May’s Statement
This has been a testing time for our country and our party. We’re nearly there. We’re almost ready to start a new chapter and build that brighter future.
But before we can do that, we have to finish the job in hand. As I say, I don’t tour the bars and engage in the gossip – but I do make time to speak to colleagues, and I have a great team in the whips’ office. I also have two excellent PPSs.
And I have heard very clearly the mood of the parliamentary party. I know there is a desire for a new approach – and new leadership – in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations – and I won’t stand in the way of that.
I know some people are worried that if you vote for the withdrawal agreement, I will take that as a mandate to rush on into phase two without the debate we need to have. I won’t – I hear what you are saying.
But we need to get the deal through and deliver Brexit.
I am prepared to leave this job earlier than I intended in order to do what is right for our country and our party.
I ask everyone in this room to back the deal so we can complete our historic duty – to deliver on the decision of the British people and leave the European Union with a smooth and orderly exit.
On or Before May 22
May 22 did not seem to be a promise but I see many Tweets like these.
From a source inside the 1922….
PM will stand down before second stage of Brexit negotiations after deal passed. Said she has heard what colleagues are saying.— Glenn Campbell (@GlennBBC) March 27, 2019
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1110957339711098880
Some Tories Now on Board
The New York Times reports Theresa May Promises to Step Down if U.K. Parliament Backs Brexit Plan
The Guardian Live Blog reports How May Told Tory MPs She Will Quit Before the Next Phase of Brexit.
Bercow Won’t Allow 3rd Vote
. May resignation contingent on approval of her deal Friday, but Speaker Bercow repeated he cannot allow 3rd vote on same “deal”. Parliamentary process for extending March 29 being legally disputed, small possibility of accidental exit March 29 https://t.co/zejvhe3NQ1
— Harald Malmgren (@Halsrethink) March 27, 2019
Two Possibilities?
Never a dull moment in this #Brexit saga:PM #TheresaMay is said to offer to step down if her deal is approved, opening the way for someone else to lead the next phase of the #EU negotiations.This increases the probability of not just a single outcome,but of two!Suspense continues
— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) March 27, 2019
Does the Deal Become Better?
So basically she’ll push for no deal and stay as pm for about…forever. Also is this about Brexit or tory infighting? I can’t comprehend how her deal becomes better if she resigns.
— Matyas Szeli (@mettszeli) March 27, 2019
I am not sure what El-Erian has in mind but I see this as making the deal passing far more likely. The alternative is an accident (no-Deal Brexit), not something else.
As for “Does the deal get better?”
Clearly not, it doesn’t change. However, and this is key, the next prime minister, and it will be a Brexit-Backing PM, will lead further negotiations.
Please recall what I said about parliament not being able to force the PM to do something. With the right PM in place, the UK could threaten to hold payments to the EU if the EU does not negotiate in faith.
There are many things a committed sovereign country can do. May was not committed.
With May out of the way, the next round of negotiations will be much better.
Predictions
Bercow will look like an ass if he attempts to hold this vote up.
May will find a way to bring this to vote and it will pass by a small margin. Perhaps it takes two more votes or queenly intervention.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Why doesn’t anyone comment on the fact that she’s willing to go because she will have a higher paying gig in the EU, servicing the EU, or as a lobbyist? She’s not going to tend to her garden when her tenure comes to an end. And for that reason alone her deal should be scrutinized.
My first impression in this offer was a feint echo of, “You’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it,” by Nancy Pelosi.
‘With May out of the way, the next round of negotiations will be much better.’
This optimism, based on what, Mish?
“Negotiations” between two Juntas, both of which exist solely to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of those they rule, never get “better” for anyone but Junta members themselves.
Which is why, when on rare occasions people find themselves in a position to deliver a vote to Leave!, they need to act on it yesterday. For every day the leeches can drag it out, the people’s fervor and attention span withers. Until the leeches again win by walkover.
“Oh Mish, what Queenly intervention?”
Dear Avid Remainer, if you are from the UK, you clearly do not know how your country runs.
Theresa May could ask the Queen to dissolve parliament. If the Queen did so, othing would change. There would not be new elections. The same parliament would go into session the next day.
Then there would be another vote. Will it come to that? No, because Bercow will cave in, Parliament will change the rules, or May will get a wording change.
You are letting your asinine support for remain get in the way of any kind of realistically clear thinking, and you sure as hell do not know how parliament works, or who the EU will deal with (a head of state, not the UK parliament).
Please stop making a fool out of yourself.
The word you are looking for is Prorogue. Thanks to the fixed term parliament act the Queen no longer has the power to dissolve Parliament. It always helps to be on firm ground if you are going to be snarky.
“Clearly not, it doesn’t change. However, and this is key, the next prime minister, and it will be a Brexit-Backing PM, will lead further negotiations.” I very much doubt that. We have seen who the brexiteers are, and I would not have any faith in David Davis (proven imcompetent), Boris Johnson (proven very incompetent) or Jacob Rees-Mogg (only after his own interests). The rest of them aren’t any better. May has her failings, and she did make some stupid mistakes (calling a snap election…), but since there is no majority for any option she was dealt a poor hand. Whoever is up next will face the same reality.
