Laughable Headline
The Guardian reports Cornered Boris Johnson Suffers Triple Commons Defeat.
These writers clearly cannot think. Take a look at what has transpired.
Just the Facts Maam
- Johnson goaded 21 problematic Rebel Tories into voting against him. Those Tories have been removed from the party and will lose their seats in the next election. Good riddance.
- Because of foolish Remainer actions, Johnson will no longer have to go through the charades of working out a deal with the EU.
- Johnson’s hands are effectively bound and he welcomes that! He will not have to work out a deal. Instead he can lay the blame on the EU and on the Remainers for removing the option to negotiate with the EU.
- By removing the 21 rebels, Johnson won the support of Nigel Farage thereby allowing a coalition between the Brexit Party and the Tories minus the rebel problem makes.
- The Remainers are hopelessly split. Corbyn wants a referendum or the right to work out a customs deal with the EU. The Liberal Democrats want to remain. Many Labour party members want Brexit.
Q & A on losing
Q. How the heck is that losing?
A. I think you know the answer.
House of Lords Charades
Supposedly, Johnson suffered a “triple defeat” today, using the word “defeat” loosely.
This charade moved to the House of Lords where a massive filibuster is taking place on a motion that will supposedly block a no deal brexit.
Ho. Hum.
Brexit Filibuster
For a discussion of the laughable nature of this effort, please see House of Lords Bogged Down on Brexit Filibuster Amendments.
What If the Filibuster Succeeds?
- If the Filibuster succeeds, Johnson’s next move may be to do nothing. He has the option of waiting to see the Remainers’ next move.
- Alternatively, Johnson may promise to abide by an election date before October 31. The problem with the alternate option is neither side trusts each other and there is no legal mechanism to ensure an election date.
What If the Filibuster Loses?
In this case, I 100% expect Johnson to do nothing.
The legislation will have passed but it is not legally binding until it has the Queen’s Assent.
Recall that the Queen Will Suspend Parliament at Request of Boris Johnson.
Starting September 10, parliament will be out of session until October 14. Then Johnson can deliver the Queen’s speech starting a new session.
Assumes the Bill Passes on September 5 or 6
September 6 is a Friday.
On Monday, September 9, Johnson is likely to make a statement to the effect that he needs legal advice on the bill. Guess what?
Parliament will be out of session until October 14.
Then What?
Instead of submitting the legislation to the Queen, I believe Johnson would give his Queen’s Speech starting a new Parliamentary session. Perhaps Johnson delays a day or two on the Queen’s Speech.
All pending legislation in progress dies on the vine.
The House of Lords charades has to start all over again.
But wait. It has to start all over again in the Commons first!
Pick a date for all this to happen. Whatever date you pick, it will be to the liking of Johnson or it won’t happen.
Hello October 18
On October 18, it will be impossible to schedule an election in time to stop Brexit.
It will also be impossible for a motion of No Confidence to put an alternative government in place.
The default Brexit date is October 31.
Johnson can run out the clock if he can delay events until October 18.
One Remaining Issue
The only Remainers option would be to succeed a second time on a move in the House of Lords.
Perhaps Johnson and his team submits 500 or 5,000 amendments. Don’t rule it out.
Should that fail, Johnson may just refuse to submit the legislation to the Queen.
Time’s Up
Sorry Remainers, the time has expired.
Starting from the Top
Let’s return to the beginning.
Johnson’s move to prorogue parliament worked brilliantly. He got the exact response from the rebels that he wanted.
Johnson then removed the rebels. They are lost and gone forever.
Lies All Around
Johnson insists he not want an election.
What a joke. Of course Johnson wants an election. Corbyn is the one who does not want an election, at least not right now.
There are lies on all sides.
Everyone wants an election, but only conditionally.
Who is In Control?
Johnson has control of the conditions simply by refusing to submit the legislation to the Queen (assuming it ever gets out of the House of Lords) on time in the first place.
Enormous Mistake
Remainers made an enormous mistake believing they could stop Brexit.
Had they voted for Theresa May’s pathetic deal, they would have gotten 85% of what they wanted.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
“What If the Filibuster Loses?”
…it did. Badly. The bill passed the Lords comfortably.
“The legislation will have passed but it is not legally binding until it has the Queen’s Assent. Recall that the Queen Will Suspend Parliament at Request of Boris Johnson. Starting September 10, parliament will be out of session until October 14. (…) Then what? Instead of submitting the legislation to the Queen, I believe Johnson would give his Queen’s Speech starting a new Parliamentary session. Perhaps Johnson delays a day or two on the Queen’s Speech. All pending legislation in progress dies on the vine.”
