No confidence vote today.

[Suff]

I mentioned this a couple of times but I'll have a go again.

Johnson can remove the whip and sack from the party up to 10 MP's and still have a good serviceable majority.

If dissent becomes too bad, he can start with a junior minister and work up.

Given that these snivelling MP's voted against him mainly from fear of their jobs, the certainty of total destruction as against the uncertainty of the next election should do the job.

Remember he is almost invulnerable for a year now. Something the whingers will realise very rapidly.

[medsec222]

The Conservative Party has lost its way. The people who voted them in power were quite clear in what their objectives were. They wanted a clean Brexit cutting ties with Brussels completely but in an mutually beneficial and constructive way, they wanted their fishing waters back under the control of the UK, and they wanted control of immigration, legal and illegal. The message to the Conservative Party was quite clear but they have not delivered this in the meaningful way that was expected of them. Brexit is not done whilst the question of Northern Ireland still remains. Why should the people in Northern Ireland have different rules and regulations to the rest of the UK.

And Boris Johnson will have to call a halt to his obsession with green taxes etc, as the UK are by no means the worst polluters, in fact the reverse. What is the rest of the world doing about climate change? Precious little apart from pontificating. The worst polluters will still go on polluting whilst the people of the UK are struggling with the effects of higher taxation and a green levy on their energy costs. The Conservative Party is the party of low taxation, supposedly, and that is why it was elected, but it is behaving like the last Labour Government when they left office saying 'the cupboard is bare'. Boris will have to get a grip and change tack and lower taxation if the Conservatives are to remain in power. Whether the rebels within the Conservative Party will allow him to do this is another matter but it will be the end for them as well as Boris if they don't.

As regards a Labour/Lib pact - I hope I don't see that one coming to fruition. My opinion is that the Liberal Party will attach itself to any other Party that will have them as long as they can get a foot in the door to a semblance of power. The last Liberal Party pact with the Conservatives didn't work out too well for the Liberals if I remember correctly.

[miasmum]

The problem with being the minority party in a coalition is you have no real power. You can spout your manifesto all you like, but you cant force it through if it goes against the party you got into bed with.

[cromwell]

I think that you are right Meds.
Brexit came with certain expectations and those expectations have not been met.
The Conservative party has always been full of backstabbers and the in fighting has only just started.
Johnson may be able to get a handle on it but his old vote leave people got binned by Carrie, who has done him no favours. He is short of allies.

[Suff]

Brexit came with certain expectations and those expectations have not been met.

Why does everyone forget that the Brexit withdrawal agreement was signed and done under the shambolic mess of a hung parliament??

Then when the government attempts to rectify that, the whole world screams "you can't do that it is an international treaty".

Those who voted to get a different Brexit than we have should have voted for May instead of playing the arse and being unfocused. By they time they focused, it was a done deal and the NI situation exists. Because our Parliament would not allow anything else to happen.

No point in voting in a landslide when it's too late unless you then back up the action needed to fix it. Namely to ditch the NI protocol. Which, apparently, many of these voters don't want the government to do. So they need to make their minds up and set their expectations accordingly. Otherwise if they expect something to be done, then stop the government from doing it, they will never get what they want.

Meanwhile the press spend their whole time muddying the waters and telling the people one thing then insisting they said something else or telling you the government said one thing when they certainly said something else.

It is why I ignored the whole partygate thing and a whole load of of other stuff the MSM is going on about. They want one thing and one thing only. To get rid of this government, even if it what we get is way worse than what we have. Because if it is way worse, they'll have free news ideas for the following 5 years.

It is quite likely that any coalition which beats the Tories at the next election will have the SNP in it. So what happens if they get a new Indyref and it succeeds? The whole house of cards collapses again... That being said, the Tories win in rUK thereafter.

Why can't people see that the way we approached Covid was allowed because of Brexit. That our solution fitted our country and not a cabal of 28. That our response to Ukraine is there because of Brexit. Not waiting for a bunch of reluctant states to get off their fossil fuel fix in order to do something, just doing it. Our response to illegal immigration is going to happen and it will continue. Yet because it has not yet happened and the boats keep coming, the assumption is that nothing is being done.

