British Politics Guide

[zompist]

Well, the Tories have gone and done it-- they're doing the VONC and will be holding a vote later today.

As is traditional, the candidates will be left in a locked car and the first one to get out becomes PM.

[alice]

To use my favourite mixed metaphor, this is truly the Conservative Party's sacred cows coming home to roost. Ted Heath took the country into the EU and every Conservative Prime Minister after him has suffered as a result.

The front page headline of one of our right-wing tabloids was on the money when it asked the EU, "Do you want £39 billion or not?".

[Raphael]

According to the Guardian, a majority of Tory MPs has now declared that they will vote for May, but it's a secret ballot, so...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... tory-party

[Raphael]

Besides, I don't know what exactly the broader political implications are if May wins this by a bare majority.

[Raphael]

This being British Conservative politics, journalists get to note on Twitter that the "banging and cheering" as May enters the 1922 Committee is "not that loud".

https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status ... 7233303553

[Raphael]

After May's speech, there's now a flurry of reports about what happened behind closed doors that work the way that Torry MPs talk to journalists who then report what they heard from them. Among other things, May promised not to lead the Tories in the next General Election.

[Raphael]

Jacob Rees-Mogg says that he doesn't believe May's claim that she won't lead the Tories into the next General Election.

[Raphael]

Apparently a lot of Tory MPs claim that May's speech was very moving. Right-wingers who are moved by something? That's possible?

[Salmoneus]

Well yeah, that's why they're right-wing! It's certainly why they're Brexiteers - it's an ideology all about passion and sentimal feeling being more important than, say, maths...


Yes, May seems set to win (though a sitting cabinet minister noted that Tory MPs are "the most duplicitous electorate in the world", so who knows). But when Raphael says he doesn't know what the consequences of a narrow win would be... nor does anybody else!

Some commentators have pointed out that the threshold of around 100 votes against May is an interesting one: if more than 100 people vote against May, then either she cannot command the loyalty of her own government, because it means that ministers themselves must be voting against her (which probably means that a lot more ministers want to vote against her but feel they can't), or the majority of her own backbenchers want her gone. Either conclusion would seriously undermine her already minimal authority.

Theoretically there can't be another vonc for a year... but as chris says, rules are meant to be broken, and tories are meant for changing the rules to make sure they win. And we need to remember the more serious potential VONC in the Commons, which could lead to a general election. If half the Tories vote against May, would that suggest that some might actually be willing to vote against her in a VONC?

Apparently all the big candidates to replace her were campaigning hard... in case she goes. But not actively campaigning against her. Somebody like Javid doesn't want to be PM right now... but he may even more greatly dislike the idea of someone else becoming leader now, because they might be harder to replace than May.

We'll find out the result in a bit over an hour, anyway.

[alice]

There have been remarks that the ERG is "a party within a party". The Militant Tendency for the late-2010s generation?

[Raphael]

200 for May, 117 against.

[chris_notts]

200 for May, 117 against.

Unfortunately we're still stuck with her... this would do for anyone else, but not May.

[Raphael]

In what may be an attempt to maintain his reputation as a complete joke, Rees-Mogg has said that he accepts the results of the vote but that May should resign anyway.

[Jonlang]

200 for May, 117 against.

Unfortunately we're still stuck with her... this would do for anyone else, but not May.

To be honest, as much as it pains me to say it, I'd rather May continue than see Boris Johnson or Michael Gove take the leadership. Gove is an absolute cretin.

[Salmoneus]

In what may be an attempt to maintain his reputation as a complete joke, Rees-Mogg has said that he accepts the results of the vote but that May should resign anyway.

No, that's a very reasonable position - it's what most people think, I think, or at least most people in politics. Historically, a "win" like that would end any politician's career. But now, due to the change in election rules, it doesn't have to, mathematically - and due to May's stubbornness, it won't in practice either.

So, in 1989, Thatcher's 314-33 margin of victory was considered a disaster - not enough to topple her, but enough to put things in motion. And in 1990, her 204-152 majority was considered equivalent to a loss, and she resigned from the leadership two days later.


In general circumstances, being in a situation where 40% of your MPs have declared they don't want to follow you, and where either your own government have betrayed you or the majority of your backbenchers don't support your government - or indeed possibly both in this case - would be considered almost unsurvivable, and your continued presence in office would be considered to be highly damaging to your party. Trying to carry on in this circumstance when you don't have a majority in Parliament anyway, and when your signature policy cannot get through Parliament, would seem impossible, except for the fact that winning this vote means May has put another possible way of resolving the crisis out of reach for another year.

May should resign - she's damaging her party, unarguably, and she's probably damaging the country too (I say 'probably' only because it's not as though anyone else could exactly make this situation good...). Or at the very least should publically and specifically promise to to resign at a certain time (like, 1st April...).






*it used to be that there was a contest between nominees including the incumbent, and if no candidate got a certain supermajority there was a second round, in which new candidates could enter. So if the leader did so poorly on the first vote, it would signal to others to put their names forward in the second. But now the VONC only requires a majority, not a supermajority.

[Salmoneus]

There have been remarks that the ERG is "a party within a party". The Militant Tendency for the late-2010s generation?

Tempting to think, particularly in light of the current instability of the party system.

But I think not, at least not yet - fo two reasons.

First, while the ERG is passionate about this one thing, I don't think they have the broader breadth of distinctive policies that would be necessary to sustain themselves as a party (or long-term faction), particularly once this crisis passes. They're more single-minded than UKIP and we've seen what's happened to UKIP...

