Rejoice – it’s the final weekend of the May Premiership. And rejoice even more: as Parliament rises on the 25th of July and returns on the 3rd of September – this is called ‘Summer Recess’ – we’ll be free of plots, ‘rebels’ and screeching peacocks in the HoC from next Friday. Or will we?
I’m certain the Brexit Betrayers won’t slacken or vanish – oh no! On Tuesday the 23rd of July the result of the now so tedious Leadership vote will be announced, and the fuses to detonate the BoJo Brexit have already been laid.
Yesterday the ‘Rebels’ managed to get their ‘Grieve Amendment’ through the HoC, with the help of Mr Bercow. Firstly, this is, in a nutshell, what happened:
“MPs voted by 315 votes to 274 to back a Lords amendment to a Bill about Northern Ireland which will make it difficult for Mr Johnson to suspend Parliament in order to force through a no-deal Brexit.” (paywalled link)
This is what it means:
“The House of Lords […] passed an amendment that would require a minister of the Crown to update parliament every two weeks on the progress being made to restore power sharing in the province. The idea behind this would be to prevent a future prime minister from suspending parliament for any more than two weeks — or be in breach of the law. Rebel MPs then strengthened this with their own amendment. This stated that if parliament is prorogued — meaning a minister could not fulfil their obligations to update MPs — then the Commons and the Lords would have to be automatically recalled for five days to allow this to happen.” (link, paywalled)
Non-paywalled reports are here and here and you can see from the headlines that the ire is now focussing on those Tory ‘rebels’ who defied a three-line whip. Not only have they shown up Ms May as fundamentally weak – she is being urged to sack the ministers who defied the whip.
This also makes abundantly clear who the leaders of the inner-party opposition to the forthcoming BoJo premiership are. Not that there’s any surprise:
“Philip Hammond was accused of “total betrayal” on Thursday night after he orchestrated a coup against the Government in the hope of blocking a no-deal Brexit. The Chancellor sent text messages to fellow ministers urging them to defy a three-line whip before Theresa May was defeated by 41 votes in the Commons. He was one of 36 rebels who either abstained or voted against the Government, in what one furious Eurosceptic described as an attempt to “booby trap” Brexit for Boris Johnson.” (paywalled link)
There’s more:
“Mrs May was under pressure on Thursday night to sack Mr Hammond for his act of disloyalty, even though her tenure in No 10 – and Mr Hammond’s in No 11 – will end next week, and was accused of a final act of weakness in failing to discipline either the Chancellor or seven other ministers who rebelled.” (paywalled link)
With the battle lines drawn, we are grateful to the ‘sources’ inside the Tory Party who talked to the DT, giving us the reactions of some of the original rebels, the Brexiteers standing up against the May vassalage Treaty:
“[Hammond] is believed to be the first chancellor ever to defy a three-line whip without being sacked or resigning. One Cabinet minister told The Telegraph: “There is incredulity that he hasn’t been sacked and there is a lot of anger directed against all the people who have done this.” […] Jacob Rees-Mogg […] said: “A lot of people are absolutely furious about this and feel it is a real betrayal.It is essentially contemptuous of the constitution to fail to support the Government without resigning.” (paywalled link)
There’s this rather interesting snippet about why and how this Greive amendment came to pass:
Others, however, suggested Mrs May had deliberately defied advice to withdraw the Bill, and questioned her motives for doing so. One source said that both Julian Smith, the Chief Whip, and his deputy Chris Pincher had “made absolutely clear to No 10 that the Bill should not be brought forward because of the risk of amendments”. ” (paywalled link)
Well – why are they astonished? Have they still not grasped that Ms May is one of the Arch Remainers? And could they not foresee that her puppet master, Sir Mark Sedwill, would counsel her not to interfere in this legislative process so that the Remainers could stop BoJo?
