British Politics Guide

[Ares Land]

This isn't important but just an amusing note: a few days ago Raab, then then and now former Brexit Secretary, admitted "he hadn't quite understood the importance" of the Dover-Calais link to the British economy...

"If God put the English on an island, He must have had His reasons."

[alice]

This isn't important but just an amusing note: a few days ago Raab, then then and now former Brexit Secretary, admitted "he hadn't quite understood the importance" of the Dover-Calais link to the British economy...

"If God put the English on an island, he must have had His reasons."

It's something to do with that old joke you see on Scottish tea-towels, where God endows Scotland with so many Wonderful Things that other countries start to complain, then He says "just wait till you see who I'm going to give them as neighbours".

[Salmoneus]

So the Prime Minister's holding an emergency press conference an hour from now, presumably to explain how wonderfully everything's going.

Meanwhile, she's offered the brexit secretary job to michael gove. Early reports are that he said no, but now it's believed that she's begging him but he's said he'll only agree to take the job if she agrees to tear up the brexit deal (which he agreed to support yesterday) and let him renegotiate from scratch. So... this may have been a lot of fuss for no reason.

Everyone's talking as though a leadership challenge is inevitable, but it hasn't happened yet. It's worth pointing out that probably most Tories want to keep May as PM (at least for now). On the other hand, it's also worth pointing out that this has been a total shambles with no end in sight, and many MPs probably now believe that if it does come to a vote, getting rid of May may be the only way to bring about at least temporary stability. May, on the other hand, is presumably trying to argue that this is a put-up-or-shut-up moment, and that if she wins the vote of no confidence with a resounding majority, it'll put the question of her leadership to rest for a while. But on the other other hand, critics will say that her obvious incompetence and the fact that everyone has contempt for her mean that we'll just be having challenges from now until whenever she's finally toppled.

[alynnidalar]

It occurs to me that it's in a lot of people's best interests to almost topple May (so you can distance yourself from her while blaming her for everything) but not actually topple her (because now you've got to replace her with someone who can do a better job, or else you look bad for getting rid of her). I can't imagine anyone actually wants her job right now, so it seems dangerous to get rid of her without actually having a better alternative waiting in the wings.

(on the other hand, isn't that what much of the Brexit mess has been? Getting rid of something without having anything better to offer!)

[chris_notts]

It occurs to me that it's in a lot of people's best interests to almost topple May (so you can distance yourself from her while blaming her for everything) but not actually topple her (because now you've got to replace her with someone who can do a better job, or else you look bad for getting rid of her). I can't imagine anyone actually wants her job right now, so it seems dangerous to get rid of her without actually having a better alternative waiting in the wings.

(on the other hand, isn't that what much of the Brexit mess has been? Getting rid of something without having anything better to offer!)

Is any confidence vote within the Conservative party anonymous? And do you see how people vote in real time? If you all put your bits of paper into a box and only get the result at the end, I can imagine that an attempt to almost topple May could accidentally turn into an actual toppling of May...

[chris_notts]

- the ERG say they now have at least 84 Tory votes against the deal, which means that it's basically dead in the water - even if the government strings this out to the last moment and hopes that panic changes some of their mind, that seems an impossible obstacle to overcome.

I hope so. I really don't want the disaster of a crash-out Brexit, but even I'm struggling to regard this as the lesser of two evils. The idea that we'd leave a tighter union which we can explicitly, voluntarily leave, reject an alternative ("Norway") which we could also voluntarily leave at some point in the future, in exchange for an agreement where in effect the EU, the block which already has most of the power in the relationship, has a permanent veto on where we go from here... this is the biggest polished turd ever produced in British politics. It really does do the complete opposite of "taking back control", which I thought was the only supposed upside of this mess. I'm not some kind of hardline nationalist, but if I were an MP I couldn't vote for this.

I would have personally preferred that Theresa May sell the DUP down the river and give more on NI, than send the rest of her precious union up the same creek. It's not like NI is going to suffer from being part of the single market, and if they do we can always shove more money in their direction. It's already such a big money sink that what's a few more billion pounds of subsidies?

