British Politics Guide

[Salmoneus]

Lots has been going on.* Most of it depressing/hilarious and of little importance. But there's a few concepts here that might be worth going over for outsiders and newcomers....


The big thing recently was the Prime Minister finally completing Brexit. After a year and a half, she devised a cunning plan to get the best possible Brexit. In brief, the key points of this plan are:
1. Keep everything the same as it is, but change the names so that stupid people think we've had Brexit. So instead of being in a 'customs union' (the EU) or a 'customs partnership' (a plan considered but rejected), we're going to be in a "combined customs territory". We won't have EU regulations anymore - we'll have a "common rulebook" based upon complete "continued harmonisation" with EU regulations. Parliament will have the absolute right to diverge from EU laws, on the proviso that it promises to never, ever do so. We will no longer have "free movement of people" - we'll have a comprehensive "mobility framework". We won't be subject to the jurisdiction of the ECJ - we'll just have a 'joint institutional framework' in which certain cases are referred to the ECJ to be decided.

2. While having a combined customs territory with the EU, simultaneously have unencumbered free trade with the reast of the world. This will rely on magic: good intended for trade with the EU will follow EU rules, while goods intended for the UK can follow the new trade agreements. The UK, not the EU, will exact customs and excise, on the basis of travelling to the future to find out where the goods are consumed, and will then hand over the appropriate amount of money to the EU, who will agree not to check whether it's the right amount or not.

3. We'll have a free trade zone with the EU for manufactured goods, because we want to export those. But the financial sector will have immunity from EU rules, because that'll make it more competitive internationally, letting us become a tax haven.


So, after a year and a half, it was decided that this would be our negotiating position for the remaining six months of negotiations - a negotiating position everyone in the UK could agree to. To enforce this, the Prime Minister had another cunning plan: calling all her ministers to Chequers, her house in the country (think: Camp David, but mediaeval), and demanded that they all agree to her plan.

Why was this cunning? Well, she made clear that anyone who didn't agree needed to resign. And anyone who resigned would be a minister. And anyone who wasn't a minister would not have access to their ministerial phone, or their ministerial car.

Why? Because Chequers is in the middle of nowhere (by English standards), and this would mean that any minister who disagreed with the prime minister would be kicked out of the door and forced to walk a couple of miles to the nearest train station. The PM even went to the effort of removing information about local cabs from the building. This brilliant wheeze meant that the entire Cabinet agreed unanimously to support th new Chequers Plan to the hilt.

That was on a Friday. On the Saturday, people got back to safety and, because 21st century Tories don't have things like 'honour' or 'their word', five of them promptly resigned, including the Brexit Secretary and the Foreign Secretary.

Why did everyone resign?

There's a concept we have called CCR - collective cabinet responsibility. Basically, if your cabinet agrees to it, then you agreed to it. You can't later claim not to have agreed to it. So if you really don't agree to it, you have to resign from cabinet. This no longer really works - because modern politicians don't actually agree to, or disagree with, anything in particular, they just say what'll look good on the news that evening. But they do at least sometimes want to look like still works. So, on issues like Brexit, people eventually have to resign. Besides, if they resign, they can criticise the government - it's very hard to get rid of an MP, but the PM can get rid of a minister instantly (there's no equivalent to the US process of senate consent).

David Davies, the Brexit Secretary, resigned for the fairly sensible reason that he was in charge of Brexit, and he didn't feel he could be in charge of implementing a policy in negotiations that he personally thought was crap. Also, because it's kind of shit to be the Brexit Secretary and have all decisions on Brexit made by the PM's advisors without consulting you.

Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, resigned because he still, somehow, wants to be Prime Minister, and he hoped that resigning would a) destroy the government and b) make him look principled. Neither has happened.

A little more detail: Johnson was meant, as foreign secretary, to chair a meeting of international leaders, including prime ministers and foreign secretaries (including the FS of Germany!). People realised he'd resigned when he simply... didn't turn up. Without warning, and without sending someone else instead. All the world leaders just milled around not knowing what was going on. Downing Street realised what was going on, and announced that he had resigned before he had the chance to announce it himself. They sent the mover's vans in and removed all his stuff from the Foreign Office, but couldn't actually remove him, so there was a standoff for much of the day as he stayed inside, having furiously fought to retain some paper and a pen (ok, I'm guessing probably a laptop?) so he could write a long, long, looong, Churchillian resignation letter, which instead of sending to the PM he sent to the press. And then, days later, he tried to grab the limelight again by making another long, Churchillian resignation speech in Parliament.

It was thought for a while that this would mean that Michael Gove would be Foreign Secretary. For those who don't remember, he's Johnson's friend, who was Johnson's campaign manager in his campaign to be tory Leader - or he was his campaign manager until the morning of the day Johnson was going to announce his candidacy, at which point he instead declared his OWN candidacy, only to lose the election, and then get sacked from cabinet. Yes, he's back, through shear lack of alternatives. But in the end the job went to Jeremy 'it's hard to remember that his surname doesn't actually begin with C because that's what everyone calls him' Hunt, who is perhaps the most generally hated man in parliament among the general populace (he's been intentionally destroying the NHS for years - the last two PMs have tried to sack him, but he's the oiliest man in government and always got reprieved because there weren't enough loyal MPs to fill the cabinet). So far no foreign leaders have punched him in the face, but it's surely only a matter of time.

