Brexit Thread VI - The Knockout Phase ?!?

[uppi]

Meanwhile, Andrea Leadsom is still peddling the idea of a managed no-deal. I would despair that the Tories seem to have learnt nothing from the last two years, but this is just absolute proof that they haven't.

The Brexit unicorn parade continues.

I think what he got right is that the strategy of the Tory right in the event of a general election is to hope to sweep up the Brexit and core Tory vote whilst the opposition is heavily divided. FPTP means that if the Tories get 35-40% of the vote and Labour gets under 30% the end result will be a large majority for the Tories and all Labour and the Tories will have to congratulate themselves on is the ineffectual purity of their positions.

40% seems to be too ambitious. That would require to win back all the Brexit party voters as well as the LibDem voters of the European elections. There hardly seems to be a policy line which could achieve this. If an election was called now,m they'd be lucky to get 30% of the vote. Best case (well, for the Tories - not for anyone else) would be a shaky majority, worst case would be no seats at all. That sounds like a highly risky strategy.

 

[Kyriakos]

The Brexit unicorn parade continues.



40% seems to be too ambitious. That would require to win back all the Brexit party voters as well as the LibDem voters of the European elections. There hardly seems to be a policy line which could achieve this. If an election was called now,m they'd be lucky to get 30% of the vote. Best case (well, for the Tories - not for anyone else) would be a shaky majority, worst case would be no seats at all. That sounds like a highly risky strategy.

FPTP makes the established local candidate be the favorite, and having both Brexit (Farage) and tory run for the same seat will obviously split the vote. Which is why i suspect Farage will want to come to some kind of deal with the tories, so as to not have a lot of seats lost to Labor or other parties due to splitting the hard brexit vote.

 

[innonimatu]

nd if a clean no-deal candidate would make it to PM, the Tory Remainer and moderate deal Tory MPs are facing the nasty choice to let it happen or join the no-confidence vote.
But the no-confidence vote will likely lead to elections where their own party will be obliterated with the Brexit party gaining most of their seats.

And will the Tory Remain voters in that scenario massively jump ship and vote for the LibDems and Greens ?

Greens? Never! LD? They'll probably try to take over the party.

The thing is, the rank-and-file of the tories seem to have become almost unanimously for brexit whatever the cost. They won«t be scared away from it, and the tories who try to defect to the LD won't carry many votes. They're deadweight.

I don't know how seriously we can take polling this far in advance of an election campaign. Parties campaign for a reason, and spend the time between elections building and maintaining an electoral machine for that reason. Does the Brexit Party have that machine?

Take it seriously. It will only get worse as the can keeps being kicked down the road.

I warned here about this months ago, that trying to stop brexit was a doomed strategy and bound to hand power to those who would deliver it. Because it is the only way to solve the UK's current blocked situation. Everyone seemed to take me as a lunatic. Now it's happening.

I'm putting it at more that 50% odds that the tories' instincts of self-preservation won't kick in now. Too many of the "tories who matter" in Parliament don't want a brexit. It'll be May mark II. And then when they do try to grab the brexit vote and change leader again towards the end of the year it'll be too late. You'll have PM Farage. And you'll have helped hand power to him as much as Hillary's supporters helped hand power to Trump.

It could have been a lexit. If everyone on the left respected democracy. Corbyn has had the correct position, just not the good supporters.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Greens? Never! LD? They'll probably try to take over the party.

The thing is, the rank-and-file of the tories seem to have become almost unanimously for brexit whatever the cost. They won«t be scared away from it, and the tories who try to defect to the LD won't carry many votes. They're deadweight.



Take it seriously. It will only get worse as the can keeps being kicked down the road.

I warned here about this months ago, that trying to stop brexit was a doomed strategy and bound to hand power to those who would deliver it. Because it is the only way to solve the UK's current blocked situation. Everyone seemed to take me as a lunatic. Now it's happening.

I'm putting it at more that 50% odds that the tories' instincts of self-preservation won't kick in now. Too many of the "tories who matter" in Parliament don't want a brexit. It'll be May mark II. And then when they do try to grab the brexit vote and change leader again towards the end of the year it'll be too late. You'll have PM Farage. And you'll have helped hand power to him as much as Hillary's supporters helped hand power to Trump.

It could have been a lexit. If everyone on the left respected democracy. Corbyn has had the correct position, just not the good supporters.

After the election of the 23rd June
The Leader of the Labour Party
Had leaflets distributed in the streets
Stating that the voters
Had forfeited the confidence of the party
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the party
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

With apologies to Brecht.

 

[Hrothbern]

Greens? Never! LD? They'll probably try to take over the party.

