British Politics Guide

[Raphael]

For those of you keeping track at home, the EU has now granted an extension until January 31st (but with the option of leaving earlier if a Brexit Deal is ratified earlier), and Johnson has accepted.

There's now apparently general agreement among major party leaders on having an early election in December, but still disagreement about the exact date and some other details. Johnson wants to hold the election on Thursday, December 12th, while some of his opponents want to hold it on Monday, December 9th. Supporters of the Monday date argue that on Thursday, university students will already be at home with their families, which would disenfranchise them, because they're only allowed to vote at the locations of their universities, which they wouldn't be practically able to do then. Supporters of the Thursday date argue that it would be impractical to do the immediate preparations for the election on a weekend. There are also concerns about the practical side of holding an election in the middle of winter, which apparently hasn't happened in the UK in a long time. Some people worry whether all polling stations will provide enough light sources to allow voters to see the way to the entrances after sunset, and there are also worries that voters might fall flat on their faces on their way to the polling stations.

Not everyone agrees on having a December election, though. One Labour MP, Barry Sheerman, tweeted that it's "sheer madness" to agree to an election exactly when Johnson wants one, and claims that most Labour leaders oppose such an election, but Corbyn and his closest supporters in the leadership refuse to listen to them.

[Raphael]

The opposition just won a procedural vote on the deliberations for the early election bill, 312 to 295.

[Raphael]

Labour wants the early election bill to include provisions allowing 16- and 17 year old and EU citizens living in the UK to vote. Conservatives oppose this. If amendments to the bill providing for these rules get passed, the Government might pull the bill.

EDIT: Ok, perhaps I misunderstood that. Apparently, it's mainly the Lib Dems who want those changes, though Labour is sympathetic or partly sympathetic to them.

[Raphael]

Ok, it's now been basically confirmed that if the amendments allowing 16- and 17 year olds and EU citizens to vote get passed, the Government will pull the whole early election bill. The question now is whether Speaker Bercow allows votes on those amendments in the first place.

[alynnidalar]

So we all agree the plan is to continue getting extensions until the Sun expands and kills all life on Earth, rendering the problem moot, yes?

[Raphael]

Or until the next regularly scheduled UK election in 2022. If there's an election that produces a clear Tory majority, either in 2022 or earlier, there will almost certainly be some kind of Brexit soon afterwards, with or without a deal. If there's an election that produces a clear majority for the various parties that are more or less to the left of the Tories, there will probably be a second Brexit referendum, which may or may not overturn the result of the first Brexit referendum. If there's an election that produces neither of those results, err [insert appropriate emoji here].

[Raphael]

Ok, it's now been basically confirmed that if the amendments allowing 16- and 17 year olds and EU citizens to vote get passed, the Government will pull the whole early election bill. The question now is whether Speaker Bercow allows votes on those amendments in the first place.

Looks like those amendments won't be put to a vote.

[Salmoneus]

So we all agree the plan is to continue getting extensions until the Sun expands and kills all life on Earth, rendering the problem moot, yes?

No, I think we've given up on that.

The conservative plan is for brexit as soon as possible - they say perhaps not this year, but 'early january'. That's why they threatened to pull the election vote - because once the amendments passed, if they'd passed, it wouldn't be legal to hold an election until it was possible to do so in an orderly fashion with the expanded voter rolls. Working out all the eligible voters and where they lived, and making sure they all knew about the election and how to vote, would have taken six months, and during that time the opposition would have stonewalled brexit - "hey, we need another extension until we've had this election!"

The labour plan is not to give a toss about brexit one way or another. The SNP plan is to cackle with glee, but to try not to look like it.

The lib dem plan was to stop brexit with a referendum. But in the last few days, they've changed their tune, and now support an early referendum? Why? Because we live in the age of instagram politics, in which "expressing yourself", "sending a message" and "speaking out" and generally making sure everyone can see you looking like you're on the right side of every issue, is more important than actually getting shit done. In this case, the election will, barring a miracle, guarantee a rapid Brexit on Boris Johnson's terms, the exact opposite of what the Lib Dems claim to want. But the election will also probably be great news for the Lib Dems, who get to run on a manifesto of preventing Brexit, and particularly a rapid Brexit on Boris Johnson's terms, and the chance to be in the news opposing something is WAY more important than actually preventing the thing in question.