Anyway, it was an anxious couple of days, as it seemed for a moment as though the Prime Minister were sure to fall. The news about Johnson leaked out while the Prime Minister was actually answering questions in Parliament - though publication of the details of her plan to the public was suddenly and 'unrelatedly' postponed after the resignations - and went from there immediately to face the 1922.

As regular readers will know, the 1922 Committee represents the tory parliamentary party - it's Theresa May's boss, in other words. When the Chairman of the '22 receives personal letters from a set proportion of tory mps - currently the threshold is 48 - he has to call a vote of no confidence in her (this is separate from the formal VONC in parliament). If she loses that, there's a leadership election. It was rumoured that the letters had been sent in and for a moment there it seemed like we wouldn't know who was going to be greeting Trump when he visited. But in the end, it was a false alarm. It's believed the letter-tally is close to 48, but the precise number is secret.



We then had a series of votes in parliament, with the government attacked by both hard and soft flanks (of its own party, naturally, since Labour are unable to do anything at all). the government lost some votes, but won others. It doesn't particularly matter - because parliament is sovereign, a vote today can be overruled by a vote tomorrow, and we'll have many more votes on brexit before it happens. To summarise: the government made some concessions, but then said it hadn't, and then in some cases said it hadn't said it hadn't, and basically it has if you want it to have done but otherwise it hasn't, and there's nothing in writing in the law that tells it it has to do any specific thing right now.

Beside, all of this is pretty pointless because the EU took one look at the chequers agreement and laughed in our faces. "No deal" (the Tory promised land wherein all non-EU countries in the world instantly know their place and return to an imperial-era trade relationship with us) approaches ever faster...

--------------------------------------



But in the fuss about the voting, two other interesting things happened.

One is that the government cheated. How? Well, to recap, MPs (if a voice vote isn't decisive) vote by division: those who want to vote 'aye' walk into one lobby (a small room at the entrance to the House - originally, as in most buildings, there was only one lobby, and the contest was between those in the chamber and those in the lobby, but when parliament was rebuilt in the 19th century they added a second lobby to support the cause of progressives (previously, anyone who didn't care enough to stand up was voted as 'nay', generally the side opposing new legislation)) and those who want to vote 'nay' walk into another. This makes voting a very physical process: historically, party leaders would physically push MPs into the right lobby, or even resort, it's said, to whipping them. These days the Whip is symbolic, but the whips will stand at the doors of the lobby and praise those who vote correctly, and harangue those headed for the wrong door. Meanwhile, non-MPs would traditionally wait in and around the lobby, enticing MPs to vote the way they wanted - in the 1770s it was discovered that at least one of these lobbyists was actually getting his vote counted by surreptitiously hanging around in the lobby as the MPs were being counted, and it became tradition to make sure the lobbies were empty and locked to outsiders before the vote occured. Meanwhile, a division bell is sounded throughout Parliament, and in a selection of popular nearby hotels, pubs and restaurants, to make sure everyone knows there's a vote going on.

But the problem with this form of physical voting is that... well, it's very physical. It's hard to fit into the lobbies, and a degree of fitness is required. Therefore, two traditions have developed.

One is nodding through. This is a rule saying that a Whip can vote for one of their MPs if that MP is both alive, and present in Parliament - that is, they don't actually have to make it to the division lobby if they're not fit enough. [This has sometimes caused dispute: an unconscious Labour MP voted in the 1980s while strapped to a hospital trolley; the Tory Whip suspected he was actually dead, but the Labour Whip demonstrated that there was a heartbeat by turning on the heart monitor...]. Nodding through is in the news because last month a Labour MP had to vote in the division lobby, pushed in a wheelchair, in a hospital gown, under the influence of a morphine drip, because the Tories refused to allow her to be nodded through.

The other is pairing, which exists so that people don't need to be nodded through. The principle here is that if one Whip is missing a member for an important reason, the opposing Whip will instruct one of their own members not to vote. The principle is particularly important in the UK as a parliamentary democracy, because otherwise the busy schedules of ministers, who are also MPs, would make it very hard for the government to win votes - or else all government business would have to be conducted within running distance of the division lobby, which would make international diplomacy difficult. And pairing is in the news because in one of the brexit votes a Lib Dem, Jo Swinson, who is heavily pregnant, was paired with a Tory, so that she didn't have to come to vote... and the Tory voted anyway.

[Swinson was actually already past her due date, but forced to vote in person in the same vote where Labour had their MP in her wheelchair. In the SAME vote, another Labour MP voted while eight months pregnant - and had to be taken away in a wheelchair. Some have suggested that the collapse of pairing and of nodding through is systematically unfair - given that Tories are usually not women, so don't have to worry about issues like pregnancy. But then on the other hand Tories tend to be very old, so maybe it balances out...]

