UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

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May currently giving a Churchillian speech to her conference.

... /sarcasm, right?

She sputtered through a coughing fit, was handed a p45 (dismissal notice) by a satirist who sneaked in, and the sign behind her fell apart letter by letter for the last 10 minutes of the speech. This is 'The Thick of It' level cringe.

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Add to that the economic and logistical disaster that will follow anything but a business-as-usual seamless transition, which would be unacceptable to the Brexit fundamentalists in the Tory ranks.

The real tragedy is that with the Tories so consumed by their petty internal squabbles, the bureaucratic and constitutional process of extricating the UK from the EU is receiving hardly any attention or thought. It was a dreadful idea to begin with but this just ensures it will be a catastrophe for the Tories and the country (possibly not in that order).

The only bright side is that Labour is going to run against such a mess, and be bequeathed such a ruthlessly centralized system of cabinet/committee legislative prerogatives, they'll be able to enact an agenda more sweeping and revolutionary than they ever would have if the Tories had gone for a soft Brexit.

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Add to that the economic and logistical disaster that will follow anything but a business-as-usual seamless transition, which would be unacceptable to the Brexit fundamentalists in the Tory ranks.

The real tragedy is that with the Tories so consumed by their petty internal squabbles, the bureaucratic and constitutional process of extricating the UK from the EU is receiving hardly any attention or thought. It was a dreadful idea to begin with but this just ensures it will be a catastrophe for the Tories and the country (possibly not in that order).

The only bright side is that Labour is going to run against such a mess, and be bequeathed such a ruthlessly centralized system of cabinet/committee legislative prerogatives, they'll be able to enact an agenda more sweeping and revolutionary than they ever would have if the Tories had gone for a soft Brexit.

That assumes Labour wins next time around.  The polls are still fairly close and I suspect the Tories will hit the Labour much harder with their attacks.  Also the strong turnout amongst millennials may or may not materialize again.  Never mind if a true hung parliament where the Liberal Democrats are the party holding the balance of power expect another quick election.  Also I think with a different leader the Tories might do a bit better.  While others disagree, I think Boris Johnson with his common touch and also more urban oriented would help the party somewhat.  Although if they fall far enough in the polls might not matter.

I think you are misreading what Johnson's political profile is. He's not someone with a common touch - except insofar as he appears more of an everyman next to cartoonish popinjays like David Davis and Jacob Rees-Mogg - and he's not urban oriented. Johnson's pedigree is as elite/toff as you can get (Eton/Oxford) and his stints as mayor and as Foreign Secretary have worn away whatever impression that he is a feisty outsider to the stodgy powers-that-be.

Second, his constituency is in the suburban commuter belt, which was also the region that delivered him the mayoralty in 2008 and 2012. He has no more appeal to younger, more diverse, more metropolitan/cosmopolitan voters than the average Tory does - and even if he did, his opportunistic transformation on Brexit erased it. The people who admire him, or are at least amused by him, fall comfortably into the category of 'my in-laws': well off, retired, undogmatic but temperamentally conservative, and inclined to vote for the Tories anyway.

I'd also add that for much of the country, being from London, nevermind mayor of it, pretty much precludes you from being thought of as a 'common man'.

As to the dynamics of the next election, nothing is certain, to be sure, but the stench of death on the Tories is pretty inescapable. They shot themselves in the foot with the early election and the circling drain of Brexit negotiations gets a little bit smaller and a little bit faster every week. Combined with the obstinate approach of May and the irreconcilable differences in the caucus over Europe and you've got a recipe for a party that's on its way out.

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It's starting to look like Labour in 09-10 when everyone knew Brown had to go, but no-one really wanted to be Prime Minister.

I agree, though with the crucial difference that the next election does not have to be in the next 18 months. That adds the only real wild card (aka 'faint hope') for the Tories. If they somehow hold on until 2022, enough time will have passed for there to be some change in the dynamics of their party/leadership, or that of Labour's.

I'm at a loss as to how they would struggle on that long; it would be an unprecedentedly long spell for a minority parliament, and there are so many stumbling blocks (and such poor leaders to handle them) that it is almost unthinkable ... and yet, I also can't see how the Tories either lose a vote of no-confidence or voluntarily call another election.

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... Any constituency the Tories got over 50% will be tough to flip unless the Liberal Democrats or UKIP does better next time ...

Question asked, question answered.

As you point out, with the main parties so polarizing - Labour due to Corbyn, the Tories due to Brexit - they've both probably maxed out the percentage of the vote they can expect to win (Labour has a bit more room to grow, especially in Scotland). Should the Tories continue to implode through another general election, their loss will be attributable as much to their core voters staying home or opting for the Lib Dems and UKIP as to Labour picking up support (from anywhere).

