Rayvin

This is fucking ridiculous and should be stamped on quickly. Today should be all about Johnson and this bullshit with Watson is a total distraction anyway.

Emergency government of national unity or whatever they call it? I mean he'll try to demand a GE but I doubt he'll get it.

I agree - Labour's current stance is actually what the membership wanted them to do the previous year, and had they done it, the LD resurgence wouldn't have happened. But what is your concern here? It sounds like you're concerned about Labour's electoral prospects, but since we're talking about them losing out to the LDs, it doesn't harm remain. Which has been my central point for two pages. Labour's position does still leave the door open for soft leavers - and apparently they have 52% of 2017 Labour Leavers to play for. They're the only group in the remain + labour voter base that can be 'lost' from a remain standpoint.

Farage is such a fucking charlatan

Farage has called for Cummings to quit calling proroguation the worst decision ever Political Mastermind.

Whether through incompetence or strategy, they made the right decision. And I'm sticking to that until someone comes along and actually points out how competing with the Lib Dems for remain voters does anything to strengthen the chances of a remain parliament.

The situation in a wider sense isn't, but watching Johnson hauled over hot coals for all of his sins is rather enjoyable. He's a remainer who switched sides for political advantage. I have no doubt in my mind that we're here because of the Tories, and in light of the fact that I may have to stomach Brexit, I'm going to enjoy watching them self destruct in the meantime.

Corbyn has already started failing to capitalise on this IMO by having the weakest statement imaginable in response to it. "Johnson should consider his position". I think he could have done with a bit more passion in that one. I share everyone's certainty that he will fail to make this stick.

It's the Tories who stopped us leaving in March, not everyone else. The diehard Leavers, in fact. Remember, May had a majority back then, the opposition votes were meaningless if she could command the full support of her party. But yes, the limbo isn't helpful - and I'd put a second vote before any and all other considerations.

The country will be fine - the journalists will get excited about it but some semblance of normality will have returned by tomorrow and we'll get back to fighting over Brexit again. Boris has already said he won't resign, I don't see anything hugely damaging taking place from Parliament agreeing to sit again.

Ah come on man, the drama is enjoyable. Politics has never been this engaging in living memory. It's like a soap opera - lies, cheating, breaking the law, expulsions, betrayals, Johnson battering his partner - all we need now is for some kind of forbidden 'cross the aisle' love affair between JRM and Thornberry and it'd have everything

Apparently it's up to Bercow what happens next. So yeah, I think we can assume Parliament is coming back. The UK is just hilarious at the moment

Why is the BBC reporting that this is just the first part of the case? What else will follow?

It sounded to me like they would just prorogue again.

I wasn't especially impressed with his handling of the stop and search nonsense from a couple of years back. Although I suppose in the end I begrudgingly admitted to myself that holding his hands up on it was a positive. Also, I know it's his job but he talks about London as if it's entirely separate to the rest of the UK, and I find it tedious and unnecessarily divisive.

I mean, they'll ignore it and carry on as before - what else

I struggle with Sadiq Kahn a bit but sounds like he handled himself well here.

Fair enough, I'm just saying that the vote's outcome, if all options are clearly specified beforehand, must be honoured. As an aside - YouGov carried out a useful poll: Labour pro-remain campaigners are flagging up some figures from a poll conducted for the People’s Vote campaign. It found that 72% of Labour leave voters said they would definitely not vote Conservative, and 48% said they would definitely not vote for the Brexit party. But only 14% of Labour remain voters said they would definitely not vote Lib Dems. Labour remainers think this shows that the fear of Labour losing millions of voters to leave parties is exaggerated; they claim the real risk is from Labour losing remain votes to the Lib Dems and the Greens. I think it's irrelevant to look at the 72% figure for the Tories since the BP are Tory-lite, so let's say that just over half of Labour Leave voters would consider switching to a Leave Party. Ok, so the numbers on the Remain side are far more damaging to Labour itself, as we all acknowledge. But from the standpoint of getting a referendum, if we can pull some of that 52% of Labour Leave Voters who would be tempted to vote for Farage, back into voting for Labour, it's a victory. On the other hand, it's strangely selfless of Labour to be doing this...

If it's another leave victory on a specific set of terms then IMO it has to be enforced. There is no legitimacy in undermining a democratic outcome with a clear direction. The mandate for action would be there, and even if it was no deal, at least it would have been a clear vote. I don't see how anyone can oppose that really. Plenty may leave the country though.

But what are you saying, that the EU will deliberately undermine the negotiation to force a Remain vote? That seems unlikely to me since, if they do that, there's still a chance that Labour's deal will 1 - win a referendum and 2 - fail to get through Parliament. This is exactly what Cameron should have done before the original vote. Nail down the terms of what leaving means and put it to the people. But again, how does this -actually- hurt the idea of getting a remain outcome? What you've described about it being incoherent surely only hurts Labour in the eyes of Remainers. Who are going to vote for a Remain party anyway.

Good for them. I don't think anyone in here was particularly excited about them having committed crimes or not anyway - it's not like bring found guilty would change anything, as we will see in 30 mins from the government.

But how is Labour's stance bad for remaining? It isn't. Honestly, it's better than coming out for remain. I don't believe this idea that no one, in a country of people who bought Brexit, will buy Labours neutrality. It will be worth some votes.

Yeah, it's almost as if the party in government should mitigate the damage by getting a "least damaging Brexit deal" option to stand against remain in a referendum, thus giving the people a reasonably safe and informed democratic exercise which can be used to resolve this matter once and for all. Its actually a real shame it's Labour who are doing that since if any other party did it the media would be talking about it as if it was the most sensible thing anyone anywhere had ever proposed. Because it's Labour the whole strategy is being consumed by rabid anti-Corbynism. I've been paying attention to Swinson over the past few days for the first time and am not sold on her at all. I don't like throwing around labels about people being closet Tories but fucking hell. Were the Lib Dems always like this or is it new? I'm wondering if i just never really noticed - I always had them as soft left.

Sure, but for all the hand wringing over Labour's position I'm yet to hear anyone tell me why it is actually a bad thing other than emotional hysteria, at least in terms of remaining in the EU. I mean sure, if you want an outright Labour government it's very dubious that the current position will enable that, but does anyone getting worked up about that care very much on this front? And surely any variant of Mays deal kills FOM. I can't support it on that basis alone. Even taking my personal feelings out of it, if we lose FOM then we also lose Scotland. And probably NI.

The Daily Mail was rubbing its hands with glee for the chance to openly call Labour a Remain party yesterday. Also I suspect the opportunity to make Corbyn look weak. I don't understand this knee jerk hysteria from the media. I mean i know that's a fairly standard position for me but they're off the deep end this time, at least the ones who want to remain. I can see why the right wing press would make a big fuss about this. I suspect there is a large enough chunk of society that is not enthusiastically supporting Leave or Remain, to whom Labour's middle ground position might appeal, for this to be a worthwhile gamble. Any remain voters will go for Labour in their usual seats anyway because we still get a second referendum. All yesterday confirms is that they won't fight an election with the LDs as their primary opponents.