News4 mins ago
Snap Election Anyone?
Rumours of a General Election on 28th February. Could be fun.
"A General Election could be about to take place.
Three Cabinet Ministers and a further six junior Ministers have instructed their local Associations to prepare for a snap election, according to the New Statesman.
They report that four of them have named 28th February as a possible date. This could move fast.
This coincides with a separate report in the Daily Mail, that the civil service have been told to get ready and draw up plans for a sudden election. Both reports came within hours of each other, is something up?"
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"A General Election could be about to take place.
Three Cabinet Ministers and a further six junior Ministers have instructed their local Associations to prepare for a snap election, according to the New Statesman.
They report that four of them have named 28th February as a possible date. This could move fast.
This coincides with a separate report in the Daily Mail, that the civil service have been told to get ready and draw up plans for a sudden election. Both reports came within hours of each other, is something up?"
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Answers
"Trying to force it on the UK by voting down all deals, and refusing to hold votes on any alternatives
22:10 Sat 19th Jan 2019
Perhaps, if you hadn't cut off the rest of the sentence you quoted to start with, you'd see my point better. Democracy is *not* asking the same question over and over until you get what you want (or until I get what I want). But nor is it the exact opposite, ie asking a question once and once only. Democracies must be flexible. The correct balance is difficult to find, but is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
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The lesson of the last few years is that there's probably not much point in trying to force through such a fundamental change in direction in this country without proper Parliamentary support, so in the long term I would probably suggest that there is no point in any more than one further referendum (or one iteration of the two-stage process I proposed above) on the issue. Then, there are two outcomes:
1. Leave wins, and one way or another this settles the issue for the foreseeable future. With no mandate to extend Article 50 notification, we would have nowhere to go but out. There is a difference from 2016, because the last three years have given at least a glimpse of the chaos that awaits; if the nation as a whole decides to proceed in spite of that, then, however regretful I may be, Remainers will have run out of tricks.
2. Remain wins: but don't forget that even then the issue won't be technically settled forever. There is always the option of voting for a party with Leaving the EU as a firm part of its manifesto. If such a Party, filled with enthusiastic Leavers, ever wins a General Election and forms a government, then you would not only see the UK leaving as you wanted, but you'd see it done in the manner you voted for, too.
* * * * * * *
The lesson of the last few years is that there's probably not much point in trying to force through such a fundamental change in direction in this country without proper Parliamentary support, so in the long term I would probably suggest that there is no point in any more than one further referendum (or one iteration of the two-stage process I proposed above) on the issue. Then, there are two outcomes:
1. Leave wins, and one way or another this settles the issue for the foreseeable future. With no mandate to extend Article 50 notification, we would have nowhere to go but out. There is a difference from 2016, because the last three years have given at least a glimpse of the chaos that awaits; if the nation as a whole decides to proceed in spite of that, then, however regretful I may be, Remainers will have run out of tricks.
2. Remain wins: but don't forget that even then the issue won't be technically settled forever. There is always the option of voting for a party with Leaving the EU as a firm part of its manifesto. If such a Party, filled with enthusiastic Leavers, ever wins a General Election and forms a government, then you would not only see the UK leaving as you wanted, but you'd see it done in the manner you voted for, too.
Naomi: // Would your questions include 'Leave with No Deal'? //
I didn't answer this in my last post, but that was only because I was still typing it and hadn't seen the question.
It may depend on context, and I haven't completely drafted this referendum yet. As I say, stage one would only be about accepting or rejecting the current deal. I don't know how I'd frame Stage Two exactly -- I have an extreme reluctance to put on the ballot something I fundamentally don't want to happen, and it's not easy to overcome that.
The first version of my second question might be something like:
"Having rejected the current deal, should the UK continue to negotiate a deal to leave the EU, or should it now revoke notification under Article 50?",
but when I write this it seems to me that this question could be asked every time the government returns to the people with a deal, and each time the UK either remains or kicks the can down the road, and No Deal is constantly postponed (until the EU gets sick of us and forces us out anyway!)
Long story short, I'm currently not sure how *I* would go about putting a No Deal Brexit on any ballot. Let me think about it some more and I'll try to get back to you with a fair solution.
I didn't answer this in my last post, but that was only because I was still typing it and hadn't seen the question.
It may depend on context, and I haven't completely drafted this referendum yet. As I say, stage one would only be about accepting or rejecting the current deal. I don't know how I'd frame Stage Two exactly -- I have an extreme reluctance to put on the ballot something I fundamentally don't want to happen, and it's not easy to overcome that.
The first version of my second question might be something like:
"Having rejected the current deal, should the UK continue to negotiate a deal to leave the EU, or should it now revoke notification under Article 50?",
but when I write this it seems to me that this question could be asked every time the government returns to the people with a deal, and each time the UK either remains or kicks the can down the road, and No Deal is constantly postponed (until the EU gets sick of us and forces us out anyway!)
