Wednesday 1 March 2017

Remainer Lords try to create new constitutional crisis...sigh

I feel sorry for Theresa May. Stuck with a job at the worst time to get it in fifty years, she nonetheless has to just plow on.


Brexit this, Brexit that, NHS crisis here there and everywhere. Better her than me.


On top of all of this is the fifth column of remainers in every area of the liberal elite determined to wreck any attempt to get a good Brexit.


Today it is the turn of the Lords with the most mind-numbingly stupid proposal yet. Basically, they are saying let all EU people stay as that is a nice thing to do. Give away any bargaining chip we have with countries we know are going to take a hard line like Poland.


Doing this will ensure we have a crap Brexit negotiation. So back the Commons the amendment will go and it will be voted down. The Lords know this is a stupid and puerile game- but it is a cosy piece of virtue-signalling by the remainers.


If they stick at it, then there will have to be a Royal Commission into the role of the unelected Lords. Which is necessary but could be left to the next decade after we have sorted out Brexit and re-conquered Scotland in the next civil war. Sometime in the mid-2020's. Of course, this is their game as such a distraction is exactly what they want as they try to stop Brexit altogether.

28 comments:

HarryD said...

Desperately hoping instead of a back and forth for the next few weeks she simply calls a snap election.

Demetrius said...

Have a heart, if we leave Europe many of The Lords might have to make do on less than a lousy couple of hundred thousand a year.

Steven_L said...

We have fixed term parliaments, she can't call an election. Any legislation changing FTP would also have to go to the Lords would it not?

Flagwaver said...

In a democracy there is only one way to deal with an impasse and that is by holding an election. An election can gives us the opportunity to resolve several issues at once:

- confirm whether the UK does want to do Brexit, i.e. exactly the rethink proposed by Blair and Major or go ahead
- depending on the election result remove any doubt as whether the Lords can block/delay/put conditions on negotiations
- force a second ref on the Scots; time for Sturgeon to put up or shut up. She can't credibly threaten a second referendum every time something happens which she doesn't like. If May wins a GE then Scotland will be forced to decide within two weeks, say. In or Out of the UK. Let us English taxpayers hope it is Out.
- put lots of policies to the electorate which Cameroon MPs are considering rebelling on eg Grammar Schools, Heathrow and so on
- confirm whether those who claim that Brexit is a "lie" are numerous
- finally destroy the Labour Party
- finally destroy the LD Party

Flagwaver said...

Pretty sure there can be an election if a certain majority in the Commons support one. It would be funny to see Corbyn whipping his MPs to vote against an election.

Y Ddraig Goch said...

Flagwaver & Steven_L

Losing a vote of confidence allows a general election as well.

I can't see it actually happening, but it would be a joy to watch Labour and the SNP voting that they have full confidence in HMG while the Conservatives are voting no-confidence in themselves.

Raedwald said...

Too many reasons why Mrs May won't call an election. She will just KBO. The Lords can 'talk until they wet themselves' as one of May's aides put it but she will get the Bill through the way she wants it.

And then, unlike the Blair parliamentary reforms, the public will support Lords reform and Kinnock and the rest of the pissy windbags will be turfed out. She can send them to sit temporarily in a Travel Lodge in Luton or similar whilst the £bn renovations roll out.

Lord Blagger said...

Simple solution.

Force the lords to publish on which days Peers used their passes and temporary passes.

Force them also publish the days on which they claimed expenses.

The two are not the same thing.

gmorris82 said...

Depends if we want to negotiate a deal by threats or by compromise, granting the right to remain would be the first act of compromise from either side.

If we don't hold other cards to secure our peoples rights to stay in foreign countries then we shouldn't be doing this in the first place.

Somewhere in amongst this shit storm we confused not wanting to give benefits to foreign workers with not wanting them here at all, we need them, our benefits scroungers are far too f**king lazy and stupid to do the work they will do

CityUnslicker said...

Raedwald - super idea, LUTON too convenient, maybe Keswick.

Steven_L said...

Keswick? Not enough room Barrow-in-Furness or Carlisle surely?

Anonymous said...

CU - Keswick too pretty and too middle class - I suggest Spennymoor, County Durham, or possibly Hull or Merthyr Tydfil.

Flagwaver said...

Batley Carr.

Dick the Prick said...

@CU - Hope you're well. Completely disagree with your first point. This is an awesome time for a PM who wants to run an administration rather than a personality cult. I put it to you that she is really enjoying herself. Her outriders are exercised and just pop home for their tea. I kinda think she's doing brilliantly and the Lords are perfectly entitled to be codgers.

Blue Eyes said...

DtP and what a position to be in to know that your approval ratings are high, your main policy backed by most, and if you called an election you would win a landslide!

