British Politics Thread

To crash out without a withdrawal agreement wouldn't require government incompetence, it requires backbencher cowardice.

Remember, parliament has been stated as having the authority to revoke Article 50.

Can the opposition even table a motion to cancel Brexit? Also how long would such a motion take to be voted though and signed?

Thing is: The easiest would be to simply vote for revoking article 50. But neither Labour nor the Tories would do that because of the whole "will of the people" nonsense. So proof is needed that this is no longer the will of the people. Meaning no matter who is in power, the people's voted is needed and should therefore be the first and foremost focus. And yet, it isn't.

If a VONC in a government succeeds, it usually triggers a General Election.

Good point. That was a bit stupid of me — parliamentary sovereignty means the power to revoke A50 lies with Parliament, not the government or prime minister.

I'm not sure how it would be tabled. I would think that it would have to be tabled by the Leader of the Opposition to stand a chance of getting tabled (anyone else can be ignored). The question is whether the motion would have to be tabled or whether the government can block it from being tabled.

Again, just like revoking A50, parliament would need to vote on allowing a People's Vote.

The numbers aren't there for revoking A50 (for now) but people aren't sure if the numbers are there for a People's Vote. The general consensus is 'not yet'.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:11:39 PM

Depends how many people in Labour decide to take a stand to avoid a catastrophe. Or how much the membership pushes them.

Though yes, the Lib Dem and SNP posturing is infuriating. I have no patience for either of them.

And then some of us are more mixed than others.

If I might ask a possibly silly question (or maybe not so silly, given the recent posts about how not even UK locals know how the UK government works), what exactly is a backbencher in relation to a Member of Parliament? Are they MPs with less authority or less prominence?

They are M Ps that hold no position of leadership, (shadow) cabinet rank or such within their party.

They are called such because they sit on the benches in parliament at the back of the room, the front benches are for government ministers and opposition shadow ministers.

Sure but that’s normally because the opposition can’t form a coalition government, in this case Corbyn technically can can he not? Also is that part of the VONC or something someone has to formally do after the VONC?

Also how does the fixed term parliament act play into all this?

Edited by Silasw on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:16:07 PM

Okay, the Westminster parties are made up of backbenchers and frontbenchers.

The party's leadership sits on the front benches — those are the benches closest to the centre aisle of the Commons. The back benches are all the remaining rows behind the front bench and right to the back of the room.

In short, the frontbenchers are the MPs who form the party's leadership and the backbenchers are all the other MPs in the party.

Labour isn't large enough. Even in a coalition of all current Opposition Parties, they still can't create a majority that defeats the Tories + DUP. They could try if they wanted to, but they wouldn't be able to function. A GE makes more sense.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:17:33 PM

x4 Scots are a Viking-German-Celt hybrid - which is an awesome mix, personally. The Welsh and the Irish have a long history of being cool without even trying, so there is that too - enough to make me Squee when reading history, at any rate.

Just as an Alternate History Wank, I wonder how Britain would have turned out if Guillaume Le Batard had lost the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Or if Harold Godwinson had not won Stamford Bridge.

For such a tiny place, the British Isles has an interesting historical record. Perhaps it's something in the water?

Edited by TechPriest90 on Dec 18th 2018 at 9:17:20 AM

I know. I'm messing about. I'm Welsh, but really I'm Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Cockney, and may be some Norse, too.

X3 Sure but theoretically Corbyn could pinch the DUP, if the alternative is they stick with a May that refuses to call an election and will cause a Hard Brexit with an Irish Sea border.

Plus maybe Corbyn could talk the IRA into taking their seats just to vote down Brexit (would that be enough to stop Brexit without counting the DUP in? God a government with the IRA and DUP working together to stop Brexit, I’d say it’s to crazy for reality but reality started taking such statements as a challenge years ago).

Edited by Silasw on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:22:25 PM

I'm English living in Scotland but my grandfather was from around Dublin. Oh, and my father's a Londoner who grew up in Dorset. As I said, mixed.

Edited by RainehDaze on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:21:33 PM

The DUP have issues with Corbyn and, traditionally, the DUP votes with the Tories on most things, anyway.

I'm not sure a hard border would be enough to sway them. It would be interesting if it did, however.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:26:44 PM

I think I get the idea now. Thank you Silasw and Wyldchyld.

Yeah I’m mostly wondering if May could loose a vote of confidence in the government but then refuse to call an election and leave us in limbo, if that happens I could see the DUP maybe putting Corbyn in Downing Street on the condition that all he do is call a general election (though he’d need Tory support for that due to the fixed term parliament act, unless he first abolished the act to get around the higher vote theashold).

Would that work for or against what seems to be considered May's plan to run out the clock as much as possible?

Against on some level, if Corbyn is PM even if it takes him time to call another general election (due to the fixed term parliament act) he can still just cancel Brexit via a majority in the commons.

Honestly though, May doesn’t have a plan, she just wants to stay in power, she will do whatever she can to stay PM, which is why I’m wondering if we might end up with a royal intervention if May looses a vote of no confidence but refuses to call a general election.

Fixed term Parliament act means that if a VONC succeeds then the Commons has three weeks I think to pass a Queen's speech (and thus demonstrate that someone can command the confidence of the Commons)

Only if they can't get their act together is a GE forced: and May has no say in that. A GE can be expedited by Parliament voting to dissolve itself but that requires a two thirds majority.

