Shadow (opposition) Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry proposed in a Brexit debate that she would seek the “best deal possible” with the EU, then campaign against it, favoring Remain.
Scorched Earth Coup
Please consider Remainers’ Scorched Earth Tactics and Premature Triumphalism Will Rebound Spectacularly.
For the first time in its history, the cossetted, unelected panjandrums in the House of Lords, the epicentre of Remain fanaticism, this week ripped up its rules to ensure that Hilary Benn’s squalid Brussels capitulation Bill was fast-tracked through the Peers’ House in a dangerous and damaging precedent. By comparison, this Government has played fair. It could well have engineered a much longer filibuster to the Lords motion into this weekend but deferred to the established proprieties and called off the talkathon.
We are witnessing a strange kind of coup – a “sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power from the government.” Instead of tanks or colonels in dark glasses and moustaches, however, we have John Major – demented by Brexit Derangement Syndrome – going to court to fight prorogation, a tactic he himself pursued in 1997, for rather less noble reasons.
And who encouraged him back then in this draconian and unjustified course of action? His then-Chancellor, the newly Whipless Kenneth Clarke. Karma can sometimes bite you on the posterior.
Polls
For all the turmoil, Boris Johnson retains a united Cabinet, growing public support and poll ratings. He is hugely popular with his membership and Conservative and Brexit Party supporters, who make up around half of likely voters.
He also faces a split Remain opposition, characterised by cynical opportunism, weakness and risible incoherence, as evidenced by Emily Thornberry’s car crash appearance on BBC Question Time last night, in which she promised to campaign for Remain against a Leave deal ‘expertly’ negotiated by her own party! The voters can see all this and they don’t like it.
Please note that Just 18% of Voters Back Corbyn to Become Prime Minister.
Clearly one of those is an outlier, Even still, it is best to add Tory votes to the Brexit Party to understand the true setup.
Queen’s Consent
Tough choices need making: Bercow’s interpretation of the arcane device of Queen’s Consent in the Brexit blocking Bill is almost certainly counter to the advice of Commons clerks and constitutional law experts and surely nullifies the bona fides of this pernicious legislation. As such, refusal of Royal Assent by Her Majesty must surely have remained an option. However, that ship might have sailed.
I discussed both Queen’s Consent in Bill to Stop No Deal Brexit Passes Lords: Legal Challenge May Come Monday
Premature Triumphalism
For all the premature triumphalism of Remainers, they will not seek – at least in the short term – to remove the PM via a vote of no confidence and so we assume that they seek to humiliate him first by sending him naked into the EU conference chamber with the instrument of surrender authored by the EU, Dominic Grieve and others. The disgrace and embarrassment will be theirs and not our Prime Minister’s. If it has to be so, it will merely pull the elastic tighter for when it snaps back on his tormentors at the General Election.
In the meantime, Boris will no doubt take one more lesson from John Major. In one of his most thespian moments during the EU “beef war” in 1996, he promised to be as difficult and truculent as possible with his lords and masters in Brussels, with vetoes on budgets, regulations, directives and the like.
Boris can and will do exactly the same with aplomb until Macron, Merkel and their coterie honour our democratic mandate and profoundest wish: “Let us go.”
Brexit Trap Set
I like the term “Premature Triumphalism”.
It’s perfect.
Johnson still has options, and lots of them.
A Brexit trap has been set. Here’s the question: Who is the Trapee?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The Benn Bill is flawed, and fatally so. There is procedural error in the way it was introduced and it defies the Constitution by attempting to bind the hands of the Sovereign in the conduct of international affairs. Notwithstanding the international elements, in all matters domestic or foreign the Government/Executive branch is the agent of the Crown.
From a practical standpoint, and try as I might, I find It impossible to imagine any set of circumstances when a PM would advise their Sovereign to assent to a Bill his or her Government was set implacably against.
Is there not to be an emergency court date for a hearing tomorrow about this?
