An election is on.
After three attempts to get an election via the dreadful Fixed Term Parliament Act failed, the workaround worked. Ironically, it was passed by 438 votes to 20 using a simple workaround bill. It needed 434 to pass via the FTPA! Corbyn's excuse of needing 'no deal' to be taken off the table seemed to work on Tuesday but not on Monday, even though the EU had granted the extension. The difference was that the SNP and Lib Dems had decided for an election and Labour couldn't be seen as the only party not wanting one!
Anyway, thank God that the parliament is nearly at an end. Hopefully we will get a new Tory Government with a reasonable majority to deliver Brexit. Woe betide us that we get any other result as it would either be a similar result to now, or even worse: a Corbyn Government. That would be dreadful. I can't imagine it, and so really hope it does not happen. My partner has already decided that we should leave the country if Corbyn becomes PM.
It will be a fascinating election.
Oh and to top it off, we also see the end of John Berk-ow as speaker. The pompous idiot has finally gone.
Brilliant.
Squiffy.
Wednesday 30 October 2019
Saturday 26 October 2019
A very clever strategy?
I have been mulling for a few says why the EU is being so stupid as to wait for the MPs to do something before deciding whether to allow the UK to have an extension.
I don't think it is the EU, it is President Macron as has been widely reported.
Is it possible though that he is working in unison with Boris Johnson? He refuses to grant an extension unless something happens in Westminster and every day Boris Johnson puts down a motion asking for a General Election. It sound like a chicken and egg situation, and interminable delay - but there is a deadline of 31st October in only 6 days time.
All the MPs that have been bleating about 'taking no deal off the table' will be precisely the same MPs who are keeping no deal on that table. As the clock keeps ticking they are going to start to terrify themselves. Are they really going to wait until the day before Brexit day in the hope that Macron allows an extension besides what he has already said (admittedly via spokesmen)? I can imagine they really don't want to get the blame for no deal! Would that persuade them to allow an election in order to secure the extension?
Maybe I'm being hopeful that there is a coordinated strategy rather than just a three sided stand-off. We shall see shortly.
Squiffy.
I don't think it is the EU, it is President Macron as has been widely reported.
Is it possible though that he is working in unison with Boris Johnson? He refuses to grant an extension unless something happens in Westminster and every day Boris Johnson puts down a motion asking for a General Election. It sound like a chicken and egg situation, and interminable delay - but there is a deadline of 31st October in only 6 days time.
All the MPs that have been bleating about 'taking no deal off the table' will be precisely the same MPs who are keeping no deal on that table. As the clock keeps ticking they are going to start to terrify themselves. Are they really going to wait until the day before Brexit day in the hope that Macron allows an extension besides what he has already said (admittedly via spokesmen)? I can imagine they really don't want to get the blame for no deal! Would that persuade them to allow an election in order to secure the extension?
Maybe I'm being hopeful that there is a coordinated strategy rather than just a three sided stand-off. We shall see shortly.
Squiffy.
Friday 25 October 2019
Will anyone rid us of this troublesome Parliament?
Well my predictions for 19th October did not come to pass. For a start there was a deal.
That changed everything.
You'd think for the better, and many senses it is. The really good things are that there is a deal which most people can get behind. All the existing Tory MPs voted for it (unity practically unheard of in the modern Tory party). It's even beating all the other options in opinion polls. Most people just want it to be done, to let us move on.
So why am I so mad?
All the shenanigans. There was an EU council planned for October 17th and 18th, which is why the Benn act was planned to force the Government to send the extension on October 19th. The remainers in Parliament expected there to be no deal agreed at that EU council so it was an insurance policy to stop us leaving without a deal on 31st October.
But BoJo got the deal. And it looked like it would pass the meaningful vote. That scared the remainers again as their Benn act didn't cope with that scenario. The useful idiot Oliver Letwin put down an amendment which turned the 'meaningful vote' (that vote was demanded by remainers a few years earlier) into a meaningless vote! The amendment turn the vote on its head, to actually withhold approval! The Saturday sitting of parliament and all its expense was made useless. Good one!
