The Brexit aftermath thread

[ranzino]

No, his aim is to hold a GE before he has seek the extension. Although I suppose if he gained a majority there would be nothing to stop him taking the UK out of the EU before the end of the new deadline.

Yes, but the PM remains the PM until the new one takes office.

afaik the Benn bill requires to ask Brussels nicely mid october, last opportunity allowed. all the opposition now needs to do is twirling thumbs, so GE cannot be finished until then ?
for new PM: how eager is QE2 to sack current PM, who is obviously not commanding a confidence of the majority any longer ? is opposition able to ask for royal audience, appear in full force (all party leaders and rebel tories) and present their choice of PM ?

[Pann]

afaik the Benn bill requires to ask Brussels nicely mid october, last opportunity allowed. all the opposition now needs to do is twirling thumbs, so GE cannot be finished until then ?
for new PM: how eager is QE2 to sack current PM, who is obviously not commanding a confidence of the majority any longer ? is opposition able to ask for royal audience, appear in full force (all party leaders and rebel tories) and present their choice of PM ?

It is looking likely that there will not be any support for a GE until at least Nov.

The Queen's role is purely symbolic - she does not interfere in political matters.

[ranzino]

It is looking likely that there will not be any support for a GE until at least Nov.

The Queen's role is purely symbolic - she does not interfere in political matters.

queen is neutral, but how do you change PM then; only after GE ? there is nobody else to recommend the PM chosen by the opposition.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I saw some polling today that suggests that if we go into a GE after 31 October, the Brexit Party jumps to about 18% in the poll, and Tories and Labour are neck and neck on around 28% each. It does explain why Boris is terrified of not getting his election quickly enough.

Fingers crossed that those numbers are enough to get us a nice progressive alliance, with PR and the cancellation of Article 50 to follow. Hey, a guy can dream.

[Pann]

queen is neutral, but how do you change PM then; only after GE ? there is nobody else to recommend the PM chosen by the opposition.

The PM is the leader of the party that commands the largest number of seats in the House of Commons. Outside of a GE the party in Government can choose another leader who then becomes PM (Blair - Brown in 2007, Cameron - May in 2016 and May - Johnson in 2019) or another party gains the confidence of the house after successful confidence motion and their leader then becomes PM.

In all cases the prospective PM must ask the Queen's permission to form a government (this is symbolic and she will never refuse) but who gets to ask for her permission is decided by voters, party members or members of the house depending on the circumstances.

[Demolitia]

The PM is the leader of the party that commands the largest number of seats in the House of Commons.

Traditionally this has been the case when you had a 2 party systems with fringe parties that had very few seats, but couldn't you potentially see a very different situation in the future? Say you have 3 parties sharing roughly a third of the votes each, or 4 sharing a quarter, and the party with the largest number of seats fails to make a coalition that give them a majority in parliament, couldn't someone else go to the Lilibeth to ask her permission to try ?
If the BXP got 22%, the Tories 21%, Labour 19, the LibDems 15%, the independants 9, and the galactic alliance of lord buckethead and other randome groups got the rest, but nobody wanted to team up with the BXP, would Nigel still be PM?

[draykorinee]

Precentage share is a meaningless statistic in a fptp system. Of course its an indicator of popularity but we all know our system is shite and its all down to constitutency.

The bxp could get 30% of the vote and still have no seats.

[Pann]

Traditionally this has been the case when you had a 2 party systems with fringe parties that had very few seats, but couldn't you potentially see a very different situation in the future? Say you have 3 parties sharing roughly a third of the votes each, or 4 sharing a quarter, and the party with the largest number of seats fails to make a coalition that give them a majority in parliament, couldn't someone else go to the Lilibeth to ask her permission to try ?
If the BXP got 22%, the Tories 21%, Labour 19, the LibDems 15%, the independants 9, and the galactic alliance of lord buckethead and other randome groups got the rest, but nobody wanted to team up with the BXP, would Nigel still be PM?

It would obviously depend on how those vote shares translated to seats however in such a case where seats were roughly even the leader who can command the most number of seats would entitled to try to form a minority government.

