Disarray – Brexit politics this morning
This is a health warning: watching yesterday’s “events” in the House of Remain Harlots and the reports thereof in this mornings MSM is extremely painful! The idiocy of our MPs truly hurts.
Regarding the result of last evening’s votes and the preceding debates my doubts about the mental equipment of most MPs, especially those on the opposition benches, has been confirmed. It is abysmal.
Yesterday (here) I wondered if the MS reporters had been watching the same event in the HoC as so many friends, colleagues and I did. The first write-ups last evening showed that they can’t have done, given the way their bias shone forth.
We reported in yesterday’s column already that the effect of voting on the two motions – the Deal and the Programme Motion – had been explained across the MSM. So what was the reason for this outcome and what will be the consequences?
Before I wade into reporting on the general impression of yesterday’s parliamentary session, here are the results: for the first motion, to accept ‘The Deal’, warts and all: AYES: 329 – Noes: 299
That win for Johnson was achieved even without the votes of the DUP. Let that sink in: the Commons voted for Johnson’s deal, the ‘WAIB’, as it is officially known: the Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill!
Next the Commons had to vote on the Programme Motion, the timetable for reading and debate so that on Thursday (tomorrow) the HoC could vote on the Third reading, with the Bill then going to the HoL.
The result was Ayes: 308 – NOES: 322 – and that was that. The business plan had thus to be redrawn and we were treated to another session with Jacob Rees-Mogg. More on that below.
You can read a reasonable, non-paywalled and updated report of the whole thing here. The paywalled ones in The Times and the DT are unanimous: it was ‘defeat’ snatched from the jaws of victory and was the fault of Johnson because he didn’t give enough time for the poor MPs to properly scrutinise the Deal:
“After winning the first vote with a reassuring 30-strong majority, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory 15 minutes later when MPs voted 322 to 308 against the expedited timetable. It came after MPs had started complaining they had not been given enough time to scrutinise all 68 clauses following the publication of the 110-page document at 8.15pm on Monday night.” (paywalled link)
This assessment is solely based on the hours-long screeching from the opposition that they needed more time which the MSM accepted without questioning.
This WAIB, as we all know and as they must have known, is in essence May’s WA with lipstick on, a WA they had already voted on three times. I wonder therefore if the poor dears had actually read that thing when they were given it nearly a year ago. Surely they didn’t reject it without having read it – surely not!
These votes were preceded by statements from Johnson and Corbyn and an ensuing debate. In his statement Johnson hinted that, should he lose, he’d ‘pull’ the deal and go for broke, i.e. get a GE. He seemed to calculate that, with the support of the SNP he could reach the majority demanded in the FTPA.
Given the reluctance of Labour to face a GE they overlooked that. Or rather: they didn’t notice because the atmosphere in the Chamber was such that Johnson could barely be heard. Speaker Bercow allowed the heckling and braying to go on nearly unchecked. If someone from Mars had watched yesterday’s debate he must’ve thought that Johnson was public enemy No 1 and that surely it would be ‘off with his head’ next.
We heard incessant demands for workers’ rights and for an ‘economic impact assessment’. The DUP suddenly found many supporters from Labour for their plight. Of course, the demand for ‘more time’ went unabated. Some Lab MPs (all female) and the Green MP screeched they would support The Deal but only if a clause for a 2nd referendum was included.
At that point it wasn’t clear if Johnson would win that vote, but at least those MPs seemed to have understood that voting for the deal and the Programme Motion meant they could insert amendment after amendment during those scrutiny debates planned for today and Thursday.
That fact was obviously lost on the majority who voted to scupper the Programme Motion. They seemed to think that now Johnson must get an extension, oblivious to the fact that this extension is in the gift of the EU – just as they were oblivious to the fact that the deadline of the 31st of October is not an ‘artificial’ one manufactured by Johnson to thwart their dreams! Time and again it was made clear to them that this date was set by the EU, to no avail.
What is it about the Remain lot that they are so eager to deliver our country to the EU? Are they happy that Donald Tusk can now say:
“Mr Tusk said on Monday that EU leaders will not permit a no-deal Brexit whatever the circumstances over the coming days or weeks. “We should be ready for every scenario, but one thing must be clear, as I said to Prime Minister Johnson on Saturday, a no-deal Brexit will never be our decision,” he told MEPs.” (link, paywalled)
Savour this: “The EU will not permit a No Deal” … While the MSM are now speculating about what this all means – will there be a GE? Will there be ‘No Deal’? Will Johnson now go and ‘die in a ditch’? – there were a few stray clues in remarks made by Johnson and later by Rees-Mogg. One had to listen very carefully though.
In his statement before the votes, Johnson said that, should he win both votes, the government would stop ‘Operation Yellowhammer’ immediately, saving money for other projects. That sank without a trace in the ocean of heckling, shouting and braying.
