Four indicative proposals for Brexit were selected by the speaker for debate and voting and just now it was announced that all four failed to get a majority, joining in the dumpster the eight from last week. The closest that lost by just 3 votes (273 to 276) was one proposed by a pro-European Conservative Ken Clarke though most of his party voted against it. This was seen as a minimally disruptive Brexit that would consist of a UK-wide customs union with the EU.
A disappointed Clarke reportedly said that “his customs union did not get a majority because some people’s vote supporters would not back it because they only wanted to back a second referendum. And some MPs would not back it because they wanted common market 2.0, even though they would have been happy with the customs union plan too, he says. He says he sometimes thinks this house is not very good at doing politics.” That seems like an understatement.
The news about Brexit has been generally grim but today a group of people from an organization called Extinction Rebellion stripped off their clothes in the public gallery of the British parliament to protest that the Brexit circus was ignoring the serious problem of climate change.
BREAKING: Extinction Rebellion activists strip off in House of Commons public gallery to call attention to the ‘elephant in the room’ — Climate and Ecological Crisis #ExtinctionRebellion #TellTheTruth @HouseofCommons pic.twitter.com/VO8l31XRne
— Extinction Rebellion 🐝⌛️🐝 (@ExtinctionR) April 1, 2019
Thanks to commenter blf, I also came across the clip below of a British comedy show Upstart Crow starring David Mitchell as William Shakespeare that inserts current events into that Elizabethan period.
And here from back in 2016 is a sketch with Patrick Stewart that riffs off a famous scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
his customs union did not get a majority because some people’s vote supporters would not back it because they only wanted to back a second referendum
Hypocritical of Clarke when he himself abstained from voting on the public vote option, presumably because he only wanted to back his customs union. Do as I say, but not as I do?
Parliament are simply not set up to handle a vote where an option must be chosen. It’s as if members had to vote on a person taking a seat on a board, and voted down all available candidates as well as putting it to the people or leaving the seat vacant. The obvious option for resolving this situation is having ranked votes ala STV, but such things do not exist in the HoC. They could vote in laws to give themselves the power to do so, but if and when that motion failed they would go right back to square one.
Deadlock.
It’s very much symptomatic of the whole problem -- everybody recognises that a compromise is necessary, but insists that it should be somebody else who does the compromising.
I commend May for meeting with Corbyn to find a path of compromise that they could walk together. Ridiculously late, but better than never.
And just as I said that, Guy Verhofstadt (the EU Brexit coordinator) said the same thing. 🙂
Good that PM @theresa_may is looking for a cross-party compromise. Better late than never. #brexit