Johnson could face no-confidence vote next week to halt no-deal Brexit

[Soph0571]

There could be a vote of no confidence in the government next week in order to remove Boris Johnson as prime minister and secure a Brexit date extension, a senior Scottish National party MP has said.

Following talks between opposition party leaders at Westminster, Stewart Hosie said the move appeared to be the only way of ensuring Johnson did not push through a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

“We have to do that because there is now no confidence that the prime minister will obey the law and seek the extension that parliament voted for only a few weeks ago,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“If we are serious about the extension, that is the only game in town.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/28/boris-johnson-no-deal-brexit-no-confidence-vote-snp

I think they are going too soon... the numbers do not add up sufficiently right now...
I cannot see any of the independent ex Tories voting against the PM if they think Corbyn would end up as caretaker PM - same with the Lib Dems...
We will see - but I think Boris will win it because the alternative is unthinking to the majority - however awful he is.

[OnDoutside]

1. I suspect that they won't try it if they are not sure of the numbers.

[Denzil_DC]

2. I suspect this may be sabre-rattling.

Last edited Sat Sep 28, 2019, 07:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Hosie is a smart politician who's been around the block a few times, so I doubt he's proposing going after the Sun King and risking missing.

They need to ensure that whatever they do doesn't mean the Benn Act can be circumvented by chicanery around the date of a future election. For the best (not ideally, because there's no ideal in this current situation), they could seek a means to allow a caretaker government of whatever makeup and leadership to take over in the interim before an election at the time of its choosing, but given Jo Swinson's intransigence, ambition and lack of any sense of team playing, it's hard to see what its complexion might be.

Many of us in Scotland received a mass-mailed Lib Dem "newspaper" this week, with Swinson claiming credit for the overturning of the prorogation when in reality she was very marginal and a Jo-come-lately, Joanna Cherry Photoshopped out of a picture of the main proponents in the case, and alleging that the SNP are covertly conniving to bring about a no-deal Brexit as a way of pursuing their aim of "breaking up the union". Either whoever put that together's been asleep for the last three years, or they assume the electorate up here are stupid and have no access to media of any sort. It doesn't exactly encourage an atmosphere of trust.

There's no love lost between Sturgeon and the SNP and Corbyn and Labour at a political level, but she's said she'd support his becoming interim prime minister if that proved to be the best or only option. That's a pretty big step for her.

We obviously don't know what attempts are being made behind the scenes to cobble together a plan to get around this. There are plenty of clever, very experienced politicians on the anti-no deal side. If they can finally figure out how to work together - and Cox and Johnson and Cummings's conduct in parliament and outside it this last week may have focused minds a little - then we may have some hope.

[Matilda]

3. I saw something about this on BBC,

but they seemed to think that's just what Boris wants, so he can call an election. And that would be a bad thing in the end, because he'd be able to call the shots if he wins.

Is that the case?

[Denzil_DC]

4. It's all to do with timing.

The Tories are hell-bent on Brexit happening on 31 October, despite the fact their planning is in no shape for the country to be able to cope with a no-deal Brexit if it came to it.

Both the Tories and Labour have been paying close attention to polling as to when the best timing for their advantage would be to hold an election.

The Tories have wanted one as soon as possible ever since they lost their majority in parliament, not just because they're worried that the ill effects if we did crash out of the EU on 31 October would be a bad basis for an election campaign, but because there's a window when parliament would have been closed down for the election that would overlap with the exit date, meaning it would be more difficult for the opposition to impede because parliament wouldn't be sitting (a law has been passed to force the government to ask for an extension of no deal has been reached by then, but at the moment Johnson's being cagey about whether he'd obey it). That window's fast closing, as the election campaign can't be less than 25 days.

Labour's calculated that it's best waiting till after 31 October, whatever happens on that date (i.e. if Brexit goes ahead, the Tories did it, not them, so they can argue that the bad consequences aren't their fault; if it doesn't, another referendum here we come, and the ball's kicked down the road again).

The Tories also have to balance what works in the Brexit Party's favour against them. It's likely to leech votes from them (and Labour too, but possibly to a lesser extent) in constituencies where the Tories can ill afford it if they don't go ahead with Brexit full speed or seem to be wavering.

An extension of the Brexit deadline before an election would be the Tories' worst-case scenario.