Long story short, I'm currently not sure how *I* would go about putting a No Deal Brexit on any ballot. Let me think about it some more and I'll try to get back to you with a fair solution.
//stage one would only be about accepting or rejecting the current deal.//
but the current deal was rejected by parliament - what would be the point of asking the people if parliament will just reject it again? if you meant after parliament have agreed a "new deal" (which the EU have said there's no wiggle room for) how far in the future would you expect the referendum to happen, given that from announcement to vote would take at least 22 weeks?
but the current deal was rejected by parliament - what would be the point of asking the people if parliament will just reject it again? if you meant after parliament have agreed a "new deal" (which the EU have said there's no wiggle room for) how far in the future would you expect the referendum to happen, given that from announcement to vote would take at least 22 weeks?
I think at the time I initially came up with this idea, May's Withdrawal Agreement had not yet been rejected. Still, it's a good point -- you can adapt the first stage a little so that it still has the spirit of my proposal. For example, it could be a straight vote on whether the government has a mandate to pursue and reach a Withdrawal Agreement or not, without specifying whether "not" means leaving anyway or remaining after all.
I was thinking a little more about how to answer Naomi's question, the problem being that I'm (obviously) trying to keep No Deal off the agenda for as long as possible while also not ruling it out altogether. So maybe stage one becomes a question of whether to extend Article 50, in order to pursue a deal, or not, and stage two becomes the "Leave with No Deal v. Remain" question.
I was thinking a little more about how to answer Naomi's question, the problem being that I'm (obviously) trying to keep No Deal off the agenda for as long as possible while also not ruling it out altogether. So maybe stage one becomes a question of whether to extend Article 50, in order to pursue a deal, or not, and stage two becomes the "Leave with No Deal v. Remain" question.
The only real prospect pf a general election is if a few Tories voted against the govt in another no confidence notion. That might not be altogether that far fetched. It would only take around 10 to do it as opposed to the 120 or so that might be needed before a motion was put before parliament by the govt. There had been mutterings before from a few members of UKIP II that they might do just that.
It all seems very unlikely.
It all seems very unlikely.
-- answer removed --
//So maybe stage one becomes a question of whether to extend Article 50//
article 50 is due to invoked on 29th march. a referendum will take 22 weeks to arrange, plus god knows how long for parliament to repeal that part of the withdrawal act, not to mention how long to get agreement of all the 27 EU member states.
article 50 is due to invoked on 29th march. a referendum will take 22 weeks to arrange, plus god knows how long for parliament to repeal that part of the withdrawal act, not to mention how long to get agreement of all the 27 EU member states.
Whether to extend it *further*. All of this is moot as long as the March 29th date is set in stone, clearly. But in any scenario in which there is a referendum, that date will have been removed from the legislation in an amendment, further legislation to mandate Government to request an extension of Article 50 will have been passed, the EU will have granted permission for an extension (of, say, up to 12 months) of the Article 50 process, and legislation mandating a second referendum will have been passed.
All of this can happen fairly quickly, if Parliament gets a shift on. Since all parties want to avoid a No Deal unless forced upon them, I think it's reasonable to expect that if MPs decide to hold a referendum of some sort -- be it with my design or otherwise -- then there *will* be a further referendum.
I'm aware that, for the time being, I'm discussing hypotheticals, if that is your point.
All of this can happen fairly quickly, if Parliament gets a shift on. Since all parties want to avoid a No Deal unless forced upon them, I think it's reasonable to expect that if MPs decide to hold a referendum of some sort -- be it with my design or otherwise -- then there *will* be a further referendum.
I'm aware that, for the time being, I'm discussing hypotheticals, if that is your point.
I think in reality if there was something like an election or a referendum then the EU would agree to an extension and in that case I suspect the approval of all 27 countries would be pretty much a formality. A bigger concern is the European elections. The parliament worked bot be able to sit without UK MEPs so there is a proposal that existing members might be allowed to retain their seats instead of elections being held here
A prime minister who possibly only won a confidence vote by promising her MPs she’d not lead them into another election suddenly persuades at least a third of them immediately to ignore that promise and follow her into an election where they’d in all probability lose seats, just as they did the last time she persuaded them to do that.
Highly likely I’d say :-)
Going back to that blog it’s not unreasonable that civil servants might be told to expect a general election given the volatility of politics just now. I don’t think things are quite that volatile tho :-)
Highly likely I’d say :-)
Going back to that blog it’s not unreasonable that civil servants might be told to expect a general election given the volatility of politics just now. I don’t think things are quite that volatile tho :-)
