Bollocks to Brexit

[Iris]

So 22,000 of Jeremy Corbyn's constituents have voted to revoke article 50. His majority last time was only a little over 33,000. If there's an election soon it could be a little closer than he might like.

[edit]
And there are a fair few cabinet ministers in the top 100, too. A well-organised anti-Brexit pro-reform campaign could put a very pleasing dent in the Tories' automatic grip on the Home Counties.

[Iris]

Looking at the map showing where signatories say they are,

https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.c ... 84&area=uk

I am surprised that the percentage of constituents isn't higher in Scotland and NI.

I'm seeing Scotland looking quite like the bits of England outside the South-East. These things always go in waves - in a different place I've seen someone claiming he wouldn't have heard of today's march had it not been for that place.

On NI, there's an analysis on twitter which correlates low scores in the petition with DUP strongholds (an anti-EU party) and Sinn Fein strongholds (where residents don't tend to see petitioning Westminster as particularly useful). Apparently it's mainly been the Alliance and SDLP who've been promoting the petition in NI, and they're not as numerous as they once were.

[Johnboy]

Well that was an amazing day out, one to remember for sure!

[Rutabaga]

Great day, managed to get a seat both ways on jam-packed trains, didn't stay to the bitter end as my feet were too sore! Sorry I didn't manage any meet-ups peeps.

[Sonic Budgie]

I'd also like to add that we did march from around the Dorchester to about halfway from Hyde Park Corner to the station before we went across to the mall, just incase anyone thinks we bypassed the whole queue to push in at the front, we're British you know and that would be most unseemly

[Dunckel]

How long does Theresa have? Some pundits are saying a coup at Monday cabinet, some say Wednesday following the indicative votes if a clear favoured option is found, some say April 12th when the clock runs out snd we get a two year extension.

I think she will hang on to the bitter end, she is so deluded.

[JohnToo]

But if she is forced to resign as leader of the conservative party, what happens then? Normal procedure would surely be that she remains Prime Minister while the conservatives elect a new leader (which will take till after April 12) then resigns so that the Queen can invite the new leader to form a government. That doesn't help us at all. If she resigns as Prime Minster as well as leader of the conservatives, the Queen has to invite someone else to try to form a government. David Liddington is deputy leader of the conservatives, so that would be one justifiable choice for the Queen, and Jeremy Corbyn is leader of the opposition, which would be another justifiable (though far more contentious) choice - but both of those would be so unpopular with ERG that you have to wonder if they'd actually oust May at all under those circumstances.

[Dunckel]

It's all confused, but as far as I can make out from the telly this morning, the thought is a new leader could bring the opposition on board by looking at an even softer Brexit so making thr ERG irrelevent, or by fightrning them so much they will decide that they can back May's negotiated plan after all, so putting that in pole position.

Nobody seems to be talking about Labour's response to May's departure, I suspect Corbyn will drop talk of a second vote and start demanding a General Election again.

[Iris]

Nobody seems to be talking about Labour's response to May's departure, I suspect Corbyn will drop talk of a second vote and start demanding a General Election again.

Some of us would contend that he's never really talked of a second vote.

The answer is screamingly obvious, and some of us have been saying so for the last three years. Brexit is so contentious, such a major change to the UK constitutional settlement, such an upheaval to the country, its people and its economy that it can only be considered by a non party political government. Three years ago that might have been possible via a constitutional Committee. Now it's only going to be done by a national unity government.

[Mister Paul]

Petition tailing off a little. I think that if it can get to 5m that's a significant number to achieve. Fingers crossed...

[Dunckel]

5 million done

[Mister Paul]

Excellent.

[Rocky]

5 million done

Those Russian bots will be blowing a fuse soon.

[Dunckel]

Those Russian bots will be blowing a fuse soon.

The BBC website did report that the outages on the petition server were down to a denial of service attack - I assume flooding it with fake e-mails and postcodes, though the BBC seem to have removed that claim now.

[Dunckel]

Can you spot anyone you know? Now I know what a million people look like.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-476809 ... re-sped-up