Nworb is talking sense here.

Possible election outcomes in what I think is order of likelihood:
1) Conservative majority (or Con plus DUP) but no majority for no-deal exit; this is where we are right now.
2) Conservative majority (or Con plus DUP), including a majority for a no-deal; this would be a disaster.
3) Hung parliament; in this case no one will be able to get a governing coalition without either Lib Dems or SNP or both, and their price will be either a second referendum (in which Remain wins) or an outright revocation.
4) Labour majority; it might happen. Still no majority for no-deal exit and possibly no majority for any deal or for revocation. Probably means a second referendum unless Corbyn weasels.

All I can think at the moment is "Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh".

The link could probably do with a Spectator warning for those of us who don't want to give it any ad revenue.

1.3 assumes Lib Dems would drop out of coalition if the referendum fails? Seems unlikely on past behaviour.

I also have a suspicion that the order of likelihood is something rather like: 3), 1), 2), 4).

But that might be wishful thinking.* But given that we are in a much more obviously worse situation than when May had the last election, I'd be optimistic that some soft Tories will jump Lib Dem and the Brexit party might take enough votes off the Tories to nudge a few marginals one way or another.

* gloomily, it probably is.

Depending on how exactly Boris handles the manifesto, I think it's almost certainly 2134. Unless he completely ballses it up, he can wrap up the vast majority of the Leave vote, and most importantly eliminate the Farage threat. Whereas it would take some extraordinary tactical voting that certainly the Lib Dem leadership have shown little interest in to prevent the Remain vote from being split among at least two parties.

On the other hand, I never in a million years would have imagined that Theresa May would launch an election campaign with a policy that would primarily disadvantage moderately wealthy elderly homeowners. So it's possible.

Was she throwing eggs at houses in nicer subdivisions?

I'd be optimistic that some soft Tories will jump Lib Dem

One has literally just done so while the PM was speaking in parliament.

So, NMM to Boris Johnson's majority government.

Obviously a poor misguided clown: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/03/commons-showdown-looms-in-battle-over-no-deal-brexit-live?page=with:block-5d6e715d8f0845a5dab7c7e1#block-5d6e715d8f0845a5dab7c7e1

I read the Rogers article. From my disinterested and quite disconnected perspective, his hand-wavy both-sideism stood out. As a matter of fact, it doesn't take two for a negotiation to fail: one party can tank any negotiation by being unwilling to accept any deal, or simply by demanding concessions that far outpace its leverage. OK, I guess you can blame someone for not accommodating a stupid and injurious demand -- but only among people who find blame to be more useful than reality. Anyway, he waves at blaming the EU, but can never quite say what it is they ought to be doing.

Bismarck McNapoleonpants - sorry, Dominic Cummings - has been trying to talk wavering MPs around by shouting "I don't know who any of you are!" at them. God knows I couldn't tell diplomacy from a horse's arse but that's pretty damn special.

1.3 assumes Lib Dems would drop out of coalition if the referendum fails? Seems unlikely on past behaviour.

No, I don't think it does - if there's a Lib-Lab coalition government that calls a second referendum and it comes out Leave again, I think the Lib Dems more likely to push for the softest Brexit possible.

Normally I'd just file this one under "British people: hilarious, terrible," but you've all truly outdone yourselves this time.

I don't know what "(in which Remain wins)" is doing in 1.3 then.

15: Americans lack standing to make fun of the UK.

Do we ever.

And thanks, Werdna! Original post and ajay addendum in 1 are super-interesting and helpful to us parochial Americans.

(I liked ajay's 1 because, like the OP, it intelligently frames the discussion of the key question: What the fuck is going to happen?)

In (1), does the fact that a new election has confirmed the current picture change what the current picture means in practice?

Also for any GE, how is it worked out whether new Labour and Tory candidates, standing to take open seats or flip seats, will be pro-Brexit or anti-Brexit ones? Is it down to local party committee feelings/machinations, or something more national?

16: perhaps I should have said "(in which Remain would probably win)". As in, the Lib Dems would require a referendum as the price of their support in a coalition, and in such a referendum Remain would probably win. I didn't mean that they would require a victory in a referendum as the price of their support.

You are much more confident about the outcome of a referendum than I am.

20.2 is a very important question. The parties select candidates in different ways but generally speaking the local constituency party has to want you as a candidate, and central party HQ has to be OK with you, for you to stand as a candidate for that party. Quite a few MPs are standing down at the next election so we could well have no change in the overall numbers, but a change in the prospects of a no-deal Brexit because retired MPs have been replaced by new ones from the same party but with different views.

22: well, "would probably win". It was close last time and I cannot think that the events of the last 3 years have swayed many people from Remain to Leave. Meanwhile a lot of Leave voters have died and a lot of Remain voters have turned 18.

The covered barely-legal vote.

Coveted.

23: Is that last implying more rabid no-dealers making these decisions?

Oh hey, a Tory defection to the Lib Dems since this post went up.

28 - It happened *during* Johnson's speech, apparently. An MP got up, left the Tory side of the aisle, and sat with the LibDems, and his office released a press release saying that, yes, he was switching parties. https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1168896875711422464

1.2.3.4 or 2.1.3.4 depends to a great extent on how successful BJ is in purging his opponents in the party. Local CAs may not take kindly to being ordered around, especially if they're treated to a Cummings Special. Hammond has been making noises about going to court if necessary to assert his right to stand as a Tory candidate (Jesus, what the fuck is going on!!!!). If the Johnson Purge works, then we're going to be stuck in Orban land without the EU forever; if it doesn't, his political half life will be short, because he has no friends, only people who think they can use him.

27: it might well, at least on the Conservative side. But Labour Brexit supporters are also going - Kate Hoey for one. And there may well be some no-dealers standing down just because they're getting old or whatever. I am afraid I don't know the overall list of who's standing down and what their Brexit positions are.
It's all made even more complicated by the fact that even if we get similar numbers as now, it's very unlikely to be all the same constituencies as now. So you'll get some personnel turnover there too.

Thanks to Werdna, ajay, and GY for the knowledge. Uncharted territory abounds. Still pulling for an election and a second referendum.

I'm still hoping to find a Hot Tub Time Machine on Craig's List and go back to 2016 and fix all this mess once and for all.

Reading up on Hoey: she is pro-leave (representing the most pro-remain constituency outside Gibraltar), pro-fox hunting, weak on LGBT rights, worked with Boris on the Olympics, was long ago pro-united Ireland but now expects Irexit to happen after the Irish see how successful the British will be. What a bizarre person to be/have been a Labour politician.

34. National Union of Students hack from circa 1970. They've all seen each other all right. It's one of those little unofficial masonries that nobody talks about. Jack Straw was from the same stable.

"Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some decades-old student politics spat." Keynes

"The common room wankery of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living." Marx

That Ian Dunt twitter thread was pretty entertaining.

And this one: https://twitter.com/paulhog/status/1168920612804419584/photo/1

Thanks to the Britons for the thread.
Question: What is happening with prorogation? What is the legal/constitutional process (if any) for the court challenges to Johnson's advice to the Queen?

39.2: challenge underway in the Court of Session in Heroinopolis. After that (presumably) instant appeal to the Inner House, and thence (presumably) to the Supreme Court in London. So far, highlight is the challenger's lawyer referring to the PM's "incontinent mendacity".
The idea is that the Queen's actions re prorogation cannot be challenged in court, but she acts only on advice from her PM and the legality of that advice can be challenged, and, if challenged successfully, she'd change her mind and unprorogue.

the legality of that advice can be challenged
On what grounds? What laws, if any, govern the PM's advice?

12: Charley's objections are 100% correct,* but I liked how Rogers outlines the long-term consequences of no deal. The general stance of the EU is, for years to come, pretty much carved in stone at this point, and it really is up to the UK to figure it all out.