It seems a minor thing, but pairing is essential to the business of parliament. Most famously, pairing collapsed in the Callaghan government in the 1970s - originally so that the government could win a narrow vote (as here) (resulting in an opposition MP picking up the Mace and attempting to attack the government benches). But it caused chaos, as it meant the balance of power depended on who had the fewest ill or absent MPs. In one case, the UK emissary to China reached China, walked down the aeroplane steps... and then walked back up them again and flew back to the UK because she was needed for an urgent vote. In the end, pairing directly destroyed Callaghan's government: in the final no-confidence vote, the Tories refused to pair. That left Labour anxiously debating whether to call in the vote of Sir Alfred Broughton - Broughton was terminally ill, recovering from his latest heart attack, his ill health having been wrecked to breaking point by repeatedly having been brought from his hospital bed to save the government. But on this occasion, the Prime Minister intervened, reasoning that it seemed wrong to summon broughton when his doctors were warning he would likely die in the ambulance en route. Thus, the government fell. Broughton died five days later.
[In fact, it was one of the most honourable governmental collapses, as it could have been saved in another way. The Tory Whip had personally promised to restore pairing - but for this vote, his party rebelled against him, desperate to take down Callaghan, and he couldn't find any MPs willing to abstain. Nor would his leader, Thatcher, support him. In order to vindicate his personal honour, he offered the Labour Whip to abstain himself. The Labour Whip, however, realised that if the Tory Whip, against the will of his party leader, his party, and by that point the people of the country, kept a Labour government in power by abstaining, no matter how honourably, his career would instantly be over. The Labour Whip didn't believe his enemy deserved to have his career ended for the sake of honour, particularly when he knew Callaghan was doomed sooner or later anyway, so personally asked the Tory Whip not to pair up with Broughton. As a result, the government fell due a Prime Minister's mercy, and a gentleman's agreement. Two things rarely seen in modern politics]

Anyway, as in 1976, and again in 1996, this time the government has promised that the "mistake" was a one-off and won't be repeated. Perhaps it won't be. But with a minority government living from day to day, the temptation must surely be great. History suggests the short-term rewards aren't worth it...

If you want to see pairing in action, by the way, there's quite a good play about pairing in the Callaghan government called This House. it's not 100% accurate, but it's more true than not. (it's a dramatisation, rather than a fiction).


Oh, and the other thing: Lib Dem leader Vince Cable missed a vote because.... he was in secret talks. He has since clarified that these were NOT secret talks to form a new Progressive Centre party to unite the anti-Brexit vote. But it is important to co-ordinate efforts, apparently. A recent poll suggests such a party would immediately have the votes of 30% of the public. Of course, more than 30% of the public said they'd vote Lib Dem in 2010, so fuck the public.







*N.B. I'm now paralyzed, because both "lots has" and and "lots have" now seem ungrammatical to me...

[Ares Land]

Hey, it's good to see you here!

To enforce this, the Prime Minister had another cunning plan: calling all her ministers to Chequers, her house in the country (think: Camp David, but mediaeval), and demanded that they all agree to her plan.

Why was this cunning? Well, she made clear that anyone who didn't agree needed to resign. And anyone who resigned would be a minister. And anyone who wasn't a minister would not have access to their ministerial phone, or their ministerial car.

Why? Because Chequers is in the middle of nowhere (by English standards), and this would mean that any minister who disagreed with the prime minister would be kicked out of the door and forced to walk a couple of miles to the nearest train station. The PM even went to the effort of removing information about local cabs from the building. This brilliant wheeze meant that the entire Cabinet agreed unanimously to support th new Chequers Plan to the hilt.

Please forgive my incredulity, but is this is something that really could've happened? I mean, would May have gone through with her threats if a minister had dared to disagree?

[Salmoneus]

Hey, it's good to see you here!

To enforce this, the Prime Minister had another cunning plan: calling all her ministers to Chequers, her house in the country (think: Camp David, but mediaeval), and demanded that they all agree to her plan.

Why was this cunning? Well, she made clear that anyone who didn't agree needed to resign. And anyone who resigned would be a minister. And anyone who wasn't a minister would not have access to their ministerial phone, or their ministerial car.

Why? Because Chequers is in the middle of nowhere (by English standards), and this would mean that any minister who disagreed with the prime minister would be kicked out of the door and forced to walk a couple of miles to the nearest train station. The PM even went to the effort of removing information about local cabs from the building. This brilliant wheeze meant that the entire Cabinet agreed unanimously to support th new Chequers Plan to the hilt.

Please forgive my incredulity, but is this is something that really could've happened? I mean, would May have gone through with her threats if a minister had dared to disagree?

Well, it's Theresa May, so I assume she'd have folded in a heartbeat...

But seriously, that's a good question. It was probably one of those things said "as a joke", that might also be serious. Because she would have been perfectly within her rights.

What would have happened? If i had to guess...