[alynnidalar]

It occurs to me that it's in a lot of people's best interests to almost topple May (so you can distance yourself from her while blaming her for everything) but not actually topple her (because now you've got to replace her with someone who can do a better job, or else you look bad for getting rid of her). I can't imagine anyone actually wants her job right now, so it seems dangerous to get rid of her without actually having a better alternative waiting in the wings.

(on the other hand, isn't that what much of the Brexit mess has been? Getting rid of something without having anything better to offer!)

Is any confidence vote within the Conservative party anonymous? And do you see how people vote in real time? If you all put your bits of paper into a box and only get the result at the end, I can imagine that an attempt to almost topple May could accidentally turn into an actual toppling of May...

When I say "almost topple", what I mean is "get really close to but never quite actually hold a vote on the subject". Just teeter on the edge awhile more.

[dhok]

A Brexit-watcher on another internet community has floated the theory that May purposely bombed the deal presentation as a 17-D chess move to get Brexit cancelled.

She does not strike me as playing the game on that level.

[Ares Land]

A Brexit-watcher on another internet community has floated the theory that May purposely bombed the deal presentation as a 17-D chess move to get Brexit cancelled.

She does not strike me as playing the game on that level.

No indeed. It's not the first time I've heard a variation on that theory. But I believe Brexit being cancelled is wishful thinking on the level of Trump being impeached.

[Salmoneus]

Theresa May is still around. ERG people are claiming that more than 48 ERG people have told them they've submitted the letters for a VONC. So either the 1922 is lying to us, or the ERG guy is lying to us, or his ERG friends are lying to him. Or all of the above.

On the subject of lying, Michael Gove refused to be Brexit secretary, but has also decided NOT to resign his current job at defra (environment, farms, etc). Labour MP Tom Watson has pithily and accurately (though unfortunately and ironically, given his own history) described this by saying that Michael Gove is the only politician who can make NOT resigning look like an act betrayal...

On a witty rejoinders note: the Prime Minister yesterday went off-script and chose to compare herself to legendary English cricketer Geoffrey Boycott, famous for his pragmatic, stubborn, iron-willed persistence. Several people today have been reminding her that on one occassion England decided it was necessary to intentionally get him out themselves for the good of the team*...


Ars Lande: minor correction: Trump may well be impeached (House); he just won't ever be convicted (Senate).


And yes, it's certainly possible the ERG are just tormenting May. For one thing, under tory rules, they're only allowed one VONC a year, so they may be saving it for her weakest moment. [I THINK that means no more VONC for twelve months; obviously if it's based on calendar years it's very different]



*cricket has time limits. Boycott was famous for not getting out, and he had a good average score, but he could also be very, very slow at scoring, to make sure he didn't get out - even if that meant the team as a whole ended up with a draw from a winning position. England desparately needed to score runs to win the match, and he was refusing to try to score, so they arranged for one of his teammates to intentionally get him run out so someone else could have a go.

[Raphael]

Who is Steve Barclay, and what, if anything, qualifies him to be Brexit Minister?

[mèþru]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Barclay
He worked at Barclays for one. That's not really qualifying but just a funny coincidence.

[chris_notts]

And yes, it's certainly possible the ERG are just tormenting May. For one thing, under tory rules, they're only allowed one VONC a year, so they may be saving it for her weakest moment. [I THINK that means no more VONC for twelve months; obviously if it's based on calendar years it's very different]

If it's calendar years then they have an option about to expire. Better call it before it's too late...

[alice]

And yes, it's certainly possible the ERG are just tormenting May. For one thing, under tory rules, they're only allowed one VONC a year, so they may be saving it for her weakest moment. [I THINK that means no more VONC for twelve months; obviously if it's based on calendar years it's very different]

If it's calendar years then they have an option about to expire. Better call it before it's too late...

Sal thinks correctly; once there's a VonC, there can't be another for a year.