I always thought that the winning play for the Greeks would be to move toward Grexit. Seeing how the incentives work out in Brexit, it's pretty clear that the EU would have called that bluff. Grexit still might have been the correct long-term move for Greece, but the world is probably lucky it didn't come to that.

*Rogers doesn't seem to have noticed that an agreement was, in fact, reached between the EU and UK government:

The blame game on both sides, as both recognise - belatedly - that the potential landing zone for an agreement has all but disappeared, is therefore already well under way.

34: she is radically out of step with her ultra-Remain inner London constituency and her local Labour party, having very narrowly survived the 2017 election. really her thing is poor efforts at populism; back in the 90s she used to call herself "the MP for Football".

41: since the 1970s, pretty much every time that the question "is this subject to judicial review?" came up, the judges eventually answered "yes, and the holding is x"

Well, that's basically what the court case is trying to decide. They are not interpreting existing statute here; they are pretty much making new law with the help of a few existing precedents and the Claim of Right.

Having most of your legislature be people who are obsessed with politics and were in the same student politics clubs at the same 2 colleges isn't good, but let me tell you, having most of your legislature be people who know nothing about politics, but were recruited because they are independently wealthy and can get friends or family to fund a campaign, isn't much better.

https://twitter.com/AngryBadgerilla/status/1168920644408487940?s=20

42: not relevantly true. The withdrawal agreement days very little about future arrangements. It just cleats the ground for then to be negotiated. It's compatible with all kinds of hard or soft brexit after that

I listened to a chunk of Yanis Varoufakis's memoir on audio, and it related an interestingly nuanced position he says he worked to convince his PM and party of: that exiting the EU would be horrible for Greece, but it's better than perpetual debt bondage, and our best/only lever to negotiate with the EU, but only if it's not a bluff; so we need to prepare for it as BATNA, and be ready to push the button if necessary, but not welcome it otherwise.

(It was clearly written with an eye to keeping on message on precisely what he did during his ministry, which has been the subject of much air.)

Cleats d/b clears

OT: I just learned that there's a Peter Sellars and a Peter Sellers. For years I've been thinking the guy from the Pink Panther went into making wacky-ass theater productions instead of the more respectable course of dying.

48: I take your point, but the fact that the UK couldn't even agree to even that much is entirely on the UK. I'd be interested to hear a contrary view: That there was some reasonable outcome for the EU that 1. could have also been accepted in the UK and 2. wasn't on offer because of EU intransigence.

51: I wonder if some of the wealthy philanthropists that donated money to fund some of Mr. Sellars more outrageous productions were confused in the same way.

Maybe I should already know this, but why is Corbyn so ineffectual and why isn't someone else rising up, AOC-style?

I've been worrying that the result of a second referendum would depend too much on how it was phrased -- just between "remain or exit" again, or the actual three-way choice between "remain, accept May/EU beginning of a plan, or crash out".

And from far outside it looks like Parliament might experience even the latter as a perfect Arrow's Impossibility.

Anyway, he waves at blaming the EU, but can never quite say what it is they ought to be doing.
He doesn't, but I don't think that means he can't. What he refers to repeatedly on the EU's part is "strategic myopia". I think properly elaborating on that would demand a substantially different, and longer, piece. To be charitable,* we can easily sketch out what he means:

Internally, by the end of 2016 the EU and its values very clearly were not delivering for major voting blocs in many, if not most, member states:
much of southern Europe, including Italy, had been in secular stagnation since c.2000; the Eurozone had been in an unresolved financial crisis since 2010; the conventional centrist parties of numerous countries had suffered mounting damage in consequence; the Lisbon Treaty and its earlier iterations had suffered multiple referendum rejections, including in France; ethno-nationalist parties were establishing one-party rule in Poland and Hungary; Britain had voted to leave.

Externally, it was clear that bad times were coming, and the EU would be substantially better off with Britain than without: the US had elected a fascist moron; Russia had long since elected a fascist, and he had in Ukraine broken the peace of Europe; 7 countries** in the Middle East and North Africa were undergoing partial or total state failure; climate change; China.

BAU was clearly not a sufficient response, yet this was essentially what the EU pursued, the "almost wholly technocratic Article 50 process". What was called for was really strenuous efforts to prevent that invocation, since at that point the process would become a legal one, and thus rigid, leading inevitably*** to where we are today. What exactly those efforts would have involved I don't know enough to say; I think essentially a loud acknowledgment of the problems above and some kind of extended Congress on substantial EU reform, which could hopefully at the least have given May enough domestic space to back away from the ledge.****

*And I see no reason not to ; AFAICT he's arguing in good faith.
**Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, South Sudan, CAR, Mali. To these could arguably be added Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Somalia.
***I think I'm quoting here a lecture by Rogers, previously linked by NW.
****Apparently one of Clinton's first orders of business was to have been a joint NATO-EU summit to try to get this started.

Second 54.

56: I think this is simultaneously true and unfair. I'm pretty sure Brexit is going to induce the next financial crisis, as I suspect banks have underprepared for it. The EU economy already looks fragile, and I bet Brexit pushes it into recession. With interest rates so low the only way out is fiscal stimulus, but sadly it is illegal to translate Keynes' General Theory out of English so they have no way of knowing that. The EU should have worked harder to avoid Article 50 invocation out of self-interest if nothing else.

At the same time, you are asking for the most amazing feat of diplomacy since Yalta. The public attitude in Europe is "If the Brits want to leave, then fuck 'em." There is little appetite for heroic actions by EU leaders. At the same time, the balance of power in the Tories is held by the Brexiteers, none of whom give a shit about anything you mention. Heroic actions probably wouldn't have made a difference. (Also, your idea for a summit is pretty close to arguing that the solution to Brexit is to enact your exact list of policy preferences. It's a pretty good list, but I'm skeptical it is exactly the antidote to Leave. The US economy is booming, and yet we now hate foreigners so much we're putting some of them in cages. It's a xenophobic era.)

I don't see how she could have backed away from the ledge. Remember, when the courts ruled that Parliament simply had to have a say on whether Article 50 should be invoked the individual judges were branded enemies of the people, even though Parliament was going to overwhelmingly approve invocation. Plus the referendum happened after Cameron tried to get substantial EU reform and came away with very little (in large part because of his own red lines, but it's not like they'd have been different under May). Why would people believe another congress would achieve much more? On top of all that, she was already under suspicion within the party as a Remainer. She had to shore her position up by being the Brexitiest Brexiter and push ahead with notification before even the slightest preparation or consensus building.

59: I think the EU was bound to try, regardless; and separately from Brexit, bound to recognize it was in serious crisis, which AFAIK hasn't happened at all, except from Macron, to deafening silence.
And on Brexit, could May not have spun a congress as recognition of Great Britain's Enormous Above-Weight-Punching Place in the World, sufficient to hold at least Remainer Tories (and Remainer opposition)?

That's what Cameron tried and it completely backfired.

As for 60.1, my suspicion is that the EU, institutionally, did recognise it was it in a serious crisis but thought that a new treaty round during the crisis would just crystallise the divisions, and I suspect they would be right to think so. You can see it in the lack of consensus even around things that are already supposed be agreed, like EDIS or the powers of EU regulators. My sense is that they thought the economic situation would normalise in most countries much quicker than it did and as a result the populist wave would subside, and therefore their best course was to ride it out. Obviously it didn't and it didn't.

56: Walt and GY got there first, I see on preview, but I don't see how the EU can be held responsible for its failure to manage an internal UK decision.

I think essentially a loud acknowledgment of the problems above and some kind of extended Congress on substantial EU reform

The key areas where EU needed reform -- the ones related to the financial crisis -- were, as far as I know, unrelated to the causes of Brexit. The UK, after all, maintains its own currency. The actual causes of Brexit -- most importantly, freedom of movement -- strike me as being necessarily non-negotiable for the EU, no?

leading inevitably*** to where we are today

Ah, but where are we today? On the verge of a no-deal Brexit? Or on the verge of cooler heads prevailing? The answer to that question is entirely in the hands of the UK -- its leaders and its people. It always has been, and it wasn't at all inevitable that things would come to this pass.