The thing is, the rank-and-file of the tories seem to have become almost unanimously for brexit whatever the cost. They won«t be scared away from it, and the tories who try to defect to the LD won't carry many votes. They're deadweight.

Most of that "rank and file" Tories are already voting Farage in that poll.
A poll that shows that there are hardly Tory seats left.
=> what will the Remainer Tories (20-30%) do ?
Vote on loyalty to "their" party with hardly any effect in seats ?
Or vote on any other party than Tory or Labor ?

It will not be enough to take the LibDems over... unless all the Remainer protest votes of Labour (25% of the 2017 votes in this poll) go back to Labour or to the Greens.
And when the LibDems qua voter base would have a big chunk of the traditional moderate Tories... and the rest of the Tory party is eaten up by Farage...
Would that really hurt the UK ?

 

[Kyriakos]

After the election of the 23rd June
The Leader of the Labour Party
Had leaflets distributed in the streets
Stating that the voters
Had forfeited the confidence of the party
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the party
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

With apologies to Brecht.

Only nothing of the kind happened, and Brecht was referring to soviet East Germany, hardly Corbyn

 

[Arakhor]

It could have been a lexit. If everyone on the left respected democracy. Corbyn has had the correct position, just not the good supporters.

I know that knowledge of Westminster isn't your strong suit, but you are aware that (a) the Opposition is not required to support Government policy, (b) nobody got a say on this matter at all until a year ago and (c) May didn't even begin to pretend compromising until this year. The only Brexit on offer at any point in this process was May's deal, (narrowly) unamended by Parliamentary process. Pretending otherwise, because it suits your doom-and-gloom narrative, is entirely mendacious.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Only nothing of the kind happened, and Brecht was referring to soviet East Germany, hardly Corbyn

The British electorate is hardly flocking to support Labour atm and Corbyn's Lexit is about as popular as May's plan.
I'm also surprised to see innonimatu converting to support such a soft Brexit.

 

[Kyriakos]

The British electorate is hardly flocking to support Labour atm and Corbyn's Lexit is about as popular as May's plan.
I'm also surprised to see innonimatu converting to support such a soft Brexit.

I think that most of the outsiders clearly see that both no-dealers and remainers are living in their bubble, so to speak. Ultimately it isn't our choice to make anyway (non-british people), but it's no use pretending this is about a parliament deciding. Last decision it made was taken by just 1 vote difference, and made by more remain mps standing to not be re-elected than lexit or hard-brexit ones.

 

[Arakhor]

And in the latest Tory gaffe (not even the first one today!), Sajid Javid managed to insult Ireland in the very same sentence that he was attempting to be diplomatic: "[Ireland] is the tail that wags the dog on this and we need to make sure we can do more to build that goodwill in Ireland and build their confidence.”

He was also woffling about a high-tech border control system, but tilting at windmills has been in vogue for a long time.

 

[Kyriakos]

^insulting attitude is always worthy of contempt. Sadly Javid will just brush it off. I suppose you don't approve

 

[AmazonQueen]

I think that most of the outsiders clearly see that both no-dealers and remainers are living in their bubble, so to speak. Ultimately it isn't our choice to make anyway (non-british people), but it's no use pretending this is about a parliament deciding. Last decision it made was taken by just 1 vote difference, and made by more remain mps standing to not be re-elected than lexit or hard-brexit ones.

Corbyn's living in a bubble too. His strategy didn't work in 2017 and since then Labour has been steadily losing support but still he thinks one more push will do it. Hes the General Haig of Brexit.

 

[Kyriakos]

Corbyn's living in a bubble too. His strategy didn't work in 2017 and since then Labour has been steadily losing support but still he thinks one more push will do it. Hes the General Haig of Brexit.

I think Corbyn is to a degree living also in a bubble, yet at least supporting lexit seems to be more realistic atm next to the extremes.
That said, as i noted before, maybe he will never get to be prime minister - but it won't be due to his own fault.

 

[really]

FPTP makes the established local candidate be the favorite, and having both Brexit (Farage) and tory run for the same seat will obviously split the vote. Which is why i suspect Farage will want to come to some kind of deal with the tories, so as to not have a lot of seats lost to Labor or other parties due to splitting the hard brexit vote.

I can see the obvious advantage this gives Farage - it legitimizes him and clears some challengers - what does it bring to the Tories? They have to admit defeat before even starting and give up some seats to carpetbaggers? with no local base.

I can't imagine any local Tory party would happily not stand a candidate in deference to the Brexit party or any potential leader would give up on potential seats no matter how likely they were to split the vote.