That's what actually happened in 2017: Labour actually had the power to stop the GE and there was a lot of speculation that they might given how poor the polls looked for them at the time. In the end it was assumed that the Labour leadership were delusional and that the Labour Party were turkeys voting for Christmas in the hope that a substantial loss would remove Corbyn.

Obviously we know that the narrative was wrong as the polls quickly turned around and the electorate gave us the position we have today.

It's therefore that three week period I am interested in. For a VONC to succeed, there must be a sufficient Tory rebellion or for the DUP to defect. There is grounds therefore for a National government to form - sidestep both leaders with the intent just to negotiate an A50 extension or failing that a revocation of A50. The GE can happen afterwards by mutual consent: just get the current crisis over and done with.

BTW, isn't Parliament going on break for two weeks soon?

It kind of seems like a really bad idea to be doing that now.

The last few pages have been informative. I don't know the political condition in Britain is that bad even before counting Brexit. Other than checking Brexit stuff when I have free time, I only check your parliamentary footage if there is something hilarious happening on screen.

The UK is really in a bad shape...has been for quite some time. The decision of the UK government to focus on finances, allowing its steel industry and manufacturing to fall into despair really did a number on it. The wealth is incredible focussed on London. Housing prices are shooting through the roof because there aren't enough houses built and the building projects which are done, are often luxury apartment under foreign investments. On top of this the last governments have holed out social services with their privatisation nonsense. Basically they now get lesser services for more money.

Ironically, the EU was the one thing which evened out some of those bad politics by investing in areas the government had left to die (Liverpool is an example of this), but setting up companies in the UK (Hull) or drawing in foreign investors (Sunderland). Removing it is like taking away the crutch from a battered person. And the discussion between a No deal Brexit or one with a withdraw agreement is more like the question of they rather want the crutch yanked away from them, or if they want the time to sit down first.

I'd just like to add, that as a Welsh Nationalist and Plaid Cymru voter who is in favour of both Welsh and Scottish independence, both Plaid and the SNP have disappointed me severely in these past few weeks. Their constant biting at Labour's heels, their political point scoring and chest beating is both embarrassing and unproductive. It really feels like their main aim at the moment is to grab more seats from Labour during the next GE rather than intelligently oppose Brexit.

(Part of me wonders sometimes if they're aiming for Brexit, possibly a disastrous Brexit, in order to strengthen the argument for their independence goals, but I generally don't think they'd risk that much damage and pain to the citizens of their countries to do that. And it would be quite unforgivable if they did.)

> The UK is really in a bad shape...has been for quite some time.

Easy for you to say that,we're in great shape all things considered,you really need to stop being condescending

Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 19th 2018 at 2:59:37 AM

That's Labours own fault. If they had positioned itself clearer, the other parties wouldn't have felt the need to push them into action.

I apologize, it wasn't my intention to come off as condescending. I am just stating what was given as the reason for people voting for Brexit in the first place (though I think it is more complicated than that overall). And it is not like I claim that those problems are unique for the UK either. But when people talk about "Dickensen poverty" in the UK and the United Nation points out how bad the problems are, then I wouldn't really say that a country is in a good shape. There are a lot of changes which desperately need to be made, and they aren't, because everyone is just focussing on Brexit.

No, I'd generally agree with Swanpride in this instance.

Economically we're too concentrated in the service sector, which means our manufacturing sector is very weak, which in turn means a lack of good jobs for the working class. The areas that Thatcher devastated when she made that switch still have some of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the country.

Our parliamentary system is rigged to favour the big parties and shut out the voices of smaller ones, and which in some cases mean a right-wing MP will get voted in on 40% of the vote while the other 60% of the voters all voted for left-wing candidates.

Our press is pretty borked, with most of it owned by right-wing press barons who literally influence national policy and G Es.

And then there's the hammering to our social safety net that almost a decade of austerity has inflicted upon us, which has left a toll of human lives.

Then there's a bunch of economic stuff like wages not rising to match inflation, university fees rising, house prices too high for first time buyers, child poverty rising again (and amongst working families now, rather than the unemployed like it used to be), the sharp rise in food banks, public transport being prohibitively expensive because they're often run by local monopolies (rail at the very least).

Then there's the lack of education about all the above, and the aforementioned media glossing over it because it suits their ideological goals...

This country is truly sucky in a lot of ways.

Edit: Regarding it being Labour's own fault for not being clear, I think it's been mentioned before in this thread that they have been clear. They're going to do it by the book and go through all the proper procedures. The smaller parties (who, note, have nothing to lose from doing this) want to jump the gun straight to revoking Article 50 or a People's Vote, which (as has been mentioned before in this thread), wouldn't work because you need to get some Tories to rebel or the DUP to change position in order for it to succeed, which won't happen until the strong Remainer Tories feel that the only other option is No Deal, or the DUP think that this is going to cause a border in the Irish Sea. And neither of those will happen until after the vote on May's deal at the very least (hence Labour going through the procedures). So, Plaid and the SNP are being self-serving little turds at the moment.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Dec 19th 2018 at 11:38:54 AM