61: I sit down and I weep.
But "they thought the economic situation would normalise in most countries much quicker than it did" - in 2016? After so many years of recession or flatlines, predating even 2008?

Also, your idea for a summit is pretty close to arguing that the solution to Brexit is to enact your exact list of policy preferences. It's a pretty good list ...

We see this in the US when people explain Trump's election by talking about the Democrats' failure to stick it to the undeserving rich.

58: (I missed this earlier.)
"true and unfair" is hard to argue with.
"There's little appetite for heroic actions"
Whence then Macron? Sure, France is just one country, with its own political culture. But has anyone else even tried? Incrementalism- or horsetrading-as-usual doesn't seem to be working very well for the traditional German or Italian or Spanish parties.
"the most amazing feat of diplomacy since Yalta. "
Fair. I think though, and didn't make sufficiently clear above, that the diplomacy I'm thinking of wouldn't have solved Leave at one stroke, but rather would have kicked Article 50 down the road long enough for some way to be found for the popular and parliamentary Remain majority to assert itself. From where we are now, granted, that stupidly optimistic; but in 2016 the EU couldn't know how bad the impasse would be, or how incompetent the government.

TBC (if I haven't been already) I make no excuses at all for the British, and I think the blame is overwhelmingly with them. I think the failures of the British and Europeans are asymmetrical. The British were both incompetent as technocrats and venal as politicians, putting themselves ahead of the national interest. The Europeans* AFAIK were impeccable as technocrats, not venal at all, and competent as politicians in narrowly defending European interests in the negotiations. At the same time though I think they were politically incompetent in not adequately defending the broader European interest - fix the Union, stop Brexit.
*And I think it matters which Europeans we're talking about. AIUI the negotiations were handled mostly by the Commission, with oversight from the member states, whereas the broad-interest actions I'm talking about would have to have originated with the member states. Since Rogers seems to be talking almost entirely about the Commission, you could call him unfair on those grounds.

What hurt mainstream parties in Europe is they didn't let all the Syrians drown in the Mediterranean. This was practically a campaign promise by Lega Nord in Italy. Also the economy doesn't help, but the understanding of macroeconomics in northern Europe is nonexistent. Most of the countries can borrow money at negative interest rates! They can literally borrow money, and pay back less than borrowed. Borrow some money, dudes!

What hurt mainstream parties in Greece was neverending austerity and/or recession, long before the refugee crisis. I believe similar things apply in Italy and Spain.

General election!

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1168997665683755016

So, Britons, will people have been watching this tonight? Will London tomorrow be like Boston after games 4-6 of the 2004 ALCS?

General election if 2/3 of MPs vote for it. Which, unclear, for reasons unclear to me.

Dunt says the motion as formulated by Johnson will need 2/3, but a different kind of election motion could pass by majority, it would just also be amendable on the floor which Johnson doesn't want... that makes it seem like if the 2/3 FTPA version fails, there won't be much route but a majority motion, right?

The kind of motion that doesn't need a 2/3 vote includes a 14 day delay for people to change their minds/cobble together a different coalition. Would clash with the prorogation on the 14th.

||

Meanwhile, across the pond, is Trump tweeting Poland congratulations on the outbreak of WWII his crassest move yet?

Let's not forget Poland was invaded on 1 Sept; 3 Sept was when France and UK declared war.

|>

At least he didn't congratulate the Nazis.

I guess I should probably check Twitter before I say something like that.

There were good people on both sides.

I watched the end of the Commons debate on live stream. Bunch of animals! lurid wandered in thinking it was some kind of Japanese game show and I had to tell her no, this is really the UK government.

Let's leave Finland out of this.

Do Japanese games shows usually have that many white people?

He blew off the Sept 1 events on account of the hurricane approaching Florida. Which would actually be moderately Presidential-normal, if it weren't for the fact that everyone knows Mar-a-Lago is in Florida.

Bercow yelling at Michael Gove: "Or-DER! Or-DEERRR! I say to the Chancellor of the Duchy, that when he turns up at our school as a parent, he's a very well-behaved fellow! He wouldn't dare behave like that and neither would I! Be a good boy, young man! Or-DEERRR!" Meanwhile Rees-Mogg is stretched across three seats waiting for someone to drop grapes in his mouth.

Maybe it's parochial of me to be so taken aback.

It's strange to me that Twitter's "World-Wide Trends" lists #MoscowMitch, but not Brexit. I'm not exactly complaining, because I'm extremely parochial and would rather see Moscow Mitch out of office than Boris.

Cocaine Mitch is so much cooler than Moscow Mitch.

So much easier to dismiss though.

He blew off the Sept 1 events on account of the hurricane approaching Florida. Which would actually be moderately Presidential-normal, if it weren't for the fact that everyone knows Mar-a-Lago is in Florida.

Also, he actually did nothing to prepare for or respond to the hurricane and just went golfing instead.

He also watched the Zapruder film looking for Ted Cruz's dad.

86: That's totally unfair! He posted several tweets.

Between Boris and the guy dumping the rowing machine on Mont Blanc, this was a really bad day for British international standing.

I guess I have to wait for morning for the next Brexit story.

Everyone *says* that the most memorable thing about Nich/olas Soames is that he is Churchill's grandson but that's not how I remember it. It's the description by an ex mistress of what sex with him resembled: "like having a wardrobe fall on to of you with the key sticking out."

[Via a third party in the mid 80s. It may have got into private eye as well]

For all the denunciations of him as a Leninist monster, if you led him to a barricade he'd only plant carrots there.

This is a spot on observation beautifully phrased.

It's also a classic case, as yesterday's events showed, of discounting normality, calm, and competence because so *boring*, not like that card Rees-Mogg or the second Bismarck, Dominic Cummings.

A real Leninist, of course, goes to the barricades and steals potatoes.

this was a really bad day for British international standing.

It wasn't a great day for British slouching either.

It's also a classic case, as yesterday's events showed, of discounting normality, calm, and competence because so *boring*

In the last 12 months Corbyn has lost seven of his own MPs over an entirely avoidable and disgraceful anti-Semitism scandal, and lost net 84 council seats (he was expecting to win at least 300) and his party remains ten points behind in the polls. But please, tell us more about his calm and competence.

A real Leninist, of course, goes to the barricades and steals potatoes.

A real Leninist (like, for example, Lenin) sits in a nice cafe in Zurich sipping his morning latte and reads about the barricades in the newspapers, only getting a lift back when the revolution is safely over and proceeding to shoot the people who were actually on the barricades in the back of the neck.

After stealing their potatoes.

Well, while everyone else was running around with their hair on fire, he appears to have a) comprehensively humiliated the prime minister, b) defused Dominic "Napoleon" Cummings' wizard wheeze, and very likely c) got his stated aim of forcing a general election.

Yes, I forgot to credit him for arranging the defection of the government's one-vote majority to the (checks notes) Liberal Democrats.

He's produced some cracking weather for the last few weeks, too. Not to mention that amazing innings by Stokes.

This required whipping, what, seven different, competing opposition actors [Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, Greens, Tiggers, Lady Sylvia Hermon] with divergent goals into a single strategy!

Also, you do realise the government started off on this process with a working majority of its own?

Plus, "got his stated aim of forcing a general election"? Look, I know that Johnson said he didn't want an election but he was really obviously lying. He's been electioneering since he became PM. Look at all those spending promises.

Also, you do realise the government started off on this process with a working majority of its own?

Good point. That was before the last election that Corbyn lost. The last general election that he lost, I mean. He's lost others since.

This required whipping, what, seven different, competing opposition actors [Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, Greens, Tiggers, Lady Sylvia Hermon] with divergent goals into a single strategy!

