coldel

His agenda is simple, he wanted the vote to go ahead so it would lose and ultimately lead to a GE with a Tory party in disarray. It was his best shot at getting in to number 10, would have even taken it in a coalition. This has completely changed that plan, in fact if May wins it means she is challenge free for 12 months, she has time to go speak with the EU, It creates a mandate for the Tory party to line up more behind May for Brexit and gives the Tories time to replace May post brexit with a new leader who would have less baggage. None of his goals considers the welfare of the UK...ultimately he wants a customs union and close ties anyway and TM called that out in the PMQs.

There are a number of ironic things going on mate... ...to be fair though this is all constitutional and a PM that has been found in contempt of parliament is not a strong position to lead the party. What is fundamentally wrong is that the no confidence letters have been put in today. MPs tell TM that the backstop wont allow the deal to go through the vote, so she defers it to go and achieve what she can with the EU to clarify it. Suddenly that's wrong too, yes she should have done it earlier but, what else would she have done? If she wins handsomely tonight then that is a mandate to tell JRM etc. to shut the **** up and let the government govern. Their fairy land completely unachievable idea on brexit has done nothing but strengthen the EU and weaken our position. Corbyn, well less said really the guy is hopeless. He shouted out in PMQs that the house get a vote on the deal, which they will do once the bits he has personally complained about are clarified with the EU. He shouted about Labour going and doing a better deal with the EU despite Merkel this morning saying its not happening. Despite Tusk and Barnier saying the same. Macron said the same. There is no option to do another deal I am not sure why Corbyn cannot understand this simple fact. Oh, he does, but he doesnt care he just wants the keys to number 10 whatever happens after that he will worry about down the line.

I drove up the Thursday and stayed overnight - Monday I had things to do back home in Surrey so just jumped in the car around 5:30am and was home by 2pm.

Most have, a minority (the ERG and Corbyn) cannot because they do not have the interests of Leave at the heart of their argument. What would be funny is if TM got 52% of the vote tonight...

Govt spokesperson "This isnt about who leads us into the next election, its about whether it makes sense to change leaders during brexit negotiations" which for me would indicate that she will step down once brexit is done. Also seems like publicly anyway 158 voices of support have been recorded, if they turn in to action tonight she stays,

Yes it would be good to see it in a deep metallic red or similar. Also wonder if the black lip is an option, would look better colour coded if you ask me.

Yeah I know, in fact you wonder why anyone would want to step in? Given the divisions in the party there are people supporting her, if we have a hard brexiteer come in it will not unite the party, it will still retain divisions and in fighting. She has done a pretty good job in the PMQs, as usual Corbyn has fluffed his lines. How anyone could imagine Corbyn negotiating Brexit for us is beyond me, the guy is hapless and so easy to manipulate.

https://www.motor1.com/news/297287/2020-toyota-supra-revealing-image/

PMQs at midday, I wonder if JC will actually say something impactful for once!

Over 100 public tweets/comments/posts on support for May. Again how people actually vote is another matter but if she gets through this vote, will the Tory party wholeheartedly support her?

Tell me about it All the series 7s are dying off, not built to last. Series 6 are clearly the cream of the crop and should be worth the same as a Nissan R34 in my totally unbiased opinion...

Seems like his box is being set up for him already - Ellwood is a decent chap as well.

Well we have had pretty much the whole cabinet publicly say they will support her, whether they do in the private vote or not is of course another matter. Raab is bookies favourite to replace her if she loses the vote - although his stance has always been that he wants a different deal, given the EU have already said its this or nothing we are treading a path to no deal there. I see JRM again ruling himself out for running for it, the chief protagonist voicing constant opposition to the governments Brexit course, a man who constantly says it can be done another way, who says we hold all the cards, BUT when it comes to stepping into a position where he has to actually do it, he bottles it. If there is a coward in the house, it is him. One potential outcome of May winning the vote tonight is that it would put him back in his box for a while.

I can imagine there is excitement and some feeling of 'she had it coming' but this does I think throw us even more into a hugely damaging no exit deal scenario. I don't think its a done deal though, I think there will be MPs there that know the best course of action is to get a deal and then dump TM after than to start messing around sorting out the government leadership and lurch into a no deal which then potentially cripples the country.

Looks like there will be a vote sooner rather than later...

When I opened this thread I expected it to open with the words 'Theresa May'

There has been requests in the house that Corbyn call for it too. To be honest TM has been a weak leader, but, she is only in this position due to the people she put in charge failing quite miserably to fulfill a proper exit deal for the country, thats you Mr David Davis, he shouldnt be allowed near parliament and the public should be castigating him. So she ended up having to do this in 6 months instead of 2 years whilst fending off leadership challenges on a daily basis. Instead of support she has had to put up with in-party bickering. So we are where we are. Would anyone have done it any better? Well David Davis tried and failed badly. Could Labour, well I dont think Corbyn would have done any better. TMs failures as I see it have been literally the weak decision making throughout her reign, be it from declining a TV debate that led GE failure to the poisonous reliance on the DUP all the way to her lack of reaction to clear and unequivocal feedback that the backstop will not be accepted.