Herkie, I have not heard of it, but it would not at all surprise me as the UK Constitution is being turned on it’s head. This is in it’s attempt a veritable coup d’etat. The Commons refusal to permit a General Election is a particularly disgraceful part of it, as it removes from the people their only remedy.
French want UK out as soon as possible.
No extension unless there’s an election or 2nd referendum.
Neither likely before Oct 31st so exit baked in.
Macron’s people saying he was right to say there should have been no extension back in April & others now agree.
Labour and others have brought about exactly what they were trying to avoid and a Tory resurgence, for now at least.
Any re-entry will be on less advantageous terms.
ET – Emily Thornberry – not the sharpest tool in the box and a classic “Champagne Socialist”.
Lives in a £ 3+ million house in champagne-socialist Islington & forever screeching about her working class upbringing whilst she denigrated Labours natural support base for driving white vans and flying a flag. Now ask e what’s wrong with the British political class.
The man she denigrated is an ordinary worker, paying his taxes and now asking why we can’t have an election.
I’ll tell him why. The electorate don’t matter, plebs and an inconvenience to our Lords and Masters.
It is “People vs Parliament”.
Vote the bastards out at the first opportunity.
Swap, replace, renew, rebuild.
It has been clear for a long time now, almost since the Brexit vote itself, the remainers were shocked at the outcome to say the least, remember how smug they were right up to the moment the vote count was announced? In fact they had been hoping to use a solid remain vote to leverage even closer EU entrenchment. Not just in the UK but on the continent as well.
And even those not paying attention, I know most Americans tuned out Brexit when it was clear the whole ordeal would drag on for years, even they see what I also see, a British “democratic socialist” left already seriously addicted to the free stuff mentality of the EU (to be fair they did not have to be pushed very far for that) which was never going to accept ANY deal that actually looked in any way like they were leaving the EU. They have done everything they could all along to stymie any sort of agreement betting that a no deal Brexit would be so unpalatable to the population that it would not be allowed to go forward.
The ironic thing to me is that the US in which the right now has control is waving around some big sticks to back up the remainers, particularly claiming it will not sign a separate free trade pact with the UK once out even though Trump has said he welcomes a free trade deal with the UK. “U.S. Democratic party lawmakers are threatening to kill any free trade deal Britain strikes with the Trump administration, if a post-Brexit border is re-established across the island of Ireland.”
Just one more reason I switched my own registration to GOP away from a lifelong party line democratic voter.
Johnson knows he needs the US deal, I am appalled that US democrats think meddling so intimately in foreign politics is their right. They use the excuse that it will threaten the Good Friday Agreements, when in fact it could just as likely result in the reunification of Ireland, something the British ended almost a thousand years ago. In fact, even though I am an Irish citizen I say it is up to the Irish republic and the province of Ulster to decide their own futures, with no input from the EU, the US, and only a glancing nod from the crown. The crown should have veto power only in the event that the human rights of the protestants are threatened. But, since they would be joined with Ireland in that event their rights would be guaranteed by the EU and the republic so the crown would have little reason to stop it other than territorial hegemony. And that is all speculative anyway, hardly something the US congress can use to justify it’s big fat nose being in this matter. In this our democrats are NOT respecting the will of the UK voters and that is a disturbing shame.
The US has no control. The senate can’t pass anything except through the budget reconciliation process which bypasses filibusterer and a UK US trade deal won’t be eligible for that. For Brexitiers to expect the US to quickly come to their aid on trade, when we can’t even pass NAFTA vr 1.02 shows such an ignorance of the state of American politics that I assume even the people saying it don’t really believe it and it’s just another in the long list of lies about how Brexit will work from the pro Brexit crowd.
Does not stop them threatening to though does it? In fact the US constitution does have a clause, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
A treaty only needs ratification from the senate but a trade deal needs approval in both houses.