- she'd have demanded they resign on the spot. Perfectly within her rights, if they openly defy her.
- they would have lost their ministerial phones, laptops, cars, and papers, pretty much instantly. That's how it works - when you're out, you're out. C.f. Boris going a couple of days later, where they were carting his stuff out while he sat there, before he'd even said anything publically.*
- she probably wouldn't have officially forced them to walk home. But it's quite possible that she'd have said to talk to her chief of staff about finding alternative transport, and then her chief of staff would 'forget' to talk to them. And, for instance, there WAS apparently some info in the hallway about a local cab company... but "accidentally" it was about five years out of date.
- probably in the end they'd have begged a phone or a lift or something and not actually walked.

But don't underestimate how petty and visceral british politics can get. PMs, remember, have no independent source of power - they survive only by terrorising their MPs. I don't know if I believe that they'd have had to walk. I do believe they were TOLD they would have to walk, and I do believe that at least some of them were not sure that that wasn't true...


*of course, the same thing happens to PMs too, in one of our quaint and symbolic little humiliations. General elections are counted over night, and it's often not clear who won until the not-that-early hours of the morning. But when morning comes, the new PM addresses the nation from Downing Street. This means it can be a quick turnover. At 2am, you're the PM. At 4am you're literally packing your bags. There's a little leeway because the new PM has to talk to the Queen, so it can't happen TOO early in the morning. But when you see the shots of the new PM at the front door of No. 10? What they don't let them film is the back door, where the old PM's last possessions are being bundled into a white removals van that's been standing by. Sometimes PMs have entire families - them, their wife, multiple kids, they may have been living there for years, and by the time the new PM walks in the front door their predecessor's entire life has been erased from the building as though it never existed...

[zompist]

You might enjoy Charlie Stross's predictions on what will happen in the likely case of a no-deal Brexit. Spoilers: nothing good.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... .html#more

There's also an article on May in this week's New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... ble-choice

[alice]

... and the new ZBB is complete. Welcome, Sal! What kind of deal-or-no-deal do you think will eventually be struck, to the extent that it's in any way predictable?

[Salmoneus]

You might enjoy Charlie Stross's predictions on what will happen in the likely case of a no-deal Brexit. Spoilers: nothing good.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... .html#more

There's also an article on May in this week's New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... ble-choice

The New Yorker article's great, thanks! - if rather in search of an actual ending... the Stross piece is a bit hysterical, although sadly not as much as many people would think.



Alice: unfortunately, it'll be No Deal.

Ultimately, we have only three options. Close alliance with the EU (customs union, etc); no real alliance but a few extras thrown in, a transitional arrangement and hope of a trade deal; or no deal.

We can't have the first option, because May doesn't have a majority for it in her own party. If we end up on that course, she'll be sacked - the Brexiteers are letting her hang herself for now because nobody else wants the job, but if the alternative is soft Brexit then they'll have to take action. Their own fanaticism aside, they know fine well that they can't just go back to their Leave voters and say "we're Leaving! we're going to keep all the things you don't like, but now we're not even going to have a say in deciding them!". So that option's off the table.

We can't have the second option, because May doesn't have a majority for it in Parliament. We can bicker as much as we want as to whether Parliament will or won't 'get a say', but Parliament is sovereign, and Parliament will have a say if it really wants one. Maybe - maybe - she can quiet her own soft Brexit rebels once it's clear that the alternative is No Deal. But it'll be hard to persuade Labour and the SNP and the Lib Dems and so on to vote for a deal they're all sure is terrible. They barely kept Parliament from insisting on the customs union - give them, not a positive vote for something, but a vote on whether they think hard brexit is a bad idea or not and it'll be really hard to get them on side. And they won't be able to rely on the DUP, because hard brexit will devastate northern ireland and they know it. Plus, no matter how hard the brexit, some Tories will want it harder.

If nothing else, nobody actually has to vote on Brexit. If the DUP or a handful of soft Brexit rebels abandon her in the next six months, it'll be Prime Minister Corbyn (or the winner of fresh elections) making the final decision, not May, and there'll be an entirely different deal on the table.

And even if she CAN find a majority for hard brexit - or at least doesn't hit a big enough opposition for parliament to force a vote on it - when is that meant to happen? It's the end of July. We'll have August off. The deal has to be made by the end of October. The last six months, the Brexit Secretary carried out approximately 4 hours of negotiations with the EU. And we're meant to get all of that sorted in two months, from a standing start? The EU will say it can't all be negotiated in such a short period of time. May will say it's OK, we'll just set up a transitional period. The EU will probably say no to that, and the Brexiteers will certainly say no to that.

OK, hard brexit IS possible, I've talked myself into it. It is possible that:
- we complete accelerated negotiations in the next couple of months
- EU institutions all agree to hard brexit
- May survives as Prime Minister
- May uses the threat of No Deal to force liberals to vote for hard brexit.
- May doesn't in the process get brexiteers salivating for No Deal.

So, hard but consensual brexit is possible. But it's a really fine line that May's got to walk, and there's little reason so far to think she'd be capable of it.

