I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet that this won't be true, that's his leadership and/or government is going to fall before that date.

I'd agree, from the commentary yesterday it looks like he won't get that far and parliament will seize power during September.

So the no confidence vote will be at the beginning of September, parliament will then have 14 days to find a leader who can command a majority in the house. Johnson is powerless to prevent this and can't advise the Queen(as he doesn't have the confidence of the house). If this fails parliament can command Johnson to request a further extension from the EU for a general election. Which he must do or the Queen would be likely to sack him and form another government against his will.

Thank God for the Queen, I wonder who is giving her advice at this time? I'm not sure the Privy council can be relied upon to be untainted at this point?

It’s looking very dicey to me also. I think Johnson is manifestly incompetent, all this kind of ‘can-do’ bluster is completely baseless. 'Chin up chaps, over the top!' Ridiculous. I notice that Dominic Raab is bullshitting about how leaving without an agreement will be the EU’s fault because they wouldn’t compromise. What bollocks.

I too think the Royal Family might end up with a pivotal role in what happens, as the last thing they will countenance is the fracturing of the United Kingdom, which is a real possibility. I'm sure if Britain leaves without an agreement there'll be another Scottish independence vote.

The thing is, I do wonder if there were an election called, how it could feasibly amount to a vote on Brexit. I mean, I don't think Labor is going to campaign on Remain, are they? Because unless the general election lances the boil one way or another, then it will just continue to be a stalemate.

I think the whole thing is a terrible pickle, a real predicament. Although part of me wants to see Britain leave without an agreement and sink into depression, because then the Yes vote will really, for the first time, grasp what it has wrought.

How many people said that about Trump?

Trump is another disaster.

They are two votes that never should have happened and ultimately they are going to cost all of us.

Every thread needs a theme tune. It's in the guidelines, or the constitution, or something...

Meanwhile, back in Blighty:

I notice that Dominic Raab is bullshitting about how leaving without an agreement will be the EU’s fault because they wouldn’t compromise. What bollocks. — Wayfarer

Yeah, pretty sure May’s agreement is the compromise. What the government want is for the EU to give us more without us giving anything back.

Not only is it the compromise, it's the compromise BoJo voted for when he thought he couldn't be blamed for it by the Brextremists. Now that it's his responsibility, it's morphed into inexplicable EU intransigence. Scratch head. Michael Gove is sad. So, we're in rewrite-history-maybe-noone-will-notice bullshit land. And Michael Gove is sad. Fucking frauds.

Yeah, pretty sure May’s agreement is the compromise. What the government want is for the EU to give us more without us giving anything back.

It would be interesting to know what the "more" is, I bet the EU negotiators would like to know that too.
The trouble is if there is a no deal exit then the brexiters will have to work out what the "more" is. Because when the shit hits the fan, they'll have to sit down with the EU again and go right back to square one with the same issues to deal with, while having lost all leverage, integrity and face.

Perhaps they will find that to unpalatable and say to hell with the EU, we'll go and find other friends. Only to find no one else will want to make friends with us until they know what our relationship with the EU will be. So again they will have to go back and sit down with the EU, with even less credibility.

I can't see any hope for the Conservative party, the're dooomed. At least then we will get someone more moderate, or left wing in for a while and begin to put the country back together again after 40 years of being ravaged by Tory's.

I think Labour will have to campaign for remain in the general election, because otherwise a coalition of remain party's will decimate their vote. It might be to late already because a lot of voters have written Corbyn off as unreliable, because he is at heart anti EU, whilst also showing few leadership skills and a hopeless leader of the opposition.

I expect the Lib Dems will win the popular vote, but I don't know how that adds up in numbers of constituencies to win a general election. I expect that about two thirds of the people who will vote will vote for remain party's now, because it is such an unholy mess with the only sensible way out being to revoke article 50.

I don't see May's deal as a compromise because the country is to polarised now. It is either total no deal exit, or revoke. Neither side would accept May's deal.

Even if May's deal is accepted, it is only a transition, the new relationship has not been worked out yet and the same issues of Northern Ireland, single market, customs union etc will still have to be solved.

I don't see May's deal as a compromise because the country is to polarised now. It is either total no deal exit, or revoke. Neither side would accept May's deal. — Punshhh

The deal was a compromise between Britain and the EU. The fact that Britain is internally polarised in no way negates that.