But, as I asked earlier... if there is one, and TM stands down but it turns out nobody wants to replace her, or those that do don't get enough support during the ensuing leadership election, what happens?

[Salmoneus]

Who is Steve Barclay, and what, if anything, qualifies him to be Brexit Minister?

Noise is, he's actually pretty good - everyone who knows him seems to have found him likeable and capable. Including, apparently, civil servants, who usually think ministers are useless.
The downside is, nobody knows him.

So basically he's seen as someone who has a future in the party, but he's low-profile and inexperienced in politics, so this is in theory a very big step up for him. In practice, of course, it's only a step-up in profile, not in power, since the PM's made it clear that the brexit secretary isn't actually in charge of anything. Which is a big part of why everyone better-known than him has refused to take the job. But it has the advantage for TM that he isn't currently in a position to challenge her.

The reshuffle also involves giving Amber Rudd a cabinet post again. This is an interesting one. On the one hand, she was only recently disgraced by her callous incompetence and lying to parliament over the windrush debacle. On the other hand, by current dregs-of-the-barrel standards, she's one of the most capable Tory MPs and it strengthens the government to have her back. Then again, giving a potentially dangerous MP a cabinet job again won't have been something the PM's entirely happy about, because Rudd could easily become a leading name to replace her.


alice: if TM stood down, someone would replace her. There are hundreds of MPs, one of them would take the job, either because it was their only chance of it or just for the good of the country/party - the likely option then would be to pick some old party grandee who'll be retiring shortly and get them to act as a caretaker until after brexit; unfortunately for them most of the obvious names are in the lords (Hague), or out of politics (Osborne) or are unacceptable (Clarke! that would be fun...) - it would be fun from a historic standpoint if Hague were briefly PM from the lords, but it might be more likely we'd see an IDS premiership. Or... what's Lidington's career plan? He might take it on...

If she doesn't stand down, she'll probably win the VONC. If she loses, but no big name tries to challenge her? Interesting. There are two obvious Tory examples here...

...in 1989, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership by Sir Anthony Meyer, an unknown MP with unpopular ideas. He was the textbook stalking horse candidate - he originally believed he would challenge Thatcher, and then Thatcher's real rivals would join the contest. But the reaction to the challenge wasn't positive enough, so everyone else stayed out, and Meyer ended up a sacrifice - demonised in the press, deselected by his local party, and outed as having had a quarter-century-long affair with a younger woman. However, it was a disaster for Thatcher - only around 30 people voted for Meyer, but another 30 intentionally spoiled their ballots. This, given how ridiculous Meyer's challenge was, effectively signaled to everybody that Thatcher lacked complete support, and fired the starting gun on the campaign to remove her - she was deposed about a year later.

Meyer was used as a test balloon to undermine a seemingly strong PM; but May is a weak PM and already undermined. So a better example might be 1995, when Major resigned as Tory leader (while remaining PM). He challenged "the bastards" (eurosceptics, the people we now call brexiteers) to "put up or shut up" - by resigning, he called a leadership challenge against himself, and ran in the vote to replace himself. This time the stalking horse against him was John Redwood. Under the rules at the time (also for Meyer's bid, aiui), if no candidate got a majority and more than 15% more than their rivals, there'd be a second round at which point, crucially, new nominations would be permitted - so if Redwood got close enough to Major, Major's real rivals would have entered. But he didn't - Major won more than 2/3rds of the vote in the first round. Now, this was actually a much weaker performance than Thatcher in 1989. But whereas Thatcher's surprisingly weak result showed she was vulnerable, Major's surprisingly strong result showed he wasn't as vulnerable as thought; the bastards stepped back and he was able to serve out the remaining two years of his term relatively unmolested.

So this scenario could be great for May. If a leadership contest is a damp squib, with only a token ERG candidate, easily crushed, then it'll look like the party IS behind her - it'll also make it harder for anyone else to criticise her ("well if you don't like what she's doing, why didn't you stand against her when you had the chance!?").