Agreed.
If only everyone knew as much as you!
It will make fools of everyone.
Oh Mish, what Queenly intervention? Two more votes? May has just been told that unless TV3 contains substantial changes she won’t be able to table it. What don’t you get about the fact that May is distrusted because she is a Prime Minister gone rogue? As to things getting better under a new leader you face a big problem in that the current Tory party couldn’t organise a bunkup in a brothel.
We have local elections in May ( The month ) in the UK. Today I was canvassed by a member of the Conservative party. He was a very nice man. I have no problem with the way my local council is run. I have a big problem with the national leadership. When I listed my problems with May all he could say was that he agreed with me but it was a national problem. He knows and I know that the May local elections are used by the Brits to either give the Government, of any colour, either a pat on the back or a massive kick up the backside. This time the result will be the latter. He knew it. At the end of our conversation I kept apologising for being so strident all he said was that he he knew and understood what I had said but that it was a national problem. The election of May’s successor will split the Tory party. No one on the left will accept Johnson the liar or any other Brexiteer and the ERG will not accept a Remainer PM like May. Stuffed whatever they do.
You keep referring to Eurointelligence. The teenage scribbler there was employed by a Brexit nut job called Francois who is an MP. Thus he was employed by an MP not the House of Commons. If he had been employed by the House Of Commons he would have been employed in the House of Commons Library. The people in the HoC library are a class act and are under an injunction to provide impartial advice to all MPs.
I read your blog because I have been consistently impressed by your writing on economics and economic policy. You have one of the best blogs on the net. Sadly on British politics you are wide of the mark and I fear you need to change your sources. Our MSM are as bad as yours and are also not to be relied on.
Vote SDP, if they can get the message out it will shake things up. Read the “New Declaration” to get an idea.
Incredible how people in Europe want to belong to a superfluous, hopelessly divided, unwieldy, totally worthless institute ….Well it was ‘democratically’ pushed down our throats of course and so was the insane common currency now undermining the global financial system…. Our national freeloaders were obviously not enough we needed a even more useless, overpaid and overspoiled european bunch on top of them…. Stupidity at its best….Hopefully the next financial crisis which is already in the makings, will deal with this ugly EU monster for once and for all, hopefully !
I’m sorry you feel that way. I have a copy of the New Statesman from the week of my birth-September 1952. It contains two speeches, one from Anthony Eden-then the Foreign Secretary the other from Manny Shinwell a member of the then Shadow Cabinet. Both speeches are remarkably similar. Both denigrate the putative Iron and Steel treaty that was the forerunner of the treaty of Rome. Since then every anti-european has put exactly the same arguments against every European initiative and time has shown that the anti-Europeans to have been absolutely wrong.
In or out we will still be EU rule takers. There is a brou ha ha here at the moment about speed limiters having to be installed in all cars from 2022 I think. The take back control people are having a hissy fit over this. These speed limiters will be fitted to all cars made in the UK because there are no native British car makers. They are all owned either by EU companies oe companies who have an FTA with the EU. The Brexiteers will have no say over this. The decision to fit these devices will be taken in France, Germany, Italy and Japan. This is one of many examples of where the EU will tell us what to do and we will have to lie down and take it. I would rather we were in the room taking the decision that sit there waiting to find out what the EU tells us to do.
Removing a speed limited from a car, isn’t exactly what one would call difficult. The only “difficulty” relates to the legality of it. Which someone in England should defer to Brussels over, for exactly what reason?
People don’t benefit from being ruled. But rather by being served. Having to pit up with London is bad enough, by the looks of it. Adding another layer of leeches on top of that, offers no benefit to anyone at all not directly (or possibly indirectly) in on the graft.
Taking one step at a time, the British would be well served to kick the Brussels drunks out first. Then, for an encore, repeat with most of London. Then, Englishmen can trade with Frenchmen on mutually agreeable terms. As free people. Not pawns in some dumbeffocracy’s various self serving schemes.
I’m bored with Brexit, I have move on to other things and could care less what happens to the UK. Although, it is amazing that a country such as the UK can’t seem to figure out what’s in its own best interest.
The UK cannot figure its own best interest, bc there is no “a UK”, but a splintering of narrow interests. Many of the political class stand to benefit from EUxyz. Therefore, they steer the ship in that direction regardless what is best for masses for the mid-to-long term.
Only individual, rational actors have “interests.” “The Nation’s interest” is just sleight of hand for “what’s in the interest of me and the rest of the Junta.”
As a general rule, what’s in the interest of “the people,” is largely to get rid of the Junta altogether. Very few particularly benefit from being robbed and harassed.
I take no pleasure in the observation that the British government seems even more disfunctional than the present American government.
The only difference that I can see is that in the UK the deep state and the government are on the same side: That is to say on the other side to the public.
I can’t remember a time when the UK establishment was so distant from the populace. One side or the other will be bludgeoned into submission as I don’t seem them moving towards each other.