21 Comments

• Scott Berry 10th Dec '18 - 1:59pm

  If we can oppose pulling the vote, as the MP quoted above suggests, then we should do so. Time is already running short, particularly if we want to hold a people’s vote, and delaying this does no-one any benefits. It’s time to bring this to a head, if we can force the vote tomorrow do, then of course it is likely to be voted down and we can push for a people’s vote in response.

• Martin 10th Dec '18 - 2:33pm

  We have to decide what is needed. Mrs May’s tactic is to keep on running down the clock going for a diminishingly significant vote. It is a tactic that could work for her, well sort of.

  It is hard to guess how close May is to resigning. Would a heavy defeat have led to resignation and might she resign rather than go through with an inevitable defeat?

  The main reason for not resigning is that effectively she cannot without precipitating a destructive level of chaos that could only be viewed as culpably irresponsible.

• David Becket 10th Dec '18 - 2:53pm

  We should do everything we can to allow the vote tomorrow.We should have nothing to do with May resigning. She got us into this mess, she will have to get us out. It is likely she will have little choice but a peoples vote, however she likes to dress it up.

• David Becket 10th Dec '18 - 3:07pm

  I see Vince is calling for a Vote of No Confidence in May. I do not understand the strategy of this man. If he gets it and it wins what does he do then. Cut out the politics Vince and get a move on in pressing for the Peoples Vote, not jump around all over the place with no convincing strategy

• William Fowler 10th Dec '18 - 3:19pm

  This problem with May’s policies has a long history, she can’t see the downside of the laws she wants passed only the good side of things… a rather dangerous failing!

  Hopefully, the EU will refuse to change the withdrawal agreement but at the same time come up with a better deal for the UK to stay in the EU – a proper residence test for access to welfare, freezing our payments into the EU (so they fall over time in real terms and in relation to GDP) and some concessions on EU court, which can be dressed up as the Eurozone countries further integrating etc.

• expats 10th Dec '18 - 4:19pm

  Bercow has just given the government a lesson in parliamentary protocol and good manners (he spoke slowly and clearly as if to a class of 5 year olds)…No wonder the Tories want rid of him.

• Sal Brinton 10th Dec '18 - 5:14pm

  Update from House of Lords: we suspended our last day debate on Brexit and May’s Plan at 3.30 in order to hear the Prime Minister’s Statement. We reconvene at 5.30 to do that and for a mini debate on the statement. We will then vote on whether to continue our own debate and vote tonight after 11pm, or whether to abandon today’s debate. So either a very short day, or a very long night.

• Sue Sutherland 10th Dec '18 - 5:17pm

  I watched part of the debate in the HoC and it felt like I was looking at the days before the civil war. I think the time is coming when reform of parliament will happen and will be welcomed. People don’t want their MPs to play around like this. May is only interested in her own position, other Tories want to become PM, the Labour leadership are not providing any opposition, Ken Clarke has abandoned statesmanship and John Bercow is trying in vain to get people to act with maturity.
  Vince Cable, your time is now! Thank you for opposing calls to violence. Please use your vast knowledge to reassure the British public that there is someone who is listening to them changing their minds and will act to stop the madness.

• John Marriott 10th Dec '18 - 5:25pm

  We need to knock on the door of that shepherd’s hut in rural Oxfordshire and request that the occupant takes time out from putting the final touches to his memoirs to come and sort out the mess that he has created. Perhaps the editor of the Evening Standard might like to give him a hand!

  Seriously, though, what we need is for sensible politicians of all parties to come together and stop trying to gain advantage in a time of utmost crisis. After all, we were told that people wanted their sovereignty back. Well, if parliament takes charge of the process we might just get out of this mess.

  But… before we embark upon a reassertion of parliamentary democracy in its purest form, we had better press the ‘Pause’ button of Article 50!

• David Westaby 10th Dec '18 - 6:21pm

  Could this prompt Stephen Lloyd to reapply for the LD whip ?

