{"id":6161,"date":"2019-05-24T13:15:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=6161"},"modified":"2019-11-22T16:26:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T16:26:10","slug":"gods-plan-for-brexit-part-2-post-theresa-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=6161","title":{"rendered":"Shall we prepare ourselves for the last ever Conservative Prime Minister?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, Theresa May – and hopefully her WA – are now moving in to the rear view mirror.
\nI wrote a little while back about God’s plan for Brexit<\/a> and my main sense is that, no matter what the decisions of individual actors, there is a larger picture going on, determining whether those decisions have any effect. <\/p>\n

[Brief aside: I’m more and more persuaded that the EU is going to break down in the next few years (principally through a renewed financial\/Euro crisis) and if it survives it will only do so on a radically reformed basis. It will either be a union – maybe a smaller union – propped up by German money, in which case there will be a ‘continuity EU’; or else there will be a new organisation inheriting elements of it. It’s the fact that the French have so many problems that makes me think it will be the latter.]<\/p>\n

What is on my mind is the sense that so many actions being taken will not have the effect that is expected; indeed, I think they will often have precisely the opposite effect. In particular, there are lots of assumptions that whoever replaces Theresa May will occupy the post of Prime Minister for a good stretch of time. Consider this line of thought:<\/p>\n

– it’s very unlikely that the Conservative Party will elect someone who rules out ‘no deal’ – indeed, I expect the Euro election results to be so bad for the Conservatives that those running for leader will each seek to ‘outFarage’ the others, and make an active embrace of ‘no deal’ as a realistic option a key part of their platform;
\n– there is a clear majority against no deal in Parliament;
\n– if we get to end September, with no movement from the EU on, eg, NI, along with lots of noises from Macron etc that ‘this can’t go on’, what will that majority do when they are facing the very real prospect of a no deal exit? in particular, what will the likes of Dominic Grieve do?<\/p>\n

I would expect that, with the prospect of a no deal looming large at the end of October, as soon as Parliament reconvenes after the conferences, Jeremy Corbyn will submit a vote of no confidence. Enough MPs will vote for it – so the new Conservative leader will no longer be Prime Minister – they would probably be the last ever Conservative PM. (Would July – October be the shortest modern premiership I wonder?)<\/p>\n

Once that happens there will then be lots of back-door politicking out of which either:
\na) nobody else commands a majority – therefore an election, or
\nb) Corbyn (or possibly ANOther Labour person) cobbles together a cross-party coalition for the purposes of implementing a second referendum with Remain on the ballot paper (against what? don’t know, can’t guess) and forms a government on the basis of at least a one-year supply and confidence agreement with other groups (SNP, Libs, CHUK and pro-Remain Tories).<\/p>\n

The EU will, in this situation, be cheering on the second referendum crowd from the sidelines, and I would expect them to be happy to provide an extension for that purpose. Unless Macron goes mad of course.<\/p>\n

I’m guessing the latter, and this will absolutely enrage the voting public and catalyse a major shift in UK politics
\n(MPs will hide from the consequences for as long as they can – I can’t see them voting for a new GE if they can avoid it). A second referendum will be truly awful, but afterwards, whatever the outcome, there will be an epochal GE, out of which I expect to see two major parties remaining – TBP and whatever the Remain party turns into once we have left the EU (possibly an enlarged LibDem\/Green alliance).<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, I’ll definitely be voting for the non-Boris candidate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, Theresa May – and hopefully her WA – are now moving in to the rear view mirror. I wrote a little while back about God’s plan for Brexit and my main sense is that, no matter what the decisions … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crisis","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3npsc-1Bn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6164,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161\/revisions\/6164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}