I've thought of a new mantra, harking back to the gunpowder plot. Following which the population was taught to recite the saying "Remember Remember the 5th of November", as a warning against plotters to overthrow parliament. Now, we must start saying;

Remember Remember the 1st of November.

(Johnson is considering calling an election to be held on the 1st of November.)

Yes, but this was always about what the British people want. The EU have repeatedly asked what we want and they will accommodate that, what ever it is, in a way which maintains the integrity of their single market and the 4 freedoms etc.

Well well.....

Boris Johnson’s controversial enforcer, Dominic Cummings, an architect of Brexit and a fierce critic of Brussels, is co-owner of a farm that has received €250,000 (£235,000) in EU farming subsidies, the Observer can reveal.

...Since being appointed as Johnson’s chief adviser, Cummings has presented the battle to leave the EU as one between the people and the politicians. He positions himself as an outsider who wants to demolish elites, end the “absurd subsidies” paid out by the EU and liberate the UK from its arcane rules and regulations.

An Observer analysis of Land Registry documents and EU subsidy databases reveals that a farm in Durham, which Cummings jointly owns with his parents and another person, has received roughly €20,000 a year for most of the last two decades.

The revelation opens Cummings up to charges of hypocrisy, as writing on his blog, he has attacked the use of agricultural subsidies “dreamed up in the 1950s and 1960s” because they “raise prices for the poor to subsidise rich farmers while damaging agriculture in Africa”.

He notoriously came up with the claim that leaving the EU would allow the UK to spend an extra £350m a week on the NHS. His blog clarified the claim, explaining “the Treasury gross figure is slightly more than £350m of which we get back roughly half, though some of this is spent in absurd ways like subsidies for very rich landowners to do stupid things”.

The website Farmsubsidy.org, which lists EU rural subsidies, reveals that the Durham farm received almost €208,000 between 2000 and 2009, roughly €20,000 a year.

The money was paid out to Cummings’s parents and another family member for several reasons including “set aside” – the now abolished and controversial scheme that paid farmers not to grow anything. The programme has been blamed for making it harder for food producers in developing countries to compete with their European counterparts.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/10/dominic-cummings-owns-farm-got-eu-subsidy

Much as I despise the guy, it is nothing shameful. One can be in favour of tax rises and not pay the government the rise one proposes until it is implemented - one works with the systems as is and seeks reform. And the EU agricultural policy has been a notorious dog's breakfast for a long time, mainly to accommodate the result of the revolutionary law in France that property must be inherited equally by siblings, with the result that holdings became fragmented and inefficiently small over the generations.

Interesting - that’s some background I didn’t know.

Commentary in today's SMH from A C Grayling. Key paragraph:

Despite all the noise and dust, there is no majority for Brexit in the UK. In the referendum the Brexit vote was 37 per cent of the total electorate – 26 per cent of the population :gasp: – which, by the way the figures for votes cast on the day fell out, gave a 51.89 per cent “win” for Brexit. (Note that had this been the proportion of the total electorate it would still not be enough to trigger vast constitutional change in most civilised states in the world. There are scarcely anywhere a simple majority, let alone a small one, would permit this: for such a change, a supermajority would be required, of 60 per cent or 66 per cent either of votes cast or the entire electorate.)

Plus, it's an attempt at poisoning the well that says nothing about whether his positions are right or not.

The Atlantic claims that the myths driving Brexit are memories of imperialism and memories of standing alone during WW2.

The Lib Dems are really getting on my nerves with their anti-Corbyn hysteria. They won’t even work with him to stop No Deal?

The Lib Dems are really getting on my nerves with their anti-Corbyn hysteria. They won’t even work with him to stop No Deal? — Michael

You beat me to the punch there. I just read that in the news a moment ago. It shows that their number one priority is not in fact stopping a No Deal Brexit, in spite of all the hot air coming from the Lib Dems. If the expected no confidence vote fails, they'll shoulder a responsibility for that, and for all of the detrimental consequences which follow. :down:

Lib-dems two-faced? Who'd a thunk it, suckers?

I think Jo Swindon is grand standing to get some media exposure. She claimed Corbyn had made it a precondition that he would be the caretaker PM before the coalition bring the no confidence vote. I see no evidence of this, but rather Corbyn proposing that it should be him as he is the leader of the opposition. She is going to talk with him, so I think they will work something out, and she only has a few MPs, although they are growing at the moment and I expect they would split if it came to the crunch.