One relevant piece of evidence: just after the June election YouGov (I think) did some polling of voters who considered Labour for a time but ended up opting for another party. Their findings were that Corbyn, his allegedly divisive/radical/leftwing policies, and the Labour party's ideological stance generally were not what dissuaded these voters. What did dissuade them was the perception that Labour was haphazard and would not be able to deliver once in power.

As for seats to target, this site gives you a run down. As you can see, it would take a swing of just over 3.5% to deliver the 65 seats needed for an outright majority, and a swing of just 1.5% to tie the Tories in seats (which would almost certainly lead to a Labour-led government with the Lib Dems/SNP all but guaranteeing a full term; their supporters would never forgive them for bringing the Tories back after finally throwing them out). Over half the target seats on that list are in Wales, Scotland, or London - places where Labour has traditionally done well and did particularly/surprisingly well in June.

Put in perspective, the swing to Labour in June was 4.1%. In 1997 - the last time they won back government after a long spell of Tory government ripped apart by Europe - it was 8.8%.

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In terms of specific seats, do you think Boris Johnson's seat could be in danger or his is rather safe?  

It's probably safe, but with a few caveats. Johnson's constituency office and local presence are practically non-existent. If he showed up to campaign for his seat then he'd probably win it, but if he was off touring the country (not as PM) then a strong Labour campaign could win it, assuming a general swing to Labour.

It's also worth mentioning that the area has a large and growing immigrant population, particularly from South Asia (India). They're mostly voting Labour already, but with Johnson quoting Kipling and offhandedly recommending burial detail, he might incite just enough contempt to galvanize his opposition.

If he did lose it would be that election's Portillo moment.

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Link?

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Another one bites the dust. #Prexit

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Priti Patel disappointed me. I saw her as a stronger Tory leader than May.

Does she have a political future in Britain? She could have made history.

Depends on what you mean by 'future'. She's not so tarnished that she couldn't return to cabinet, though probably not before the next Tory ministry (which is to say, probably not until the subsequent Labour government loses power). If she stayed active and respectable in non-Westminster political circles or in the non-profit sector, she could be made a peer in the House of Lords.

But as far as elected office goes, she's probably done.*

*Edit: To be clear, she's not done because what she did is so heinous. It's just that by the time she could be redeemed, newcomers will have risen far enough to be better positioned - and less tarnished - for a run at the leadership

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If their intransigence on the matter means talks hit an impasse, you start to wonder if the government will fall (to say there isn't uniform support for crashing out would be an understatement).

There's never been a consensus about what Brexit means (yes, yes, Brexit means Brexit), even among the Tories. The cynic in me believes they'll find some way to fudge this, or that one of the major players involved (most likely the Brexit ultras or the DUP) will capitulate, but if they don't this is knife-edge level danger.

Who knows, we may even have an election in time to prevent Trump's visit

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No one had posted this yet, and it seemed relatively unremarkable until today ...

Survation Poll:
45
37
6

... and until I found out about this delightful tidbit
[this is] the first poll that would give Labour a majority (10) on the Electoral Calculus. Not only that, but it's the first poll where Labour take Boris Johnson's Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat.

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Oops. My bad. Should have read the thread more closely *blush*

I believe the Fixed Term Parliament Act stipulates a 2/3 majority vote for an early election, but not for a vote of no confidence. In the latter case, if the government loses a confidence vote they have 14 days to reestablish that confidence. In the absence of that, once the 14 days passes, the government expires.

In practice, how this would play out is uncertain as it's never been tested, but if the current crisis is the one that does it, I imagine it would play out like this: the PM announces she will agree to the EU's terms on divergence/alignment, the DUP formally pulls their support, someone calls for a vote of no confidence, the DUP vote against the government*, two weeks of frantic fruitless negotiating ensue, the deadline passes and the writ is signed by Xmas.

Hope springs eternal, but I suspect this is unlikely to transpire. More likely would be May being forced to step down due to a leadership challenge and a replacement pursuing a hard border/hard brexit strategy. 


*This is a bigger stumbling block than it may seem. The Tories have a plurality of seats. DUP votes bring them to majority numbers, but in their absence (i.e. if they simply abstained, which they could do even after having pulled their support for the C+S agreement) the 'rump' parliament would still have 316 Tories (+ 1 speaker) and 315 opposition (which includes a number of expelled 'independents' who may not vote against the government anyway).

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I don't know how you can go from campaigning to Remain to supporting crashing out with no agreements in place...

