It looks like Rory Stewart is already in a witness protection plan.
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Cleansing the party of those MPs who still think they’re there for their constituents is how you get something like the current GOP.
In the short term, perhaps. But in the long term any party that serves only a “narrow faction”, in the words of M.P. Philip Lee, is doomed.
Not sure there’s much future beyond “short term” if no-deal Brexit goes through.
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Today’s events show how unlikely that is; the House has spoken in that a majority of M.P.s (from across the political spectrum) are against it. They say they won’t even vote on holding an election until a bill preventing a no-deal Brexit is passed first. Boris will be the nail in the Tory coffin.
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According to Charlie Stross, he’s also
noted for being both an Accelerationist and a closet singularitarian (he keeps the latter out of the public eye but it’s on his blog). He can thus best be approximated to an ultra-capitalist rapture-of-the-nerds embracing Trotskyite, merrily intent on pouring gasoline on the bonfire of British constitutional traditions.
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I think I see the problem right there…
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You’re really optimistic. I still think no-deal in October is the most likely outcome, followed by no-deal in January or February, with May’s deal and remain distant 3rd and 4th possibilities. The difference between yesterday and today is that the probability of the first possibility has dropped a chunk.
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What other choice is there? One has to hope, in both the U.K. and the U.S., that the general population comes to it’s senses and votes the fuckers out. The alternative is…well, we’ve seen that movie…
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I was thinking the most likely outcome is that the Tories will verbosely demand that German bankers provide them an ultra-high-interest loan in order that they may buy enough fabric to make the largest Union Jack the UK has ever seen, upon which they will hide under it with the plan that when the German bankers come by, they’ll say the loan can’t be due, because they haven’t seen the sun rise on a new day yet.
They will call this plan, The UK will Never Have to Take a Loan from Anyone, Ever Again, Because We are Strong. plan.
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The HoC has said – repeatedly – that no-deal is not acceptable, that the WA is not acceptable, and that revoking Article 50 is not acceptable. The EU has said – repeatedly – that the only choices are no-deal, the WA, or revoking Article 50 – and that no-deal is the default, if there is no movement before October 31st. If BoJo (or PM Corbyn) goes to the EU and asks for another extension, they won’t get it without a damn good reason.
So what, exactly, is saying (once again) that Parliament does not accept a No-Deal, supposed to do?
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They could run as the SeCondservative party, and see who’s left standing after the election.
If Bo didn’t toss them, there’s a chance they could be the core of a back-bencher revolt. (Q: Who would they replace him with? Ans: Anyone else.)
They did the same to Churchill when he crossed the floor the first time. It’s traditional!
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I may be hopelessly optimistic, but I’m hoping for an October election, some sort of Remain-coalition victory, a new referendum, and a decisive anti-Brexit vote. It’s the only sane thing to do at this point. But I’m not holding my breath or anything…
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Everything you’ve written here presupposes that Lee intends to stand for reelection. It could rather be that he intends to stand down, as many of his fellow Conservative rebels have already announced regarding their own candidacies. In this case, Lee’s defection would not have required very much advance planning—just an agreement from the Liberal Democrats that they’d accept him as a member and (temporary) MP.
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That’s also true. He could go back to being a GP…
He’s (allegedly) a former MI6 officer, so maybe it’s force of habit.
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Well, except for things like the Treasury, which is headed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because of course it is. (Not to be confused with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which is more or less defunct in its original purpose but still used to get party hacks into Cabinet without having to give them a department to run.)
Fun fact: Secretary of State is, in principle, a single office that just happens to be filled by several people, with the division of responsibilities between them being an administrative one. Hence why legislation that delegates powers to ministers usually refers simply to “the Secretary of State”: in theory, such powers can be exercised by any one of them, regardless of the scope of the legislation.
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