The letters to the EU were sent. BoJo didn't have a great plan, but I don't think that was the point. It was to make the EU believe there was a plan so that they would concede more in the negotiations.
Still the October 31st deadline was possible. The next attempt at a meaningful vote was stopped by the puffed up ball of self importance known as Speaker Bercow. It was then down to the Withdrawal Bill the day afterwards.
Amazingly, it passed! The first time any deal has passed a voting stage in the Commons. Hurrah! But woe betide us mere mortals for thinking that finally Brexit might have a chance to complete.
In order to meet the timescale between 19th October (Benn Act) and 31st October (EU deadline) it left a short window in which to debate the bill and so needed a Programme motion to speed up the bill. That failed as the remainers decided it needed more time for them to discuss how quickly they would decide to vote down the bill. If anyone is under the impression that there was a genuine need for more days then just think how many people are likely to change their minds. None: all the MPs are so entrenched in their positions and have been for a long time. They just need time to vote on the various wrecking amendments tabled against the bill.
The standard practice is to pause a bill if the timetabling motion fails (as did the Lords reform bill did in 2011), which is what the Government did pending the news of the extension from the EU.
It is now clear that this Parliament will do absolutely nothing. It will delay everything. If the Withdrawal bill went ahead without a timetable it will be forever under debate and it will get stuck in the Lords and be susceptible to ping pong. It will be delayed and delayed.
The PM knew this and so said that we need a General Election. We do. We desperately need an election. But he would allow the Bill to go ahead for a short time before the dissolution for a General Election. The opposition had said the Bill needed more time, they also said that once the extension had been agreed that they would agree an election.
The EU have said they will wait for what is going on the UK before deciding how long the extension will be. The opposition are deciding how to respond to the election call by what happens with the extension. It is a chicken and egg situation. It is so crazy!
This is where we are.
What has made me so angry is the constant moving of goalposts by the remainers. They said we needed a deal, Boris got a deal. They said they needed a 'meaningful vote' but then made it meaningless. They forced there to be an extension letter sent to the EU under any circumstance. Corbyn had said he'd allow an election to be called once the Benn act had been passed into law then didn't. He then said he'd allow an election when the Benn act has Royal Assent, and then didn't. The most recent offer was that he'd go for an election once the EU has granted an extension until 31st Jan, which could be on Monday.
Today he moved that goalpost again. There now, it appears, to be a further requirement that the Withdrawal Bill needs to take no deal off the table in the future. What is the point? He won't vote for that Bill anyway. And if the Government did change the Bill and there was an election before Christmas it could be changed afterwards. It is preposterous and another phoney reason to not agree to an election.
This Parliament is completely rotten. It has ceased to be useful. The remainers are being completely despicable. Boris is trying to work around their shenanigans in order to enact the result of the 2016 referendum but by doing so they just accuse him of being untrustworthy. Well, how is saying you will do something repeatedly (like accept an election) and then not doing it a demonstration of trust? It isn't. The remainers keep saying BoJo is untrustworthy to excuse their actual untrustworthy actions. And don't cite the 31st October 'Do or Die' Boris quote as evidence of Boris lying, it was his absolute intention and he tried everything to do it but the remainers put obstacle after obstacle in his way.
I don't have a clue how this will end. Maybe the Queen needs to take control and call an election, she'd have the people backing her! Maybe Boris needs to bite the bullet and do a one line bill and hope the amendments aren't too bad.
One thing is that I'm close to going on a march myself. I'm so fed up. I've never been one to protest, I think it is pretty pointless, but I feel the most politically impotent in my life. I do fear that the anger against this Parliament is building up to a huge level. MPs are beginning to play with fire and lets hope this boil is lanced soon.
Squiffy.
That changed everything.
You'd think for the better, and many senses it is. The really good things are that there is a deal which most people can get behind. All the existing Tory MPs voted for it (unity practically unheard of in the modern Tory party). It's even beating all the other options in opinion polls. Most people just want it to be done, to let us move on.
So why am I so mad?
All the shenanigans. There was an EU council planned for October 17th and 18th, which is why the Benn act was planned to force the Government to send the extension on October 19th. The remainers in Parliament expected there to be no deal agreed at that EU council so it was an insurance policy to stop us leaving without a deal on 31st October.