My country, Belgium, the hub of the EU, one of its staunchest members, is in total disarray, decaying, politically and economically, hopelessly divided between the french and flemish speaking regions, with continuous budget deficits and mind boggling unsustainable social liabilities even while enjoying a booming economic cycle ! What is going to happen when a recession kicks in ? Is the EU going to save our asses ? Is the EU going to save all above their means living members like France, Italy Spain, portugal, Greece ? Who is going to pay? This megalomaniac fairweather EU house of cards is going to fall apart as soon as a serious economic downturn takes place, of that I am sure, so why should the UK remain in this rotting mess ? GET OUT of the cesspool before it suffocates you !
I agree, except for this: “Belgium, the hub of the EU…” To be more accurate it is the hub of the EUSSR’s bureaucracy only, the EU is ruled by whoever happens to be the unelected head of the ECB in Frankfurt, currently Mario Draghi, soon to be Christine Lagarde, starting Thursday.
Notice main elements now split French-German.
ECB Chief – EU President.
Other nations secondary, tertiary.
EU have announced the disaster fund is to be used to mitigate against no deal Brexit with money allocated to impacted areas. Ireland etc.
What happens if there is a subsequent disaster and no relief funds available?
Good luck FromBrussells.
Wish you well.
Was in Paris recently and shocked by the filth and general mood there.
What was the general mood CA?
Having just read the Sunday Times Boris will not ask for an extension, there will be judicial review of the Benn Bill and an Election. The slogan “People v. Parliament” is more than a little catchy!
More catchy than ” People vs House of Lords”.
HoL could do with surgery.
I can only agree. Parliament has overstepped the mark. It believes it is sovereign of itself when it is only Sovereign by the will of the people.
Let me see, it was the Speaker of the House who allowed the Commons to seize the legislative agenda from the Government. It was the Speaker of the House who determined that the Benn Bill did not require Queen’s Consent even when it clearly binds the hands of the Head of State in the conduct of international affairs.
Mr Bercow should be frogmarched out of the House of Commons by the Sergeant at Arms and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Indeed BJ’s options were narrowed, but it is unclear he is out of any.
On a related note, I doubt BJ anticipated all viable turns and twists – or he should have played his hand better. Isn’t it?
You do not seem to understand even the basics. Your “Boris is actually winning!!!” post was funny and anybody that knew the basics had a hearty laugh at your expense, but this is just sad now. Write less, read more.
Mish’s Ridiculous position: We can’t afford MedicareForAll because it costs half of what we pay now and delivers better results at half the price.
My dentist says that too. Like Mish, he’s also wrong.
Mish darling, read my comment on your previous post and take this one down as soon as possible. You are way behind the curve-hint the liar’s cabinet is falling apart.
I agree. There is a whole lot of “Mish-ful thinking” going on here! 😀
Rudd only has 436 poll lead.
Constituency not happy, likely to be ditched anyway. Better to jump.
She will stand as independent Conservative – in another constituency!
Obviously doubts her own constituency would touch her with a barge pole so she standing elsewhere.
Probably be a pawn for Remain who will point her to a seat.
So this is going to be by Delenda est Cartago moment. What do you suggest we give Argentina and Russia to make them agree our WTO schedules?
Nothing.
Stay independent and if they want access to UK market there is WTO or a mutually convenient agreement.
Word is EU now wants UK out as fast as possible. Expect news.
Barnier cancelled Belfast trip.
No agreement on UK schedules then we trade with WTO third country rules. Nothing is not an option. I thought you wanted to trade as a full member of the WTO? Facts are so tiresome aren’t they?
UK has WTO seat.
WTO to start is ok.
Pre-arranged EU agreements with other countries, as UK is a signatory, carry across.
60% of UK exports are to outside EU and EU proportion has been shrinking for years.
you must know that what you have said is rubbish. There are no agreed rollovers.
Referenda are so tiresome, aren’t they? Even though Cameron promised that the Brexit vote would be honored, you continue to defy the majority vote.
No idea if this is true but it is via BNP Paribas.
If we have the right product and service offerings WTO, tariffs won’t kill us.