In your example, assuming that votes were equal to seats, who became PM would be determined by whether a coalition or supply and confidence agreement could be agreed within the other parties. For example the Lib Dems could form a government by going into coalition with the Independents or Labour could form a government with a supply and confidence agreement with a few of the randoms who gained the remaining 14% seats. To be honest your example has lots of possible outcomes but assuming no-one would team up with BXP Farage becoming PM is not one of them.

[Lynarii]

Traditionally this has been the case when you had a 2 party systems with fringe parties that had very few seats, but couldn't you potentially see a very different situation in the future? Say you have 3 parties sharing roughly a third of the votes each, or 4 sharing a quarter, and the party with the largest number of seats fails to make a coalition that give them a majority in parliament, couldn't someone else go to the Lilibeth to ask her permission to try ?
If the BXP got 22%, the Tories 21%, Labour 19, the LibDems 15%, the independants 9, and the galactic alliance of lord buckethead and other randome groups got the rest, but nobody wanted to team up with the BXP, would Nigel still be PM?

Okay. I apologize if any of what I'm saying is inaccurate to the specifics of the British system, but here's how it works in Canada which is based off the British system so I /think/ it is the same. In a minority situation such as you describe, the party with the most seats gets the first shot at things. They ask the Queen to form a government, she says yes, and then they put forth a confidence motion of some sort (often a budget). If it passes, they're the government. If it fails, the party with the next highest amount of seats gets a shot at doing the same. So in your scenario, Nigel would have a SHOT at being PM, but he'd probably fail the confidence motion if nobody is willing to work with him, and then the Tories would get a shot to try. If they failed then Labour would try. And if Labour couldn't do it, given that over 50% of seats had tried and failed already, they would probably say that nobody is capable of governing and throw it back to another election.

All the coalition stuff, things like confidence and supply agreements, are all sidecar to the process. They're how a party without enough seats can successfully get their confidence motion to pass, but they aren't legally recognized as binding agreements as far as how the government is chosen is concerned.


Edit: In practice, this process is generally much streamlined. Parties know who their allies are and have their agreements in place before they even ask the Queen to form the government. It's considered humiliating for a party to step up and be immediately defeated, so the parties that know they don't have the support to pass the confidence motion will generally not even try. There's also a decent amount of pressure to find a way to make it work. The public tends to dislike rapid fire elections (they're costly and disruptive) so will often punish parties who are viewed to have no chance at forming a government but refuse to support someone who could.

[Slant]

Heh. Yeah I knew that there was the risk 'letting the UK drop out' would get misunderstood. I simply meant not giving them an extension and thus letting them faceplant out on their own.

Yep, pretty much. Except the EU has zero interest in making the UK suffer. I am anal about this, because that is the accusation thrown around in this very thread on a regular basis. The EU has bigger interests than making the UK suffer. The integrity of its single market and the external borders is just one of them.

[Tiravi]

'What happens if Boris just refuses to seek and extension?' - A bit vague but the beginning of an answer.

"MPs, including Tories expelled from the party, are preparing legal action for in case the PM refuses to seek a delay to Brexit, the BBC understands.
A bill requiring Boris Johnson to ask for an extension to the UK's departure date to avoid a no-deal Brexit on 31 October is set to gain royal assent.
But the PM has said he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than ask for a delay.
Now MPs have lined up a legal team and are willing to go to court to enforce the legislation, if necessary."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49618242

[Zaydin]

So, question from a non-Brit: Since Johnsons party no longer holds a majority in Parliament, how is he still Prime Minister? Why wasn't he immediately removed from the position when he himself stripped his own party of its majority?

[Tiravi]

So, question from a non-Brit: Since Johnsons party no longer holds a majority in Parliament, how is he still Prime Minister? Why wasn't he immediately removed from the position when he himself stripped his own party of its majority?

A minority government is not illegal, it's just relatively uncommon (well, it used to be. The whole point of FPTP is that it provides strong majority governments, which hasn't often been the case for a long while now) and they obviously struggle to pass anything through the commons without reliable assistance. If an election results in a hung parliament, the party with the most seats usually seeks to form a government with the support of a smaller party, either as a coalition or by confidence and supply arrangement. The conservatives under May were a minority government and only had a majority thanks to a confidence and supply arrangement with the 10 DUP MP's elected.

[Temp name]

Precentage share is a meaningless statistic in a fptp system. Of course its an indicator of popularity but we all know our system is shite and its all down to constitutency.