• Richard Underhill 10th Dec '18 - 6:25pm

  Tom Brake MP is a consistent spokesman, so the PM does not listen to what he says and she has said so. So maybe she has missed something which I have heard when he spoke to a public meeting in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells recently. He wants a Peoples’ Vote with a large majority, such as 60% or more.
  The Conservative Party should remember that they designed and accepted a system for electing or re-electing their leader. The serving leader of those recent times was required to achieve the support of 55% or more of her party’s MPs in order to continue. She did not achieve quite enough of such votes and was eventually persuaded not to stand in the second round of voting. John Major and Douglas Hurd joined Michael Heseltine in the contest and John Major came first.
  When “bastard” John Redwood MP challenged John Major for the Conservative leadership John Major decided privately that 51% of the vote would not be ebough, thereby differing from former PM Winston Churchill’s comment to chief whip Edward Heath that “One is enough”. John Major was re-elected as Tory leader. [Autobiography, page 643 -645 ISBN 0 00 653074 5]
  John Major 218
  John Redwood 89
  abstentions 8
  spoiled 12
  “three votes above the minimum I had set myself”.

• frankie 10th Dec '18 - 6:32pm

  Well the upside of Brexit is it shows how inadequate our politicians are and how in need of reform is our way of government.

• Yeovil Yokel 10th Dec '18 - 6:47pm

  Sue Sutherland – “Vince Cable, your time is now!”

  “Now is the Winter of our discontent made glorious Summer by this Son of York”….?
  (Duke of Gloucester in Richard III).

• Mick Taylor 10th Dec '18 - 7:00pm

  This is an almighty omnishambles. I cannot even begin to understand why seemingly sensible people – which on the whole MPs are – can make such a dog’s breakfast of this issue.
  What is clearer every day, is that only a handful of MPs really understand how the EU works and that does not include the people charged with negotiating Brexit. This is of course a complete disgrace given that we have been members for 40 years. I suppose 40 years of anti EU propaganda has worked and our party must bear its share of the blame. For years the perceived wisdom was that Europe was toxic and those of us who wanted to report on it and support it were shouted down.
  Whatever finally happens, in what a certain former MP now out of favour once called the longest running farce in the West End, we must never again refuse to talk about the EU, warts and all.
  If we do succeed in remaining in the EU we must lead an information campaign to tell voters what the EU does, how it works and why it is democratic. Unless we do that then this whole sorry saga will endlessly repeat itself.

• Laurence Cox 10th Dec '18 - 7:06pm

  Even better than the Lib Dem Press Office’s Wallace and Grommit, look at Andy Serkis’ take on May’s Brexit:

• bob sayer 10th Dec '18 - 7:20pm

  Very worrying for a while, when leader of house intimated that Dominic Grieves amendment might need to be revoted on, fortunately speaker sent that into touch,saying it stood no matter what the new proposition was.

• Richard Underhill 10th Dec '18 - 11:06pm

  The DUP deputy leader does not speak for Sinn Fein, they are not currently in coalition because the Northern Ireland Assembly has not met although it was elected in January 2017. Sinn Fein has seven elected MPs who do not take up their seats in the Commons. We were told that nobody wants a hard border, not Sinn Fein, “not the IRA”, not the Irish government.
  The DUP does not speak for Northern Ireland either, as Sylvia Hermon MP made clear in the Commons last week.

• Richard Underhill 10th Dec '18 - 11:16pm

  If there is an early general election the Tories should offer two candidates in each constituency they currently hold, one remainer and one leaver, using the existing first past the post electoral system.
  Maybe Labour would do the same.

• John Marriott 11th Dec '18 - 6:55am

  And the Lib Dems as well, Mr Underhill?

• Tom Harney 11th Dec '18 - 9:51am

  Entirely agree with Mick Taylor. Democracy depends on access to information. How to we persuade those with access to the media to tell the reality of the European Union. Why is the myth of a brave Prime Minister battling against a difficult EU allowed to be almost unchallenged? OK I know that people have made the points but when asked questions on the TV we have people actually trying to give a balanced answer. The Prime Minister never answers a question, nor do the lunatic group. We need a recognition that you give the answer you want to get out, after the twentieth time people may believe you.

• Sue Sutherland 11th Dec '18 - 1:20pm

  Yeovil Yokel. Vince hasn’t been able to make his mark over Brexit because of his personal style. Now Parliament is in a tizzy and emotions are running high Vince can break through with his quiet reassurance and economic intelligence. Parliament is in a mess which gives Vince the opportunity to use his statesmanship to find a way through to the conclusion we are all hoping for.