But BoJo got the deal. And it looked like it would pass the meaningful vote. That scared the remainers again as their Benn act didn't cope with that scenario. The useful idiot Oliver Letwin put down an amendment which turned the 'meaningful vote' (that vote was demanded by remainers a few years earlier) into a meaningless vote! The amendment turn the vote on its head, to actually withhold approval! The Saturday sitting of parliament and all its expense was made useless. Good one!
The letters to the EU were sent. BoJo didn't have a great plan, but I don't think that was the point. It was to make the EU believe there was a plan so that they would concede more in the negotiations.
Still the October 31st deadline was possible. The next attempt at a meaningful vote was stopped by the puffed up ball of self importance known as Speaker Bercow. It was then down to the Withdrawal Bill the day afterwards.
Amazingly, it passed! The first time any deal has passed a voting stage in the Commons. Hurrah! But woe betide us mere mortals for thinking that finally Brexit might have a chance to complete.
In order to meet the timescale between 19th October (Benn Act) and 31st October (EU deadline) it left a short window in which to debate the bill and so needed a Programme motion to speed up the bill. That failed as the remainers decided it needed more time for them to discuss how quickly they would decide to vote down the bill. If anyone is under the impression that there was a genuine need for more days then just think how many people are likely to change their minds. None: all the MPs are so entrenched in their positions and have been for a long time. They just need time to vote on the various wrecking amendments tabled against the bill.
The standard practice is to pause a bill if the timetabling motion fails (as did the Lords reform bill did in 2011), which is what the Government did pending the news of the extension from the EU.
It is now clear that this Parliament will do absolutely nothing. It will delay everything. If the Withdrawal bill went ahead without a timetable it will be forever under debate and it will get stuck in the Lords and be susceptible to ping pong. It will be delayed and delayed.
The PM knew this and so said that we need a General Election. We do. We desperately need an election. But he would allow the Bill to go ahead for a short time before the dissolution for a General Election. The opposition had said the Bill needed more time, they also said that once the extension had been agreed that they would agree an election.
The EU have said they will wait for what is going on the UK before deciding how long the extension will be. The opposition are deciding how to respond to the election call by what happens with the extension. It is a chicken and egg situation. It is so crazy!
This is where we are.
What has made me so angry is the constant moving of goalposts by the remainers. They said we needed a deal, Boris got a deal. They said they needed a 'meaningful vote' but then made it meaningless. They forced there to be an extension letter sent to the EU under any circumstance. Corbyn had said he'd allow an election to be called once the Benn act had been passed into law then didn't. He then said he'd allow an election when the Benn act has Royal Assent, and then didn't. The most recent offer was that he'd go for an election once the EU has granted an extension until 31st Jan, which could be on Monday.
Today he moved that goalpost again. There now, it appears, to be a further requirement that the Withdrawal Bill needs to take no deal off the table in the future. What is the point? He won't vote for that Bill anyway. And if the Government did change the Bill and there was an election before Christmas it could be changed afterwards. It is preposterous and another phoney reason to not agree to an election.
This Parliament is completely rotten. It has ceased to be useful. The remainers are being completely despicable. Boris is trying to work around their shenanigans in order to enact the result of the 2016 referendum but by doing so they just accuse him of being untrustworthy. Well, how is saying you will do something repeatedly (like accept an election) and then not doing it a demonstration of trust? It isn't. The remainers keep saying BoJo is untrustworthy to excuse their actual untrustworthy actions. And don't cite the 31st October 'Do or Die' Boris quote as evidence of Boris lying, it was his absolute intention and he tried everything to do it but the remainers put obstacle after obstacle in his way.
I don't have a clue how this will end. Maybe the Queen needs to take control and call an election, she'd have the people backing her! Maybe Boris needs to bite the bullet and do a one line bill and hope the amendments aren't too bad.
One thing is that I'm close to going on a march myself. I'm so fed up. I've never been one to protest, I think it is pretty pointless, but I feel the most politically impotent in my life. I do fear that the anger against this Parliament is building up to a huge level. MPs are beginning to play with fire and lets hope this boil is lanced soon.
Squiffy.
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