Hello September 9th… and the bill has actually received the Queen’s Assent and is now legally binding. Boris has lost another parliamentary battle, his Brexit strategy is in tatters and he’s haemorrhaging seats and support in the Commons. So he kind of… LOSES. Big time!
What a badly researched, risibly thought-out, crock-of-crap this article is.
We haven’t corresponded for some months until this summary got sent to me. Your attitude to MMT is so wrong it has coloured all your other thought about the economy. Never mind. But you are spot on re Brexit.You were the first to say go for it. My MMT guru Bill Mitchell [billyblog] also takes the same line. I’m glad to see you are sticking with it. The EU is a catastrophe waiting for a trigger to go off. It has been set up as a neo-liberal stronghold and that condemns it. Pity because the idea was sound, The politicians messed it up, and that’s still possible over Brexit!
” Well, that taught him a lesson ” said Napoleon as he fled for his life after Waterloo.
Mish, it looks to me like reporting Johnson as defeated is a strategy that matches what happened in the US with Trump: report falsehood as truth, then when the falsehood doesn’t happen, accuse the other side of lawbreaking, and go to war. Extinction Rebellion is planning to start shutting down cities, Hong Kong style, targeting specifically Trump and Johnson, citing them as demogogues (does that mean they speak and act to the will of the people?)
I do think Johnson has won this round; but I think more havoc is on the line
“Keep digging, Mish. Eventually you will hit oil. The filibuster is dead. No Deal Brexit is delayed if not dead. Boris can blame the EU but the truth is that he has not made any proposals or amendments to the existing agreement. He is simply whining.
So, spin this all you want. You were wrong about all the procedures in parliament. Have YOU gone back to study parliamentary rules and UK law?”
Excuse me Expat for pointing out you are the one who said a Filibuster was not even possible.
I would have at least expected you to admit you had no idea what you were talking about.
And you still don’t. Read my nest post – coming up.
Mish – that’s not how this is going to evolve. Boris is going to put the legislation in for Royal Assent, make it law, and then dare the Marxist frauds in the Labour Party to vote against a general election.
Well, we’ll soon find out (Monday), but I agree. He’s going to let it go ahead and become Law. But there are many things he can do afterwards to get around it, many of which are out in the press now (Saturday), like:
By not appointing and EU Minister (?, or whatever it is), UK will be in breach and should be turfed out.
BJ can submit the request as required but also submit parallel requests – and of course he can send a secretary on his behalf instead of himself.
BJ can veto the vote for an extension. He has that power as PM. It is highly unusual for Opposition to pass Laws not only expressly against the will of the Government and its PM, but also describing in detail what the PM must do and say; such things are not Laws but operational, tactical orders. So they gave him the order to request an Extension, but they didn’t rescind his powers as PM of Her Majesty’s govt to veto any such motion. NO doubt he can inform them of his veto in the even of any future submission and the EU can announce that (especially if other vetos are in the offing, like from Hungary, Poland, Estonia, maybe also France and Germany) there will be no further extension granted.
Are they really going to haul him up for contempt for not delivering a letter that clearly serves no purpose? Is a PM entirely not allowed to make any decision at all?
I am sure there are many other tricks like this.
I suspect this entire Act is a Paper Tiger, but the Remoaners have shot their load playing all these games – as the Father of the House rightly called them – and once prorogation begins, there is nothing more they can do until after the Queen’s Speech procedures, the EU conference, and in any case, what everyone overlooks:
Boris is going to come back with a deal. An alternative to the backstop via agreement between Ireland and UK ratified by EU, and some sort of agreement to negotiate free trade arrangements with EU standards to be worked out in detail over the next 12 months, with everything remaining as it is for now. The whole thing can fit on one page, as most such things, ideally, should do.