After the votes, and after congratulating the HoC for actually voting for a deal he said the legislation for a deal would now be paused and that Operation Yellowhammer would now be intensified. That remark again sank without a trace. You won’t find it in the MSM either.
Johnson then left and Jacob Rees-Mogg rose to table the business for the next days as the planned debates had now been scuppered. Firstly, this occasion ascended to a delightful theological debate between the Speaker and JRM:
“John Bercow, the Speaker, said the Brexit deal was now “in limbo”, but Mr Rees-Mogg retorted: “I think theologically speaking it was reported that Pope Benedict XVI abolished limbo, so I do wonder whether the Bill is not in the heaven that is having been passed, nor in the hell of having failed, but it is in purgatory where it is suffering the pains of those in purgatory.” (paywalled link)
I can only assume that most MSM people had already left the Chamber after that point. A pity because the ensuing debate showed yet again that the Remain Harlots didn’t know what they had voted for, nor did they apparently know the Rules of the House. MP after MP rose to demand that JRM just go and set up a new timetable – all they wanted was more time! That they can now debate the Queen’s speech they desired to do only last week and can look forward to a nice weekend was suddenly irrelevant.
Suddenly all they wanted was to talk about the Deal – which is now impossible because according to ‘teh rulz’, a committee needs to decide to bring the bill back. Only then can a new Programme Motion be set up. That rule (see here) was created by Mr Blair, to stop the long sessions and speeches and make Parliament ‘woman-friendly’. Thus we now have ‘four minute speeches’ and no proper, long debates well into the night. Mind you, given the calibre of our MPs, especially the wimminz MPs, I think that has to be a good thing.
In an attempt to out-JRM JRM, Speaker and opposition MPs tried to engage him in what limbo or purgatory really meant, even trying to impress him with quoting Dante. When Mrs Beckett rose to have a go, I heard one MP cry from the back “don’t even try it”. Indeed, she better had desisted. She was elegantly skewered by the Master.
Meanwhile, friends and colleagues were debating online on what had happened, with the inevitable quip: “the bill is not dead – it’s just resting… pining for the fjords…” Generally, it looked to us as if Government might be going for a ‘No Deal’. One hint seemed to be in the answer by JRM to Peter Bone who asked him if the vote today meant the deal was now dead and that we leave on WTO terms. Replying very cryptically JRM didn’t confirm nor refute.
After JRM left the chamber the confusion, the dismay and disarray of the MPs was even more pronounced. An observer wrote:
“This last half hour in HoP has been delicious viewing. A Mogg masterclass. He’s tied the Remainers up in knots and they are in a state of abject confusion. The opposition didn’t realise that voting against the Programme Motion would kill the whole thing. They thought it would get them more time but failed to know the ways the procedures work. JRM knew. The more I think about this the more I think it was a trap that the Remoaners walked straight into.”
To round this up, here’s what the indefatigable Sir John Redwood writes this morning:
“The only way forward from here that might deliver a good Brexit on time is to leave on 31 October without signing a Treaty, offering a free trade deal as we leave. I have been trying to get the government to do this for sometime. Maybe more will now see trying to compromise with a Remain Parliament by offering a watered down Brexit does not work.“ (link)
This is where we are this morning: disarray in the HoC, misunderstanding or ignorance in the MSM, silent plotting in No 10, the EU sharpening its claws – and nobody knows what will happen next: a GE? A ‘No Deal Brexit’?
Expect more skulduggery in the next days and
KBO!
Photo by benzdouglas 
Since most MPs are clearly imbeciles it would not even be worth making Gerrard Batten’s ‘Road to Freedom’ proscribed reading would it. Sir John Redwood has probably already read it. It was published I believe 2014, and is available from Amazon. I’ve just started it again on my kindle and an early chapter is entitled Article 50 Trap.
Maybe the reMainiacs have been hoist by their own petard. If we are lucky.
Brilliant reporting of the HoC debate, Viv, and useful comment on what the MSM had to say next day. (Our newspaper “boy” failed to deliver the Telegraph and we never managed to get to the shop.)
BBC News and Sky News coverage of key debates is patchy and too serving of political journalists’ egos, Lewis Goodall being just one example. So I’m resorting to BBC Parliament more and more on these occasions, and watched most of the debate on that channel. (Yes, JRM was terrific.)
As a relative novice on parliamentary procedure, I’m most grateful you’ve clarified several important points that passed me by. Evidently one cannot assume that even most of the MPs themselves are any more conversant with what is happening, or of the full implications of their interventions and voting choices, than Joe Public. An absolute shower, and in most cases they don’t even have the excuse of having a proper job to hold down.
KBO indeed!