Because, if not for the strategic genius of Corbyn, the SNP would have... what? Voted for a no-deal Brexit? Joined the government?

It's literally been Labour policy to seek a general election first since 2017 conference.

Anyway, as this clearly needs spelling out in words of one syllable, this is it - this is your people's vote, this is the moment, I don't really care what you think so long as you get out on the doorstep for whoever is most likely to beat the Tory in your patch.

It's literally been Labour policy to seek a general election first since 2017 conference.

Yes, I know. I was quibbling with the word "forcing" because it implies it's something that Johnson didn't want to do. I think it was something he did want to do.

That was before the last election that Corbyn lost

So what did happen to that majority then?

the SNP would have... what? Voted for a no-deal Brexit? Joined the government?

Quite possibly run off after some shiny thing idea like trying to make Caroline Lucas prime minister, abstained in order to heighten the contradictions. Actually I wouldn't have worried too much about the SNP - they have operated at Westminster for years under a joint whipping agreement with Labour and they hate Tories - it was more the Liberals who might have tried karate or not bothered showing up or something.

So what did happen to that majority then?

Well, the Conservatives remained in power with the support of the DUP, who have (unlike the Conservative back benches!) proved to be extremely reliable government votes. Meanwhile, since 2017, the Labour party has fallen 17 points in the polls and lost seven of its own MPs.

109.last: without the strategic guidance of Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrat party might have abstained or not bothered attending on a vote to block a no-deal Brexit. But fortunately Corbyn was able to talk them into it.
I am sceptical of this analysis.

Tall, heavy pieces of furniture really should be anchored to the wall.

111 is correct and it's everyone's job to make sure it happens, a convention known as Cabinet Collective Responsibility.

I don't really care what you think so long as you get out on the doorstep for whoever is most likely to beat the Tory in your patch.

Comity! Unless it's the BXP candidate obviously.

I turned down a job in the UK that would have started right around now. I can't imagine how I would be coping with the news if I had accepted.

There's no way to know what someone in that situation is feeling.

We have feelings, but not in a way you can understand them.

Meanwhile in China, the news breaks that the country will face a pork shortfall this year of ten million tonnes... https://dimsums.blogspot.com/2019/09/vice-premier-pork-shortages-must-not.html

That's more than six pigs.

It's probably like when they said there would be a huge shortage of assistant professors and then the current faculty decided to die while working and hire adjuncts. You could start a farm and wind up with unemployed pigs.

That's more than six pigs.

It's at least 30 to 50.

a pork shortfall

Most pig falls are short; they have little legs and remain pretty close to the ground even when standing.

Interesting sideline on the UK political situation. Over 100,000 people registered to vote on Monday and yesterday, 58% aged under 35.

The consensus among knowledgeable people seems to be that Corbyn is a mess. The form of the argument -- he's a political failure and therefore simply a failure -- is, on its face, hard to dispute. But I'm inevitably going to look at it through the lens of US politics, where the same argument is incorrectly made about Hillary Clinton.

The thing is, Hillary was a political failure because of a corrupt system and a fucked-up polity. Whatever you think of Corbyn, he exists within a system that coughed up Boris Johnson as an alternative. The UK's problems are much bigger than Corbyn, and (as with efforts to fix some meaningful blame on the EU), it all seems a bit hand-wavy. Everything is fucked up, Corbyn and the EU are part of everything, therefore they must bear a significant amount of blame.

I say it's time to dissolve the people and elect another.

Like with drain cleaner? You monster.

Banks have been lending billions to Argentina again? I'm starting to think that maybe Lenin was right about late capitalism.

34, 43: Hoey is really something special. As a refinement of her list of offences, add "weak on LGBT rights while her constituency contains one of London's biggest* gaybourhoods."

I live in her constituency and it has been maddening to be unable to vote against her.

114: An Icelander of my acquaintance recently took a job in the Netherlands after many years in London. I talked with her yesterday and she said that not having to hear/think/worry about Brexit was worth the move all on its own. I don't have the option at the moment but if No Deal isn't avoided or even if it is but Britain can't move on and recover from this mishegas in another couple of years -- which tbh I doubt right now -- then I'm out.

122: Wow

*I can't actually swear to the technical truth of this in population terms, but it's true in the "the one that isn't Soho" sense of first to come to mind when asked.

We didn't take the job because my wife rated her chances of getting a job post-Brexit as "low". If it just been me I might have gambled on it. The only reason I left my previous job was so that my wife would have a better shot at getting a job.

As a foreigner, you always feel a bit precarious living in a foreign country, since you are ultimately there on sufferance, and if they decide to ship you out there isn't much you can do. I already think in the back of my mind "Is this the day they kick all of the foreigners out?", especially now that each country has its own bespoke "Kick the Foreigners Out" party. You never know what kind of large-scale event will suddenly crush you unexpectedly. My wife had to leave Switzerland earlier than she planned, for example, ultimately because of that anti-foreigner referendum a few years ago. Who knows what kind of future random Tory attempt to jerk off the Daily Mail readership would get me kicked out?

Plus unlike the Brits I do have feelings as we can understand them.

In the last 12 months Corbyn has lost seven of his own MPs over an entirely avoidable and disgraceful anti-Semitism scandal, and lost net 84 council seats (he was expecting to win at least 300) and his party remains ten points behind in the polls. But please, tell us more about his calm and competence.

Isn't this usually blamed on Corbyn being too calm, not a lack of calm?

Boris Johnson's first Prime Minister's Questions was immediately embroiled in controversy after footage appeared to show him gesticulating towards Jeremy Corbyn, saying: "Call an election, you great big girl's blouse."

Is this something people say in London?

The bluff Northern industrialist father in Blackadder III used it.

Isn't Corbyn more like the Dennis Kucinich of England, and not like Hillary Clinton at all? Would he stand a chance in an actual primary?

I turned down a job in the UK that would have started right around now. I can't imagine how I would be coping with the news if I had accepted.

NOT WELL

Just remember to pack enough food for three months.

131: an actual primary is basically how he got to be leader of the Labour Party.

Previously, it was loosely speaking the case that a party's leader was picked by that party's MPs; this made sense because he/she had to lead them in Parliament. Then both parties independently decided it would be a splendid idea to have the MPs pick a shortlist of candidates and let the party's members pick between them; the party leader, and (in some cases) the prime minister, would be picked not by the general population, or by a majority of a majority of the MPs elected by the general population, but by a relatively small number of party members.

The first party leader to be elected in this way was Jeremy Corbyn, against the expressed desire of 80% of Labour MPs.
The second was Boris Johnson, with (initially) the support of about a third of Conservative MPs, and (eventually, after several rounds) the support of a sizeable majority of them.

I keep reading about the UK's "unwritten constitution." At the risk of again playing the role of parochial American chump: I thought the whole point of a constitution was writing it down.

135: it's a bit of a misnomer. It isn't unwritten. It's written down in lots of places. What it isn't is, if you like, anthologised: there's no one document that is called "The UK Constitution". Instead there are lots of documents called things like "The Claim of Right 1689", "Erskine May", "The European Convention on Human Rights" and so on.

129: Found out via twitter that this was discussed long ago at Crooked Timber

http://crookedtimber.org/2004/03/30/big-girls-blouse/

Horrible antisemite Chris "The Vegan Serial Killer*" Williamson MP didn't turn up to vote last night because he was... attending a protest outside the Home Office in support of Julian Assange. Good excuse.

*His nickname among other Labour MPs because 'he's vegan. And he looks like a serial killer'.

Wouldn't "Cereal Killer" be a better joke?

138: Is there an explainer or recap anywhere of the whole Labour anti-Semitism scandal? Whenever I see mention of it it's all very meta and it's hard to tell what the actual inciting incidents were.

It's possible that I'm so used to American politics, with our audible and explicit dog whistles, that I can't tell what genuinely subtle bigotry looks like anymore.

