UK General Discussion: 2019 and onwards, The End of May

[YL]

Christopher Davies (Conservative, Brecon and Radnorshire) has just pleaded guilty to two expenses fraud charges.

I think this means another recall petition.  The Recall of MPs Act has special provisions for this, so it's not dependent on the sentence.

[YL]

Richard Harrington (Con, Watford) appears to have resigned as a government minister.

As have Steve Brine (Winchester) and Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire).

The Government lost the vote on the Letwin amendment (indicative votes) by 329 to 302, with 30 Tories (including all three of the above, which is why they resigned) voting for the amendment but 8 Labour MPs voting with the Government.

The Government won the vote on the Beckett amendment which was meant to require a vote before No Deal by 314 to 311.  Details of who voted each way still to come, but I bet those Labour MPs who keep voting with the Government saved their bacon again.

(Indeed: 8 Labour MPs voted with the Government on Beckett.  Not actually the same 8.)

[YL]

Nope, the DUP aren't supporting it. The ERG is not a unified group.

But there are enough Labour Yes votes that it could pass if the ERG gets on board even without the DUP.

This is very doubtful.

It lost by 149 last time, so 75 minds need to change.  There are 10 DUP MPs and 75 Tories who voted against the deal; there may also be a handful of Labour MPs who will consider voting for it, though all evidence is that the number of these is consistently exaggerated.

But 6 of those 75 Tories are Remainers (Bebb, Greening, Grieve, Gyimah, J. Johnson, Lee; maybe more, as I don't have a full knowledge of Tory MPs' positions).  So without the DUP it looks pretty hopeless for the deal; even with them it's struggling, as there seem to be a handful of Leave Tories who just will not back it whatever.

[YL]

Does this not just come down to how many pro-Brexit LAB MPs and/or LAB MPs that represent pro-Brexit district will defect over and vote for the May plan?  My impression is that while there are a bloc of pro-Brexit LAB voters this topic if not what is important to them which means I think the number of LAB MPs that might defect could be quite small.

No, the first question concerns the DUP.  If they stay against (which is the indication so far) I don't think it can get the votes.  If they vote for, then it might come down to how many Labour MPs are prepared to vote for it but the number of Tory die-hards (the name Chope comes to mind) who still won't is also relevant.

[YL]

The DUP say No.

(It is, after all, their favourite word.)

[YL]

No deal duly crushed, how many non-Tory MPs supported it? I expect not many.

Ronnie Campbell, Kate Hoey and Dennis Skinner.

[YL]

"I’m in favour of the deal and I hope the DUP will come over to the deal but we’ll have to wait and see what they do ...

I don’t think the deal’s suddenly got better, simply that the alternative is now worse. It’s not having any Brexit at all and it’s letting down the 17.4m people who voted to leave."-Jacob Rees Mogg, today(or at least this part of today)

Oh come on!!! Pick a position and stick to it, for crying out loud!

He's in danger of being superseded by Mark Francois.

[YL]

Only 5 Labour MPs voted for the deal: John Mann, Kevin Barron and Caroline Flint (who all have before) plus Jim Fitzpatrick and Rosie Cooper.  Lexiters Ronnie Campbell and Dennis Skinner abstained; all other Labour MPs voted no, even Gareth Snell.

Meanwhile 34 Tories voted no; six I think are Remainers so that's 28 ERG types who didn't cave.  The DUP voted no as well, of course.

[YL]

Nick Boles (Grantham) has resigned from the Conservative Party literally in the Commons Chamber.

FWIW, Grantham is the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher.

Amusingly he is the second consecutive MP for Grantham & Stamford to leave the Tories; his predecessor Quentin Davies defected to Labour in 2007.

[YL]

I thought for sure Customs Union and Common Market 2.0 would pass ... what happened  ?

Lots of Remainers didn't support them.  Both would have passed, for example, if the 11 TIGgers and four or five Lib Dems who voted against it had abstained.

I fear this was a mistake.

[YL]

A YouGov poll has no deal Brexit at 51% when the choice is between that or remaining in the EU:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1113822734465798144

No it doesn't.  The actual poll data can be found at
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ojewuniikg/Internal_190401_BrexitTrackers_w.pdf

The question that Leavers are cherry-picking is "And if Britain has not agreed a deal by April 12th
and the European Union refused to grant a further extension, what do you think should happen?" to which the answer was No Deal 44%, Remain 42%, Don't Know 13%.  Note that this is in the context of the EU refusing to grant an extension.

[YL]

The question that Leavers are cherry-picking is "And if Britain has not agreed a deal by April 12th
and the European Union refused to grant a further extension, what do you think should happen?" to which the answer was No Deal 44%, Remain 42%, Don't Know 13%.  Note that this is in the context of the EU refusing to grant an extension.

Replying with "don't know" is the equivalent of not voting; i.e. those people don't count.

That isn't my objection.  My objection is to the fact that people who are making a fuss about this are ignoring the framing and the context of the question; this is Opinion Polling 101: these things matter.

[YL]

Updated composition of the Commons following Newport West:

Con 312 + 1 Deputy Speaker
Lab 244 + 2 Deputy Speakers
SNP 35
Independent 22
Lib Dem 11
DUP 10
Sinn Féin 7
Plaid 4
Green 1
Speaker 1

Excluding SF, the Speaker and Deputies, who don't vote (except in casting vote situations) Con+DUP have 322 out of 639, a working majority of 5.

The Independents are broken down as 11 TIG, 6 non-TIG ex-Labour (Austin, Field, Lewis, O'Mara, Onasanya, Woodcock), 2 suspended Labour (Hopkins, Williamson), 1 ex-LD (Lloyd), 1 non-TIG ex-Tory (Boles) and one elected as Independent (Hermon).