Ask Theresa May

I agree it's basically impossible for Labour to convince the DUP to cooperate. As I understand it, the DUP wouldn't been keen on this for several reasons:

1. They don't like Labour any more than most Tories/rightwingers do;
2. They don't like Corbyn personally, his actions during the Troubles, or his stated plans for a Corbyn-led UK government;
3. The DUP have never been very fond of the Good Friday Agreement in the first place (they did oppose it in 1998), so seeing it scuppered, even if it means a return of a hard border with the RoI is a lot less upsetting than acceding to any regulatory/constitutional break with the UK.

How things play out if there's a Tory leadership race instead of a no confidence vote is anyone's guess. Part of me would like to think that, yes, a number of the remainer Tory MPs would defect or otherwise withdraw their support in the event of a lunatic leaver becoming PM ... but then I remember this is the Tories we're talking about. They'll cling to power no matter what it takes.

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What's motivating the Scot Tories I don't know. I believe they all profess a desire for a softer brexit, but so far they've been willing to line up with the government during crucial votes.

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Which puts you safely out of the country a lot of the time.

True - certainly helped for Brown re: David Miliband.

Oooh! Does this mean we get to watch them go up for the leadership and Jo win by a nose and then lose the next election?

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I mean we're also assuming here that the government gets to choose when to go: post-Brexit - especially if its a No Deal one or something that leads to a hard Irish border - the DUP may well decide to bring the government down whenever they want: or if something happens to some Tory MPs and we get a few by-elections that they lose then they might even lose their majority with the DUP.  The latter isn't likely in 2019 and would need to be a longer term thing but considering the size of the majority it is a possibility and unlike in 1996/7 the Tories don't really have anyone on the opposition benches other than the DUP to work with; the SNP don't vote on lots of England-only issues unless they have a financial consequence for the Scottish government but they'd vote for a motion of no confidence as would Plaid and the Green: there's Lady Hermon who traditionally has voted with Labour but doesn't like Corbyn but that's one possible vote and then you have the Liberals who have been burned by backing a Tory government already this decade and probably wouldn't do so again.  All in all, its a hard situation and if they are doing terribly in the polls later on I could see the DUP putting the squeeze on to get more ou of them.

It would become clear several months before March 2019 if the negotiations were going to result in a hard border in NI. It's worth noting, that's not actually something the DUP object to - their obsession is with staying lockstep with the UK (except when it comes to gay marriage and abortion, but nevermind).

If such an eventuality (a hard border) did transpire it would mean the lunatic fringe Brexiters managed to strongarm May into reneging on the agreement reached in December. This would likely lead to a leadership challenge, as the Europhile/Remain/moderate Tories would never condone it. Whether or not this would then lead to a general election is an open question. The Tories will cling to power long as long as they can, even if they've lost their ability to govern.

There might be by-elections before March 2019, but probably not enough to change the balance of power.

As for Boris, I said *Jo* Johnson would lose the next election, not Boris. And that was because I was drawing a (facetious) comparison between Boris/Jo Johnson and David/Ed Milliband (brothers; one made foreign secretary by a PM who feared his leadership ambitions; the other wins the leadership by a hair then goes on to lose the GE).

In any case, I still think Boris would lose a GE as Tory leader. I don't know if there's any convincing his diehard supporters that he's nowhere near as popular or competent as they think he is. If his naked opportunism, gaffe after gaffe, poor approval ratings  - even among Tories! - and the withering of his everyman image due to Brexit aren't enough to change your mind then no reasonable argument will.

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Indeed. Boris' appeal, such as it was, seemed to derive from his disruptive potential. He wasn't like the polished, politically correct, identikit politicians (read: Blair and Cameron). He would tell it like it is and challenge the status quo. I suppose there was more of an appetite for that back in 2015. It's safe to say Brexit and Trump have whetted that appetite (and hopefully sated it for a generation).

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for posters actually from the united kingdom - which of the various stories swirling around are actually prominent right now and which are just popular here on atlas atm?

Fittingly, if you want an idea of how salient this topic is in the UK right now, the very nature of the discussion in this thread is a pretty good analogue: vitriolic, exclusively the concern of established partisans, and ultimately irrelevant to the details of the electoral contest we all know is just around the corner.

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... case in point.

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I don't think it's accurate to say most people want the government to 'get on' with Brexit, if only because what 'Brexit' constitutes is still, absurdly, undefined.

Extrapolating from the various polls gauging opinion about the EU, the UK leaving, the actions of the current government, and the stated positions of the major parties, it's fairer to say that there's a sizeable plurality that would like to call off Brexit completely (all Lib Dems plus Greens/SNP/PC, 2/3 to 4/5 Labourites, 1/6 Tories, and good chunk of unaligned voters/non-voters), a slightly smaller plurality that would like to see some version of a 'soft Brexit' (Most of the rest of Labour, half of the Tories, most non-voters), and a small minority that want a 'hard Brexit (all of UKIP, DUP, about 1/3 of Tories).