As above, most supermarkets/grocers operate at a gross margin of 1%-4% (despite what the Daily Mail might say about them ripping off customers) if their costs go up 10% so do all their prices they simply cannot afford to absorb the cost - which is to my point around stockpiling Widdecombe made, how do you stockpile? It costs money, there is finite stock space, some products are perishable and have short expiry dates - her comment on this is absurd as it is stupid. The main challenges for WTO membership as I read it are: Lack of coverage of services - things like Air Travel is not covered, companies wishing to operate in a free trade area will have to relocate to Ireland or the EU mainland. Financial services are also not covered, this is a sector that effectively funds the UK, what do we do with that? No preferred country status - so what goes for us must go for everyone else. If we decide to trade check free with the EU on say food products? To keep trade flowing? Under no preferred country status that means we have to agree to the same with any country in the WTO so we are forced to accept products under the same rules from ANY country in the world which would no doubt result in quality issues and economic impact on local business Making deals with trade blocs - we have come away from dealing with the EU bloc bloodied and bruised. How do you think we will fair dealing with the US, or China, let along with Pacfici region trade blocs? Our future deals will be heavily regulated, yes it would be OUR deal but it doesn't mean they would be good ones How do we adjust to losing the EU trade free area - we are not going to pop to the US, have a chat, sign a deal. It is likely to take 5-10 years whereas our free trade with the EU stops much sooner, how do we navigate the imminent loss of EU trade in the mean time, which politicians have a sensible answer?

I would also add that Widdecombe is also grossly over stating how businesses are set up for no deal, you cannot just 'stockpile' and although some have, many cannot. What does she propose for that? Can businesses afford to stockpile? What about smaller businesses who are less cash fluid? It was such a stupid throw away comment to a complex question again shows how little she is equipped to properly propose a no deal.

We have had quite a lot of misunderstandings and misquotes through the whole process - ironic that even the word Brexit doesn't contain NI (as in Great Britain Exit) and NI is now the central focus of the whole thing. The idea that we leave with No Deal and somehow the UK is sovereign is something the likes of the ERG will not give the full facts about - joining the WTO is not going to give us free reign to do whatever we want, we are still bound by their rules instead of the EUs, we will still have restrictions in place as to how we trade with other nations and blocs. It just seems this whole debate from 2015 to now seems to only focus on the present and not the future, the WTO is not a wonderful restriction free place to trade in. It might be a nasty wake up call for people if we do end up there.

What I would take out of that: Widdecombe is symptomatic of the lack of understanding of what no deal means and its implications and why putting it on the table so flippantly is so dangerous Jones is right that we cannot just cancel the referendum result as it would undermine the choices people in this country make at the voting booths Ireland is ready to blow again, and it was pointed out 1000s of people died in a bloody conflict, some politicians are sweeping this under the carpet and Widdecombes complete lack of ability to understand this with her comment 'oh is that all it is then' shows why people like her shouldn't be anywhere near a decision making position

Nope, my morning consists of a 6am alarm, sorting out child, getting ready, being in the office for 8am Will need a summary...

Well its a useful analogy but not 100% correct. We had contractual obligations to pay to the EU, we took off the EU payments to us and we ended up where we did. Yes we pay in more, but by supporting the blocs growth we make it more powerful and negotiate better deals with other blocs which ultimately benefit us. You can blame successive governments for this position, not just the Tories. We could walk away, pay nothing, but then how would expect any future trade partner to work with us given that we have demonstrably shown we are not good for our debts? It would hugely weaken our ability to create new trade deals, we would be a bad debtor on the world stage.

Yes she did the right thing, but she should have done it last week instead of putting the House through a weeks worth of debate only to pull it at the last minute. It was obvious from the off that the backstop agreement was not fully understood and needed clarification. I am hoping that the EU and TM put some practicalities around the backstop procedure so its clear we cannot be indefinitely tied to the EU. More bluster from the SNP etc this morning, so many raised voices but not a single one has actually lent anything useful to the issue in terms of 'whats the alternative to the backstop'. Labour have no alternative, they just want power. Once in they will end up stuck with the same deal TM has they do not have any silver bullet that solves the NI border issue. I really enjoy following politics, to see how countries and the world is governed, but the last month has seen just how low some politicians can go. So many have nothing at heart aside from personal power grabbing, Corbyn couldn't care less about the economy, JRM DD et al just want a hard right bigoted Tory government.

And Junker has just released something to the press saying exactly that. His wording was aligned with TMs yesterday though that they will not renegotiate (which shows how naive people were to think they could vote this down and send TM back to Brussels) but he would create clarifications, which is what TM was referring to yesterday in terms of assurances.