeze the rich, particularly if we're looking at a Minford type economy that depends on the rich and global business interests to keep the economy fluid. That leaves the middle classes. Boris runs the risk of alienating them and, with an already disenfranchised working class and a demonised left, could see the country lurching to the far right - which runs against his social liberalism.

I'll put money on Boris using water cannons, like the ones he bought as part of his £1 billion vanity spending spree in London, and an increasingly militarised police to keep the British public in it's place.

So, yes, the immediate issue will be resolved when we leave on Hallowe'en. Everything else will be more disconcerting than ever.

originally posted by: Whodathunkdatcheese
Now, British Constitution for Dummies page one, line one - Parliament is sovereign. The Government cannot act without Parliament's permission. End of.

I will comment only on a couple of points. On the above, the formula I was taught (a long time ago) was "the Queen in Parliament" is the sovereign. That's why her consent is the third stage in passing a law. She can't be left out of the equation, if only as adjudicator and back-up when Parliament is in stalemate. Her co-operation will be vital, which is why the Remainers are apt to scream "unconstitutional!" if her co-operation goes in the direction they don't want.

The other point is the comment about Boris being "unelected". This is an irrelevant sneer, because NO Prime Minister has ever been elected in that sense. Not even at a General Election, because General Elections are about electing M.P.'s, not the Prime Minister who leads them.
The reason why we don't elect Prime Ministers, and why we ought not to elect them, is that he or she is not an autocrat like an American President. He's the leading figure of an elite group, "first among equals". From books on my shelves, I see that even Gladstone and Wilson failed to push favourite projects through, because they could not win the support of their cabinets. So what happens at General Elections is that the voters choose their preferred elite group, whether Whig, Liberal, Conservative, Labour, and the elite group HAVE CHOSEN THEIR OWN LEADER.
The only anomaly in modern leadership elections is the stupid business of extending the vote to the party at large. In terms of the British Constiution, the Prime Minister depends for his existence on the votes of a majority of M.P.'s, and they are the people who should be electing him. Otherwise you get the absurd situation of a Jeremy Corbyn leading a Parliamentary Party which doesn't want him, and which would be constitutionally entitled to choose somebody else instead.

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: UKTruth


The authoritarian globalist cabal is in full FEAR mode! Pelosi has already opened her pie hole and said she will fight Trump against ANY trade deal with the UK if there is a Brexit...

Think about that......

The globalists reach is far and wide. They will use all assets to stop the Uk from breaking free of their control.
The saddest part of all is that some British people are hell bent on helping them - acting against their own country. Most have zero clue about who they are carrying water for, but that is not an excuse for them.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Just to be clear on something you are right about the sovereignty of the monarch but she basically does as she is told by parliament and her PM. So while yeah she could technically support one side or the other she won't, at least not publicly. The queen can get involved but wont.

If parliament were to bring forward and pass a bill that was going to extend the article 50 deadline for example she would pass it yet if they were to pass a bill saying we are leaving next Tuesday with no-deal she would also most likely pass that.

It would be setting a new precedent if she was to get involved.

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
Just to be clear on something you are right about the sovereignty of the monarch but she basically does as she is told by parliament and her PM.

"By her advisers", anyway, which really means what America calls "the executive", i.e mainly the Cabinet.
But sometimes, in the middle of controversy, it is necessary to come down on one side or the other because there is no neutral choice. One classic case is the 1911 crisis about reducing the powers of the House of Lords. In order to overcome the resistance of the Lords, the Prime Minister wanted the security of a promise that the King would consent to the creation of enough new Peers to swamp the opposition vote. George V had half a mind to refuse, at least until yet another election had been fought, and complained privately that the promise had been extorted by unfair pressure.

There is a similar dilemma in the possibility that Boris might ask the Queen to prorogue Parliament in the interval before November. That is her undoubted legal right, and therefore he is entitled to make the request.
On the one hand, there is a good case that refusing to do what the Prime Minister wants would be "interfering with politics" and therefore unconstitutional
On the other hand, the Remainers are already arguing in anticipation that agreeing to do what he asks for would be interfering in politics. So there is no neutral escape route.
I'm inclined to think that the present Queen would co-operate if Boris made that request.
However, I have a half-suspicion that a sudden accession of King Charles would really throw the spanner into the works. He might be tempted to tell the people in his first public speech that a second referendum would be a good idea and he was going to have a word with Boris.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Why all the gagging orders regarding the NHS, Pharmaceuticals and the like if they have Brexit covered in any sort of fashion.

Could it be because there spurious nonsensical Brexit debacle may possibly place the lives in danger or even kill 100,000s of people?


"https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/news/industry-and-pharmacy-bodies-confirm-signing-government-gagging-orders-over-no-deal-bre xit-plans/20206944.article?firstPass=false" (direct link not working for some reason)

www.theguardian.com...

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Why all the gagging orders regarding the NHS, Pharmaceuticals and the like if they have Brexit covered in any sort of fashion.

Could it be because there spurious nonsensical Brexit debacle may possibly place the lives in danger or even kill 100,000s of people?


www.pharmaceutical-journal.com... it-plans/20206944.article?firstPass=false

www.theguardian.com...

Right, we go back to the middle ages if we're not run by the EU.
Whetever did we do without them.

a reply to: UKTruth

But it's not the UN that is issuing the gagging orders.

That's our own government, who are supposed to have things covered, not cover things up!

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: UKTruth

But it's not the UN that is issuing the gagging orders.

That's our own government, who are supposed to have things covered, not cover things up!

Perhaps they want to avoid hysterical 'reporting' and lies about "100,000's" dying unless we submit to Brussels.

a reply to: UKTruth

Well, when people start dropping dead down to the possible food, fuel and drug shortages, under a no-deal Brexit, i guess they might find out.

If they have it covered they would not require gagging orders, that's a given.

Wait till you see how many hysterical souls there are then baying for blood then.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: UKTruth

Well, when people start dropping dead down to the possible food, fuel and drug shortages, under a no-deal Brexit, i guess they might find out.

If they have it covered they would not require gagging orders, that's a given.

Wait till you see how many hysterical souls there are then baying for blood then.

Yeah, sure.. like the mass deaths from hunger and disease we had before we were in the EU. Oh, please Brussels.. save us!
Pull the other one. You've been consuming too much of the BBC.

a reply to: UKTruth

You sound like you might not be to put out should they be required to bring back Rationing UKTruth.



Hopefully, they make them blue this time around to go with the new passports.

Brexit will be the end of the United Kingdom not just a departure from the EU.

Scotland and Ireland simply are not going to wear it.

Won't all be sunshine and rainbows and most of the poor souls who voted to leave the UK will never live to see any rewards Brexit may reap.

We are all going to be pulling something, but chances are it's going to be our pants up after a good old hard Brexit seeing to.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: UKTruth

You sound like you might not be to put out should they be required to bring back Rationing UKTruth.

Hopefully, they make them blue this time around to go with the new passports.

Could be the the silver lining for the NHS ....... by curing the ever increasing obesity crisis.

a reply to: eletheia

Given the spurious nature of some American food products nevermind the pharmaceuticals that may be on offer after any hard Brexit and possible subsequent American trade deal, i don't imagine our obesity crisis going away anytime soon.

It's a "growth industry" after all, catering to obesity.

Parliament reconvenes September 3rd all fresh and full of potential solutions.
More worried about Asia and their economic slowdown.