Over 100,000 people registered to vote on Monday and yesterday, 58% aged under 35.

That's glorious news.

I echo Megan's question at 54:

Maybe I should already know this, but why is Corbyn so ineffectual and why isn't someone else rising up, AOC-style?

It's hard to learn about the Labour anti-Semitism scandal because everyone has an axe to grind. As far as I can tell the antisemitic elements in Labour have been there (and basically been the same people) for 30 years but now they see themselves as being emboldened because A) social media exists, where you can be antisemitic all day every day B) Corbyn is a longtime anti-imperialist, meaning he is a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause with no particular interest in Zionism unlike the centrists who dominate both parties C) Corbyn's brother Piers is a genuine unstable antisemite

Isn't Corbyn more like the Dennis Kucinich of England, and not like Hillary Clinton at all? Would he stand a chance in an actual primary?

And Bernie Sanders is kind of the Dennis Kucinich of post-2008 America. All we needed was someone who doesn't look ridiculous and talks about leftist domestic policy instead of leftist foreign policy.

And the current situation is kind of a tragedy. It's like if Bernie Sanders took over the Democratic party, and everyone was excited about it, and then the only issue anyone talked about for 3 years was something that he had a principled opposition to that put him at odds with those who had been excited about him for other reasons (gun control, I guess in his case).

141.last: Corbyn was elected by the party membership in the teeth of opposition from most Labour MPs (see 134). In 2016 he sacked most of his shadow cabinet, lost a vote of no confidence, and was challenged for the leadership of the party by Owen Smith MP, who had the support of most of the parliamentary party. Corbyn was then re-elected by the party membership.

Basically no one else is rising up because the Labour Party membership supports Corbyn and as long as that is true there's no way to get rid of him.

136: Aha! Thank you! 134 was also stuff I didn't know.

Corbyn's brother Piers is a genuine unstable antisemite

He's only anti-Semitic some of the time.

Maybe I should already know this, but why is Corbyn so ineffectual and why isn't someone else rising up, AOC-style?

Corbyn is the one who rose up AOC-style. He would have to endorse a young person with the same idealistic platform.

125: Not so much banks as hedge funds and emerging market bond funds in general. Franklin Templeton alone has several billion dollars of it. But, yes, it does seem silly. Famously, Argentina was able to sell a 100-year bond only a couple years ago, which was only seven years after its latest restructuring (the second in five years) and three years after its latest default.

Corbyn's brother Piers is also a climate change denier.

He's an interesting case. In his youth he was a reasonably good solar astronomer (And an organised Trotskyist, which Jeremy never was); he discovered what he regarded as a correlation between weather patterns and sunspot activity, but most of his colleagues thought it wasn't strong enough to be worth following up. So he started betting on the weather, based on sunspot observations, and made quite a lot of money, eventually setting up as an independent long range weather forecaster. (He'd stopped being a Trot by this time.) He became so obsessed with the idea that everything in the weather could be explained by sunspots that he vociferously rejected all the evidence for anthropogenic climate change. I don't know how he got into the antisemitism, nor do I know if there is still an observably correlation between the weather and sunspots.

He's quite mad.

148: good heavens. I had no idea.

There definitely is a link between solar activity and the weather - that's generally accepted. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/impacts/space-weather-impacts-climate But whether there's a significant correlation between sunspot activity and weather to the point where you can make money betting on it... I don't know. Outside my area.
(You can definitely make money betting on the weather. Energy companies try to do it all the time. Cold winter means high natural gas prices, etc.)

I believe I spy some analogies in some of these comments.

Here is an explainer from the BBC on the antisemitism thing. I don't know if it's grinding any axes.

Trivially, to clarify re 78/80: I was trying to figure out what the hell lourdes was watching based on short bursts of audio alone. Once I actually entered the room and saw the screen, I got the picture. My guesses had been "rowdy game show" or "rowdy sporting event," and... I can't exactly explain my heuristic, but let's just say that I am usually the one watching random dumb shit on the internet and the only possible motive I could ascribe to him was language practice/cultural literacy.

A vote of "party membership" is not at all a primary! Is he popular with Labour voters or just "party members" is my question. Based on his polling numbers it looks like he's pretty unpopular with historical Labour voters. I think he'd get clobbered in an actual US-style primary.

A recent acquaintance asked for an explanation of the UK situation on my wall at the other place. Here's my draft at a summary for the US layperson:

Johnson had a brash and ill-advised plan to play chicken with the EU, saying he was ready for (catastrophic) no-deal Brexit if the EU didn't make implausible concessions.

This negotiating scheme went in tandem with a scary plan to keep Parliament from meeting during the most critical period.

But it was a bad plan conducted just as clownishly, so he lost support from a contingent of his own party yesterday. There is a small majority of Parliament basically overruling him to say "we are not okay with no-deal Brexit under any circumstances", which leaves him high and dry with Brussels.

When there is this kind of political deadlock, a new election is the traditional British solution to break it. He has now relented and accepts a new election is needed; there's some dickering we don't need to pay close attention to about the specifics of the election.

We have no idea if and how the election will change the underlying situation - it's partially about the balance of power between parties, but it's just as much about how Brexit sentiment shifts _within_ each major party. But it will at least be a new chapter.

A vote of "party membership" is not at all a primary!

IIRC, Corbyn's victory was made possible by a change in party rules which drastically lowered the membership fee required to vote as a "party member" and expanded the electorate. It wasn't a full primary, but it was a much broader electorate than prior party elections.

Why exactly is Corbyn considered such a bad leader for winning a general election (accepting on evidence given he'd be a shitty PM)? Whenever I've seen him speak in Parliament he hasn't been great, but also hasn't been transparently bullshitting like May or Johnson.

153 is correct. This was the closest thing to a US-style primary a major British political party has ever had.

The theory that sunspots affect weather patterns was the impetus for the development of tree-ring dating.

156?

While I'm asking OT questions, did Cuba ever consider changing its flag? This morning I mistook a Malaysian flag for an American.

Tree-ring dating was developed about 100 years ago by Andrew Douglass, an astronomer at the University of Arizona who had a theory that sunspots had detectable effects on earthly weather patterns. He hit upon the idea of looking at tree-rings as a way to correlate weather data with historical sunspot records. His sunspot ideas never garnered significant support from other astronomers, but once archaeologists heard what he was up to they started sending him samples of wood to date, which revolutionized archaeological chronology. U of A is still the preeminent institution worldwide in dendrochronology.

Tuscon is much nicer than Phoenix.

You deal with dendrochronology labs?

No, but I once turned down a job at U of A.

Just think how many tree-rings you could have counted. Sad.

That's where I learned that cacti have frames.

Anyway, can't the result of a second referendum be locked in simply with turnout and supermajority requirments?

150: Thanks. I had assumed that the Labour anti-Semitism was just a specific manifestation of general anti-Semitism in the British political class, but that BBC article leans towards it being outgrowth from support for Palestinian liberation by the British left. Which if correct makes it a very different beast from the predominant form of anti-Semitism in America. (I guess it would have to be, given America's peculiarly intense relationship with evangelical Christianity.)

The most offensive thing Corbyn personally did seems to be this. This is amateur hour, right? Politicians in the business as long as he had been shouldn't make mistakes like that--it seems clear to me he was trying to say "the specific people I'm feuding with are fuckheads" and then oops others a huge class of people. And then his apology is nonsensical and doesn't even address the actually offensive part. Huh? I still feel like I'm missing something. I'm probably just giving him too much benefit of the doubt.

158: My mnemonic if it has its colors arranged in the US way, it's Puerto Rico, otherwise it's Cuba. If anything its colors are closer to an inverse of the US's, and thus appropriate.

Attacking Labour as antisemitic is also going to be a consistent strategy from the right wing because it appeals to people who are anti-Muslim and believe Muslims are both Labour and antisemitic. This further muddys the waters for those of us who want to know if there is a real antisemitism problem.