Which means the most likely option is No Deal. No Deal, crucially, is somewhat worse economically than hard-but-consensual, but much better politically. In hard brexit, everything that goes wrong from then until eternity will be the fault of the Tory government for stabbing the country in the back one way or another. In an outright, no-agreement No Deal brexit, everything that goes wrong from then until eternity will be the fault of the evil EU for stabbing the country in the back by refusing, from shear hatred and imperialism, to accept the Brexiteer's perfectly reasonable demands. The political calculus very much pushes the Tories toward refusing to make a deal and blaming the EU for it. So that's what will happen. [the only reason there's a chance of that not happening is that May knows she's gone in April anyway*, so she may as well put the country first.]


*caveat: if the Tories know they're going to lose the next election, they may keep May on as a doomed figurehead until then, so that she can take all the blame when they fail. But it's hard to see them doing that for an entire year.

[zompist]

In your analysis, what's the difference between Hard Brexit and No Deal, besides having a piece of paper to sign? You said "some extras", but what are those?

Also, if I understand you, soft Brexit is dead. But May hasn't officially admitted that, has she? Has the government tossed the Chequers document or said it would be reworked?

[Salmoneus]

Well, the EU is a vast raft of agreements, many of which we really need. A No Deal would mean at least temporarily exiting those agreements (unless the EU blinks first) and perhaps then being able to renegotiate some of them afterwards.

A hard brexit may take us out of the core political and economic framework, while retaining our membership of a bunch of smaller agreements.

So, 'extras' might include things like retaining our nuclear inspections co-operation (otherwise we'll be a rogue state until we negotiate directly with the UN), or retaining our co-operation over airways, airports and aeroplane safety inspections (otherwise at best our airlines will lose slots to other non-EU companies, and at worst we'll be totally shut out of EU airspace, at least until new deals are arranged (which will involve paying a lot of money)). Or food standards accreditation co-operation - otherwise, we can't export beef to the EU*. Or our extensive police and intelligence co-operation. Or various forms of professional co-accreditation, or even just driving license recognition. Or the various arcane rules on international private financial transfers, which apparently mean that at the moment, expats living in the EU won't be able to receive their UK pensions, and people with EU pension plans in the UK won't be able to contribute to them any more. There's literally dozens of these little issues.

There are also things we'd like to negotiate individually with EU countries, which it would be great if we could get included in a Brexit deal, rather than having to wait and re-negotiate from outside. The Irish border, for instance - some improvement might be made if we could agree with Ireland to cite border posts at rational places, including potentially in NI or in Ireland, rather than having hundreds of them, on every single crossing. [one main road crosses many times, so it would be great if we could agree to just have one border post on it!]. [the government insists there won't be ANY border posts, but...]. Or the French border. The French currently do us a favour (and/or fulfill their moral obligations to their moral superior, depending on how right-wing you are) by hosting UK immigration facilities in France: basically, illegal immigrants (including asylum seekers - if they're already in france, it's illegal to try to claim asylum in the UK under the first-safe-haven rule) are prevented from getting onto trains and boats at Calais, and held in camps in France. The French really want to stop doing this - which would mean UK border police would have to make sure they removed the immigrants from the boats and trains in Dover/Folkestone, which is much harder, and would mean cataclysmic tailbacks across the whole of south-east england**. It would be great if we could pay the French off somehow as part of Brexit, rather than going through chaos for a few years as we negotiate separately.

And the big thing? Transition. Under a hard brexit, we could transition over time - not a lot of time, just a couple of years, but it's better than a sudden cliff-edge departure, which probably would (i.e. will) see civilisation collapse.


*we'd probably quite like to stay in a food-trade deal with the EU if at all possible. If EU products have to compete in an open market on price, there's a huge fear that they'll be surreptitiously replaced by US "food". Which is a terrifying prospect that's caused a lot of unrest here.

**we're already right on the edge. Every so often, traffic through Dover gets so intense that the government implements 'Operation Stack', which means turning the motorways into surplus parking for Dover. The last couple of days, due to systems damage in the heatwave, there have been six-hour queues for the channel tunnel. An increase of transit time through the port of just two minutes is predicted to lead to twenty-mile stationary traffic queues throughout the southeast. If every lorry gets searched by immigration police, passports are checked, heavily-laden vehicles are assessed for customs liability and so on, we'll be talking essentially the end of rapid travel anywhere in the most affluent part of the UK.

[Frislander]

So, after a year and a half, it was decided that this would be our negotiating position for the remaining six months of negotiations - a negotiating position everyone in the UK could agree to. To enforce this, the Prime Minister had another cunning plan: calling all her ministers to Chequers, her house in the country (think: Camp David, but mediaeval), and demanded that they all agree to her plan.

Why was this cunning? Well, she made clear that anyone who didn't agree needed to resign. And anyone who resigned would be a minister. And anyone who wasn't a minister would not have access to their ministerial phone, or their ministerial car.

Why? Because Chequers is in the middle of nowhere (by English standards), and this would mean that any minister who disagreed with the prime minister would be kicked out of the door and forced to walk a couple of miles to the nearest train station. The PM even went to the effort of removing information about local cabs from the building. This brilliant wheeze meant that the entire Cabinet agreed unanimously to support th new Chequers Plan to the hilt.

