No confidence?

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, January 17th, 2019 - 22 comments
Categories: Europe, Media, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, uk politics, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

22 comments on “No confidence? ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    17 January 2019 at 8:02 am

    The votes are being counted …

    • mickysavage 1.1
      17 January 2019 at 8:17 am

      And May and the Conservatives survive 325 to 306.

      But this is not going away. They still have to sort out the Brexit mess.

      • te reo putake 1.1.1
        17 January 2019 at 8:46 am

        325 is a significant number. It’s exactly half of the MPs in the 650 seat house. So, not a majority in that sense.

        • Dennis Frank 1.1.1.1
          17 January 2019 at 9:22 am

          So the vote was 47% for no confidence, 50% for confidence. The other 3% abstained? Maybe they were on leave or something.

          There’s always the possibility that they thought the question was too hard to answer. Recalling that 50% of voters are of below-average intelligence, so half the MPs there reflect that, and we ought not to be surprised that the thickest stumble on those difficult questions…

          • te reo putake 1.1.1.1.1
            17 January 2019 at 9:36 am

            I like your theory that the MPs reflect their constituents! The Liverpool Irish tourists currently dominating our news seem to be well represented in the UK Parliament 😉

            Of the 650, Sinn Fein have always refused to take up the seats they win, so the number needed to command an effective majority is around 320, rather than 326. There are also a number of independents in the house (3 or 4 from NI and Wales, I think). They’ll be reasons for others not being there, resignations, ill health, death etc.

            • Dennis Frank 1.1.1.1.1.1
              17 January 2019 at 9:48 am

              Thanks. The beeb has this : “Theresa May has said she will have discussions with senior politicians from other parties about how to deliver the Brexit plan.”

              Assuming Corbyn is included, and Sturgeon, this will be a genuine consensus-seeking process. No reason to assume it won’t succeed, eh?

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    17 January 2019 at 8:09 am

    BBC live 8:02 Results are due in about 15 minutes.

  3. greywarshark 3
    17 January 2019 at 8:21 am

    19 majority for May and saved by hard-line Northern Irish vote.

  4. Dennis Frank 4
    17 January 2019 at 8:21 am

    So she survived, 325 to 306. A testimony to Tory solidarity, but not by a hell of a lot. Now she has to design Plan B and get them behind it. The camera gave us an interesting god’s-eye view of the chattering classes in hubbub mode, eh? No sense of grim fatalism, or desperate struggle. Crisis? What crisis?

  5. Chris T 5
    17 January 2019 at 8:35 am

    I think people are more worried over the thought of Corbyn getting in than Brexit.

    And it isn’t like he is spewing out his brilliant ideas with how to deal with it.

    As much as I dislike May’s plan, she is the only one in the building with any balls.

    • AB 5.1
      17 January 2019 at 9:13 am

      “I think people are more worried over the thought of Corbyn getting in than Brexit.”
      If by “people” you mean the 100-odd Tory MPs who voted against May’s plan, you are correct.
      If you are insinuating anything wider than that – your’e a propagandist bullshitter.

      • Chris T 5.1.1
        17 January 2019 at 11:28 am

        Have a wild guess.

        Considering the only ones that voted are politicians I think you will get it right.

    • Dennis Frank 5.2
      17 January 2019 at 9:13 am

      I think that’s a fair comment. She has been demonstrating leadership. The quality of that leadership is poor: 2.5 years of failure to produce consensus on the Brexit plan.

      So she remains leader by default. Looks like none of the other Tory leadership contenders was able to demonstrate sufficient leadership capacity to win the support of their colleagues as a viable replacement.

      Corbyn strategy of waiting for her to fail is shrewd, but I do acknowledge that it makes him seem lacking in leadership capacity. Timing is everything, so it could just mean he knows what to do, and will play his hand at the right time…

      • Anne 5.2.1
        17 January 2019 at 10:14 am

        It has long struck me Corbyn and co. are playing the waiting game but you can’t go on waiting forever. At some point you have to ‘lay your cards on the table’ and their time has surely come.

        God, I sound like Peter Sellers’ party political speech… but British Labour do seem to have ‘shilly shallied’ around on Brexit. They can’t just demand a General Election because they don’t have the numbers. They’ve got to make some specific decisions on what proposed outcome they are willing to support and what they plan to reject.

        Oh and I like your 50% theory DF. I think though that the majority of Brit. MPs are likely a tad more intelligent than the bottom 50% of their constituents. And of course the same theory applies here too which is frequently evident on this site alone. 🙂

  6. Wayne 6
    17 January 2019 at 10:11 am

    I note May says she will reach out to other parties. Has to be done but probably a waste of time.

    Her key role is to convince the 118 in her own party she has a solution. Unless that solution is just running down the clock to a No deal Brexit (apart form pragmatic work rounds).

    That currently is the default position, and it is possible/probable there is no majority to stop that.

    She may try a substantive discussion with the EU to get rid of the sticking points in the current deal. That is now a case of brinkmanship. The EU either has to do that, or face a no deal. Maybe the EU is fine with a No deal for the time being. with a FTA to be negotiated later. It sends a shot across the bows of any other members contemplating leaving. All of whom are in more difficult circumstances than the UK.

    • Anne 6.1
      17 January 2019 at 10:23 am

      Thanks for that Wayne. I have found the whole Brexit thing extremely confusing to say the least.

      So, its brinkmanship whichever way you look at it. Not a good sign for a common sense outcome that is advantageous for everyone.

      They should never have had the referendum in the first place precisely because – as DF says – nearly 50% of the population were not up to understanding what they were voting for anyway.

    • Ovid 6.2
      17 January 2019 at 11:39 am

      It’s always been a case of brinksmanship. Invoking Art. 50 before starting negotiations gave them a ticking clock from the start and the expectations the UK government had were always unrealistic.

      Cameron probably should have negotiated an exit deal before taking it to the public at large in the referendum, the Leave campaign promised the world.

  7. Bill Drees 7
    17 January 2019 at 10:38 am

    THE IRISH coast guard has today issued a nationwide warning for the East Coast as hundreds of thousands of British refugees risk their lives to cross the Irish sea in an attempt to flee the impoverished and unstable nation.

    Dinghies overflowing with desperate migrants are so far half way through their journey, many with women and children aboard, wishing to make a new start on the Emerald Isle.

    “We have rescued hundreds of people from crafts due to overcrowding,” winchman Derek Ryan of Rescue 117 told WWN today. “It’s a terrible situation as many of these people are only hoping for a better quality of life in the EU”.

    Taoiseach Enda Kenny has called an emergency meeting in the Dáil this afternoon to help find a solution to the influx of British refugees.

    It is expected many of those landing on the Irish coast will have to be quarantined, as they are not a part of the European Union.

    “Emergency prefabs will be erected to help cope and house these poor unfortunate people,” Mr. Kenny stated. “I urge everyone to do what they can to help support the migrants in any way, whether that be waiting with hots cups of tea on the shoreline, to giving them fresh clothes to wear”.

    An estimated 450,000 people have already fled the UK mainland to neighbouring EU countries.

  8. ianmac 8
    17 January 2019 at 12:16 pm

    Corbyn has refused to be party to the Cross-party talks. If Labour participated and a plan was created all those taking part would be responsible for the outcome.

    In NZ this was how the Water Forum worked with about 40 bodies taking part, but largely ignored so that National could falsely claim unity.

  9. CHCOff 9
    17 January 2019 at 1:40 pm

    The system that didn’t want Brexit is all about hard/soft/no brexit.

    Looking from outside in relation to a Commonwealth perspective, would put the parameters as a strong or weak (which includes no) brexit which is about different criterias…