And it is Monday, Benn is law so BJ must have advised the queen to assent. You two above were right. I see the tweet from Corbyn Friday saying “When No Deal is off the table, once and for all, we should go back to the people in a public vote or a General Election to decide our country’s future.” So it is is pretty clear that they are planning to demand a revote of Brexit itself, or failing that to purge the government of Brexiteers through a GE. Bercow has resigned effective October 31 “unless there is called an election.” He said he did not want to stand in the way of new blood. So, meaning he will leave on the Brexit deadline confident that a no deal Brexit is now off the table with the queen’s assent. UNLESS the remainers can get a snap election called between October 14 and the 31st. But, since the actual general election would be after the 31st there would be no point in saying that at all. That tells me combined with Corbyn’s oddly worded tweet that they have up their sleeves a plan to call a snap election of the people to decide to overturn Brexit entirely, or to at least vote a total ban on a no deal Brexit. Since they can always stand in the way of any deal the only other option would be a no deal, as they have done for the last 3 years. Thereby putting of Brexit pretty much permanently. I think this analysis is reinforced by the combination of Bercow’s resigning and Corbyn’s tweet which essentially was aimed at the EU which is on record as saying no more extensions unless there is to be an election or a new deal that they can live with.
As to the backstop, Varadkar did say last week he is open to a special arrangement on the Ulster border as long as the EU endorsed such a deal. This of course is Leo covering his own ass, it is not going to happen even though it has been the hardest sticking point in the negotiations.
I am just glad we have a few weeks of relative calm in the storm to enjoy the cooler weather and coming of autumn. I can use a break from all this, though I do look forward to October 14.
If Corbyn is smart, and in control of enough of his party, he will delay agreement on the General Election until November.
This will put Johnson in a tight spot. He will either have to go along with the delay, or have an election just as the media are in a “Brexit Crisis” frenzy: agonizing over every kid who can’t get their medicines and their distraught parents; every line at every airport; every traffic jam in Kent; and every person in street interviews in a collective tizzy.
Either way, it seems bad for Johnson. The Brexit Party will re-animate, splitting the Conservative vote on the right, and the likely reaction from Johnson and his weird cronies (like Rees Mogg – who might be the best evidence David Icke has for his reptile overlord conspiracy) will be to tilt the Conservative Party sharply to the right – likely allowing either “Independent Conservatives” or Lib-Dems to win otherwise true blue seats (I’d put money on Rory Stewart winning his constituency if he stands).
Luckily for Johnson, Corbyn is a bit of a twit, and that is his most powerful political weapon at the moment.
Keep digging, Mish. Eventually you will hit oil.
The filibuster is dead. No Deal Brexit is delayed if not dead.
Boris can blame the EU but the truth is that he has not made any proposals or amendments to the existing agreement. He is simply whining.
So, spin this all you want. You were wrong about all the procedures in parliament. Have YOU gone back to study parliamentary rules and UK law?
Never underestimate the ability of a conservative in any Western “democracy” to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I know this is anecdotal and not really a good statistical sample, but I work in the tourism industry of Los Angeles and as a result I meet a few British people a week. Often without having to ask about Brexit directly, they have ALL shown clear support for it and disdain for their leadership for no obeying.
I speak to several Brits every week. Granted, most are in business and not “normal people” like tourists, but they are, to a man, opposed to Brexit or at least to a hard Brexit. Your anecdote is interesting but you don’t acknowledge that only 52% of those who voted supported Brexit. Given the participation rate, this means only 37.5% of British voters voted for Brexit.
Working class schlubs who supported Brexit don’t seem to understand the EU relationship at all. They believed the Brexit campaign lies and misrepresentations. They now choose to believe that all the problems are the fault of the EU for not letting them have their cake and eat it too.
Brexit will damage the UK economy and severely hit the City. While I have no sympathy for the City, it is a massive money-laundering and money-making machine that drives the UK economy. A handful of chip shop workers who are now happy because they can keep immigrants out won’t save the economy.
Lol. No it won’t. The EU is breaking up anyway – best to be first out the door. The only winners in the EU experiment have been the employees who’ve been earning fabulous salaries tax free.
What idiot would want to fund an additional layer of bureaucracy like the EU? They deliver precisely zero benefits and soak up an extraordinary amount of taxpayer loot. We don’t need to be in the EU to be part of Europe. We are European anyway, FFS.
Wake up!
Ah – the old “you’re not as woke as I am because I read Breitbart” saw 😀 There are literally hundreds of millions of people who have benefited from the EU – from the economic prosperity it has brought, the extension of rights and freedoms, and the fact that it has made war between member states unthinkable. All out of the ashes and trauma of the Second World War -a remarkable achievement. The beneficiaries include all those whose business depend on free trade within the world’s largest trading block, all those who have been able to study, work and live abroad, all those whose local economies and communities have benefited from EU grants and subsidies, all those who now live in cleaner and safer environments thanks to EU schemes… and so on.
It’s actually the working classes who are most likely to suffer from Brexit when these schemes and freedoms are removed and the country struggles to pay for the NHS, pensions and benefits as the economy tanks.
