This is excellent - from Iain Martin:
"Westminster is la la land right now. The scale of the dysfunction and decay is mind-boggling. MPs aren’t voting on anything meaningful. The government has a notional majority in the Commons of three and is incapable of putting up a Queen’s Speech not only because there is nothing to put in it. The legislation that is supposed to flow from that mainstay of the constitution, with the monarch opening a new session of Parliament, would probably not pass. Number 10 clings Downfall bunker-style – or did until today, when Labour pulled the plug – to the fantasy of a deal with the opposition that will get Brexit delivered. Meanwhile, the Brexit party that was only established in February is in the process of smashing, perhaps destroying, the Conservative party.
In the Westminster mad house, backbench Tory MPs talk to observers like stunned survivors who have just walked away from an air crash. With their brains scrambled they burble feverishly and all manner of weird theories and strategies are posited.
The strangest idea of the lot, that I have now heard multiple times from MPs, is the notion that the new leader of the Conservative party will somehow avoid holding an early general election once they take over from Theresa May.
Incidentally, Mrs May today “launched” her party’s pitiful European election campaign, with less than a week until polling day. More shades of Downfall, and the eve of defeat medal-pinning ceremony in the garden of the Reich Chancellery as Russian artillery rains down nearby.
Soon – next week, or next month – May will announce her departure date.
There must not – must not – be a general election, once her successor is chosen, I keep hearing it said. “An election would be a disaster at best. We cannot do it until we have a Brexit deal passed,” says a cabinet minister. “Britain must be out of the EU before we face the country,” says a leading Eurosceptic. Others are chanting this mantra too. Delay an election at all costs, and pray. Next year or 2021.
One can understand why the elders of the Tory tribe are keen to avoid a general election. They think they could lose it. In that sense they are right. Of course they could lose, but the alternative (waiting) is just as dangerous for the Tories. That way their new leader will likely be destroyed within weeks when they cannot pass Brexit and have no deal blocked by MPs.
Consider the calamitous scenario awaiting a new leader such as Boris Johnson – who according to polling of the Tory membership for The Times this weekend crushes all his rivals.
The rise of the Brexit party has altered the dynamics of the Conservative leadership campaign that is underway in all but name. Farage’s surge means that the winner of the Tory race has to be even more Brexity to win with the Tory membership.
The campaign in the Commons to prevent Johnson getting into the final two is considerably weaker than it was too, because with Farage on the rampage the argument for Boris as a big beast who can fight back becomes harder to resist.
Whoever wins in the end they will have won by saying to the Tory membership – and to Brexit party voters watching carefully – that they will once installed in Number 10 stick it to Brussels. They’ll need to pledge that if they don’t get satisfaction after a fortnight or so they will then push through – some mystery way – no deal.
So, on that basis Boris or another Brexiteer, becomes Tory leader and then PM, just about. Although more Remainer Tory MPs could walk out depriving the new leader of any majority.
For a second let’s assume the new Tory leader gets into Number 10, just. Off he or she goes to Brussels, seeking… what? No backstop. Brussels has shown no sign that it will fold. So, Brussels says no.
The bold new PM returns to Commons and says… it’s no deal! The Commons then says the PM has no mandate for this. And the PM doesn’t. Parliament has shown the lengths to which it will go with the assistance of the Speaker. The Commons stops no deal or even revokes Article 50. It has the numbers.
The new PM could try packing the Lords and a bit of executive order and proroguing, but you only have to think for a second how this plays in the country, and in the media, to see that it is not practical.
An appalled country will have watched, excluded, as this new person is imposed on it by Tory MPs and members. Even though the arrangement of a party choosing for the country in this way is constitutionally allowed, extremely grumpy voters will hate not having had a say. In this atmosphere, Parliament quickly gums up again. The bold new Prime Minister can get no business through, is blocked by the Commons, and Britain does not leave the European Union at the end of October, unless the EU throws it out. We heard that the EU would help the eurosceptics in this fashion last time. Look what happened. The UK is still a member of the EU, isn’t it?
Thus within weeks a new Brexiteer PM faces the prospect of being ruined, wrecked. A lame duck in a month or six weeks, that is if they even have the numbers to stay in office. I repeat, the truth is that the government has a majority of three today. It can’t do anything. It can’t risk a Queen’s Speech. None of that changes for a new leader, unless they seek and secure a mandate of their own. There is only one way to do that in the British system.
Terrified MPs should understand that the difficult choice facing a new Tory leader and Prime Minister, on day one, is an instant pitch for their own mandate to settle Brexit, taking, in effect, no deal to the country. For the campaign they will probably need to “retire” and deselect some Tory Remain MPs rapidly along the way.
Alternatively, the new PM can choose to wait, with no majority, to go through that nightmare I recounted of EU humiliation and parliamentary destruction, with the booming Brexit party shouting all the time of “another Tory betrayal!”
These are not good choices. There are no good choices. Yet after a long period during which there has been too little honesty about the choices facing the country on Brexit, it is better, surely, to be blunt and realistic at this late stage about the options.
I suspect that a new Tory leader will have at best a month in the Autumn, to have a new Chancellor announce more money for local government and the police, and several other popular policies, and then they will have to stand on the steps of Number 10 and ask the country for a mandate. Or they can stick and then be destroyed by the Commons arithmetic a few weeks later anyway.
We think in this country that the first half of this year has been tumultuous. Just wait until you see the second half."