OK, has anybody read the Vienna Convention of 1969?
According to that, any coercion made towards the state, government or political leader of a country to force them to do something against their will or the spirit of their policy, will be rendered as having no legal effect.
Some countries in the EU are not signatories to the Vienna Convention, but Great Britain is.
why is Boris doing what he doesn’t want to?
Good question, Rob. Have looked at that. There have been a number of occasions he could have acted against, or challenged, something, such as opposition to the Tilbrook case could have been withdrawn. It does bring into question why the fightback has been so feeble. It looks like a BRINO at any cost at the moment, and that’s the best case scenario. If that WAB comes back the Remainiacs will amend it into a “Remain in the EU Bill”.
What is Cumming’s role in all this? On the surface he appears to be doing next to nothing, and if his advice is being ignored why is he still there?
Your point Rob, is so relevant.
It is easy to be careless in analysis because of the wearing down and confusion by all the wrangling. But then should we be glued to every twist and turn, should we not ride above it all and see it all for what it is.
It’s not lack of patience or carelessness to call a spade a spade. Johnson could have done a lot of things if he was honestly pursuing the interests of this country. The simple point is that we want to trust ‘good old Boris’, but he is just not trustworthy and reminiscent of May’s double-dealing approach. How far could one throw the Tory Party, exactly? The confidence trick works because of the escalation of commitment.
How many times did May say that we would definitely leave by 29th March? 80 or 100 possibly more. Now Johnson is saying the UK leaves on of 31st October. If we don’t leave by that date are the Conservatives are finished? Are they toast either way?
Tusk’s words highlight the damage to proper negotiations done by removing the no-deal option by Parliamentary traitors.
As for the law industry, that a ‘Lord’ could work on behalf of traitors to lock the UK into a fascist entity, just about sums up their worth to ordinary ‘law abiding’ citizens and the country. Do they have any integrity or is just about the money? They make the law appear to be an ass.
Also, I would let them stew in their own juices for a week.
Is there a difference between where the government will go with this and where parliament will go. Can the government take us out on the 31st regardless of the idiots in Parliament. I watched it through and saw it gradually dawning on them all what they had actually done by voting it down. The speakers eyes and tone said it all in my view. Oh oh !! I thought Jacobs face said a lot too and he looked similar today. Serious, sad and resigned.
What a big mess up that gets worse and worse by the minuet. We need a miracle and perhaps in some way or another we will get one. The big boys think they are so smart but we will see who is smart in the end. The power of truth is allways greater than the power of lies in the end.
And as Margaret Thatcher said, compromise only assists the aggressor.
One thing that has become clear in view of the ongoing shenanigans in parliament is that our longer term survival as an independent nation requires the destruction of the EU. Time to get together with the other anti-EU parties in Europe to bring it about. It will be a long and hard fight but necessary to save the native people of Europe from the planned tyranny and possibly avoid another war.
There are two intertwined aspect of Brexit that have now come into play.
1. “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; …….. And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.” (Shakespeare). Is there now a weariness creeping in and Brexit in the public mind is being consigned to the past in daily drudgery of trying to make a living?
2. Owen Patterson quoting Michael Collins,(not the astronaut but the man who negotiated the Anglo Irish treaty of 1921).” “Equally I do not recommend it for less than it is. In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it.” I see Nigel Farage is now the flavour of the month in the media because he opposes the deal because he sees it for what it is, not for what it is meant to do. And he obviously does not see that the Brexit referendum was a one-off and the EU and their friends in the Remainers are not going to allow a repeat in a referendum or even in an election.
What now then? The EU are going to allowed never-ending extensions which will allow the Remainers to kill of Brexit. No Deal is still the default but it seems no one wants it. An election will not be fought on Brexit but could be fought on what Brexit could achieve but the media will now allow that.
It is now up to the middle class ……….. where do they stand?
If the PM now goes for a GE, I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that Labour will not oppose it, so Parliament will be prorogued again until it takes place. That’ll be after 31 October. OK, so the EU will offer an extension but does the HoC have to approve the offer to bring it into effect? And if it’s prorogued, it can’t do that, so we’ll sail past the end of the month, leave on WTO terms, then have an election.
Or is my logic wrong?
No, your logic isn’t wrong. Many think that this is the ‘cunning plan’, but I’m sure there are already queues forming at Lord Pannic QC’s office to get a case before the SC to prevent just that.
In any case, what the MPs on both sides forget is that too many voters have now observed them ‘in action’ and are not impressed at all. So a GE may turn up unforeseeable results, and I don’t mean having Farage in the HoC.
I hope so
I doubt if Labour will agree to a GE before 31 Oct, but if the EU imposes an extension on us then Labour will find it hard to refuse a GE after their recent rhetoric on the subject.