It rather somewhat reminds me of this Spitting Image sketch (which of course has a completely different context politically, but still "the opposite of 'unanimous' is 'fired'" is probably the best summation of current British politics anyone's come up with). In fact Spitting Image in general is chock a block with sketches with frightening contemporary relevance to modern British politics.

One is that the government cheated. How? Well, to recap, MPs (if a voice vote isn't decisive) vote by division: those who want to vote 'aye' walk into one lobby (a small room at the entrance to the House - originally, as in most buildings, there was only one lobby, and the contest was between those in the chamber and those in the lobby, but when parliament was rebuilt in the 19th century they added a second lobby to support the cause of progressives (previously, anyone who didn't care enough to stand up was voted as 'nay', generally the side opposing new legislation)) and those who want to vote 'nay' walk into another. This makes voting a very physical process: historically, party leaders would physically push MPs into the right lobby, or even resort, it's said, to whipping them. These days the Whip is symbolic, but the whips will stand at the doors of the lobby and praise those who vote correctly, and harangue those headed for the wrong door. Meanwhile, non-MPs would traditionally wait in and around the lobby, enticing MPs to vote the way they wanted - in the 1770s it was discovered that at least one of these lobbyists was actually getting his vote counted by surreptitiously hanging around in the lobby as the MPs were being counted, and it became tradition to make sure the lobbies were empty and locked to outsiders before the vote occured. Meanwhile, a division bell is sounded throughout Parliament, and in a selection of popular nearby hotels, pubs and restaurants, to make sure everyone knows there's a vote going on.

But the problem with this form of physical voting is that... well, it's very physical. It's hard to fit into the lobbies, and a degree of fitness is required. Therefore, two traditions have developed.

One is nodding through. This is a rule saying that a Whip can vote for one of their MPs if that MP is both alive, and present in Parliament - that is, they don't actually have to make it to the division lobby if they're not fit enough. [This has sometimes caused dispute: an unconscious Labour MP voted in the 1980s while strapped to a hospital trolley; the Tory Whip suspected he was actually dead, but the Labour Whip demonstrated that there was a heartbeat by turning on the heart monitor...]. Nodding through is in the news because last month a Labour MP had to vote in the division lobby, pushed in a wheelchair, in a hospital gown, under the influence of a morphine drip, because the Tories refused to allow her to be nodded through.

The other is pairing, which exists so that people don't need to be nodded through. The principle here is that if one Whip is missing a member for an important reason, the opposing Whip will instruct one of their own members not to vote. The principle is particularly important in the UK as a parliamentary democracy, because otherwise the busy schedules of ministers, who are also MPs, would make it very hard for the government to win votes - or else all government business would have to be conducted within running distance of the division lobby, which would make international diplomacy difficult. And pairing is in the news because in one of the brexit votes a Lib Dem, Jo Swinson, who is heavily pregnant, was paired with a Tory, so that she didn't have to come to vote... and the Tory voted anyway.

[Swinson was actually already past her due date, but forced to vote in person in the same vote where Labour had their MP in her wheelchair. In the SAME vote, another Labour MP voted while eight months pregnant - and had to be taken away in a wheelchair. Some have suggested that the collapse of pairing and of nodding through is systematically unfair - given that Tories are usually not women, so don't have to worry about issues like pregnancy. But then on the other hand Tories tend to be very old, so maybe it balances out...]

Oh fuck, so that's what pairing is, now I understand the controversy (also fuck the Tories).

And yeah, the lobby system is even more flawed that I had first thought. Though tbf it is arguably harder to cheat with than a system of buttons built into desks like in American legislatures where people can press your button for you if you're not there when the vote happens (which highlights the need for a division-bell system).

[alynnidalar]

Though tbf it is arguably harder to cheat with than a system of buttons built into desks like in American legislatures where people can press your button for you if you're not there when the vote happens (which highlights the need for a division-bell system).

That's not how it works. There are a number of voting machines in the House chamber that any representative can use. They each have a card that they insert into one of the machines to identify the vote as their own. (and they don't have to use the machines if they don't want to) So you can't just register a vote for someone else unless you have their card. (and it seems that fraud is pretty rare--looking at page 93 in this document [page 100 of the PDF], it only has two times that voting on behalf of someone who wasn't present was formally investigated since 1973)

Furthermore, that's only one voting method used in Congress (and the Senate doesn't use it at all). The others are:

• voice votes - the most common, where members call out "yea" or "nay" and individual votes aren't recorded. Used for stuff where one side noticeably outnumbers the other.
• division votes - the least common, can be called by any member after a voice vote if they're unsure of the outcome. Members physically rise for Yea and Nay (not sure if there's an allowance for members not physically able to stand). Also doesn't record individual votes.
• roll call votes by name - only used in the Senate. Each senator's name is called and they give their vote.

[mèþru]

Frislander is thinking of a system that some state legislatures use.

