As we know Theresa May lost a vote in the Commons last night over Brexit. The specific point being that money to plan for a no deal exit – that automatic reversion to simple WTO terms – is now limited. Rather a cut nose, spite face, sort of thing for people to do but you know, these are the Members of Parliament, supposedly the adults in the country.
There is a joy to all of this though which is that the entire Parliamentary travail is because Gina Millar won her court case. Not, in the least, what she wanted nor meant but it is indeed the reason why it’s all going pie shaped. Without the insistence on a meaningful vote then the executive could have – and would have – cobbled some deal or other together which they could then have rammed through. Or even just announced and stuck the proverbials up to the Commons. Given that court victory this cannot now happen. A real and proper vote has to be had. And that’s the problem, there’s isn’t a majority for anything at all.
No majority for any actual deal that is. It’s possible to gain a majority against pretty much any possible combination but not one in favour of any. But since we’ve got to have the meaningful vote that means that it’s really rather difficult to put together something which will gain approval – rather than rejection – in a meaningful vote.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]What to expect from Brexit debate and final vote in the CommonsNothing has changed since May pulled December’s vote – but there may be drama ahead[/perfectpullquote]
Quite so. The drama being there’s pretty much no combination of anything at all which will gain a majority in favour of it. As has been pointed out elsewhere:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] I find it somewhat amusing that it’s Gina Millar’s “meaningful vote” success that’s caused all this stress and deadlock in Parliament. All the Remainers thought it would be a back door to staying in the EU but instead it created a situation where the default is their worst case scenario or no deal and WTO terms. Instead they now have to come together to find a solution that isn’t May’s deal but won’t be committing political suicide at the next GE when they go back to their Leave voting constituencies. If Millar hadn’t won her case the executive would probably have pushed through May’s deal or sought some other compromise, without a full commons vote or it would have been a straight forward no confidence vote. In both those scenarios they could have gone back to their constituencies and shrugged that no matter what the outcome “it wasn’t my fault, Guv”. [/perfectpullquote]There is a joy to this, isn’t there?
So Gina might end up being a hero of Brexit after all. That won’t improve the boat race on her!
Oh I don’t know about that. She looks pretty righteous in my eyes, and in any event she was put up as a front by some backers whose names escapes me. It is a delicious unintended outcome that we have a determination that Parliament insists that the UK must no longer be an EU member by the end of the A50 period ( yes Parliament has decided that ), but also that Parliament must have a meaningful vote on the negotiations arising from that insistence. The logic, if followed, is that Brexit must occur, whether that is soft, hard or… Read more »
To get a Remainey Brexit we should have gone full EFTA in July 2016, and then worked out things from there, and we would have had two years of careful unpicking by now. Instead, we’ve spent 30 months screaming at each other. Instead it looks odds-on the Remainers have forced us into a Full Hard On Brexit. We had loads of British Dominion models to work out how to leave, and instead we’ve picked Algeria.