167: That's true on both sides of the pond, at least, given e.g. Meghan McCain.

166 last: That is just way too subtle.

It's totally plausible, and indeed obviously the case with Sanders/Clinton, that you could lose with just actual party officials (e.g. superdelegates), win with people willing to spend money to join the party (i.e. with small donors), and lose in actual primaries. I don't think it's meaningful to say that method is "closer to a primary" just because it's more people voting. It's not very much like a primary (of course the old system is also not very much like a primary).

Having only office-holders decide is a reasonably good approach (especially in a parliamentary system), and primaries are a reasonably good approach. The current UK system is much much stupider than either.

At any rate, Corbyn winning a party membership election is essentially zero evidence that he would win in an actual primary.

He did rather better than expected in the last election. But yes, the chance of an outright Labour victory is slim. Another leader might well do better, but I don't think, even then, an outright majority would be the most likely outcome.

Tactically he has done pretty well this week, fwiw. The opposition parties seem to be coordinating rather better than when May was PM.

Speaking of stupid English politicians, which seems to be all of them, is there any explanation for Nick Clegg's bizarre priorities? The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act is a) Stupid, b) Unlike other reforms, doesn't help the Lib Dems, and c) Clearly not a big enough victory to be worth supporting all the Tories other terrible ideas.

Was it because then they could say they had a win, unlike with Alternative Vote?

FTPA helped the Lib Dems in the sense that it meant the Conservstives had to keep them in coalition for five years rather than just dumping them as soon as they thought they could win a majority on their own.

Oh wow, I hadn't even thought of an explanation that short-sighted.

For an American it's a bit uncanny how all the Conservative men in Parliament wear the same blue outfit. It just doesn't look right having the uniform of the upper-class enemies of mankind be calming blue instead of enraging red.

A Tory peer
Another one
Yikes
His predecessor as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Lord Strathclyde

Utterly OT, but everyone remembers the story about the astronaut who was arrested for driving 1000 miles while wearing an adult diaper in order to pepper spray and kidnap the woman who was shagging the astronaut she wanted to shag? (Also in the car: gloves, Gerber knife, bin bags, rubber tubing, hammer, pellet gun. Shit, a woman could have herself a pretty good weekend in the desert outside Vegas with that.)

Well, they've made a movie about her and Natalie Portman is playing the lead. Out this autumn. "Lucy in the Sky".

Link to original thread: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_6238.html#485829

And now Johnson's own brother has quit as a minister and an MP , citing the contrast between "national interest" and "family loyalty".

Blimey.

I can no longer maintain any pretense of having the slightest idea what is going on in Parliament, or why. Everybody seems to think that they can get a better deal from the EU, which isn't going to give them one*. So instead they are fighting over when to have an election, and now it's apparently too late to have one before the EU summit. Labour, which has been calling for an election since forever, now doesn't want one: Corbyn's "leadership" is beneath contempt. The Tories "want" one but are transparent about it being a bluff: after yesterday, Johnson has no idea what he is doing. The SNP wants one because they think they might win a few seats: That's certainly focusing on the nation's problems!

Is this just a giant kick-the-can-down-the-road festival? "Maybe the horse will learn to sing." Makes me glad we have calm, collected, sane politicians here in the US. Oh, wait...

182: OK, I will try to clarify things as I see them. What you have to keep in mind is the distinct difference in each case between "what I want" and "what the group or groups of people whose support I need want me to say".

BORIS JOHNSON.
Wants: to keep being prime minister.
His plan to achieve this: have a general election, win a five-year term with a working outright majority.
How he could fail: obviously, by losing the election, or by being successfully challenged for party leadership.

Who he has to attract, and what they want him to say:
Party members: who want a no-deal Brexit.
Brexit Party voters: who also want a no-deal Brexit, and will come back to the Conservatives if they believe the Conservatives will give them one.
Conservative MPs who want a no-deal Brexit: a small number.
Conservative MPs who want to continue to be MPs in the governing party: they want to win the next election too, and also want the economics not to look too horrible for the election after that, so they have a chance of keeping their seats long-term.
Potential Conservative Party voters: some but not all of them want a no-deal Brexit too. Most would be happy with some sort of fairly hard Brexit. None of them want Corbyn as PM. Many of them would be truly horrified if they experienced the true damage of a no-deal Brexit.

How he is going to try to achieve his plan:
Make a lot of noise about how he wants a no-deal Brexit.
Get blocked by Parliament.
Kick out disloyal MPs. Deselect as many as possible. He doesn't need a House majority these days, it's not like he's going to try to pass any legislation or anything.
Call an election as soon as possible, before the no-deal deadline and while his honeymoon period lasts; argue that he needs a new loyal Parliament to back him up as he pushes for the true Brexit that the voters want.
Get a majority.
Go back to Europe, renegotiate some sort of deal probably with cosmetic changes only, push it through a compliant Parliament composed of his own placemen, ERG lunatics and foetal nonentities from the public schools, leave EU.

JEREMY CORBYN
What he wants: presumably, to be prime minister. And to get the UK out of the EU while minimising the economic damage and remaining as Labour leader.
His plan to achieve this: win a general election.
How he could fail: lose it. This is his only chance. If Johnson wins, the next election will not be until 2024, by which time he will be 75.
Who he has to attract and what they want him to say:
Labour MPs: they hate him but want to be in power too.
Party members: they don't care what he says.
Labour Remain voters: they want him to give them a second referendum or just revoke, or failing that to minimise the damage from Brexit.
Labour Leave voters: they want out but are also worried about economic damage.
Potential Lib Dem and SNP voters: a lot of these are currently Labour Remain voters but are very worried about his good faith and preparing to jump ship.

How he is going to achieve his aim:
Get an election to happen at the worst possible time for the government. This will be after the PM's self-imposed October 31 deadline, by which time he will have even fewer MPs and will look like an idiot for not achieving Brexit yet.

Some questions:

What is the "true Brexit that the voters want?" If there is an election Johnson will have to fight it with a promise of No Deal. If he wins and then tries yet again to negotiate or repeals the Article 50 declaration, or anything else but "crash out," it's betrayal.
What fraction of the Tories really think they can get the EU to re-negotiate? Where can I get their drugs?
How can he call an election before the deadline? Do you just mean "call" or "call and actually have" an election? There doesn't seem to be time for the latter, especially if Labour won't play along.

Is the October 31 deadline really "the PM's"? Wasn't it set when May was still PM? I presume it can be extended, but is there a majority for that, and if so, why don't they just do it, and Johnson be damned?
Doesn't the No Deal Brexit happen automatically if the deadline isn't extended?
How can Corbyn possibly achieve his second goal (get the UK out of the EU) AND remain Labour leader? Isn't Labour majority Remain? Talk about betrayal if he makes Brexit happen. (No doubt, given how widely hated Corbyn is in his own party, there would be the possibility that Labour could win an election and THEN kick out Corbyn, but that seems pretty unlikely. Doesn't it?)

I think the value of time here is important. This literally is Corbyn's only chance. He can't expect to still be Labour leader in five years' time, and seen as a viable potential PM, as a 75-year-old who has lost four (or more) national elections in a row. (He'll still be leader because the party will still be backing him.) Johnson, on the other hand, could possibly be thinking to himself that being leader of the opposition for the next few years might be a good second-best. He'll still be young enough to be credible in five years, certainly as an alternative to Corbyn, or McDonnell, or whoever has succeeded Corbyn as PM once it all gets too much for him and he steps down.

Corbyn could be the next Neil Kinnock.

What is the "true Brexit that the voters want?"

No one knows, least of all the voters.

What fraction of the Tories really think they can get the EU to re-negotiate? Where can I get their drugs?