The only people who are likely to benefit from Brexit are the super-rich and super-sinister organisations that fund the likes of Breitbart, Cambridge Analytica and so on. They’ll be free from paying the meagre taxes they already pay, from scrutiny of their accounts, and free to exploit people even more and take more money from dictators with shocking human rights records. Oh, and Vladimir Putin – who’s been laughing his head off ever since the referendum at how it takes just a few trolls and a few racist lies and a few leaks for Western democracy to fatally undermine itself.
The problem with “The City”, is that it creates darned near no wealth whatsoever. Hence, whatever money “it” “makes” has to be redistributed there, from someone else.
Those someone elses, are the ones you refer to as “working class schlubs,” as well as those who, absent the massive, debasement driven transfers to the useless City leeches, would have access to sufficient resources to employ more “schlubs” at higher wages.
“The City” no more “drives” the UK economy, than any other common burglar “drives” a local economy by bowing the stolen loot on local prostitutes.
Ah, Expat now re-cycles the old Remainer lie that not enough people voted as opposed that they were too stupid to know what they were voting for! So predictable!
Some facts:
A total of 17,410,742 people voted for leave [out of 33.6 million who voted in the referendum] which is more people than have ever voted for anything in British history.
Only once in history (in the general election of 1992) have more British voters gone to the polls in any national vote; and never have as many voters supported any party in a British general election as voted to leave the EU in 2016.
One criticism has also been that the majority was not big enough to be decisive. But leave voters outvoted stay voters by a majority of 3.8 per cent. This was a bigger margin of victory than in nine of the 20 post-war general elections: 1950, 1951, 1955, 1964, 1970, February 1974, October 1974, 2005 and 2017. Were those nine elections not decisive? In a democracy, the majority gets its way.
Another is that the turnout was not high enough for the result to be valid. But the turnout, 72.2 per cent of the electorate, was higher than in seven post-war general elections – 1970, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017.
It should be obvious to anyone with a brain that you’re comparing a BINARY referendum vote with the results of MULTI-PARTY parliamentary elections. Of course, you almost never get one party winning 51% of the vote in a general election – when they’re generally contesting them with half of dozen or more other significant parties. The only viable comparison is that of the 1976 EEC referendum, in which more than a 2/3 majority supported Britain staying in the EEC (as it was then). That’s a proper majority, not a marginal one in a binary referendum in which it was never spelt out what LEAVE actually meant. For sure, if it had meant “crashing out of the EU with no deal”, the result would have been very different – which was why at the time all of the leaders of the Leave campaign, including Boris Johnson, vehemently denied that it would mean this.
And no, people are not “too stupid”, but they are certainly not informed enough about geo-politics and economics. This is a problem that does need to rectified – but will remain as long as our democracy relies on the “keep them stupid but happy” principle. Certainly people need to be taught critical thinking skills and how to process information. Otherwise, as has happened, they can be swayed by seductive propaganda and lies from sinister sources. And this is why despots have often used referendums to get round and undermine parliamentary democracy. In any case, the narrowest possible win for one side in a deeply flawed referendum is not and cannot be a reason for over-riding parliamentary democracy and plunging Britain into the economic abyss.
Watching BBC News tonight, they seem to be of the opinion that BJ lost and is losing. It’s fascinating to watch both sides go at each other. Much more entertaining that watching our Congress!
Yes, and an article suggesting: Dominic Cummings reeked of alcohol during a recent confrontation with Jeremy Corbyn.
Lol. The fog of war.
It is downright silly to think that the entire Conservative Party will agree to be led along by Farage and other clowns in the Brexit Party. Expect another big split in the Tory party and its vote if a BoJo-Farage alliance happens.
The problem is that Bills that have passed both Houses before Prorogration, but have not yet had Royal Assent, gain that Assent during the Prorogration ceremony (in Norman French….)
So, what happens if there is then a valid Act following Progration???
You assume HM will include it in the Letters Patent that note her assent to bills passed by both houses prior to prorogation. The last time a Monarch witheld assent on the advice of her ministers was when Queen Anne witheld assent on the Scottish Militia Bill (1707), on the advice of her ministers who, after passage of the bill, had reason to suspect the Scottish Militia would be disloyal (some things never change). The ministers could just as well advise HM to not give assent to this, in which case it would die on the order paper at prorogation. Another possibility would be HM using her prerogotive to refuse assent to keep peace in the Realm.
I’ll believe when seeing brexit.