Of course the rumour mills are now working full tilt. We read in RemainCentral that ‘Ministers will resign’ even before BoJo has had time to say hello to Larry the cat:
“Three cabinet ministers are preparing to quit on the day Boris Johnson becomes prime minister if, as expected, he wins the Tory leadership race next week. David Gauke, the justice secretary, is set to resign soon after Theresa May completes her final prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, are also considering departing before Mr Johnson arrives, according to allies.” (link, paywalled)
‘Allies’? Who they? Can we have their names? According to The Express (link) there will be even more resignations, their report – not paywalled – has upped the ante to twelve …
I’m sure Boris will be delighted to be able to fill all those seats round his cabinet table with Brexiteers! There’s a fine piece on this Brexit Betrayal by a former MP in the paywalled DT and we’ll look at that in detail later this morning.
Then there’s this latest rumour which shows the desperation of the Remainers. Do they not trust their own parliamentary subterfuges and Remain wrecking amendments? Why else go to such lengths and actually talk about it in the MSM! The Express reports:
“Senior Tory rebels are so concerned the next prime minister will go ahead with no deal Brexit, they have discussed asking the Queen to intervene. […] They are seriously considering holding a vote on a device known as a ‘humble address’ to the Queen, BBC Newsnight revealed today. If this address is passed, the Queen would be asked to exercise her right as head of state and travel to the next EU summit to request an extension to the Article 50 process in a no deal scenario.” (link)
You really couldn’t make it up: Remainers, not content with having humiliated our country are now plotting to humiliate The Queen! Who do they think they are?
The unsurpassed, indefatigable Sir John Redwood gives it short shrift in his Diary today. Here’s his comment on yesterday’s ‘performance’:
“I do not think even this discredited Parliament full of Labour MPs and a few Conservatives who have ratted on their promise to implement the decision of the people will find a way and a majority to revoke our exit letter. Short of doing that we will leave on 31 October, as promised by the likely next Prime Minister. We are due to leave according to European law. The UK Parliament cannot overturn European law, and only the PM can ask for a delay and seek agreement to changes to EU law to delay our official exit date. […] The desperate idea this morning that a Remain majority should ask the Queen to override the PM taking us out is absurd.” (link)
This then is the ‘state of play’ as of this morning. As the BoJo-Hunt thingie is now over and the votes are being counted, we’ll have the weekend to look forward to, with the final gasps from MPs on the Sunday TV shows.
However, as we’ve seen, the Remainers are relentless – and thus it’s for us to be as relentless as they are. No slacking – keep watching them, keep writing to them, reminding them that they work for us, not for the EU!
KBO!
I can’t see all this ending amicably and not at any time soon either. If MPs won’t do what their constituents ask/tell them to do but instead follow either their own noses or that of their Party, wouldn’t it be helpful if the nation pushed for 12 month terms for MPs? Everybody else in employment is subject to an annual review, as far as I know. Why aren’t MPs?
An annual performance review on the basis of a satisfactory review means you may return to work; an unsatisfactory review means you could be replaced. The decision makers must be the constituents, not the local party hierarchy. On that basis we might never need a General Election ever again and power is returned to the people.
Strange as it may seem, it all came to head with the Americans diving around on the moon in a “Jeep”.
After that nothing was impossible when it comes to what people can be made to believe. And we got a world made in the image of the American dream …….. a globalised world of American exceptionalism and American power and wealth ………. the new economic and cultural colonialism abolishing nation States around the world in all but name.
And of course American “success” did not go un-noticed and the EU elite wanted a piece of the action and the “United States of Europe” was born and is now seen as achievable.
And even though history is on the side of Brexit it cannot be tolerated by the EU elite.
That is where we are.
Time the Tory Brexiteers of Beaconsfield, Weybridge/Runnymeade, South West Hertfordshire and Penrith seriously cranked up the anti against their MPs (Grieve, Hammond, Gauke, Stewart). Wash your hands of the Tories and join The Brexit Party if deselection has not been successful or your fellow Tories will not back deselection. The game is up these MPs who are claiming they seek only an ‘orderly’ exit from the EU is utter nonsense – they seek to overthrow Brexit plain and simple but dare not say so.