There is actually some room for re-negotiation. Johnson has been saying some things about limiting the backstop to agrifood products only - so there is free trade across the Irish border in agrifood and an agrifood border in the Irish sea, and free trade in everything else across the Irish sea and a hard everything-else border in Ireland - and this might actually work in terms of winning over the DUP and even the Irish government. Non-agrifood inter-Irish exports are big in value but small in volume and crucially in number of crossings involved (they're things like tankers of chemicals and containers of electronics) so that would be a lot easier to do.

Is the October 31 deadline really "the PM's"? Wasn't it set when May was still PM? I presume it can be extended, but is there a majority for that, and if so, why don't they just do it, and Johnson be damned?

It's the PM's because he's been repeatedly saying "I'll get Brexit by October 31 no matter what". Yes, it predates him. It can be extended and there is a majority for that and they probably will extend it.

Doesn't the No Deal Brexit happen automatically if the deadline isn't extended?

Well, that's what the debate this week is intended to prevent, by securing an extension.

How can Corbyn possibly achieve his second goal (get the UK out of the EU) AND remain Labour leader? Isn't Labour majority Remain?

Yes, but he could argue that it wasn't his fault, since he wasn't actually PM at the time - which is a plausible argument! As long as he makes it look like he opposed it, and tried to mitigate its effects, he's fine.

(No doubt, given how widely hated Corbyn is in his own party, there would be the possibility that Labour could win an election and THEN kick out Corbyn, but that seems pretty unlikely. Doesn't it?)

Corbyn is not, repeat not, hated in his own party. He is hated by his own party's MPs. His own party loves him and keeps electing him as leader in the teeth of furious opposition from almost all Labour MPs and will continue to do so indefinitely. It will not be possible in the foreseeable future to remove Corbyn as Labour leader. He will need to resign of his own free will.
He may well do so after a few months as PM; it's a high pressure job and he has neither the stamina, the intellect or the leadership ability to do it.

Do British people really use "Jo" instead of "Joe"?

If the UK is in the midst of an election, the EU will almost certainly find a reason to grant an extension. I was reading one UK think-tank leader this morning who said that that passing the anti-no-deal bill this week (the "Benn bill") would be deemed sufficient grounds for an extension because crashing out would mean the UK would no longer be acting in accordance with its own constitutional arrangements. It's certainly an EU-style kick-the-can argument. And who knows, maybe the horse will learn to sing.

Sorry, by "hated in his own party" I meant the MPs. Isn't it also the case that Labour voters as a whole are pro-Remain (according to polls)? I don't know about the paid Party members, but I thought they were pro-Remain as well as pro-Corbyn, which must give them a real "2+2=5" doublethink experience.

Labour voters, Labour party members, and Labour MPs are all majority pro-Remain. But the members have also successfully persuaded themselves that Corbyn is pro-Remain too.

Real talk: Is there a way to make Brexit not happen, other than "Have someone other than the Tories in charge, and then revoke Article 50"?

For two years people were saying "Have another referendum" but it seems like another referendum would again be 50/50. Corbyn's plan seems to be changing the question from "Brexit is bad" to "No-deal Brexit is bad" which more than 50% of voters would agree with. Seems more realistic than the demand for another 50/50 referendum, this one binding. Maybe there can be a referendum with multiple options. Then the Brexit vote probably gets split.

Is there a way to make Brexit not happen, other than "Have someone other than the Tories in charge, and then revoke Article 50"?

Well, there's "have the Tories in charge, and then revoke Article 50". I am not quite sure how you get there from here, mind.

Labour, which has been calling for an election since forever, now doesn't want one: Corbyn's "leadership" is beneath contempt.

This is the thing I don't get about the contempt for Corbyn. In the last few weeks, smart folks have made a strong case that Corbyn was an asshole for insisting on an election that was tactically unwise. And you seem to buy into this: see your subsequent remark about the SNP. But now that Corbyn is taking a more measured approach, he's still an asshole.

I think Dave is wrong about that. Corbyn doesn't want an election right now, he wants it in a couple of months. This is the right decision.

The SNP wants one because they think they might win a few seats: That's certainly focusing on the nation's problems!

I also think Dave is being unreasonable here. What else is the SNP supposed to want? They are a minority opposition party!

195. I know he doesn't want one right now, but he's been calling for one for a long time. Suddenly, he's against it. Certainly it's about timing, but it's actually quite a gamble that things will improve for him as time goes on. In fact, given Labour's current unpopularity, he's hoping for a miracle. I suppose the fixed-term law might come to his rescue by continuous postponement (if the EU will swallow that, which they might not).

196. Of course it's tactical, but small parties don't grow via tactics, they grow by strategy.

I do agree that it's unreasonable to expect principled actions from political parties at a time like this, when the bouquet is in the air and everyone would kill to be the bride.

small parties don't grow via tactics, they grow by strategy.

The SNP is a bit of an exception here because it's a party with a very restricted geographical ambition. Of the 59 Scottish seats it already has 35, as well as a solid majority in Holyrood. It is not a small party struggling to attain national relevance; from its point of view, it has already achieved more than half of what it wants to achieve.

The SNP should try for territorial concessions in anticipation of independence. Like, freedom for us, plus we control the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands.

Certainly it's about timing, but it's actually quite a gamble that things will improve for him as time goes on. In fact, given Labour's current unpopularity, he's hoping for a miracle.

On the other hand, he has a choice of three options:
1) push for election now (to be held in mid October)
2) push for election later (to be held a few weeks after 1 November but before the new 31 January deadline)
3) don't push for election

And I think he is correct that 2) is his best chance of winning, because the wheels are coming off Johnson's government a bit, and, as I say, him missing his own deadline will not be a good look. 3) is not good because that means allowing Brexit to happen. 1) is not as good as 2).

The Faroe Islands are Danish. I think they might object. The SNP voter base might like an irredentist claim to Berwick, though, for historical reasons.

Dream big. Scotland and Denmark are in the same weight class. It would be a fair fight.

The Faroes get tons of money from the Danish government. That's why they can have all of those tunnels, one of which is under construction. Orkney and Shetland don't get those. (Well, and because they're less populous and more centralized.)

If you reach back far enough, Scotland also has a claim to the Isle of Man. For maximal irredentism, they could invade Northern Ireland, claiming they have to protect the Ulster Scots.

200: There's a case to be made that the intelligent course -- the approach that takes into account all of the facts and probabilities in the US, the UK and globally -- is to just give up and acknowledge that we're fucked.

Not so much a course as a finish line.

Orkney and Shetland also don't get tunnels because for reasons that no one seems to fully understand, tunnels are 2-3 times more expensive to build in the UK than in Norway.

No one seems to ever propose this, and I suppose I see many reasons why, but it seems like a reasonable solution to the backstop dilemma would be to have Brexit decided at the level of the constituent countries rather than the UK level. So NI and Scotland stay in the EU and England and Wales leave. No hard border on the island of Ireland, but also Northern Ireland isn't treated "differently from the rest of the UK" since Scotland is also getting the same treatment. Plus you would get SNPs votes in parliament to get the plan through.

SNP is likely to go from around 35/59 to 50/59 or perhaps a little higher, with the Scottish Tories completely collapsing and Lib Dems being the second largest. There problem is that they only dominate because it's first-past-the-post voting, and they somehow need to get from the low 40s into the 50s to actually achieve independence. They don't really need a new strategy, they just need the English to keep up their current run of idiocy. Or just waiting, since independence has e a majority with under 50s, and a large majority with under 30s.

"it seems like a reasonable solution to the backstop dilemma would be to have Brexit decided at the level of the constituent countries rather than the UK level. "

This would be horrific. Scotland and England are far more interlinked in every way than UK and EU or GB and NI.

I don't disagree, but it seems to be what SNP wants post-Brexit anyway. And if the EU really wants the EU parts to succeed while England crashed and burned, maybe they'd invest enough money to make it work. At any rate, SNP would vote for it, right?