Iain Martin,
Editor and publisher,
Reaction
"Westminster is la la land right now. The scale of the dysfunction and decay is mind-boggling. MPs aren’t voting on anything meaningful. The government has a notional majority in the Commons of three and is incapable of putting up a Queen’s Speech not only because there is nothing to put in it. The legislation that is supposed to flow from that mainstay of the constitution, with the monarch opening a new session of Parliament, would probably not pass. Number 10 clings Downfall bunker-style – or did until today, when Labour pulled the plug – to the fantasy of a deal with the opposition that will get Brexit delivered. Meanwhile, the Brexit party that was only established in February is in the process of smashing, perhaps destroying, the Conservative party.
In the Westminster mad house, backbench Tory MPs talk to observers like stunned survivors who have just walked away from an air crash. With their brains scrambled they burble feverishly and all manner of weird theories and strategies are posited.
The strangest idea of the lot, that I have now heard multiple times from MPs, is the notion that the new leader of the Conservative party will somehow avoid holding an early general election once they take over from Theresa May.
Incidentally, Mrs May today “launched” her party’s pitiful European election campaign, with less than a week until polling day. More shades of Downfall, and the eve of defeat medal-pinning ceremony in the garden of the Reich Chancellery as Russian artillery rains down nearby.
Soon – next week, or next month – May will announce her departure date.
There must not – must not – be a general election, once her successor is chosen, I keep hearing it said. “An election would be a disaster at best. We cannot do it until we have a Brexit deal passed,” says a cabinet minister. “Britain must be out of the EU before we face the country,” says a leading Eurosceptic. Others are chanting this mantra too. Delay an election at all costs, and pray. Next year or 2021.
One can understand why the elders of the Tory tribe are keen to avoid a general election. They think they could lose it. In that sense they are right. Of course they could lose, but the alternative (waiting) is just as dangerous for the Tories. That way their new leader will likely be destroyed within weeks when they cannot pass Brexit and have no deal blocked by MPs.
Consider the calamitous scenario awaiting a new leader such as Boris Johnson – who according to polling of the Tory membership for The Times this weekend crushes all his rivals.
The rise of the Brexit party has altered the dynamics of the Conservative leadership campaign that is underway in all but name. Farage’s surge means that the winner of the Tory race has to be even more Brexity to win with the Tory membership.
The campaign in the Commons to prevent Johnson getting into the final two is considerably weaker than it was too, because with Farage on the rampage the argument for Boris as a big beast who can fight back becomes harder to resist.
Whoever wins in the end they will have won by saying to the Tory membership – and to Brexit party voters watching carefully – that they will once installed in Number 10 stick it to Brussels. They’ll need to pledge that if they don’t get satisfaction after a fortnight or so they will then push through – some mystery way – no deal.
So, on that basis Boris or another Brexiteer, becomes Tory leader and then PM, just about. Although more Remainer Tory MPs could walk out depriving the new leader of any majority.
For a second let’s assume the new Tory leader gets into Number 10, just. Off he or she goes to Brussels, seeking… what? No backstop. Brussels has shown no sign that it will fold. So, Brussels says no.
The bold new PM returns to Commons and says… it’s no deal! The Commons then says the PM has no mandate for this. And the PM doesn’t. Parliament has shown the lengths to which it will go with the assistance of the Speaker. The Commons stops no deal or even revokes Article 50. It has the numbers.
The new PM could try packing the Lords and a bit of executive order and proroguing, but you only have to think for a second how this plays in the country, and in the media, to see that it is not practical.
An appalled country will have watched, excluded, as this new person is imposed on it by Tory MPs and members. Even though the arrangement of a party choosing for the country in this way is constitutionally allowed, extremely grumpy voters will hate not having had a say. In this atmosphere, Parliament quickly gums up again. The bold new Prime Minister can get no business through, is blocked by the Commons, and Britain does not leave the European Union at the end of October, unless the EU throws it out. We heard that the EU would help the eurosceptics in this fashion last time. Look what happened. The UK is still a member of the EU, isn’t it?
Thus within weeks a new Brexiteer PM faces the prospect of being ruined, wrecked. A lame duck in a month or six weeks, that is if they even have the numbers to stay in office. I repeat, the truth is that the government has a majority of three today. It can’t do anything. It can’t risk a Queen’s Speech. None of that changes for a new leader, unless they seek and secure a mandate of their own. There is only one way to do that in the British system.
Terrified MPs should understand that the difficult choice facing a new Tory leader and Prime Minister, on day one, is an instant pitch for their own mandate to settle Brexit, taking, in effect, no deal to the country. For the campaign they will probably need to “retire” and deselect some Tory Remain MPs rapidly along the way.
Alternatively, the new PM can choose to wait, with no majority, to go through that nightmare I recounted of EU humiliation and parliamentary destruction, with the booming Brexit party shouting all the time of “another Tory betrayal!”
These are not good choices. There are no good choices. Yet after a long period during which there has been too little honesty about the choices facing the country on Brexit, it is better, surely, to be blunt and realistic at this late stage about the options.
I suspect that a new Tory leader will have at best a month in the Autumn, to have a new Chancellor announce more money for local government and the police, and several other popular policies, and then they will have to stand on the steps of Number 10 and ask the country for a mandate. Or they can stick and then be destroyed by the Commons arithmetic a few weeks later anyway.
We think in this country that the first half of this year has been tumultuous. Just wait until you see the second half."
Iain Martin,
Editor and publisher,
Reaction