Basically, their calculation is that Labour won't ever actually agree to a referendum, they'll only keep promising they'll have one if necessary as a last resort*. That being the case, either Brexit gets dragged on in an indefinite holding pattern until absolutely everybody wants it over at any price (and the Lib Dems get hated again), or Labour eventually have a policy (and the Lib Dems lose their 'vote for us, we're the only non-Tories with a policy!' trump card), or Brexit is over and done with in which case the Lib Dems will lose their biggest issue. Electorally, it makes sense for the Lib Dems to want to have the referendum at the point of maximum Brexit-salience, to maximise their votes and seats. Unfortunately, in this case holding the election at that point in time will guarantee that what they claim to fear and loathe the most will indeed happen. But it would be wrong to act politically over this, they need to send a clear message and stand up for what they believe in... (kind of like yelling "WE SHOULD ALL BE QUIETER" through a megaphone in order to make sure your message of quietness is heard as clearly as possible...


Still, at least they're more strategic about it than Labour. Labour were completely opposed to this election up until... last night. They had good reason: Yougov have them 36-23 behind (BBC's poll tracker has it at 36-24). The reality may well be worse than that sounds, because of the way votes are converted into seats: with voters deserting Labour on both the Leave side (Tories and Brexit Party) and the Remain side (Lib Dems, Greens, and SNP/Plaid), they may not have many safe seats left. Below about 25% in a first past the post system is a really dangerous area. On the one hand, they've edged back ahead of the Lib Dems, so they don't need to immediately worry about being wiped out and turned into a third party (although Labour MPs in London will indeed be terrified - nobody knows how that's going to work out). On the other hand, because the Lib Dems aren't in a position to replace Labour, we risk the Conservatives bulldozing everybody.

So why did they change their minds this morning (having voted against an election yesterday!)? Maybe Corbyn didn't like waking up to yet another day of 'Corbyn is a coward who is holding the country to ransome' headlines in the papers. But it seems as though Corbyn himself has always wanted an immediate election, but has been held back by his coterie - I think Corbyn thinks that this will be like 2017, when Labour made up over 20 points over the course of the campaign. And maybe it will be. It's not impossible that, for example, when asked to focus on bread-and-butter issues (Labour's election strategy is to avoid mentioning Brexit), 'real' Remain Labour voters will abandon their current angry flirtations with other Remain parties, while 'real' Leaver Labour voters will realise that Brexit's happening now so they may as well return to the fold. But... I doubt it. 2017 was an epochically catastrophic electoral campaign by May, and it's hard to imagine Johnson (or any human being) could do so pathetically this time around.

So we're probably looking at a Tory landslide, followed by Brexit in early January.






*"So what IS the last resort? Piccadilly!?

[Raphael]

The Conservatives have now restored the whip to, that is, welcomed back into the party, ten of the 21 Conservative MPs whom they had thrown out a while ago.

[Raphael]

It's a December 12th election. The amendment to move to to December 9th was beaten 315 to 295, and the bill itself passed 438 to 20.

[MacAnDàil]

The polls this past year or so have been much more volatile than in 2017. There have not yet been polls showing what people have thought post-delay, but there are polls showing what people would think post-delay and it's not looking good for Johnson: https://britainelects.com/2019/09/07/po ... t-delayed/

I thought Labour would support the next general election proposal because the thing Labour is the most clear and adamant on on Brexit is avoiding No Deal. Now that the delay is sorted, it's for the general election.

[MacAnDàil]

Also relevant is this article on how Labour can win: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... l-election.

[Raphael]

Minor nitpick: that's, strictly speaking, an opinion piece, not an article.


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I guess the election might be partly decided by how much effort the Brexit Party puts into campaigning. So, how pissed at Johnson are they?

[alice]

Not to mention tactical voting against Conservative candidates, of which there maybe a lot.

[Salmoneus]

That's true.

I don't buy the idea of a Brexit Party backlash against Johnson because he failed to deliver Halloween Brexit. Sure, he failed. But it was very clear to everybody, I think, that he was absolutely forced to fail by Parliament - he delivered a deal that most Leavers would probably support, and he only asked for an extension when compelled to by law. Given the level of trust they have in him, and the fact it's clearly everyone else's fault we haven't Brexited yet, and given that the writing seems now to be on the wall for Brexit in the next few months, and given that the only thing that could stop that would be a collapse of the Tory vote, then I think that Brexit Party voters will overwhelmingly back the Tory candidate if the local Tory is viable and not known as a Remainer.