 

[Kyriakos]

I can see the obvious advantage this gives Farage - it legitimizes him and clears some challengers - what does it bring to the Tories? They have to admit defeat before even starting and give up some seats to carpetbaggers? with no local base.

I can't imagine any local Tory party would happily not stand a candidate in deference to the Brexit party or any potential leader would give up on potential seats no matter how likely they were to split the vote.

I don't think the strategy would be to ask any (or the vast majority of) actually seat-holding tories (apart from the 2-3 which are pro-Remain) to not stand to be re-elected. But it does seem possible that at areas where the seat holder is Labor (or other than tory) it would just kill any tory chance to be elected if they have to face a Brexit (Farage) candidate; the vote will be split.
Of course it legitimizes Farage, but regardless of how much the tories would want to pretend nothing happened in the euro election, his party won't go away before some type of brexit occurs.

 

[Traitorfish]

Take it seriously. It will only get worse as the can keeps being kicked down the road.

I warned here about this months ago, that trying to stop brexit was a doomed strategy and bound to hand power to those who would deliver it. Because it is the only way to solve the UK's current blocked situation. Everyone seemed to take me as a lunatic. Now it's happening.

I'm putting it at more that 50% odds that the tories' instincts of self-preservation won't kick in now. Too many of the "tories who matter" in Parliament don't want a brexit. It'll be May mark II. And then when they do try to grab the brexit vote and change leader again towards the end of the year it'll be too late. You'll have PM Farage. And you'll have helped hand power to him as much as Hillary's supporters helped hand power to Trump.

It could have been a lexit. If everyone on the left respected democracy. Corbyn has had the correct position, just not the good supporters.

But, none of this really addresses what I said, that elections require electoral machines, and the Brexit Party doesn't have one. They won't automatically inherit UKIP's extremely rudimentary machine, and they certainly won't inherit the Conservative Party machine. It might construct one of its own, I'll grant that, it's plausible, but I don't think that an opinion poll conducted at a period of exaggerated media exposure is really grounds on which to make that assumption.

 

[uppi]

FPTP makes the established local candidate be the favorite, and having both Brexit (Farage) and tory run for the same seat will obviously split the vote. Which is why i suspect Farage will want to come to some kind of deal with the tories, so as to not have a lot of seats lost to Labor or other parties due to splitting the hard brexit vote.

According to Farage, 2/3 of the Tories are dirty Remoaners, anyway, so why would he make any sort of deal to protect those incumbents. The only deal I can imagine would be to not contest the seats of Tories which pledge to support a Farage-approved Brexit. This doesn't even need to be a deal, because Frage can just delcare this unilaterally. It would pressure Tories to take that pledge in order to save their seat, so the Brexit party can focus their resources on other seats.

 

[Marla_Singer]

But, none of this really addresses what I said, that elections require electoral machines, and the Brexit Party doesn't have one. They won't automatically inherit UKIP's extremely rudimentary machine, and they certainly won't inherit the Conservative Party machine. It might construct one of its own, I'll grant that, it's plausible, but I don't think that an opinion poll conducted at a period of exaggerated media exposure is really grounds on which to make that assumption.

It seems to me that the Conservatives are pretty much condemned to deliver Brexit before the next general elections, otherwise they are doomed.

If Brexit is still not delievered when the next general elections will occure, I cannot see how the Conservatives wouldn't be crushed by the LibDems in one side and the Brexit Party in the other, there's just no way.

 

[Kyriakos]

According to Farage, 2/3 of the Tories are dirty Remoaners, anyway, so why would he make any sort of deal to protect those incumbents. The only deal I can imagine would be to not contest the seats of Tories which pledge to support a Farage-approved Brexit. This doesn't even need to be a deal, because Frage can just delcare this unilaterally. It would pressure Tories to take that pledge in order to save their seat, so the Brexit party can focus their resources on other seats.

I think that, in practice, this is exactly how it will play out.

 

[Marla_Singer]

According to Farage, 2/3 of the Tories are dirty Remoaners, anyway, so why would he make any sort of deal to protect those incumbents. The only deal I can imagine would be to not contest the seats of Tories which pledge to support a Farage-approved Brexit. This doesn't even need to be a deal, because Frage can just delcare this unilaterally. It would pressure Tories to take that pledge in order to save their seat, so the Brexit party can focus their resources on other seats.

The only kind of Brexit which will be "Farage-approved" would be no-deal Brexit or am I wrong?

Anyway, besides May's deal, no-deal Brexit is pretty much the only other available option as I can't see the EU agreeing in anything which is remotely close to what hard Brexiteers want.