The next year of this government will allow for the culmination of a range of activities which have been sidelined by Covid.

As for the party of low taxes? Cameron put my taxes up, he had to, Blair and Brown walked right into the financial crisis totally blind. The impact was crippling and the economy had to be stabilised. It was no thanks to the EU who were standing there with their hand out for money to fix their own problems. Now we've had 2 years of Covid and ridiculous spending. Just who do the people think is going to pay for it? Santa? It was always going to be the people. There is no free lunch, I thought everyone over school age already knew that.

[Workingman]

He is short of allies.

Isn't he just? If what was said during the vote was true some 40 or more back bench MPs are implacably opposed to him.

Hypothetical situation:

A Bill goes before parliament. Tories rebel. Bill fails. Labour watches on.

A Bill goes before parliament. Tories rebel. Bill fails. Labour sees government not working so launches a no confidence vote.

It fails.

A Bill goes before parliament. Tories rebel. Bill fails. Labour sees government not working so launches a no confidence vote.... And on and on.

It is what the Cons did to Jim Callaghan and Labour and eventually they gave in.

The Cons would be rudderless and nobody likes "rudderless" not the markets, businesses, banks, institutions or the people. Johnson might be safe(ish) from his party but his government certainly isn't safe from without.

BTW In a coalition the minor party can always withdraw and bring the whole edifice down. It is their one ace card, but it needs a strong leader. Clegg was too weak to play his.

[Workingman]

Why does everyone forget that the Brexit withdrawal agreement was signed and done under the shambolic mess of a hung parliament??

Because it is impossible to forget something that never happened.

The Brexit withdrawal agreement was signed on 24 January 2020 by the Johnson (80 seat majority) government. It is a renegotiated version from one published on 17 October 2019 under Johnson.

It was May's version (Con / DUP) that was voted down in the Commons - three times -and lead to her resignation. See the ERG and other Tory rebels for details.

[Suff]

It is what the Cons did to Jim Callaghan and Labour and eventually they gave in.

No they didn't give in, they had no majority and finally few friends. At the next no confidence vote they lost. They would have seen it out to the bitter end but they couldn't.

As for Tory bills going to parliament and 40 Tory MP's voting it down, I've already said this but you won't take it on board. When May removed the Whip from MP's who rebelled she made her situation worse because she was a minority government. When Boris removes the whip from MP's, the first time they do this, he will still have a majority and his MP's will be left in no doubt as to what will happen to them. One after another after another.

It is one thing to defy the sitting PM because you think it will "sell well" at the next election. It is entirely another to run the risk of being booted out of the party and ineligible for selection at the next election.

May had no recourse to control her party. Johnson has loads.

Callaghan didn't have so much of a problem with rebels, he had a problem with a lack of effective majority. Wilson created a minority government in March 74 and then went back to the polls in October and won a 3 seat majority. By the time Callaghan took over in 76, with defections and the loss of a by election, that majority had been whittled down to Zero. They worked with the Lib Dems and bought Ulster Unionist votes with legislation to create more seats in NI. They even had a referendum on devolution in Scotland to keep the SNP on side.

In the end they lost the final vote of no confidence when 5 Ulster Unionists voted against and they went down by one vote.

This is absolutely Nothing like the situation today. But is much like the situation May found herself in.

[Workingman]

Hmm, it is pointless removing the whip from an MP who is going to vote against. S/he is going to do it anyway. It might well push others who are sitting on the fence to act - 'if he's going to be that vindictive then so can I be'.

There are about 170 Tory MPS who do not have 'government jobs' so can be partially independent. Some of them must have consciences and backbones, even ears to listen to their constituents, surely?

Yes, even though they are Cons.

[medsec222]

There have been comments that if the 1922 Committee want to change the rules whereby a Prime Minister cannot be challenged again for 12 months, they are at liberty to do so. That would throw the cat amongst the pigeons.