I might, however, buy the idea of tactical voting against the Tories. I'm skeptical of the organised efforts, because it'll only become meaningful if Labour agree to support Lib Dem candidates (if Lib Dems agree to support Labour it probably won't swing enough seats, since there aren't many Tory-Labour-LD seats to begin with, whereas there's a lot of Tory-LD-Labour seats), and I can't imagine Labour putting anything above their own seat count. However, mass tactical voting by the public is the great unknown - usually there's hardly any of it, but then these are unusual times. My assumption is that there won't be enough to make a huge difference. But it's not impossible that there might be. In which case things get VERY complicated, and even a Lib Dem Prime Minister isn't impossible...

[more likely unfortunately is one-sided tactical voting, where Lib Dem voters all vote Labour, but Labour voters don't vote Lib Dem...]



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Johnson won the Queen's Speech, by the way. Which has been ignored in all the other brouhaha, but is worth mentioning, because it's actually quite weird and I'm surprised commentators haven't noticed it.

The thing is, Johnson SHOULDN'T have won the Queen's Speech, because he has a minority. He only won the speech because of the unusually large number of Labour MPs who abstained, which is just shocking. Sure, they're probably Leavers, but the QS wasn't just, or even primarily, about Brexit. The idea that so-called Labour MPs would simply stand back and allow a Tory MP to have the support of the Commons for his right-wing agenda is just bizarre. Are these MPs drifting toward the Conservative Party? Was it a tactical undermining of Corbyn? Or do they think that to avoid offending their Leaver electorate they have to be seen to support the Conservatives no matter what they do?

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Another surprise: the people Johnson let back into the party AREN'T just the ones who voted for the Queen's Speech. Several people backed him but remain kicked out, particularly the more prominent ones, like Hammond and Stewart. Others abstained in the vote, but got let back in anyway. Not sure what went on behind the scenes there.


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Amber Rudd, former Home Secretary, is standing down as an MP. As an Independent Conservative with a majority of only dozens, she was doomed, but there was talk of her moving to London and standing as an IC in a Remainer constituency there.

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Nicky Morgan, former Education Secretary, is standing down as an MP. She's still in the Cabinet, but she's a vocal Remainer - she's called for Soft Brexit, voted against May to ensure Parliament had a vote on Article 50, and supported legal action against her own government for prorogation. Now she says she's tired of the death threats and wants to spend more time with her family.

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Justine Greening, former Education Secretary (and Treasury Secretary) is likewise standing down (although she actually announced this a while ago). Like Rudd, she was once seen as a potential future party leader (she was also for a while their youngest female MP, and one of the very few Tory women in a same-sex relationship), but was expelled over Brexit.

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Two of the five Independent Group for Change MPs are standing down as MPs.

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And there's a sad end for the ongoing Saga of Heidi Allen. Having, in a mere four years, sat as a Conservative MP, an Independent Group MP, a Change UK MP, an Independent Group for Change MP, and independent MP, an Independent MP, and a Liberal Democrat MP, she will now not be standing as an MP.

----

Meanwhile, Antoinette Sandbach, a Tory kicked out over Brexit, has become a Lib Dem. The Lib Dems now have 21 MPs, of whom only 12 were actually elected as Lib Dems. Only four more defections needed for the defectors to outnumber the natives!

[zompist]

It's a bit confusing when "stand" is the verb used for running for Parliament, and also for not running for Parliament.

(I know, there's a particle to disambiguate.)

[Salmoneus]

And of course if you stand successfully you get to sit. But when you stop sitting you stand down, rather than up, which is a little counterintuitive...

[Raphael]

And of course if you stand successfully you get to sit. But when you stop sitting you stand down, rather than up, which is a little counterintuitive...

Reminds me of the German dad joke

"Was macht Karl?"
"Er sitzt."
"Warum?"
"Weil er gestanden hat."

[mèþru]

sad end for the ongoing Saga of Heidi Allen

Eh, not sorry for her. All this constant party switching sounded like provocation to keep herself in the news and got annoying fast

[Salmoneus]

John Bercow is no longer the Speaker. Instead, today Ken Clarke, as Father of the House, is conducting the election to replace him.

It uses the multiple-rounds balloting system familiar from the Tory leadership election and elsewhere: there's a series of ballots of MPs, and after each one the lowest-ranked candidate drops out, along with (in the first ballot, to speed things up) anyone under a threshold, and anyone who chooses to drop out.