The bxp could get 30% of the vote and still have no seats.

I'm honestly amazed that any first world country would use fptp in 2019.. It's a horrible voting system if you involve more than 2 choices.

[Mayhem]

Uhm, quick question, don't know if it has been answered in this thread or came up at all. What if the EU refuses to give an extension?

[Pann]

Some more details on could happen if Johnson disobeyed the law and refused to request an extension...

'I wrote last night about how senior colleagues of the PM were urging him to disobey the new law that would force him to ask the EU to delay Brexit, and risk impeachment. In response a former senior Tory minister has written this to me:..

Robert, I doubt impeachment is necessary. Surely a court order would suffice, with contempt of court sanctions available if defied. Also, the Civil Service code, with the obligation to comply with the law, is statutory (unlike ministerial code)...

“So no official could lawfully act to support Johnson in disobeying the law.” In other words if Johnson were to disobey the new law the entire government system would be paralysed, though maybe that would be trivial collateral damage...

compared with the constitutional earthquake of a PM being found in contempt of court. As an ally of the PM told me, stuff will break.'

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1169902816250355712

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/0...-be-impeached/

...it appears that it is not a clear cut as I had assumed and although I suspect that Johnson would not go this far most worryingly I think there is a chance that Johnson being arrested and found in contempt of court would fit right in with Cummings' the people against the establishment narrative.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Uhm, quick question, don't know if it has been answered in this thread or came up at all. What if the EU refuses to give an extension?

I would assume that Parliament would demand an emergency motion to revoke Article 50 as this would be the only way to avoid a no-deal brexit.

I suspect, however, that the EU will offer an extension in exchange for a second referendum (which Boris will be forced to agree to by the Withdrawal from the EU Act 6). This would also make Labour less prone to attacks from its Brexiteer constituencies who do not want the party to support a second referendum and weaken Boris' position. Win-Win for everybody but the Conservatives, who will lose so many seats to Labour and the Lib Dems due to the Brexit Party splitting the vote if Boris agrees to a second referendum.

[Temp name]

Uhm, quick question, don't know if it has been answered in this thread or came up at all. What if the EU refuses to give an extension?

Then the UK either revokes Article 50 and it'll be like nothing happened, or they get kicked out and a border goes up in Ireland

[Pann]

I would assume that Parliament would demand an emergency motion to revoke Article 50 as this would be the only way to avoid a no-deal brexit.

I suspect, however, that the EU will offer an extension in exchange for a second referendum (which Boris will be forced to agree to by the Withdrawal from the EU Act 6). This would also make Labour less prone to attacks from its Brexiteer constituencies who do not want the party to support a second referendum and weaken Boris' position. Win-Win for everybody but the Conservatives, who will lose so many seats to Labour and the Lib Dems due to the Brexit Party splitting the vote if Boris agrees to a second referendum.

I do not see this happening. If the EU refuse an extension, the opposition parties will immediately forget their objections for a GE but it will be too late and we will leave without a deal on 31st Oct.

I think the EU attaching the condition of a 2nd referendum to an extension would quite frankly be disastrous for the remain parties.

[Jessicka]

Uhm, quick question, don't know if it has been answered in this thread or came up at all. What if the EU refuses to give an extension?

I presume we'd very quickly reach a point where we signed up to the Withdrawal Agreement.

They have said however, that they will, so it's a moot point. I don't think there will be terms to it either, as it's already established that there will be a General Election, and that Labour are campaigning based on a referendum, and Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, and Nothern Irish Parties who aren't the DUP, to revoke.

It's basically the ERG and BXP Vs everyone else in politics and business. I think it helps that we're seeing more visibly what absolute cunts the lead Brexiteers are, and I still have faith that most people aren't absolute cunts and therefore wouldn't want to vote for them.

- - - Updated - - -

Another note on the timing of the GE. It's not just about making sure the extension goes through. Boris was desperate to get it through fast, because, as pointed out by one of my students; at this time of year University students are moving, and his preferred timing was set to deny as many of them the ability to vote as possible as it would be impossible to register their new addresses in time. Students aren't renowned for voting Tory, and they're smart enough to notice these things. No wonder he wanted them out the way.

Like I say, absolute cunts.