The Brexit Thread

[Patrick Thistle]

Has anyone else seen that the March for Leave has been nicknamed the Gammonball Run?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

If the Brexiteers cave in this final stretch it will suddenly make May's strategy seem like a stroke of genius. If they don't she's fucked.

The prospect of her getting the deal through at the last minute and being hailed some sort of Iron Lady II is stomach churning. It was bad enough last week when she achieved fuck all in Strasbourg and the press were lapping it up.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

23 Tory MPs have put their name to a letter to the Telegraph basically saying 'no deal is better than this deal' and indicating they'll still vote against it this week.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

.....which may or may not have led to the latest wheeze - government saying that unless it is clear by tomorrow night that there is a majority for the deal (unlikely, as things stand), May will go to Brussels on Thursday and ask for a long extension.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

23 Tory MPs voting down May's deal could be only just about enough given the number of Brexiter arseholes on the Labour benches who might vote in favour of it, going by last week's votes (in particular, 17 Labour MPs defying the whipped abstention by voting against a 2nd referendum).

[Diable Rouge]

A tale of two polls:

http://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1107617916755808256

http://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1107617974943399936

[Janik]

Neatly showing how pointless it is to ask binary questions on a situation with ternary (at least) options. Those two polls don't actually contradict each other...

[ad hoc]

Just heard Bercow has blocked the government from doing yet another vote on the deal. Is that correct?

[ad hoc]

Why does the new board hate punctuation?

[Diable Rouge]

http://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1107668728068669440

[Diable Rouge]

Just heard Bercow has blocked the government from doing yet another vote on the deal. Is that correct?

Yes - ruled there would have to be a substantial change, as occurred between MV1 and MV2, to justify a fresh vote.

[ursus arctos]

It usually is the device on which you are viewing the board, not the board itself.

If you are on an iPhone or other iOS device, try going to Settings : General : Keyboard (on your device, not the Forum) and turn Smart Punctuation off.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Played Speaker.

It means they can't just bung the DUP, or play games around the Vienna Convention, or blackmail and/or knight backbenchers, to tip the numbers.

[ad hoc]

It usually is the device on which you are viewing the board, not the board itself.

If you are on an iPhone or other iOS device, try going to Settings : General : Keyboard (on your device, not the Forum) and turn Smart Punctuation off.

No, Android. In most cases I have to remember to punctuate twice to get a chance of it showing up.

[Logan Mountstuart]

Good Old Bercow. She's been playing fast and loose with parliamentary procedure for months.

[ad hoc]

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

That's put the cat among the pigeons hasn't it?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Nice. Particularly nice that May got no advance notice. She so deserves that. Kind of frustrating though, that it spares her from having to (a) lose a third time or (b) admit by implication that she was bound to lose a third time. Still, there's plenty of evidence that she was going to.

[Etienne]

The only resolution I can think of that hasn't already been put is the confirmatory referendum Kyle/Wilson one. The TIGgers might have buggered up the People's Vote option.

[Ginger Yellow]

Yes - ruled there would have to be a substantial change, as occurred between MV1 and MV2, to justify a fresh vote.

What was the substantial change between MV1 and MV2?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

What was the substantial change between MV1 and MV2?

Guardian:

Bercow says the vote last week did not go against the “no repeat votes” (my paraphrase) rule. There had been changes to the legal agreement. And three new documents had been published, he says.

He says in procedural terms it was quite proper that the debate and second vote took place.

The government responded by scheduling debates on a no-deal debate and on an article 50 extension.

[ursus arctos]

Quite.

This "substantial change" isn't close to being one in the sense of the Vienna Convention requirement.

It still throws a spanner in the works, though.

[Janik]

ruled there would have to be a substantial change, as occurred between MV1 and MV2, to justify a fresh vote.

Stopwatch started for the first Brexiteer to say "He is right, of course. You shouldn't vote on the same issue twice. That is why we must not have a second referendum"
Which is a flawed argument, because the first referendum would itself fall foul of that, seeing as Britain voted in a remain/leave poll in back in 1975.

[Ginger Yellow]

There had been changes to the legal agreement

But there hadn't, as the AG confirmed.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

From The Guardian again:

Labour’s Hilary Benn, the chair of the Brexit committee, asks if Bercow’s statement means the government would have to get the EU to agree to changes to the agremeent. Or would it be enough for the government to offer concessions to a party in the Commons (ie, the DUP).

Bercow says, thinking off the top of his head, “in all likelihood, the answer to [Benn’s] question is yes”.

A change of opinion about something is not the same as a change to the offer, he says.

He says he would have to look at this.

Fundamentally, for something to be different, it has to be fundamentally different.

Not just different by wording, he says; different by substance.

This takes Bercow’s ruling much further than his original words implied.

Given that the EU has said it will not make any further changes to the withdrawal agreement, Bercow’s answer to Benn may have killed off all prospect of a MV3 vote.

[ursus arctos]

If that's Bercow's standard now, it very much is NOT the one he applied to Meaningful Vote Two (as GY intimates)