Record defeat for the British government. What happens next?

[Tyke]

5 hours ago, Ortac said:

I'm just going to avoid England altogether and not set foot in it for a while. I was last there in June last year, but it is no longer the England I know. It has changed, and not for the better. There is an uncomfortable atmosphere.

This is true of everywhere, sadly. Not just the UK. Paris, anyone?

 

No Deal exit ("No deal is better than a bad deal", I recall) would really focus minds. Economically it would, no doubt, have an immediate adverse impact. But maybe then practical people with practical aims might get involved and get things moving. That would be a very welcome change. It's the whole lack of certainty that has ground things to a halt. Remainers trying to reverse the referendum decision must shoulder a lot of blame here. That follows their campaign which was awful - arrogant and presumptive.

 

Edited: For balance, I thought the Leave campaign was awful, too, in different ways. One could start with dishonesty. Both camps treated the electorate like uneducated and un-educatable idiots.

[Ortac]

2 hours ago, Midland Tyke said:

This is true of everywhere, sadly. Not just the UK. Paris, anyone?

Yeah, Paris ain't great either. I haven't set foot anywhere near Paris since 2015. And I don't plan to in the foreseeable future!

 

On a different note, I wonder what Her Majesty the Queen thinks about all this. She must have an opinion, and it would be fascinating to know what it is, but being the perfect monarch that she is, nobody will ever find out. 

 

 

[Acing It]

16 hours ago, Sally said:

So immediately after the vote of no confidence was announced, Corbyn got up and snarled.   He seems to be a very unpleasant person (besides being anti-Semitic, which frightens me).  What's everyone's opinion(s) of him?

I'm not sure. When he got into power he got a lot of respect for not playing the usual political games, but I don't think he's a leader or someone who is born to be prime minister. No sure at all about him now... as for the anti-semitic thing; I think a lot of that got blown up and was prolonged by some very clever people behind the cons who know how to handle the media. I may be wrong but I don't think he's anti-semitic at all. He just didn't handle the situation well at all, or at least not as a professional died in the wool politician would.

[Acing It]

5 hours ago, Midland Tyke said:

This is true of everywhere, sadly. Not just the UK. Paris, anyone?

 

No Deal exit ("No deal is better than a bad deal", I recall) would really focus minds. Economically it would, no doubt, have an immediate adverse impact. But maybe then practical people with practical aims might get involved and get things moving. That would be a very welcome change. It's the whole lack of certainty that has ground things to a halt. Remainers trying to reverse the referendum decision must shoulder a lot of blame here. That follows their campaign which was awful - arrogant and presumptive.

 

Edited: For balance, I thought the Leave campaign was awful, too, in different ways. One could start with dishonesty. Both camps treated the electorate like uneducated and un-educatable idiots.

I think 'extremist brexiteers' should a lot of blame too in that they are unrealistic in what to expect. A lot of people on both sides are very skilled at exploiting the uncertainty we live in I think.

[Acing It]

11 hours ago, Ortac said:

It may not have dawned on the government yet, but I think that they have committed political suicide already. I think that it has been such an appalling shambles up to this point that they have already doomed themselves to a very long period in opposition egardless of what happens now with brexit. 

 

That being the case, they have nothing to lose by doing the sensible thing and cancelling brexit. The only reason they have been pursuing it so vigorously is that they are scared of the electorate and being seen to ignore their wishes; but in reality most polititians knew that remaining is the right thing and wanted to remain anyway.

I think that, fortunately for them, the opposition is too weak to take over in government. And as someone else said, a lot of people are creatures of habit. On top of that, things are getting so polarised here and everywhere, there are a lot of black/white thinkers out there now, agreed, not always along party lines in the uk, but still.

[Acing It]

9 hours ago, Ortac said:

In my opinion, a no deal scenario is absolutely unacceptable, and I consider those who are advocating it to be extremely selfish and ignorant.

 

Ignorant because the UK currently has the free trade arrangement with the other 27 countries of the EU, and with the 60 or so other countries with which the EU has trade agreements. They want to rip all that up and go to zero trade agreements? Are they mad!? World Trade Organization rules are the most restrictive of all possible trade arrangements, and the reason countries make free trade agreements is to get away from restrictive WTO rules. 

 

They are selfish because there are many people who's lives will suffer extreme adverse consequences from no deal. It will wreck people's lives. Those who say that no deal and WTO rules are fine probably never set foot outside of England. Places like Northern Ireland and Gibraltar which stand to suffer the consequences are probably completely alien to them, out of sight, out of mind. As are the three million plus Brits who have made their homes in other EU countries who are also terrified that they could become illegal residents literally overnight. And all that for what benefit exactly, what is the trade off that makes all that a price worth paying? None that I can see. 

 

and the other way round, EU citizens here in the UK, even if you live in Scotland, which is pro EU generally.

[daveb]

It's interesting for me as an American to see so many commonalities and parallels in all of this to what's going on in the US. Thanks for all of the info, everyone! It's an education.  

[Acing It]

David Cameron (who???) has quietly and conveniently disappeared... sneaked out of the building I would say, leaving this mess behind.

[timewarp]

So Theresa May has won the confidence of the parliament. Ironically this means that, thanks to her refusal to listen to anybody, parliament remains without a majority on Brexit. Train crash Brexit it is.

[timewarp]

I've just realised - it's now checkmate for Theresa May. If she does reach out to the opposition parties, she will lose the support of the DUP. The opposition can then call another confidence vote and win it (the numbers of this vote were very clear - it only just about worked out because the DUP still voted with the government).