Nick Drew said...

Don't feel sorry for May, she's loving every minute

Dick the Prick said...

@BE - and the boundary commission and fixed term parliament. No one wants another plebiscite. There's allegations of 57 Tory constituencies in 2015 and God alone knows how many postal. There is a huge argument as to the vacuum that Ukip leaves.

Anonymous said...

May is hardly "stuck with a job at the worst time to get it in fifty years", she chose it! I highly doubt she regrets choosing it.

andrew said...


As others have noted, more like the best time since the outbreak of ww2.

She has one simple job :- do not **** up brexit. History will judge her on this. She knew that before she got the job.

Compare that to Tony Blair where one small job that occupied possibly 1% of his time cost him pretty much everything.

CityUnslicker said...

Nope sorry, as much as I want Brexit - which is really quite a lot - I do also see that in the short term there will be economic downside by the 48% political detractors.

If I was her, I would do an election now, to provide the 5 years of freedom to get through the tough bit.

Look at the EU, the negotiations may end up being much shorter than we hope for.

andrew said...


Look at the EU, the negotiations may end up being much shorter than we hope for.

Depends

Consider the israel / palestine camp david and later negotiations.

All the hard bits got left to the end and but for , peace might well have been achieved.

So, it comes down to the order of negotiations:

If the difficult stuff comes first, chances are they will be short.

Blue Eyes said...

There is hardly anything to negotiate. We want easy access to the EU market, they want easy access to the UK market. They want squillions for the EU budget, we want to pay in less than we have been. There is a quick easy deal to be done.

If you doubt that, take a look at Juncker's five options and the sudden interest in speeding up trade deals between the EU and third countries.

James Higham said...

Demetrius is right - have heart, it will come right and it's shone an unwelcome spotlight [to them] on them.

Electro-Kevin said...

gmorris82

Actually Mrs May tried to get a quick and reciprocal deal on migrant settlement rights but Mrs Merkel rejected it and vetoed those EU nations that were keen on it.

The Lords ought to have taken issue with Mrs Merkel, not Mrs May.

No-one on the Leave side said that they wanted to stop *all* immigration. That was a lie concocted by the Remainers and the BBC. A points system was what was asked for.

On the whole, benefit scroungers are not stupid if they refuse to compete for low pay and conditions and opt for higher remuneration in dole instead.

Your solution is economically and socially unsustainable too.

No more immigration of unskilled and unfunded people thank you.

Lord Blagger said...

Points based is a bad idea.

Civil servants will pick those that don't pay their way. They will reject those that do. It's also a one point in time test. You will find that within a couple of years, lots of those have lost earnings and are now a burden. They also reject entrepreneurs.

Instead put in place a minimum tax on economic migrants. Pay a year up front or take out a bond. At the end of they year, top up, repeat the up front payment or leave and the state calls the bond. That changes migration to being a positive.

If remain believe migrants pay their way, they can hardly object to a law that enforces it. To object just means they are lying.

On the negotiation its easy. Make two lists. EU on the left side, UK on the right side. List what each side wants, and what each side doesn't.

If both sides want it, its a quick win. If only one side wants, they can't have.

If both sides don't want it, its a quick win. If only one side doesn't want, unlike being in the EU with QMV, they can't have.

Lastly and this is missing from most analysis. The EU countries and the UK are all members of the WTO in their own right. Nothing changes when the UK leaves the EU. So all sides have to adhere to WTO rules.

Now WTO countries have have agreed tariffs and barriers to trade like all EU countries UK included are "bound". Bound means that tariffs and barriers can only ratchet down. Introduce them against another country where they don't exist, that country can go to the WTO, and force the other countries to pay compensation for lost business. Way more than the tariffs ever raised. The EU is stuck, because they would have to leave the WTO to do what they threaten.

All on the WTO site.

Blue Eyes said...

Is that right? Genuine question. WTO rates apply between members except if there is a broad trade agreement between those members. At the moment the UK is part of a very broad agreement with other EU members, i.e. the Customs Union. When we decide to leave the Customs Union that won't be the EU imposing tariffs on us, it will be us deciding we prefer third party status.

Electro-Kevin said...

"Civil servants will pick those that don't pay their way."

Then they need to be replaced.

Anonymous said...

As for the Lords being perfectly entitled to be codgers, one such (Lord Bowness, a Conservative life peer aged 73) said in the debate that "it was quite impossible to believe that Brussels would ever mistreat British expatriates in the EU."

In fact it is perfectly possible to believe that Brussels, or individual EU countries in the EU, could in the future discriminate against, or otherwise penalise, British expatriates.

The amendment that the old fool and the rest of them voted for would mean that the EU could do so with impunity.