The polls are all over the shop, and a four-way split in English and Welsh seats between the Tories (hard Leave), the Lib Dems (now Remain), the Brexit Party (hard Leave with added clown horns) and Labour (who the hell knows? Currently possibly another referendum and leave it to the electorate to figure it out since they did such a great job last time, but keep checking back for changes) would be very hard to call at the constituency level whatever the national percentages say, the most likely result being yet another hung parliament.

No matter what, the government have currently gone full-on hardcore rabble-rousing and are using their leverage on the BBC and links to friendly/gullible/colluding journalists to stir up the prospect of civil unrest via anonymous "No. 10 sources" (a.k.a. Johnson's special adviser/boss Dominic Cummings) quoted daily in the media and to try to smear Labour with unfounded allegations of colluding with EU countries to sidetrack Brexit etc. As far as the Tories are concerned, the election campaign has already started, and Johnson is daily holding press opportunities, hospital visits etc.

So they need their wings clipped real quick somehow to avoid their using their current position of power to cause even more harm and stir up more trouble (they can't get anything though parliament at the moment, but there's plenty of mischief they can get up to by using the civil service and other levers of power while appealing to those who might turn to civil unrest to help them get their way).

How to do that with a divided opposition and no clear leadership to gather around is the key question, and one we may, if we're very, very lucky, get some answers to this week, otherwise we'll just keep staggering on as before as the clock ticks on.

Meanwhile, Johnson's under investigation for shenanigans during his time as London mayor, which if even a fraction of what I've been reading pans out (we're talking links as far as Epstein's circle and the shady transcontinental groups that move in and between that and other circles), could be pretty explosive. Whether that investigation will progress quickly enough to have any bearing on an election is anyone's guess at the moment.

[Matilda]

5. Marvelous explanation!

I do find it hard to imagine how or why anybody would want to have Boris as their leader, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he got up to no good while he was mayor, and probably still is. But there's not much time to prove it, is there? And we have the example of Israel, where a prime minister charged with corruption is still vying to be leader, so moral compasses seem to be short order everywhere.

[Denzil_DC]

6. The UK's standards of prime minister have been on a steep downward trajectory for years!

Unless we reverse that somehow, I shudder to think who comes next.

When May got in, a number of us sighed in grudging relief, as her main final opponent in the leadership contest at the time was Andrea Leadsom, who there's no question would have been even worse. I never failed to take Johnson seriously as a contender this time round (a few years ago, I wouldn't have). That's a sign of how standards have slipped. Apart from the outlier of Rory Stewart, my opinion of the other candidates was based on how bad they'd play for the Tories beyond their base.

I don't know how things are going electorally on the ground in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but here in Scotland, it looks like Johnson's playing out much as I expected, for example near Perth (at one time a Tory stronghold, and a very close-run win for the SNP last election):

Link to tweet

Nicky MacCrimmon @nickyrannoch

Lovely evening canvassing for @PeteWishart in Invergowrie. Boris Johnson is like a get out of jail free card when you encounter undecideds or non- SNP supporters.

None of the national polls at the moment are registering this, but I'm taking them all with a pinch of salt given the upheaval and uncertainty around what's going to happen.

The Tory Conference currently going on in Manchester's been quite interesting, though. Here's Leadsom having a "please clap" moment while trying to cheerlead for Johnson:

Link to tweet

Daniel Kraemer @dcakraemer

Conference hall is bursting with enthusiasm this afternoon
🥳
[Twitter video]

Here's Liz Truss on her usual sparkling form:

Link to tweet

Matt Chorley ✔
@MattChorley

Eric Pickles going absolutely wild for Liz Truss’s speech

[Twitter video]

And here are some candid pics of the main audience:








(I'm not sure about that last one, but the prospect of this bunch rioting if they don't get their Brexit chills the blood.)

[Matilda]

7. Also in Australia.

The hard-right controls the "Liberal" party, and it is without doubt the most corrupt federal government I can recall. All for themselves and their corporate mates. PM Morrison likes to call himself "ScoMo", but to many of us, it's "Scummo". They are led by a group called the IPA, founded many years ago by Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert, who's still a major force. Fascists, every one of them.

Across the ditch in New Zealand, it's rather different - perhaps because Murdoch doesn't have majority control of their media. Ditto for Canada.

It's horrifying how many stupid people are out there, devouring every lying word put out by Murdoch and his cohorts. That's where the rot lies, I think, and it applies in Australia, the UK and the US.

When left-leaning governments do get elected again, I think they should make it a priority to revisit media ownership rules and tighten them up so creeps like Murdoch and his ilk can never have so much influence again.