Voting has now been going on for over three hours, but they've only gotten through two ballots. This is because it takes twenty minutes to print the ballot papers (how!? how does the Palace of Westminster not own a printer that can print 700 sheets of paper in under 20 minutes? I mean, it's only one side of paper per voter, and each voter has their own office containing, one would assume, a printer, so...), and then twenty minutes to vote (some of them are old, it takes them a while to tick a box...), and then an estimated 45 minutes to count the ballot papers (how!? is it literally just Ken Clarke trying to read them one by one without his glasses on!? I guess 45 minutes for 700 ticks isn't unreasonable if it's just one person counting, but you'd think they could find a couple of clerks to help him out...)

Still, it's appaently quicker than ten years ago, when MPs had 30 minutes to vote, and it took an hour to count the votes each time.

Anyway, it's down to three: Eleanor Laing for the Tories, Chris Bryant for Labour, and Lindsay Hoyle, who is expected to win. In essence, Labour put up a bunch of candidates, but split their votes. The Tory candidates other than Laing were knocked out very quickly. Looking at the numbers, it's clear a lot of Tories have been voting for Hoyle since the beginning, even though he's Labour, probably because they expect to lose anyway and wanted to make sure it wouldn't be Harriet Harman (who's just dropped out). Bryant apparently gave a good speech (each candidate spoke immediately before the vote) and has corralled the more ardent Labour/Remainer vote, while Laing's votes probably come from Brexiteers and the right of her party, as she's signalled that she will be much less interventionist than Bercow.

It's currently 244 for Hoyle, 122 for Laing, and 120 for Bryant. The two to drop out from the last round, Winterton (forced out) and Harman (surrendered) together had 89 votes. They were both Labour - Harman very strongly Labour and Remainer, Winterton less strongly so but still a former minister and chief whip. All three are women, and some of Harman's voters might go to Laing on feminist grounds, but in general it's unlikely Laing will be able to get many, if any, votes from those pools.

I'd assume most of Harman's vote will go to Bryant, and probably most of Winterton's vote too, assumign they're not bored and desparate to get it over with - with Hoyle the frontrunner, after all, people who aren't voting for him after two rounds probably don't want him. But even if all 89 new votes go to Bryant, he'll still be behind Hoyle, while I can't see any way that Laing could end up ahead of Bryant unless there's a LOT more bad blood between the Bryant and and Harman camps than I'm aware of. That means Laing will be eliminated, leaving Hoyle vs Bryant. The great majority of Laing's voters will then back Hoyle as the least-bad option, so Hoyle will win. As Bryant and Laing are on opposite sides of Hoyle in party politics, in Brexit, in personal style and in stated policy as speaker, it's almost impossible to see their voters uniting forces to stop Hoyle, whom, so far as I can see, hardly anyone actively dislikes.



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In other news, a report into the extent of Russia's interference in UK elections has been completed, by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the Commons, and has gone through all the steps of declassification for public release. The govenment, however, is refusing to release it until after the election, as seeing how much Russia has been backing the Tories might unduly influence voters not to support the Tories...

Lord Anderson (Tory), the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said the decision "invites suspicion of the government and its motives". Dominic Grieve (Tory), former Attorney General and now Chairman of the ISC, has described the government excuses (that they don't have time) as "entirely disingenous and grossly misleading", and Lord Ricketts (crossbencher given peerage by Tories), the former Permanent Secretary to the Foreign Office, Permanent Representative to NATO, and National Security Advisor, calls the excuses "a red herring" and agreed there was "a clear public interest" for publication.



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EDIT: third ballot's over. Pretty much what I thought. Laing's up to 127, so five "end the Old Boy's Club" feminists have come over from Harman (and/or Winterton). Bryant's up to 169, so did indeed get the overwhelming part of Harman's and Winterton's votes. And Hoyle's on 267, so there were also a few people who just strongly supported (probably) Harman personally, or else just want the damn voting over with.

Laing is thereby eliminated. Some of her votes probably WILL go to Bryant, because some Tories will see Hoyle as too close to Bercow. However, I don't think it will be very many, and Hoyle's 100-odd votes up with only 130-odd votes to play for, so it seems pretty much a done deal.



One amusing note: part of Bryant's speech to swing MPs to his side was a popular promise to ban clapping. It was so popular that MPs errupted in applause...