Brexit.

[Kara Spengler]

All this chaos in December has me wondering what HM's Christmas Speech will be like.

I thought she generally shied away from politics, especially during that?

 

[Kara Spengler]

That is, of course, the problem. The default if no action is taken is leaving with no agreement, a hard Brexit. No sensible person wants that outcome, but every other outcome requires some degree of action and it is unclear that any of those actions can get enough support in the necessary quarters to happen.

Yes, which was why triggering article 50 was reckless. At most it should have triggered exploratory talks. Once submitted they locked themselves into a course of action.

 

[Kara Spengler]

"We have come to realize that some of our recent experiments, such as Parliament, have not lived up to expectations. We shall be resuming Our God-given role as absolute monarch of United Kingdom and the North American Colonies below Canada. You are most welcome and a Happy Christmas to all."

From the US: "Can we do the same about that little disagreement we had with you 2 centuries ago?"

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Tigger]

And it turns out that Arron Bank's company that gave £8 million to the leave campaign, apparently the single largest political donation ever, doesn't even have a registered address.

The company which the Electoral Commission suspects may have been behind Britain's biggest political donation has no registered address - meaning it has failed to fulfil a key legal requirement - the BBC has found.

Rock Holdings is a firm registered in the Isle of Man and controlled by Leave.EU founder Arron Banks.
...
But BBC Newsnight has found that Rock Holdings has no official registered address on the Isle of Man and that it is therefore "in default", meaning it is not compliant with company law on the island.

...
At the time of the referendum, Rock Holdings' address had been registered at Murdoch Chambers, South Quay, Douglas, Isle of Man.

Newsnight visited island this week and its first stop was to Murdoch Chambers, which now appears to be an accommodation address, facing a gas showroom overspill car park. The door was locked and no-one answered.

The Newsnight team then moved on to 18 Athol Street, also in Douglas. This was the address, albeit "care of Greystone", that Rock Holdings filed with the Isle of Man registry in November this year.

But when Newsnight dropped by, it was told by Greystone that Rock Holdings "was neither approved nor agreed by or known to any director or officer of the company or ourselves".

So, perfectly legitimate.

Arron Banks firm 'has no address'

 

[Innula Zenovka]

David Allen Green in the FT on the deeper problems with the backstop:

If there is no relationship agreement by 2022, then all the horrors associated with a no-deal Brexit will simply re-emerge. The position of the Irish border will be just one of many problems

Evernote Link because FT paywall

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Did you really intend to say May's strategy is against the interest of the state or was that a Freudian slip? It's absolutely lovely anyway.

I looked at the language and thought about changing it but decided it was just fine as it is.

 

[Tigger]

 

[Kara Spengler]

Yes, she would be a fool to take any sort of an extension. It will just make things worse.

The only exception is a last-minute procedural thing like they are taking the votes and need another few minutes to print the final copies. The sort of thing that happens now and then when a legislative body is voting on something but pure logistics will not have it *technically* submitted on time even though all the votes are in and such.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thread: In a second referendum, if the question is Remain vs Theresa May's deal vs No Deal, Remain wins by a landslide if the voting is first past the post.

Broken down by constituency (excluding NI), YouGov project 600 constituencies voting "Remain," 30 "No Deal," and 2 for TM's deal.

However,

when the battle is turned from a three way split, where no compromise is needed, into straight two-way fights, Theresa May’s deal starts performing a lot better.

One way of analysing this is to use the “Condorcet method”. With this approach, instead of looking for which option is most people’s first choice, we should instead test which one beats all the others in a head-to-head fight. We do this by removing each option in turn, and then looking at the second choice of people who backed that option.

When we remove the Deal as an option and reallocate these preferences in a straight Remain Vs No Deal contest we find that Remain would be slightly ahead, winning 52% to 48%.

If the Deal is pitted against No Deal, the majority of Remainers swing behind what Theresa May is proposing, meaning it wins 65% to 35%. The calculation for Remain vs the Deal is a lot tighter. Although the vast majority of no dealers swing behind May’s plan, because Remain begins from a much higher starting point the result is a statistical dead heat – with 50% for each option.

I'm not wholly sure that this analysis works, since it assumes that, in a straight Remain vs Deal contest (which, if we do have a second referendum, is the most likely choice), all the people who would have voted No Deal as their first preference in the three-way race will be prepared to turn out to back TM's deal. That, to my mind, is a big, and very risky, assumption.