I am convinced that Boris is a very intelligent man. I would imagine that he has consulted his advisers and is aware of all the possibilities open to him, although some of them are likely to be easier to implement than others.
There is still the possibility of a General Election, which would be easier for the Tories to win if Corbyn is still the Labour leader. Boris would need the permission of Parliament to call one. The Labour Party is desperate to hold an election so I think they would go with any such suggestion, although some of their Remainers would be aware that they could lose their seats. Corbyn would have to lay down the law and impose a three-line whip, but would his Remainers defy him? That’s the question.
On the Conservative side, the Remainers would also know that they could lose their seats, even if they had been reselected to fight the seat by their local organisation – many will have been deselected. But there should be enough Tory Leavers voting with Labour to carry the vote.
If TBP could concentrate on fighting Remain Tories, they may well get a few MPs selected. UKIP ditto. The problem would be if voters were given the choice of a Tory Leaver, a TBP candidate and a UKIP candidate; that would split the vote and may even allow the Labour candidate to be elected. Why on earth don’t the three parties collaborate, even just locally?
It’s a gamble. Would Boris take the risk? I think he just might.
I agree that we should collaborate with at least the Brexit Party. The UKIP hierarchy must realise that we haven’t a prayer of getting any seats, so we must, at all costs, not oppose TBP at the ballot box, even if this means UKIP withdrawing candidates unilaterally.
Why don’t they collaborate, Debbie? Simples: monumental egos way out of proportion to their actual capabilities …
They will never collaborate because ego trumps good sense every time.
I lobbied Batten to do some sort of deal with the Brexit Party, to no avail as Batten erroneously believed that backing TR instead would bring in the votes ( remember when UKIP were promised all those DFLA / Vets / ‘Sargon’ supporters votes. ? )
It didn’t happen. So UKIP are dead.
BTW has anyone seen ANYTHING regarding the UKIP elections in the media?
Told you so.
All Boris has to do now is stick to his guns and employ a Leave only cabinet and we are going to win on Halloween. ( He might have to keep Hunt as FS for the sake of both reconciliation and practicality ) It will take grit and harsh purges though. He should wreck every dissenters’ careers in a giant purge.
Then he needs to start attacking the Civil Service collaborators as well.
If Boris blinks, even slightly, then TBP are going to take Tory seats and Corbyn will have a good chance of victory.
Even then, he might need to do a deal of sorts with Farage. Although that sticks in my craw, he should do it, as its a means to an end. And we do need an end. We need to rebuild this country in out own image, not as a vassal state in the Fourth Reich.
Fantasy somewhere, I fancy Debbie. At present, the voting seems split four ways: roughly 20/20/20/20. Unless one of the four parties takes a nosedive, I don’t see any one of them forming the beginnings of a government. The two traditional government, musical chair parties are in paroxisms of internal war, which is generally an indication they are not fit to govern the proverbial whelk stall. The Orange menace still hasn’t got a leader and is anti-British to the point of glorying in us being an EU colony. UKIP, with a pending injunction against its powers behind the scenes………who are the people who rule UKIP btw?, are in no fit state to begin anything. The Brexit Party looks like the only stable rock to swim to.
You know things are bad when Kay Burley uses the words ‘lunatics’ ‘asylum’ and ‘politicians and government doing what they want now’ along with ‘almost like the end of term’ . The country has been run like a ‘bog standard’ comprehensive for years now so that is probably as good a description we would hear anywhere. Meanwhile the other contender for the role of Prime Minister , didn’t vote because he thought he had but he hadn’t , the current Prime Minister has given her end of term speech to which nobody was listening and is now it seems in training for an epic sulk of Ted Heath proportions.