May still desperately clinging on to power

[Diamond Dog]

So, onto "Operation Yellowhammer"....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45410344

HMT briefing - Operation Yellowhammer - 04 September 2018

Operation Yellowhammer: no deal contingency planning

Summary of issue

•This meeting will consider progress on the Government's plans for mitigating the immediate impacts of a No Deal Brexit.

•The Civil Contingencies Secretariat held a two-day workshop last week to review departments' plans, assumptions, interdependencies and next steps.

HMT objectives

1.Emphasise the importance of building XWH [cross Whitehall] communications architecture that can help maintain confidence in the event of contingency plans being triggered - particularly important for financial services.

2.Explain that departments should be raising Yellowhammer costs through the normal channels - through their spending teams for in-year pressures, and in their bids for 19/20 Brexit allocations for spending that year. Their first call should be internal prioritisation.

3.Reaffirm the need for consistent planning assumptions across plans […] aviation and rail access to the EU.

4.Remind departments of the need to consider the financial […] commercial firms that play a role in their contingency plans.

It's all going to work out fine, honest.

[Diamond Dog]

Up to 80 Tories to vote against the Chequers deal....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45468544

Ex Brexit Minister Steve Baker :

"We are reaching the point now where it is extremely difficult to see how we can rescue the Conservative Party from a catastrophic split if the Chequers proposals are carried forward.

It is absolutely no pleasure whatsoever to me to acknowledge that, but I look at the mood of colleagues and the mood of the Conservative Party in the country and I am gravely concerned for the future of our party."

Dead in the water, isn't it?

[Copehead]

Up to 80 Tories to vote against the Chequers deal....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45468544

Ex Brexit Minister Steve Baker :

"We are reaching the point now where it is extremely difficult to see how we can rescue the Conservative Party from a catastrophic split if the Chequers proposals are carried forward.

It is absolutely no pleasure whatsoever to me to acknowledge that, but I look at the mood of colleagues and the mood of the Conservative Party in the country and I am gravely concerned for the future of our party."

Dead in the water, isn't it?

It has been there before and recovered, but previously there seemed to be more talent and a wider band of political thought in the party which now seems to be given over to far right grotesques.

People bore on about Corbyn being far Left but really he is just returning to the old Labour centre ground whereas the right of the Conservative party is now heading off into real political extremities that you only usually see in European fascist and populist parties usually run by men who like dressing up in uniforms with lots of gold braid on. Can't see Rees-Mogg doing that but he is essentially butting up against parties who have skinheads forming honour guards below their speaking platforms now.

People moaning that there is no real centre seem to be moaning that there is no centre right they can vote for like the Clegg/Cameron coalition or New labour, although that coalition introduced Austerity which was a very right wing plan to redistribute money away from the welfare state to the pockets of rich individuals through whole scale, but under the table, privitisation of education and health services and the Blair government put in place many of the mechanisms the Tories exploited to do that.

The idea that Corbyn is far left shows just how decisively the political ground moved from the 80s onwards, but Corbyn's massive success in building a mass labour movement and pushing Labour polling over 40% shows there are a huge number of people left unrepresented in those years who want a return to pre Neo-liberal politics of the post war period.

[The Prof]

Robert Peston writes today;

"So the two main parties currently look like four parties held together largely by little more than fear of jumping off the top diving board. Some will jump."

[Diamond Dog]

What may be interesting is if the Labour right & Conservative left joined up with the Lib Dems................. YIKES.

[Copehead]

Robert Peston writes today;

"So the two main parties currently look like four parties held together largely by little more than fear of jumping off the top diving board. Some will jump."

As I have said before the Labour Party "split" is in the PLP because loads of the MPs are right wing Blairites who were parachuted in to their seats in the noughties or earlier.

The Party at large has rarely been more united because of the hundreds of thousands who have joined since Corbyn became leader. I imagine Peston knows this but can't bring himself to declare it.

I'd also say the Conservative party isn't that split either, it is largely, in membership and MPs, a far right party now with a veneer or respectability being held up by the few adults left in the Party. People like Hammond and May may be shit politicians in historical terms but they look moderate compared to the loonies around them, and how weird is that when one of them is Theresa "Darkies go home" May?

So basically Peston is talking bollocks. Again. The splits are largely reflections of the media obsession with characters rather than a political split in the party because one grouping - Conservative "moderates" and Labour Blairites - on either side is small and is only visible because it has a high media profile and many media supporters.

[Copehead]

What may be interesting is if the Labour right & Conservative left joined up with the Lib Dems................. YIKES.

Not going to happen is it. If the Labour right go it will be a handful of MPs most people have never heard of who have been deselected, and they will set up their own Party because it is about ego. Ummana is probably too clever to go and get off the gravy train because he knows he would lose his seat to a labour candidate, his hissy fit will end and he will sulk I imagine most of the Corbyn haters are the same. Their CLPs will tell them to shut up or ship out and most will shut up.

The Conservative left is about 2 people isn't it? Ken Clarke and someone else.