Of course, on the other hand, if May loses a VONC badly, and then wins the leadership election by 1 vote over a weak candidate, then we're REALLY in a weird position. Because she'll look pathetically weak, but internal party rules won't let anyone challenge her for another year! Normally you'd say the leader in that case would resign in shame to save themselves the further embarrassment, but clearly that doesn't work with May...


Now, what she maybe should do if she loses the VONC is ask a friend to run as a spoiler - because among the parliamentary party, May may have more than twice as many MPs as any other candidate, if the big guns stay out of it. In that case, she could engineer a no-contest (have her minion be the last one standing against her and then drop their bid) or an easy win over a no-name in the popular ballot... whereas, while she'll be confident of majority support from MPs, a live ERGer could be dangerous if the vote makes it to the grassroots membership.



I

[chris_notts]

If she doesn't stand down, she'll probably win the VONC. If she loses, but no big name tries to challenge her? Interesting. There are two obvious Tory examples here...

...in 1989, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership by Sir Anthony Meyer, an unknown MP with unpopular ideas. He was the textbook stalking horse candidate - he originally believed he would challenge Thatcher, and then Thatcher's real rivals would join the contest. But the reaction to the challenge wasn't positive enough, so everyone else stayed out, and Meyer ended up a sacrifice - demonised in the press, deselected by his local party, and outed as having had a quarter-century-long affair with a younger woman. However, it was a disaster for Thatcher - only around 30 people voted for Meyer, but another 30 intentionally spoiled their ballots. This, given how ridiculous Meyer's challenge was, effectively signaled to everybody that Thatcher lacked complete support, and fired the starting gun on the campaign to remove her - she was deposed about a year later.

Wouldn't a similar scenario to the Thatcher example apply if TM won the VONC, but a large minority voted against her? If it were 60% - 40% in her favour, for example, it would underline again how weak she is, even if no actual leadership contest takes place. She might be protected for a year as PM in theory, but she'd lose what little authority she had left (if in fact she still has any).

[Salmoneus]

If she doesn't stand down, she'll probably win the VONC. If she loses, but no big name tries to challenge her? Interesting. There are two obvious Tory examples here...

...in 1989, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership by Sir Anthony Meyer, an unknown MP with unpopular ideas. He was the textbook stalking horse candidate - he originally believed he would challenge Thatcher, and then Thatcher's real rivals would join the contest. But the reaction to the challenge wasn't positive enough, so everyone else stayed out, and Meyer ended up a sacrifice - demonised in the press, deselected by his local party, and outed as having had a quarter-century-long affair with a younger woman. However, it was a disaster for Thatcher - only around 30 people voted for Meyer, but another 30 intentionally spoiled their ballots. This, given how ridiculous Meyer's challenge was, effectively signaled to everybody that Thatcher lacked complete support, and fired the starting gun on the campaign to remove her - she was deposed about a year later.

Wouldn't a similar scenario to the Thatcher example apply if TM won the VONC, but a large minority voted against her? If it were 60% - 40% in her favour, for example, it would underline again how weak she is, even if no actual leadership contest takes place. She might be protected for a year as PM in theory, but she'd lose what little authority she had left (if in fact she still has any).

Sure, as in my scenario at the end there. But the flip side of that is that she already has no authority, and no way to resolve the dominant issue of the day, and probably no longer a majority in parliament - at this point, keeping the job for another year would be a big win for her. A year's a long time in politics!

Basically, I think her position now is so weak that almost anything other than deposition is an improvement for her. Among the party, that is - she could of course still be removed in the House.

[chris_notts]

Sure, as in my scenario at the end there. But the flip side of that is that she already has no authority, and no way to resolve the dominant issue of the day, and probably no longer a majority in parliament - at this point, keeping the job for another year would be a big win for her. A year's a long time in politics!

Basically, I think her position now is so weak that almost anything other than deposition is an improvement for her. Among the party, that is - she could of course still be removed in the House.