However, them's the numbers at present.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

The Deal is basically "remain but you lose rights in the EU and have no say in the EU". Why would anyone vote for that over "remain"?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Deal is basically "remain but you lose rights in the EU and have no say in the EU". Why would anyone vote for that over "remain"?

To be fair, that's based on the worst-case scenario that the UK and the EU will be unable to reach a mutually acceptable agreement over the NI border by 2022 so the backstop kicks in.

That may, indeed, be an accurate prediction, but it's not what the Withdrawal Agreement or the Political Declaration envisage.

 

[Luisa Land]

For decades part of the british press and most of the british politicians blamed the EU, Bruxelles, the Eurocrats for the most problems of the UK.
What do the tell the british public today, who is responsible for the present chaos and the dangerous situation ?
How did Juncker ; Merkel and maybe Macron manage to create such a chaos In the UK?
Or was it the german car-industry, who didnt play the role the Brexiters had intended for BMW, Volkswagen etc?

 

[Tigger]

For decades part of the british press and most of the british politicians blamed the EU, Bruxelles, the Eurocrats for the most problems of the UK.
What do the tell the british public today, who is responsible for the present chaos and the dangerous situation ?
How did Juncker ; Merkel and maybe Macron manage to create such a chaos In the UK?
Or was it the german car-industry, who didnt play the role the Brexiters had intended for BMW, Volkswagen etc?

They still blame Europe. They are perfectly able to claim that we are stronger, hold all the cards and can dictate our terms to Europe and at the same time that everything is the EUs fault, that they are bullying us and haven't negotiated "in good faith".

Make no mistake, no matter what happens europe will be blamed for it.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Paging Dr. Swift...

 

[Porsupah Ree]

Finally, Corbyn seems to be opening up to the option of a second referendum:

Jeremy Corbyn suggests second referendum could follow defeat of Theresa May's Brexit deal

The Labour leader said "all options must be on the table" if MPs vote down the prime minister's blueprint on Tuesday, a defeat that could be so catastrophic that it threatens Ms May's leadership and her government. Labour's preferred option is a general election but as the Brexit talks enter the chaotic final stages, senior figures such as shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer have paved the way for a shift in stance towards a new public vote.

Mr Corbyn said: "In the past, a defeat of such seriousness as May now faces would have meant an automatic election. But if under the current rules we cannot get an election, all options must be on the table. Those should include Labour’s alternative and, as our conference decided in September, the option of campaigning for a public vote to break the deadlock."

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Did he say exactly what he meant by a "public vote"? I can easily see Corbyn pushing a second referendum without a "no brexit" option.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Did he say exactly what he meant by a "public vote"? I can easily see Corbyn pushing a second referendum without a "no brexit" option.

I can't see that at all. Not only do almost all the Parliamentary Labour Party want to remain in the EU (including Keir Starmer, Labour's frontbench Brexit spokesman) but so do the vast majority of Labour Party members, including the pro-Corbyn group Momentum. It's one of the few issues that could, at the moment, see Corbyn removed as party leader.

At present, Labour's position is that, when Parliament rejects the Withdrawal Agreement (as seems inevitable), there should be a General Election.

After winning that, Corbyn wants to renegotiate (sigh) the WA, on the lines he laid out in an article yesterday.

I have no idea if Corbyn means his article to be taken seriously or not, since it's out there in Boris Johnson having your unicorn cake and eating it territory. There's no earthly way the EU would agree to Corbyn's proposals, and if Corbyn doesn't realise that he's the one person on the Labour Front bench who doesn't, I'm sure. However, I can see why -- since 60% of Labour MPs represent constituencies that voted "Leave" in the referendum -- he's nervous about fighting an election on a straight remain vs leave platform, particularly since he has good reason to want to fight on broader issues like austerity and the NHS.

So, l suspect the strategy is to win the election, try to renegotiate, come back with something not-dissimilar to the current WA, and then put it to a straight Remain vs Ratify vote, which Remain would almost certainly win.

I've been invited to a Labour Party briefing on Brexit tomorrow (not as impressive as it might sound) which, if I'm well enough, I'll certainly attend. I hope to gain some more insights there into what people are thinking.

But I am pretty sure that, if we have a second referendum, it'll have to be "Remain vs Ratify" since, apart from anything else, I can't see the EU agreeing to the necessary A50 extension to give us time to hold a referendum if Remain isn't an option.