The media are bigging up the Tory left and Labour right but both have little or no support in their wider Parties only in the media.

[The Prof]

What may be interesting is if the Labour right & Conservative left joined up with the Lib Dems................. YIKES.

Not going to happen is it. If the Labour right go it will be a handful of MPs most people have never heard of who have been deselected, and they will set up their own Party because it is about ego.

I dunno. I don't think it will happen successfully, but it may very well happen.
Vince Cable is suggesting that the next Liberal party leader need not even be an MP.
I've not studied French or Canadian politics in too much detail but Trudeau and Macron's names keep getting mentioned in relation to this and the right person could probably hoover up a lot of centre ground Remain votes. I don't see anyone on the horizon capable of doing that at present though.

[Copehead]

What may be interesting is if the Labour right & Conservative left joined up with the Lib Dems................. YIKES.

Not going to happen is it. If the Labour right go it will be a handful of MPs most people have never heard of who have been deselected, and they will set up their own Party because it is about ego.

I dunno. I don't think it will happen successfully, but it may very well happen.
Vince Cable is suggesting that the next Liberal party leader need not even be an MP.

That is probably a matter of expediancy more than anything else

I've not studied French or Canadian politics in too much detail but Trudeau and Macron's names keep getting mentioned in relation to this and the right person could probably hoover up a lot of centre ground Remain votes. I don't see anyone on the horizon capable of doing that at present though.

Macron's shit the bed already hasn't he?

The problem with people like them and Blair is that they talk a good game but change the status quo not a jot. They just don't destroy the state with glee like Tories, they chip away at it.

I can't see the problem, Labour are over 40% in the polls on a moderate centre left program, why do we need a centre centre party except to try and scupper that?

[The Prof]

why do we need a centre centre party except to try and scupper that?

We don't. but they do.

For exactly that reason!

[Diamond Dog]

This iss a party political broadcast on behalf of the Prime Minister by Laura K.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45479549

[Copehead]

This iss a party political broadcast on behalf of the Prime Minister by Laura K.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45479549

They aren't even that subtle about it any more. The transformation of the BBC Political News department into Government cheerleader ( which started under Blair ) is one of the saddest things to happen in the media over my adulthood, but now they have gone so full on Tory I really wonder what would happen if there was a Labour government. I hope we get to find out.

[Deebank]

The vultures are circling this morning.

Will we have to have a thread name change before the end of the week?

[Diamond Dog]

I mean - this is open mutiny.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45488136

Conservative MPs opposed to Theresa May's Brexit plan have met to discuss how and when they could force her to stand down as prime minister.

About 50 members of the European Research Group (ERG) openly discussed "how best you game the leadership election rules," a source said.

Later, the Eurosceptic MPs are to unveil what they say is a solution to the Northern Ireland border issue.

They have been under pressure to come up with alternative Brexit plans.

The BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said the significance of the ideas discussed at the ERG meeting would have to be considered as leading Tory Brexiteers - Jacob Rees-Mogg, Owen Paterson, Iain Duncan Smith, Bernard Jenkin, David Davis, Boris Johnson - were not present.

Mrs May says she wants to strike a trade deal with the EU for after the UK leaves in 2019. She also says there needs to be "friction-free movement of goods" with no customs or regulatory checks between the UK and EU on the island of Ireland, in order to avoid a hard border there.

The ERG strongly opposes these proposals, which form part of what has become known as the Chequers plan. One MP present at the meeting on Tuesday evening said the group considered "possible scenarios over the Autumn" depending on the deal the prime minister did or didn't get with the EU, BBC political correspondent Jonathan Blake said.

Comments at Tuesday evening's meeting were said to include "everyone I know says she has to go", "she's a disaster" and "this can't go on".

One source said "people feel the leadership is out of touch and has lost the plot", but another said changing the leader "is a stupid idea now".

A number told the meeting in Westminster that they had already submitted letters of no confidence in Mrs May. However, it is understood they are not planning an immediate move against her.

A Conservative leadership contest can be triggered either if the leader resigns or if 15% of Tory MPs (currently 48) write to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, demanding a vote of no confidence............

[Deebank]

Rees-Mogg and his chums want to shit all over the Good Friday Agreement.
It is one of the most positive and progressive developments of the last 30 years (and one that all political parties had a hand in producing) so it's no surprise these morons want to trash it. Perhaps they can send their Falklands rapid response force into The Six Counties when the shit hits the fan.

Twats.

[yomptepi]

How marvelous!!! Having happily destroyed economy when he was Chancellor and Prime Minister, the half witted cretin now has the fucking temerity to warn us on an imminent crash. What a cunt. How come he couldn't see it when he was in charge. Lock the fucker up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45504521

[Copehead]

How marvelous!!! Having happily destroyed economy when he was Chancellor and Prime Minister, the half witted cretin now has the fucking temerity to warn us on an imminent crash. What a cunt. How come he couldn't see it when he was in charge. Lock the fucker up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45504521

Nurse! he's up again