[Sally]

She just barely won -- 324 to 306.

[michaeld]

10 minutes ago, Sally said:

She just barely won -- 324 to 306.

The votes were completely predictable. They followed party lines 100%. All the conservatives and DUP MPs voted in favour of the government, and everyone else voted against except for one of the independent MPs. No-one at all broke party ranks. As the conservative-DUP coalition has a small majority, the government won the vote by a small margin. It was virtually inevitable, and why it seemed to me a tactical error for Labour to call this in the first place.

 

EDIT: of course I'm also excluding Sinn Fein, who never take up their seats in parliament.

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

5 hours ago, Ortac said:

On a different note, I wonder what Her Majesty the Queen thinks about all this. She must have an opinion, and it would be fascinating to know what it is, but being the perfect monarch that she is, nobody will ever find out. 

I saw a news report on Sky saying that one route could be for the Queen to take up power to push a decision.

 

2 hours ago, Acing It said:

David Cameron (who???) has quietly and conveniently disappeared... sneaked out of the building I would say, leaving this mess behind.

He was interviewed today and said he 'had no regrets'...too true he hasn't!

[timewarp]

50 minutes ago, michaeld said:

It was virtually inevitable, and why it seemed to me a tactical error for Labour to call this in the first place.

There's no discussion that this was inevitable. I don't think it was a tactical error though - it was as inevitable to call this as it was to lose it. If Labour hadn't called it, the other opposition parties would have stepped in, which would have been (more) humiliating for Labour. It would even be a bit silly not to call a confidence vote after the biggest government defeat in history.

 

Also I think it was really about that statement by the DUP immediately afterwards, where Nigel Dodds explicitly pointed out that the DUP could have turned the result around. And that might actually happen the next time (and it looks like there will be a next time soon).

[timewarp]

6 hours ago, Ortac said:

On a different note, I wonder what Her Majesty the Queen thinks about all this. She must have an opinion, and it would be fascinating to know what it is, but being the perfect monarch that she is, nobody will ever find out. 

The prime minister will most certainly know, but is not allowed to say it. The Queen has a reputation for asking very uncomfortable questions in her private meetings with the prime minister (and there have been a lot of those during her reign).

[michaeld]

6 hours ago, Ortac said:

On a different note, I wonder what Her Majesty the Queen thinks about all this. She must have an opinion, and it would be fascinating to know what it is, but being the perfect monarch that she is, nobody will ever find out.

After the Scottish independence referendum, Cameron let slip that the Queen was privately delighted with the result, despite being neutral in public. So it is possible to find out sometimes, but it's unlikely something like that will happen twice.

 

40 minutes ago, timewarp said:

There's no discussion that this was inevitable. I don't think it was a tactical error though - it was as inevitable to call this as it was to lose it. If Labour hadn't called it, the other opposition parties would have stepped in, which would have been (more) humiliating for Labour. It would even be a bit silly not to call a confidence vote after the biggest government defeat in history.

I don't believe the other opposition parties can call a vote of no confidence. I think it has to be called by the official opposition. I could be wrong.

 

I just think it takes the sting off yesterday's result, and acts as an encouragement to plough on regardless.

 

1 hour ago, chandrakirti said:

I saw a news report on Sky saying that one route could be for the Queen to take up power to push a decision.

That would be quite something!

 

40 minutes ago, timewarp said:

Also I think it was really about that statement by the DUP immediately afterwards, where Nigel Dodds explicitly pointed out that the DUP could have turned the result around. And that might actually happen the next time (and it looks like there will be a next time soon).

The DUP obviously don't want their support taken for granted, but you have to remember that if they did vote against the government in a no confidence vote, they are effectively voting themselves out of power too. It's an interesting question to ponder, under what circumstances might they actually do that?

 

I suppose they might do it if their influence has run out anyway. For example if the deal they didn't like was passed by parliament, they have little more to lose or influence, at least as far as Brexit is concerned, so they might. I can also imagine them bringing down the government if they reverse their position on Brexit happening at all, or switch to trying to stay in the single market. Either that or if they ever think the Labour party are likely to bring about a Brexit more to their liking than the Conservatives, and that seems really implausible.

 

So I can really only see this happening once "the game is up" - the nature of Brexit is already decided - which is of course little use in resolving this deadlock. I hope I missed something...

[timewarp]

36 minutes ago, michaeld said:

I don't believe the other opposition parties can call a vote of no confidence. I think it has to be called by the official opposition. I could be wrong.

Not quite. They can, but the government is under no obligation to give them time for the debate. In fact there was one on the shelf since December. The convention is that if the leader of the opposition calls the confidence vote, the government must allow for it as soon as possible.

[Acing It]

On 1/16/2019 at 10:04 PM, michaeld said:

After the Scottish independence referendum, Cameron let slip that the Queen was privately delighted with the result, despite being neutral in public. So it is possible to find out sometimes, but it's unlikely something like that will happen twice.

She would be. Her 'holiday home' would be in another country/nation if it had been successful.

[michaeld]

10 minutes ago, Acing It said:

She would be. Her 'holiday home' would be in another country/nation if it had been successful.

Well she would still have been Queen of Scots, and presumably still able to use Balmoral and any other Royal estates in Scotland.

 

However it's really not hard to guess that she would be against the breakup of the UK. The only surprise is that this fact made it to the public sphere.

[ben8884]

Honestly though, Corbyn should either meet with May or not complain about whatever plan B she will present. 

[Skycaptain]

Give him time, he's got to get over the sulks because he lost his no confidence motion