Second, the key thing about Militant is that it was a branch party, characterised by grassroots organisation amplified by entryism. That gave it a certain stability - it was hard to combat Militant without getting dirty at ground level. The ERG, by contrast, is essentially a cadre party - it's something certain MPs have decided to do. Sure, it's mostly MPs who know their constituents won't be too mad with them - but I don't think you could easily predict ERG members on the basis of the constituents. There'll be ERGers in relatively weak leave seats, and non-ERGers in strong leave seats. Because it's a small cadre of just a couple of dozen people, it's much easier for the movement to dissipate - some retirements there, a few MPs persuaded here, a couple of MPs backing down due to Association pressure over yon, and poof, no more ERG...

That said, we're in an unstable time. The ERG - like the Monday Club before it - seems to be an important faction within the party right now, and who knows what could happen in the future.


[I think the closest analog to Militant that I've seen so far was the Tea Party movement, although that fizzled out before it reached Militant level, and was never sufficiently organised. Of course, Momentum certainly has echoes of Militant too... certainly I think some of the core of Momentum would like to think of themselves as the New Militant!]

[zompist]

This doesn't look good for May, but one thing you have to hand her, not looking good but still being PM is her signature move.

Surely it looks worse for the hard brexiters? It looks like they hyperfocused on getting that 15% of the party members to write to the 1922 committee, and not much on coming up with a name (behind the scenes) that could attract 51%. And now they can't take that route again for a year.

If they're serious about a change, shouldn't they take their 48 signatures and tell Corbyn that they'll join in a parliamentary VONC?

Otherwise, it's likely that May's deal still fails in January, in which case the Tories can't pass a program yet can't throw her out.

[Salmoneus]

This doesn't look good for May, but one thing you have to hand her, not looking good but still being PM is her signature move.

Surely it looks worse for the hard brexiters? It looks like they hyperfocused on getting that 15% of the party members to write to the 1922 committee, and not much on coming up with a name (behind the scenes) that could attract 51%. And now they can't take that route again for a year.

Oh, they've totally fucked it up, I think. I don't really understand what their point was. If it had come out 170-150, perhaps they just got it wrong - but a 200-120... that's not just a miscalculation. So what were they even trying? They've managed to show that they're stronger than some people thought, and that May is weaker... but what can they do with that?

I suppose it might just be simple: they've further shown May how little support she has, so maybe they've made her more likely to back down? But I don't think it's likely to work...

(worth noting that probably fewer than half those who voted against May asked for the election)

If they're serious about a change, shouldn't they take their 48 signatures and tell Corbyn that they'll join in a parliamentary VONC?

It would have been very interesting to do that BEFORE the party VONC. Because then, if they lost the vote, they could have used that as a reason to demand a new leader, and the new leader could have formed a new majority with the DUP, and they'd have gotten rid of May while avoiding elections. It would have been risky, but a possibility. Now that option's off the table - it's not clear that May would voluntarily resign even if she lost a parliamentary VONC. At least, not quickly enough to allow a successor to avoid elections.

If they do it now, I think they know it's suicide, on several levels. First, the Tories do not want an election right now. Yougov actually has them ahead - but only by 2 points, which is within the margin of error, and now would NOT be a good time for the party to have to try to campaign. In particular, who would lead the campaign? Theresa May, who they don't want leading any campaign, and who in this scenario would have just been voted out of office? A new tory leader who would have been in place for about a week at most if May resigns? And second, any Tory MP who votes to end a Tory government and bring about a Labour government will face riots in the streets of their constituency if they they don't immediately resign from public life. Particularly if they've just fought and lost a party vonc.

Otherwise, it's likely that May's deal still fails in January, in which case the Tories can't pass a program yet can't throw her out.

Yep. Irresistable force, meet immovable object.



It's worth mentioning, btw, that when Yougov asked if May should be removed as PM or kept in power, 40% wanted her kept, and only 34% wanted her gone. With a stratospheric minus 14% net approval rating, she's one of the country's most popular politicians - only one point behind Boris for the title of most popular. Only 68% of people fail to approve of her, which is much, much higher than for most politicials. (94% fail to approve of, for instance, Penny Mordaunt). 55% report having experienced feelings of sympathy toward her at some point.

Regarding her Deal, however... yougov report that of 632 constituencies, there are exacty two constituencies where the Deal is preferred to both Remain and No Deal. (Remain is more popular in 600, and No Deal in 30).

Then again, only 15% say they know what the Irish Backstop actually is. (41% say they 'have some understanding' but don't 'fully' know what it is. 25% say they have at least heard of it. The remaining 19% have apparently been living under a rock.)

[In other news, 54% of Remainers believe that there is too much use of pink in girl's toys; by contrast, only 29% of Leavers think this...]

[dhok]

When the news was announced that the signature threshold had been reached, I thought there was no way May was going to squeak through. Now that it's turned out that that's wrong, and she's promised not to lead the Tories into the next General Election, I think I can see what happened. If she had been ousted last night, there would immediately have been a civil war within the Tories with three months to go until Brexit Day, resulting in almost certain slaughter at the next General regardless of who had taken the reins. May has essentially cut a backroom deal promising to step down from power so long as this can be postponed until a point where it will cause less chaos. This presumably gained her key support from Tories who hate her guts and want her gone, but dread the prospect of an inter-party civil war even more.

[chris_notts]

The question is whether she intends to keep her word or not. During her premiership she's shamelessly made incompatible promises to everyone to keep herself in power. And what she said reportedly is that she didn't intend to lead the party into the 2022 election. This raises two obvious questions: what happens if a GE happens sooner rather than later, and what happens if her intentions change?

But can she seriously believe she can pass her deal and stagger on to 2022? Especially since she lacks the confidence of her party and she'd be negotiating the final relationship? Surely, as soon as the clock stops ticking and the immediate crisis is over, the knives will be back out.