192
Corbyn's plan seems to be changing the question from "Brexit is bad" to "No-deal Brexit is bad" which more than 50% of voters would agree with. Seems more realistic than the demand for another 50/50 referendum, this one binding. Maybe there can be a referendum with multiple options. Then the Brexit vote probably gets split.

I'd love to see a political scientist mapping out all the different ways to design a referendum for a situation this weird. (It probably exists and I just haven't looked.) A three-way choice with a first-past-the-post winner, ranked choice voting, two-round runoff... There are probably dozens of possibilities and none of them are going to happen.

"At any rate, SNP would vote for it, right?"

Not sure they would actually. Independence next door to a non EU england is a very different matter from independence with both nations still in the EU. I doubt they'd vote for England to leave under any circumstances. And under this deal, remember, Scotland leaves as well... just stay in the customs union.

Ah right, I was imagining NI/Scotland actually staying (ala non-Greenland Denmark). Yeah, just customs union wouldn't be enough.

211. Another 50/50 referendum would be a disaster, especially if it was a tiny majority for Remain. A large majority (70/30 or 60/40) might be okay, but not a close one. Not because Remain is bad, but because the Brexit supporters would go nuts. It's already a widespread belief (and based on actual facts!) that the EU supports referenda until they win, then no more referenda. Of course at this point it's not entirely clear that the UK Remaining would be good for the EU (from their point of view).

This is a little off point, but a friend and I were talking yesterday about the presumed post-Brexit US/UK trade deal, and were wondering just what, exactly, we're supposed to buy from the UK? And in what way is a US/UK deal supposed to be better for us than our deal with Canada?

I would buy prawn-cocktail Skips if I could find them for a reasonable price.

Top import categories from the UK currently are apparently Transportation Equipment, Chemicals, and Machinery (Except Electrical). They're our sixth-largest trade partner, so whatever those categories entail it's not a trivial amount.

Source. There doesn't seem to be a way to link to individual query results.

I think Skips are chemicals.

I think a huge chunk of US-UK trade is actually in services, where the UK's value added depends in large part on being an EU member.

Scotch whisky.

Also, chemicals.

Those aren't services.

My source in 218 doesn't seem to include services. Here is a Powerpoint on trade in services that's a few years old but shows that the UK is our largest source of imports of services, though the total value seems to be slightly less than the total value of imported goods from the other source.

I conclude that I am right.

Is there really a Jan 1st 2020 accounting deadline that would explain big money supporting a quick crash-out, as preferable to letting accountants in?

I mean, have you *met* any accountants?

OK, well I'm sure a fine trade deal can be struck that allows British exporters to switch out from sending stuff to the EU to sending it to us.

a friend and I were talking yesterday about the presumed post-Brexit US/UK trade deal, and were wondering just what, exactly, we're supposed to buy from the UK?

I hope you felt just a little bit embarrassed by that admission.

The biggest one in goods terms, depending how you count it, is cars; after that you have medicines and pharmaceuticals (GSK, AstraZeneca, etc), aviation (especially Rolls-Royce jet engines), machinery (such as other RR turbines for marine and generation use), petroleum products, chemicals, and some odd ones like artworks.

Services, of course, is massive: financial services, royalty payments, tourism, business services, creative industry and so on.

And the UK is also the single biggest source of inward investment for the US.

I was surprised by "cars", to be honest. But I suppose we must export quite a few luxury models.

Even more weirdly, the single biggest brand of car imported into the UK from the US, by a factor of three, is... BMW. Followed by Mercedes. Can't seem to find data going the other way just yet.

Is there an explainer or recap anywhere of the whole Labour anti-Semitism scandal? Whenever I see mention of it it's all very meta and it's hard to tell what the actual inciting incidents were.

There have been quite a few inciting incidents, like members of the Labour Party supporting artists who produce anti-semitic murals, comparing Jewish journalists to concentration camp guards, claiming the Zionist movement was allies with Hitler, and so on;
combined with a second level of Labour MPs, officials and spokesmen saying unhelpful things like "look it's all a lot of fuss about nothing, the Jews are just getting upset because they're all rich and they think Labour will raise their taxes";
and a third level of the party leadership not acting fast enough on the first-level and second-level things and being called out for it by their own MPs, Lords and members. It's basically the main reason why Labour lost seven MPs in the last 12 months.

For all the depressing details, try here https://www.theguardian.com/news/antisemitism though it does also include AS stories from elsewhere in the world too so you'll have to do some selective reading.

Cars surprises me because the US "safety" rules require much heavier cars, and so many European cars aren't legal to sell in the US. Most foreign makes of cars sold in the US are made in North America. A bit of googling suggests that the BMWs are assembled in the US, but the engines come from the UK.

It really looks then that the big import is basically engines (but they're split into multiple categories based on what they power).

Wait, is it actually just Mini Coopers?

A trade deal where we knock down the price of a Bentley sounds like a nativist's paradise.

233: ah, OK. Makes sense.

It's Mini Cooper's until you go down far enough to reach the turtles.

(I didn't mean what are we buying now, but what more are we going to be buying in the future, that isn't displacing American labor.)

238: I withdraw 229.1 in that case.

Well, the answer is that there are not many obvious potential UK exports to the US that aren't already actual UK exports to the US, except for things that are illegal in the US like decent cheese and (apparently) non-huge cars. In theory the UK post Brexit might be able to strike a better transatlantic trade deal than the EU has at present, that would reduce tariffs on UK exports to the US, allowing them to compete better with US domestic products (or for that matter US imports from other countries, like the remaining EU). But no one but a madman believes this and no one but a madman or a crook claims it publicly.

I think Trump is going to try to make you buy soybeans and slightly unclean chicken while not buying more from you.

Anyway, no more medium rare chicken.

More info here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-motorists-increase-demand-for-british-built-cars-with-exports-up-by-7-in-2017-300590711.html

If I'm reading things right both cars and engines are large exports. The most exported car is... the Honda Civic!? Mini One comes in fourth. So if BMW is highest by a lot then that's mostly engines for American assembled BMW SUVs. I think Minis are the only BMW owned models assembled in the UK and sold in the US.

And Pence's comment about quadrupling is obviously ex recto.

So if BMW is highest by a lot then that's mostly engines for American assembled BMW SUVs.

BMWs is highest of cars assembled (or at least with a country of origin designation?) in the US and registered in the UK. I couldn't find any manufacturer level data going the other way.

Honda Civics are made in Swindon. Or were. They're shutting down the plant in 2021. Yay Brexit.

Oh BMW was the other direction. Oops.

meanwhile those hopeless bungling clowns in the Labour Party have managed to beat a filibuster in the House of Lords and have passed the no-no-deal bill:

https://twitter.com/labourwhips/status/1169986473719939073

bless their hearts!

as far as I can see most things we might possibly export more of to the US have a massively aggressive US lobby - jet engines and aircraft parts? financial services? cars? drugs?

The problem with cars is that they basically all have mostly EU parts, and it's not at all clear that the UK car industry can survive Brexit due to supply issues (whether they increase shipments to the US or not).

there are not many obvious potential UK exports to the US that aren't already actual UK exports to the US

Perhaps the time has come to draw down the Strategic Brown Sauce Reserve and sell more of it to Americans. We'll dip anything in sauce, just try us.

So that's what they mean by saying this car has a 300HP engine.

I refuse to admit that I admire that.

The opposition parties are playing a bit of a blinder this week, so far. Don't want to jinx it, though.

The US would probably agree to import your mad cow disease-riddled Bovril if you left the EU. I've always wondered what it tastes like.

It tastes like holes in your brain.

re: 254

I have some friends from Palo Alto who tried it on a trip to Edinburgh, and were so into it, they were semi-joking about setting up a hipster Bovril stall.

That might be covered by all the Paleo Bone Broth that has popped up recently.

I thought that was a euphemism.