"oh you don't get me I'm the end of the union": lol brexit is how we're all gonna die

You need 25 working days to hold an election under the 2014 Act. There aren't 25 working days between now and 11 April so an election means a long extension and European elections OR no deal happening midway through the campaign.

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) March 25, 2019

She is treating Long Extension and No Brexit as if they are equivalent which tbf they probably are. Or at least so soft as to make the whole exercise - yes! - self-deafeating

May suggests she would refuse plan for referendum if MPs propose it in indicative votes

Chris Leslie, the Independent Group MP, asks May if she is saying she will reject a confirmatory vote if that is what MPs vote for in indicative votes.

May says people want a confirmatory vote to have remain on the ballot paper. So it would be a second referendum, she says. And that means it would defy what people voted for in the referendum.

May suggests she would refuse to accept a plan for a referendum if MPs back it in indicative votes.

My one concern about darragh's participation in this thread is that it does limit his ability to stick his head round the door and ask if we ever sorted this out.

not at all you can set yr clock by it

My Deal Or No Brexit has always made more sense as a tactic, her one very distant hope is to unite enough of the Tories to squeak over the line with the aid of enough Labour defectors and odds and sods.

It still isn't going to happen.

Kate Hoey just told parliament she doesn't call No Deal 'No Deal' but a 'Different Type of Deal' that would take us out.

— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) March 25, 2019

in the sense that it's not the status quo option implied by "no deal is better than a bad deal" she's correct. however it's also a really really bad deal.

I think she has plumped for My Deal or No Brexit rather than the superposition of last week. Let’s see how long that lasts.

― stet, Monday, March 25, 2019 9:03 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is this a legislative maneuver available to her? Can she replace the much-bandied "MV3" with a new motion that would amount to a vote between May's Deal and Revoke? If so, is the reason she won't do it because she is a coward?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gbV3uADw3E

She could try, but she doesn't have the numbers to actually pull it off. So she has to present it as "parliament will stop Brexit if you don't take my Brexit" and try to turn her weakness into a strength

I think we’re a bit past that point now given that the PM just said she’d ignore indicative votes she didn’t like, even if they had the numbers.

I feel like we have been trapped in this moment for a couple of decades. Or maybe it's always been like this and we've forgotten.

Anyway, here's something we can all agree on:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/24/tory-islamophobia-row-15-suspended-councillors-quietly-reinstated

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 25 March 2019 07:06

I didn't know about that because my only source of news is the bbc.

― calzino, Monday, 25 March 2019 07:12

There was a question to a Tory politician at the end of his interview this morning on radio 4 but he didn't do much other than say that labour's antisemitism was worse, the usual.

extraordinary report on today show this morning about an exhibition on the history of anti-semitism which has just gone on display in london - including numerous shoe-horned references to the labour party

The way May is acting now made me wonder how she behaved in coalition when the Lib Dems kept blocking her mass surveillance bills. Though obviously they didn’t block everything.

David Cameron used to send Sir Nick Clegg to tell Theresa May to "stop being so extreme on immigration" during the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, a senior peer has claimed.

Amid ongoing anger over the Windrush scandal, Lib Dem Lords leader Lord Newby, who was party chief whip in the Upper House during the coalition years, told The Yorkshire Post the ex-Prime Minister Mr Cameron asked his deputy Sir Nick to intervene on immigration "because he couldn't stop" Mrs May.

His comments came after former civil service head Lord Kerslake said coalition ministers were so unhappy with the immigration policies brought in by Mrs May when she was home secretary they made comparisons with Nazi Germany.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/ireland-to-insist-on-backstop-even-under-no-deal-brexit-1.3837972

do it

cut to Leinster House. LEO VARADKAR sits in an empty office, sweat bearing on his brow, looking deeply uncomfortable. At his left hand: a big button saying BACKSTOP; at his right hand, a big button saying TUG THE FORELOCK. LEO’S eyes flick nervously between the two buttons.

Go tobann, the GHOST OF MICHAEL COLLINS appears before LEO, cigarette in hand, disdainful look on his ghostly face.

GHOST OF MICHAEL COLLINS: Sure what are you at, boy? Didn’t you pay attention in history?

LEO: I know, but it’s no hard to resist my natural inclinations as a proud blueshirt...

GHOST OF MICHAEL COLLINS: Lookit, you know what the right thing to do is & if you don’t do it you’ll be haunted by Oliver Flanagan next time like.

LEO: continues to sweat profusely

GHOST OF MICHAEL COLLINS: That’s the boy.

Irish officials remain adamant that no physical infrastructure will be built on the Border in a no-deal situation and insist that EU negotiators accept that.

How long will that last, one wonders? Six weeks?

whats the "that"

oliver flanagan needs his own thread rly

oh I meant the lack of physical infrastructure. Like, if no-deal happens, can the border really stay demilitarized whilst the parties figure out if the backstop is in force?

id rly see the infrastructure around customs etc as more likely

what that looks like vs soldiers in metal towers i spose i rly dont know these days

Surely what’s left of the British army would be deployed in major cities on riot control in a no deal scenario?

I though they were all assigned to stare at the Trident buttons until they lose their marbles like in that Barthleme story

british soldiers have proven not great protection against riots in the likely candidate cities.

cant second guess the tories/army on NI but the sensible thing to do would be nothing on that front youd have to imagine

Probably just do what they wanted to do during the London riots and block select apps ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. The 'Grand Wizards' (the new name for the Chequer's daytrippers apparently) also had another meeting this morning, were they discussed again whether they could get on board to back PM's deal and there was no firm conclusion

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) March 25, 2019

The WHAT? Christ you take your eye away from this for ten minutes and somehow they ratchet it up even more

st george might want shaking awake at this stage

I know they're trying to maximise the white vote but that's a little on the nose

Don’t normally share or click through to Evolve Politics stuff but OMG the established press’ minimising and mocking the attack on Corbyn needs addressing at once:

EXCL: In a Facebook group, John Murphy - the man sentenced to 28 days in jail after assaulting Jeremy Corbyn by smashing an egg on his head - also allegedly threatened to:

- murder anyone who approves of Good Friday Agreement
- shoot "traitorous Islamist cunts at Mosques" pic.twitter.com/jNeVNSVRMC

— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) March 25, 2019

he seems... bad

typical Tommy Robinson fan, younger versions of him might have even had first contact through the bbc.

GRAND WIZARDS wtf is even going on in this country?

Either that or from Ayrshire. (xxp)

They might even have seen a programme about the KKK on the BBC

No English person cares that much about the Good Friday Agreement.

Just enjoying the casual way Kuenssberg just writes that and moves on, like it’s totally normal.

think she will be having a typical trollster/bond villain cackle and swilling the brandy moment. owning the corbynistas because neo-fascism is such a hilarious wheeze.

I’m absolutely not going to link but Carol fucking Cadwalldr has decided it’s a cool and normal idea to tweet David Duke to ask if he knows these MPs.

I have just been at a Josie Long / Grace Petrie show called Lefty Scum and I love you all.

The ratio on that LK tweet is... something else.

itswhatshedeserves.gif

xxp any good?

Yeah - I've been a fan of Josie Long forever but haven't seen her in ages (I know she's very polarising) l, and I'd not seen or heard Grace Petrie before but she's a good protest singer - she played a song for Theresa May that she wrote 9 years ago.

My god, did Carole C decide she wasn't getting enough abuse from white supremacists as it stands? It is utterly baffling to me why anyone would do that.

<3 josie long

Voting on the Letwin amendment now.

Richard Harrington, business minister, has resigned according to govt source

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) March 25, 2019