[mèþru]

Oh come on Hunt! You failed a test so simple that no one even thought it would be a test.

[Frislander]

Oh come on Hunt! You failed a test so simple that no one even thought it would be a test.

Bloody hell that was a fuck-up and a half, but hey at least it's an actual slip of the tongue in a way, not a bare-faced lie like all the times he claimed the government was investing in and cared about the NHS while at the same time intentionally doing it over in the hoes it would eventually be privatised.

[Linguoboy]

Oh come on Hunt! You failed a test so simple that no one even thought it would be a test.

Bloody hell that was a fuck-up and a half, but hey at least it's an actual slip of the tongue in a way, not a bare-faced lie like all the times he claimed the government was investing in and cared about the NHS while at the same time intentionally doing it over in the hoes it would eventually be privatised.

Yeah, the Grauniad immediately made comparisons to some of BoJo's more infamous lines, but those were insulting things he actually meant to say.

Apropos of which: Are you taking requests, Sal? And, if so, can you explain this mishegoss with Labour rewriting the standards on precisely how insulting you're allowed to be to Jews?

[alice]

Apropos of which: Are you taking requests, Sal? And, if so, can you explain this mishegoss with Labour rewriting the standards on precisely how insulting you're allowed to be to Jews?

Sal will no doubt go into much more detail, but in summary the Labour Party is torn between trying not to offend its large Jewish contingent (because votes) and catering to the not insignificant portion of its membership which wants a free Palestine (because Zionism). It's not unlike the PM trying to keep both the Remain and Leave wings of Conservative Party happy.

[Salmoneus]

The amusing thing in this case is that Labour doesn't actually care about Jews - they're an absolutely tiny share of the voting population anyway, and they all vote Tory anyway. [they don't, obviously. But 83% of them do. 14% vote Labour. This isn't a recent thing.] Indeed, while I don't think the politicians are actually thinking this, the antisemitism dispute is probably gaining them FAR more votes among nationalist whites (who have been flirting with the tories) and muslims (who do make up a very important part of their base) than it's costing them among Jews and liberals. But they just keep getting stung on it. It's like watching a confused bear trying to defend itself against a mosquito.

I think what lb is referring to specifically is the outrage over the antisemitism definition. Labour had been pressed to adopt an official definition of antisemitism, so that it could ban it. It did so, taking the definition, word for word, in full, used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association. However, the IHRA give examples of actions that "could be" antisemitic, and Labour give a slightly different list of actions that "are likely to be" antisemitic. This has been regarded as "institutionally anti-semitic", as Labour have no right to define anti-semitism, and the IHRA definition is "the only" definition (that's a quote from an anti-Corbyn Labour figure). As a result, leading Jewish newspapers in the UK united to run a shared front page condemning Labour as "an existential threat" to "Jewish life".

The specific differences are:
- the IHRA say it "may be antisemitic" to accuse a Jew of being more loyal to other Jews than to their own nationality. In contrast, Labour say is "is wrong" to do so;
- the IHRA say it may be antisemitic to hold Israel to a higher moral or legal standard than other countries; whereas Labour say that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel's actions so long as they are only being held to the same standard as other countries.
- the IHRA say it may be antisemitic to compare any Israeli policy to any policy carried out by the Nazis. Labour say that it is best to avoid mention of the Nazis when discussing Israel, as it is likely to offend, but they also say that comparisons to the Nazis (or any other historical state) are only antisemitic when they have an antisemitic intent, and that such comparisons may not always be antisemitic if they occur in other (eg. academic) contexts.
- the IHRA says it may be antisemitic to suggest that 'the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour'. Labour don't say that that wouldn't be antisemitic, but they don't specifically outlaw accusations of racism against Israel. Indeed, controversially, they specify that it is not inherently antisemitic to discuss the impact of Israeli policies on people of different races and religions in Israel. What's more, while they affirm that Israelis have the same right of self-determination as any other nation, it is not antisemitic to discuss the nature of the right to self-determination itself, its extent and consequences, and that it is not inherently antisemitic to discuss specific aspects of the process of the creation of the state of Israel.

In addition, Labour say that the term "Zionist" should only be used with great care, and must never be used as a 'code word' for 'Jew', but should only be used when discussing specific Israeli government policies - i.e. they fail to state that the word "Zionist" is inherently antisemitic.

(The Labour version, on the other hand, adds some examples of forms of antisemitism that are not in the IHRA document, and strengthens some other guidelines relative to the IHRA version).

---

Now, the IHRA definition has itself been widely criticised by academic, and has been condemned by Liberty. But the interesting thing here is the reason why Labour didn't - and probably can't - just accept all their examples without comment: Jews. Going back to the beginning here: 83% of Jews are Tories, because the Tories are the pro-Israel party (and, at risk of being antisemitic here, the modern Jewish community in the UK tends to be relatively wealthy, so they're demographically in the Tory catchment area anyway), but the 14% who are Labour tend to be vociferously anti-Israeli. Even just accepting the IHRA definition and most of their examples lead to outrage from the left-wing Jewish community, who apparently feel that the pro-Israeli majority is attempting to define support for Israel as an inherent part of being Jewish. In addition, the Jewish wing of Labour tends to be on the left-wing of the party, so they're natural Corbyn supporters. In turn, openly associating with The Wrong Sort of Jew in this way has itself lead to accusations of anti-semitism, as it's offensive to "mainstream" Jews (and, to be fair, alongside the academics and other liberals, some left-wing Jews can be a bit weird and extreme).


