The future of the EU and the UK, post-Brexit

The latest vote by Tory MP happened today. Here are the results

1. BORIS JOHNSON - 126 (last ballot: 114) - up 12
2. JEREMY HUNT - 46 (last ballot: 43) - up 3
3. MICHAEL GOVE - 41 (last ballot: 37) - up 4
4. RORY STEWART - 37 (last ballot: 19) - up 8
5. SAJID JAVID - 33 (last ballot: 23) - 10
6. DOMINIC RAAB - 30 (last ballot: 27) - up 3 - OUT

So, what happens next? There are supposed to be successive votes tomorrow and Thursday, until only two candidates remain. Last I saw, there was one vote scheduled for each day. But at this rate, they will need three more votes rather than just two, unless somebody withdraws, which certainly could happen.

If another one of the candidates was to accumulate 105 votes, it would effectively make them the presumptive alternative to Boris Johnson in the final vote at the end of July. However, as you can see, the four candidates remaining (aside from Boris Johnson) are within 13 votes of each other, and none of them are really all that close to having the required 105 votes. So the competition for the second place spot appears to still be rather wide open.

 

And then there were four.

FULL RESULTS OF TONIGHT’S BALLOT

1. BORIS JOHNSON - 143
2. JEREMY HUNT - 54
3. MICHAEL GOVE - 51
4. SAJID JAVID - 38
5. RORY STEWART - 27 - (OUT)

There will be two votes tomorrow, if necessary. Unless someone withdraws, then one vote could get it done.

In any case, it appears that the Hunt, Gove and Javid are competing to face Johnson in the final at the end of July.

 

Votes in full

• Boris Johnson - 157 votes
• Michael Gove - 61 votes
• Jeremy Hunt - 59 votes
• Sajid Javid - 34 votes (OUT)

By two votes Gove won the latest elimination vote over Hunt. This is for all purposes a jump ball for the last spot, with one last vote later today.

Forget about Johnson. He is a virtual lock to move on to the final contest in July. This is now a political knife fight between Gove and Hunt. Javid's 34 supporters will now have to pick one of these other three candidates. Surely Gove and Hunt will be pulling out all of the stops to make sure they are the winner over the other.

Whoever wins between those two, this will be a rivalry worth watching in the years to come.

The final vote will be in a few hours.

 

So Hunt beats Gove to take the final spot in the final against Johnson. There has been some discussion of Boris Johnson's team asking some of his supporters to support Hunt in order to undermine Gove. There is no record of who voted for who, so there is no way to know for sure. But considering the small number of votes that Johnson gained from Javid's supporters, it does look like that may have happened.

Johnson and Hunt make final ballot, as Gove loses out by just two votes

Cheryl Gillan, the joint acting chair of the 1922 Committee, is now reading out the results.
She starts by thanking by the officers and staff of the Commons for their work.
That means it’s over. There isn’t a tie.

All 313 Tory MPs voted, she says. There was one spoiled ballot paper.

Boris Johnson - 162
Jeremy Hunt - 77
Michael Gove - 75​

Now Johnson and Hunt will fight it out for the support of paid Tory party members, of which there are thought to be about 160,000. The ballots are sent in by mail and the winner will be announced on July 22, 2019.

 

The Tories are upset with the BBC, because they conducted a biased debate, much like CNBC did in 2016 during the Republican primaries. As a result of the 2016 debacle, the Republicans banned NBC or any of its other affiliates (MSNBC) from hosting any more of their primary debates.

It appears that the Tories may be on the verge of sticking it to the BBC the same way. The next debate between the two final candidates was supposed to be conducted by the BBC, but do not be surprised if the Tories look elsewhere for a host for this debate.