It was hilarious watching Grant Shapps last night saying we can't have Corbyn leading a caretaker government because he would wreck the economy etc, when it is well known that the caretaker government would explicitly be for the one purpose of stopping no deal and calling an immediate general election. This is the standard of Tory rhetoric these days, a laughingstock.

It was hilarious watching Grant Shapps last night saying we can't have Corbyn leading a caretaker government because he would wreck the economy etc, when it is well known that the caretaker government would explicitly be for the one purpose of stopping no deal and calling an immediate general election. This is the standard of Tory rhetoric these days, a laughingstock. — Punshhh

Did you watch the Tory leadership debates? Some of the candidates, Jeremy Hunt in particular, seem to think that he's the literal incarnation of Lenin! You know, Jeremy Hunt: the one who wants to bring fox hunting back, halve the time limit on getting an abortion, and give big corporations a massive tax cut.

Sickening, they just lined up and said what their aids had decided the Tory base wants, while airing their dirty Landry in public. We saw Johnson's true colour's there, he didn't answer a single question, just waffled and tried to shout down the interviewer on the ITV debate, launched a pathetic attack on Hunt in reference to the UK ambassador to the US. While ignoring any of the pressing political and government issues. His stance on Brexit faced both ways at the same time, in a vain attempt to draw the two sides of his Party together.

Literally a pantomime, great for the image of the Tory party, which is sinking like the Titanic.

The current state of affairs ? What is at stake ?
Gina Miller's take:

'Success in a general election would allow the prime minister to experiment with the most extreme rightwing ideology'.

Unsaid in the letter, but streaming through it like shafts of light through a broken roof, Johnson’s plan of action – doubtless guided by the arch-Brexiter svengali Dominic Cummings – is clearly to call an election and dissolve parliament as soon as the beginning of next month, with polling at some point after the existing Brexit day of 31 October.

He is gambling everything on Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity and a public which, at that point, will have yet to experience the full force of no-deal economic headwinds. He may even hold a pre-Brexit budget to lull the public into a false sense of security, bribing them with their own money, through a splurge of new spending promises and tax cuts funded by an increase in the national debt...

...Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, parliament is automatically dissolved 25 days before an election, but it can be done sooner. Such an election lock would close the doors of parliament and legally push the UK over the EU exit date. So, while MPs debate a vote of no confidence and Corbyn attempts to become leader of a government of national unity, Johnson could dramatically pull the rug from underneath their feet...

...What a travesty it is that the high priests of Leave in 2016, who insisted to all of us that Brexit would mean a return to parliamentary sovereignty, are undermining and circumventing parliamentary sovereignty in order to deliver their hard Brexit.

All now depends on that same parliamentary sovereignty: MPs of all parties must summon the courage to hold an overweening executive to account and do what is right in the name of the people they are elected to represent.

— Gina Miller

What are the chances of Miller's hope that:

'MPs of all parties must summon the courage to hold an overweening executive to account and do what is right in the name of the people they are elected to represent.'

Lookee here:

Stopping no deal

1. Corbyn-led temporary government
Jeremy Corbyn has offered to lead a temporary government tasked with requesting a delay to Brexit from the EU, before triggering an election.
Likelihood: one in five

2. Government of national unity
Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, has said Corbyn cannot command enough support to lead a temporary government. She has instead suggested a temporary government of national unity, led by a more neutral figure such as Labour’s Harriet Harman or veteran Tory Ken Clarke.
Likelihood: two in five

3. New laws blocking no deal
MPs such as Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Nick Boles and Yvette Cooper have been part of efforts to pass new legislation that orders the prime minister to request a Brexit delay to avoid no deal.
Likelihood: three in five

4. A Brexit deal is agreed
Some MPs are still holding out hope that Boris Johnson will offer them a vote on a Brexit deal based on the agreement put forward by Theresa May. For it to pass, Labour MPs opposed to a second referendum, such as Lisa Nandy, would have to back it.
Likelihood: two in five — Michael Savage

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/17/labour-tory-mps-unite-plot-radical-law-stop-no-deal-brexit

Fuck, fuck, fuckety, fuck. Bugger. We are completely and utterly fucked :sad: :fear: :groan:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/18/mr-corbyn-wants-a-general-election-but-is-his-party-ready-to-fight-one