Ultimately, though, the debate actually has very little to do with Judaism or antisemitism: it's in the papers because the Blairites have latched onto it as the only remaining flank from which they can attack Corbyn, so MP after MP with no previous noticeable interest in intercommunity relations has attacked Corbyn. The Tory-controlled papers have helped out by digging up a handful of weird old Labour candidates who once said something stupid. It also links in to a deeper dispute in the party - the Blairite neocons can use this as a reason why Labour as a party has to distance itself from poor people, trade unions, academics, intellectuals and other suspiciously non-conservative people.


MEANWHILE! Although the campaign is working, in the sense that surveys show Jews now overwhelmingly see the Tory party as the least antisemitic (because it's the most overtly pro-Israel), the picture is slightly complicated by the fact that what might be considered 'traditional' antisemitism - things like harrassment, assault, hatred of Jews, holding negative opinions of Jews, believing conspiracy theories about Jews, etc, are overwhelmingly more common among Tory and UKIP supporters than among Labour supporters.


----

So in short, I'd say: what's going on is an overlap of three different conflicts: Labour-Tory (including the Tory press), an internal left-right battle within Labour, and an internal pro-/anti-Israel battle within UK Judaism.

You can read a more indepth analysis of the differences between the documents at, for example, https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brian- ... -two-texts. It is, I should warn you, arguably antisemitic (in that it's not anti-Corbyn; it is, however, written by a Jewish academic who's an expert on the history of antisemitism). It's also probably a waste of time reading it, since nobody on either side of the public debate seems to have actually read the documents in question anyway...

[Raphael]

The amusing thing in this case is that Labour doesn't actually care about Jews -

Being bigoted against people doesn't require seeing oneself as caring about them either way.

they're an absolutely tiny share of the voting population anyway, and they all vote Tory anyway. [they don't, obviously. But 83% of them do. 14% vote Labour. This isn't a recent thing.]

And your evidence for that is...? Ok, I have no problem believing the 83/14 ratio for the 2017 election, when Labour was already run by St. Jeremy, but what's your evidence for the "This isn't a recent thing" part?

But the interesting thing here is the reason why Labour didn't - and probably can't - just accept all their examples without comment: Jews. Going back to the beginning here: 83% of Jews are Tories, because the Tories are the pro-Israel party (and, at risk of being antisemitic here, the modern Jewish community in the UK tends to be relatively wealthy, so they're demographically in the Tory catchment area anyway), but the 14% who are Labour tend to be vociferously anti-Israeli. Even just accepting the IHRA definition and most of their examples lead to outrage from the left-wing Jewish community, who apparently feel that the pro-Israeli majority is attempting to define support for Israel as an inherent part of being Jewish. In addition, the Jewish wing of Labour tends to be on the left-wing of the party, so they're natural Corbyn supporters. In turn, openly associating with The Wrong Sort of Jew in this way has itself lead to accusations of anti-semitism, as it's offensive to "mainstream" Jews (and, to be fair, alongside the academics and other liberals, some left-wing Jews can be a bit weird and extreme).

You basically claim that Jews in the UK can be divided into a large evil Tory majority, and a decidedly pro-St. Jeremy good Labour minority. Now tell me, Sal: how does the existence of many Jewish Labour members who either condemned St. Jeremy, or directly left the party, fit into this picture you're painting?

Ultimately, though, the debate actually has very little to do with Judaism or antisemitism: it's in the papers because the Blairites have latched onto it as the only remaining flank from which they can attack Corbyn, so MP after MP with no previous noticeable interest in intercommunity relations has attacked Corbyn. The Tory-controlled papers have helped out by digging up a handful of weird old Labour candidates who once said something stupid. It also links in to a deeper dispute in the party - the Blairite neocons can use this as a reason why Labour as a party has to distance itself from poor people, trade unions, academics, intellectuals and other suspiciously non-conservative people.

Oh, suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, Sal. Yeah right. Keep telling yourself that. Those stupid minority people complaining about bigotry against them are all hysterical, and it's all just a rightward deviationist plot to smear Glorious Leader! But, umh, again, do you have any evidence for your claims?

[Vijay]

Uh-oh.

[KathTheDragon]

A quick googling found this:

Amongst Jews, a strong majority expressed support for the Conservative Party (63%), with around a quarter (26%) saying they voted for Labour. This builds on the plurality support for the Conservative Party shown by Jewish voters at the 2005-2015 general elections.

(Source)

[Raphael]

Thank you. Still less extreme than Sal's 83/14 ratio though. Perhaps he got his numbers from a more current source, which already shows the effects of the recent crisis?