Even more fun would be if she won a Conservative VONC and then the government as a whole lost one in the Commons. The DUP breaking with the Conservatives could do this, of course, if they were willing to risk JC becoming PM. It'd be an interesting test of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. Presumably if there were an election, TM would still be in the driving seat regarding the manifesto, protected for a year from being deposed, which is exactly what none of the Tory grandees wanted after the fiasco last time. And if she wrote support for her deal into the manifesto, would her MPs then be forced to campaign for it?

Another fun scenario would be if the Commons had a vote of no confidence in the PM (is this even possible anymore?). As far as I understand it, this would not trigger a GE under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, it would just be a way of blowing a big raspberry in her direction.

[Salmoneus]

Sure, as in my scenario at the end there. But the flip side of that is that she already has no authority, and no way to resolve the dominant issue of the day, and probably no longer a majority in parliament - at this point, keeping the job for another year would be a big win for her. A year's a long time in politics!

Basically, I think her position now is so weak that almost anything other than deposition is an improvement for her. Among the party, that is - she could of course still be removed in the House.

Even more fun would be if she won a Conservative VONC and then the government as a whole lost one in the Commons. The DUP breaking with the Conservatives could do this, of course, if they were willing to risk JC becoming PM. It'd be an interesting test of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. Presumably if there were an election, TM would still be in the driving seat regarding the manifesto, protected for a year from being deposed, which is exactly what none of the Tory grandees wanted after the fiasco last time. And if she wrote support for her deal into the manifesto, would her MPs then be forced to campaign for it?

...oh good god. This could get SO ridiculous. It could be even worse, too - what if she loses the VONC, showing her MPs have no confidence in her, but then wins the party membership vote to remain leader, and then the MPs have to campaign for her to win the election? On a manifesto they don't support, having just gone on record as not supporting her?

Another fun scenario would be if the Commons had a vote of no confidence in the PM (is this even possible anymore?). As far as I understand it, this would not trigger a GE under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, it would just be a way of blowing a big raspberry in her direction.

Under the FTPA, there are now three ways to call an election early:
- get the votes of 2/3rds of MPs
- have a VONC against the government, which takes only 50+% of MPs (which can be negated if a new government is negotiated within two weeks)
- repeal the FTPA, which also only takes 50+% of MPs, but might take a while.

Add in that it's almost impossible that the opposition would admit to not wanting an election, and the FTPA is basically a pointless way of giving political science and constitutional law students more work to do...

However, it's possible to have a commons VONC against the PM personally; this, as you say, is just an insult, and doesn't trigger anything. It would be fun to see how many brexiteers might join one of those...


But here's another nightmare: TM loses her party VONC, triggering a contest, which they then schedule to take about a month. A few days later, she loses a VONC in parliament, triggering a general election. Factor in the two week delay after a VONC, and you've got a general election only a month after a new Tory leader was elected. Simultaneous party and general campaigns! And then what happens with purdah? It'd be weird to see a leadership campaign during purdah, when one candidate was the prime minister!!
[so, we could have a leadership campaign culminating on christmas day, followed by a general election three weeks into january, followed by a brexit referendum one week into March, just in time for brexit on the 29th... we'll be able to lay bets on how many politicians have nervous breakdowns at some point in that process...]

[...oh god, brexit referendum a week into march that demands we stay in the EU, followed by No Deal Brexit on the 29th while we're fighting the court case over whether we can unilaterally un-trigger Brexit, followed by the ECJ deciding at the beginning of May that we can, followed by the Brexiteers saying that since we left the EU with no deal in March, the ECJ no longer has jurisdiction and the Remainers saying that since the second referendum cancelled brexit we never left so the ECJ does still have jurisdiction... meanwhile Corbyn's cabinet collapses because he doesn't have the support of his parliamentary party either and there are fresh elections in the summer which put the tories back in power and then say that yes we have brexited while the EU say that we haven't and that we'd need to trigger article 50 again and then... oh good gods.]

[zompist]

OK, do I have this straight?

- there's been a bunch of heat and noise but
- May is still PM, but
- no one likes the agreement, but
- the agreement is still on

Apparently the EU has a summit to approve the agreement in November, and Parliament gets a vote in December.