Tory leadership fury as candidates threaten to boycott BBC debates after ‘biased’ debacle

The BBC omnishambles was rife with controversy as it emerged on Wednesday an imam who had been selected to grill the Prime Ministerial hopefuls had been accused of anti-Semitism. The religious leader in question has since been suspended from his role as a deputy headteacher. In another damaging revelation it emerged another one of the contributors was a Labour activist who harboured extremist views.​

Hopefully President Trump will give the RNC orders not to put up with any of this crap this time around with regards to the general election debates. I know that there is supposed to be a committee that takes care of those arrangements, but those people obviously cannot be trusted.

And I hope the Tories likewise sanction the BBC for their obvious political bias by not allowing them to host these events for a while.

 

Wow. That was quick. ITV will be hosting the Johnson/Hunt debate on July 9, 2019.



Hopefully those partisan hacks at the BBC will learn their lesson. Probably not, but we can hope.

 

According to the UK bookies, Boris Johnson is the prohibitive favorite.

'Mr Hunt tonight admitted he will be the “underdog” with bookies giving him odds of 9/1 as Boris is on 1/12.'​

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9336328/tory-leadership-vote-live-candidates/

 

In case anyone was wondering what the position of the DUP party (The Tory's parliamentary majority coalition partner) is on leaving the EU with no deal on October 31, 2019, they are apparently in favor of it.

DUP joins campaign to get Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to leave EU on October 31 no matter what

THE DUP have joined Tory arch Eurosceptics in piling pressure on Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to leave the EU on October 31 no matter what. The Ulster unionist party’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson today joins 18 Tory MPs so far in the new campaign.​

 

And if anyone is unclear about why the Labour Party has refused to formally align itself with a second referendum, not to mention revoking Article 50, Labour MP Caroline Flint spoke to that very point on the Andrew Marr show in the UK yesterday:

LABOUR will lose 40 MPs to the Brexit Party if it backs a second Brexit vote, one of Jeremy Corbyn's own warned today

Caroline Flint discussed Brexit, particularly the letter signed by 26 Labour MPs that expressed opposition to a public vote/Remain stance, and said she would not vote to revoke Article 50 under any circumstances.

• On losing seats to the Brexit Party: “One of the polls suggest it’s something like 40 plus… And this isn’t just about, you know, electoral advantage; this is actually going to the heart of what the Labour Party is about. If we do not speak for the working-class voices of Britain, what’s the point of the Labour Party?”
• On the anti-PV letter: “I think those people who signed the letter would like to still have the opportunity to vote on a deal.”
• On the number of Labour MPs who would vote for a deal next time: “I think it will go up, but you know, I’ve been through this situation many times before… I am still optimistic and hopeful that parliament will do the job.”
• No deal exit or no Brexit? “I won’t be voting to revoke Article 50.” So that means a no deal Brexit if that’s what has to happen? “If that is where we end up, that is where I will be.”

​

The problem is that the Leave/Remain issue does not follow cleanly along party lines and many people in both of the top two parties are more interested in leaving the EU than they are in seeing their parties even survive, much less thrive. If what she says is correct, Labour could lose 40+ seats to the Brexit party in a general election - if they fully embrace a policy of supporting a second referendum (forget about revoking article 50, which is the real goal - they are not even discussing that)

This is why Jeremy Corbyn has been so obstinate in refusing to back a second referendum, despite a very impassioned pressure from many Labour MP's to do just that.

She even goes so far as to make clear that she would support a no-deal Brexit if nothing else can be negotiated. And the questioner hits the true question right on the head. The issue is not about whether there will be a deal or not in advance or Brexit.

The question is whether these people support Brexit or not. And the people who do not are posing as being against "no deal," no matter what, when they are in fact against Brexit. And the voters in the UK pretty clearly appear to know it.

 

Nobody is proposing a wall, except possibly the EU. All of the pro-Brexit crowd has ruled it out. It is the EU that is insisting on these sorts of safeguards. The Brexiteers are not nearly so concerned. So while some people are presenting this as the UK's problem, it is probably more realistic and constructive to think of it as more of the EU's problem.