The dilemma for the government (and for all intents and purposes Labour, too) is that their stated policy of 'hard Brexit' is both unpopular and impossible to deliver due to the Irish border problem BUT there's no way to cobble together the political support for anything else (soft Brexit or no Brexit) without splitting the party and likely collapsing the government.

If and when that happens I suspect it would be a sufficient shock to initiate the mobilization and reshuffling of loyalties that you described, though it's worth noting there would not be a commensurate economic shock to propel it any further.

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Such a sad and disappointing scandal, both Tories and Labour are pointing fingers at each other for Decisions taken in 1971, 2009, 2010 and 2014, this must be solved and sorted out quickly, commonwealth citizens are British citizens and England is their country.

This is so, so, SO wrong: legally, culturally, historically, and practically.

First off, Commonwealth citizens have *zero* right to live in the UK. They have to apply to live or work in the UK like every non-EU citizen does. Once they have a valid visa they are entitled to vote and run in all elections (as opposed to just local/EU ones, which all visa holders can), but they are not entitled to any special services or access to state funds beyond what their visa permits.

Secondly, though I am personally inconvenienced because of this state of affairs, this is very much for the best. Most Commonwealth countries spent a great deal of time, effort, and sacrifice *removing* British control from their internal governance and have no sentimental affection for the UK, never mind anything close to nostalgia about British colonial imperialism.

For the UK to see or treat Commonwealth citizens as British citizens is to condescendingly undermine those people's identities and engage in the most arrogant and jingoistic of self-delusions.

The tragedy of this situation is that the UK, primarily though not exclusively because of right-wing Tory/UKIP agitating, has become immensely more hostile to outsiders over the past 15 years. The draconian immigration enforcement that made the Windrush childrens' lack of documentation a problem in the first place is a direct result of the racist and nativistic rhetoric and policy choices that, regrettably, are pretty much mainstream now.

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Well, they *do* have Cruella DeVil in charge, so ...

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Probably longer than it might otherwise, considering how much political hay Labour and the broader anti-Brexit forces can make of the whole situation. Attacking the harsh immigration policies of the Tories is a way of keeping them on the back foot while implicitly indicting one of the major motivations behind Brexit.

Karen Bradley is rumoured as a replacement. She's remainy, female, and generally untainted by any Home Office or other scandal.

At this point one wonders why anyone would want to step up to the plate. There's certainly going to be more to emerge, any newcomer will be politically powerless (both from being a May-selected backup and having no clout in a Cabinet dominated by 800-pound Brexit supporting gorillas), and *fingers crossed* would only serve for a few months before the next snap election.

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Sajid Javid would make sense.

Javid is rather interesting. Was first regarded as an devout Thatcherite, who made a fair bit of money as an investment banker, and who rose up as one of George Osborne's supporters (as did Rudd). I always thought he was quite right wing, but he was Crabb's deputy in his 2016 leadership bid.

Was talked about as a future leader in 2015/2016 era but soured a bit after nearly backing Leave, but then reluctantly supporting Remain in the hope of getting a better job (the irony being he has became Home Sec because he was a remainer). Was then demoted to Local Government when May won, and has been quite vocal in Cabinet about the governments shortcomings.

He pissed off a lot of Shire Tory types by talking about some quite radical housing policies, and wanted £50 Billion+ in funding to sort out the crisis. Is certainly a more interesting character than was I first assumed.

Will no doubt now be talked about as a future leader again, however we could return to the New Labour standard of Home Secretary's lasting for about 9 months

It seems likely to be a short stay no matter what. Either he makes some move toward genuinely changing the enforcement policy, i.e ending 'hostile environment', and is removed by May, or he does nothing and is shuffled as soon as someone more ambitious and aligned with May manages to elbow his/her way in.

There's also the elephant in the room of what a post-Brexit immigration system needs to look like. AFAIK the Home Office has done about as much planning for Brexit as the other departments (that is to say: next to zero) so Javid will either sit on his hands and hope something works itself out or try to push forward something bold and innovative, which is sure to anger one side or another.

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Nope. Westminster can effectively overrule Scotland in this case.

That said, there *is* plenty of ominous news for Brexit, but it's hardly reported on in the press because it's too technical and still, for the moment, hypothetical. The Tories' proposals for reconciling guarantees of an open border in Ireland with their demands on regulatory and trade divergence with the EU are dead in the water. The parliamentary math is such that there is no majority for leaving the customs union, which is supposedly an inviolable demand of the hardline Brexiteers in the government and on the backbenches. Most importantly, no one has a plan that avoids a complete collapse of negotiations, either in June or in October, or a political crisis in the Tory party.