[YL]

ChUK-TIG is now officially a Party:
http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP9077

[YL]

ChUK-TIG is now officially a Party:
http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP9077

As happy as I am they exist, and as willing as I am to give them my full support, they have chosen a really, REALLY, crappy name.

Out of interest, why do you prefer them to the Lib Dems?

(And yes, the name is rubbish.)

[YL]

It appears to be yet another push poll mind, so modified joy.

I'm not sure that "push poll" is quite right, but it is worth bearing in mind that it was commissioned by an organisation called "Brexit Express" (who are actually a registered political party) and it prompted for more parties than normal, including the Brexit Party and ChUK-TIG (but not the Greens).  So it is not particularly surprising that it gives those two a higher score than other polls, and the established parties a bit lower.

I note that "Brexit Express" did not leak its EU referendum figures: Remain 58, Leave 42.

[YL]

To the surprise of few, a poll of Tory party members shows a certain B Johnson with most support to take over their poisoned chalice.

The problem is, though, that is about the only group in the country where he retains the popularity he once had more widely. And many Tory MPs - maybe a majority - cordially loathe him.

The question is whether he can get enough support among MPs to get into the final two.  If 100 or so vote for him it would be very difficult to keep him out.

[YL]

Former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine has had the Tory whip in the House of Lords suspended for announcing that he plans to vote Lib Dem on Thursday.

[YL]

Rumours that May will finally make a meaningful statement on her departure in the next 24 hours.

But she has led people up the garden path before, so I will believe it when I see it.

Resigning on 7 June, apparently.  Leadership election to start the week after that.

[YL]

But if a place like Hartlepool is *really* determined on voting like West Virginia, there is ultimately little a left wing party can realistically do but seek support elsewhere.

Losing vast numbers of anti-Brexit voters to the LibDems and Greens isn't a route to a Labour win either, just in case you haven't noticed that yet.

(statement of interest - my own seat voted 60% leave so I find the Remainiac fringe as tiresome as you do)

Well, yeah, I'm not saying Labour has any great option here. The thing is simply that, if the choice is between a rump Labour centered on old-left working-class strongholds vs a rump Labour centered on hip and dynamic middle-class seats, I think the former is much more valuable in its identity and a culture. If you have to be a permanent-minority party, at least be a permanent-minority party that stands with the downtrodden.

Going along with a hard-right project like Brexit (just look at the sort of people who are pushing it) has nothing to do with standing with the downtrodden.  I'm entirely confident that if it were France where this was happening you'd be against it.

[YL]

I mean French politicians are not so mind-numbingly stupid as to call a referendum on leaving the EU (and that's saying something, because French politicians are pretty damn stupid). It's not my fault you elected a craven pigf**ker who took a risky bet to unify his party without a care for the potential consequences.

If we somehow had a referendum and people voted to leave (which would still be unlikely because another thing France doesn't have is a massive Murdoch-based propaganda empire spreading lies and nonsense), then I'd want the people's will to be respected, yes. Even more so if traditional leftist strongholds like the Northern mining basin or the Southwest were among the strongest Leave regions.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you, not in the sense that I think you're lying, but I just don't think you realise how you'd feel about this if it were your country doing it.

(Admittedly, this is complicated in my case by the fact that I have connections to Ireland, and that Leavers and those who want to go along with them consistently ignore the issues there.)

[YL]

Don't take projections like that very seriously.  They have no local data (not that it would be reliable if they did) and the details of what would actually happen with headline numbers like that are not easy to predict.  There is another one out there (Flavible Politics) which has a lot more Lib Dem seats.

I think it is probably true that Labour on 19% hold up better than the Tories on 19%, for the reason that Labour's safe seats are generally more robust.  But both of them on 19% is well into uncharted territory.

Also, it is of course just one poll, and while there might be a General Election round the corner there may well not be.  If we keep seeing figures like this a lot of people won't want there to be one.

[YL]

Stop getting excited about Corbyn losing his seat people, its not happening.

(nor is May losing hers, come to that)

I think it's quite likely that she won't be the candidate, but I wouldn't entirely rule out the Tories losing Maidenhead if things are going very wrong for them.  It was fairly close in 2001 and somewhat optimistically targeted in 2005.

[YL]

Rumours that the last rites of Change UK are nigh.

Apparently Anna Soubry, Chris Leslie, Jona Ryan, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey are staying in Change UK; the rest are leaving.

[YL]

It's confirmed, Ummuna, Allen and four others quit Change UK, Soubry becomes leader of what's left of the party (which is going to make David Owen's infamous continuity SDP look like a huge succes).

(And Cleverly has quit the leadership race, was self-aware enough to realize he was going nowhere)

Umunna, Allen, Wollaston, Berger, Smith and Shuker are independent MPs for now.  There are suggestions that some of them are going to join the Lib Dems but none have yet and it seems unlikely that they all will.

Updated composition of the House:
Con 312 (+1 deputy speaker)
Labour 244 (+2 deputy speakers)
SNP 35
Independent 16
Lib Dem 11
DUP 10
Sinn Féin 7
Change UK 5
Plaid 4
Green 1
Speaker 1
vacant 1 (Peterborough)

The 16 Independents are:
5 ex Lab (Ian Austin, Frank Field, Ivan Lewis, Jared O'Mara, John Woodcock)
4 ex Lab via Change UK (Luciana Berger, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith, Chuka Umunna)
2 ex Con via Change UK (Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston)
2 suspended Lab (Kelvin Hopkins, Chris Williamson)
1 ex Con (Nick Boles)
1 ex Lib Dem (Stephen Lloyd)
1 ex UUP but elected as Independent (Sylvia Hermon)