Murray on the Upcoming UK General Election

First, this headline from Reuters, "UK PM Johnson's Conservatives have 15-17% point poll lead over Labour." Then Craig Murray's assessment (see "The Incredible Disappearing Farage, and Other Electoral Oddities"):

I am happy to state with confidence that this election will backfire on the Tories. The strong evidence from both the 2017 election and the Scottish referendum campaign, is that once broadcasting rules on equal time come into play, the impact on voters is profound of hearing direct from normally derided people and their normally ridiculed arguments.

The Johnson/Cummings electoral strategy is catastrophically bad. First past the post rewards regional voter concentration. Cummings plan is to sacrifice votes in traditional Tory areas in order to pile them up in traditionally hostile areas. The result will be to even out their vote, lose regional concentration and lose the election. They can pile on two million racist votes in traditional Labour constituencies without gaining more than a dozen seats. That will merely cancel out losses in Scotland. That people en masse are going to forget the devastation of their communities by Thatcher or the generations of fight for a decent living is far from probable. The antipathy to the Tories in parts of the UK is not “tribal”, it is the result of generations of hard experience.

The Brexit Party may have more appeal than the Tories in traditional Labour consituencies, but neither they nor the Tories will win any significant number of them. It is in the marginals of the Midlands and Lancashire where the Brexit Party may damage the Tories’ chances, not in Sunderland and Hartlepool which will stay Labour. The SNP is going to sweep Scotland, the Liberal Democrats make substantive gains in London and the South West and the Labour Party will do much better in London and the North than anybody now expects. The Midlands, both East and West, are hard to predict and the key battleground, but the number of possible Tory gains is not enough to compensate for their losses elsewhere. The Tories could end up with the largest share of the vote, perhaps 36%, but less seats than the Labour Party. That is what I expect to happen.

Finally, a General Election in the UK

Yesterday in the House of Commons a general election was approved for December 12; following its approval today in the House of Lords, parliament will be suspended for a six-week election campaign.

The common prediction is that no one knows how the election will turn out. Boris Johnson, Tory prime minister, has been consistently polling ahead of Labour -- "more than 10 percentage points in some" -- but I'd take that with a grain of salt. The overwhelming opinion going into the last general election, June 2017, was that the Tories under Theresa May would pad their majority, yet they ended up losing seats and had to cobble together a minority government with the help of Ulster unionists.

In 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn proved to be a formidable campaigner, putting Tories on the defense for their commitment to austerity and militarism. Those themes will resonate once again with the electorate.

Robert Stevens explains that

Johnson calculates that he can win by campaigning on a message that only he will complete the Brexit agenda and fulfil the “will of the people” who voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum. He is emboldened by the stance of the Brexit Party, who have indicated that they will not stand against Tory candidates in marginal seats but will stand against Labour candidates in seats in the north of England that voted heavily in 2016 to leave.

The Liberal Democrats are seeking to increase their 19 MPs in Westminster by hoovering up the Remain vote. Johnson’s other main calculation, therefore, is that the Liberal Democrats will win votes at Labour’s expense in Remain voting areas.

Much has changed in the last four years. Brexit prefigured Trump. Voters were in the mood to "fuck shit up" in 2016, and in this they succeeded, but not in a way that they would like to see continued. Austerity, market orthodoxy, militarism -- none of it stopped or even decreased in intensity. The neoliberal paradigm didn't cease to function with Trump and Brexit; the chairs on the observation deck were slightly rearranged.

My guess is that the Tories will not perform too well. Labour will do better than expected but not by a huge margin. The Scots and Liberal Democrats will pick up seats too. Then there will be a big Blairite row over who gets to lead a coalition government because Jeremy Corbyn is unacceptable to neoliberals.

"Really a Right Wing Coup"

Chaos descended on parliament in the early hours of the morning as it was prorogued. Craig Murray writes this morning that what's happening in Westminster is "Really a Right Wing Coup":

Nothing in the Fixed Term Parliaments Act alters the constitutional position that the Prime Minister must be able to command a majority in the House of Commons.

It was unconstitutional of Elizabeth Saxe Coburg Gotha to appoint Boris Johnson as Prime Minister when it was absolutely plain at the outset he had no majority in the House of Commons. This is not hindsight, I said so at the time. Now it has been proven that he has no majority in the House as he has been defeated six times out of six on major votes on the most important issues of the day. he has never won an important vote on anything as Prime Minister. Whether or not these are characterised as “confidence issues” is irrelevant. The man Johnson has never had a Commons majority. I can think of nothing more unconstitutional – and I think it can absolutely be characterised as a coup – than for the Queen to appoint a Prime Minister who has no majority support in the Commons, and then prorogue Parliament precisely because the executive has no majority. This is not even a government which has lost its majority – it has never had one and ought never to have been appointed.

Rather than prorogue Parliament, the Queen should have obliged Boris Johnson to resign and asked the Leader of the Opposition to see whether he could form an administration that could command a majority. That would be the constitutionally correct course of action. The monarch is not neutral in this and is acting unconstitutionally, abusing her power.

Let me put it this way. Does anybody seriously contend that Jeremy Corbyn would be appointed Prime Minister by the Queen in a situation where he had no parliamentary majority, and would remain in No. 10 despite losing 6 successive Commons votes and never winning one, and that the Queen would prorogue Parliament for him to get round the fact that he had no majority? Of course not. It is unthinkable. We are witnessing a right wing coup specifically in favour of Boris Johnson.

Now it is being whispered that Johnson might be open to a modified backstop in Northern Ireland, which makes no sense since the main selling point of his campaign to be prime minister was his opposition to the Irish backstop.

Now that a snap election won't take place until after Halloween, crash out or no, the Tories look to be headed for a shellacking.

What is happening here is that the paradigm that has reigned in Western capitals since 1979 has lost its legitimacy. A super-majority of citizens in countries where neoliberal/neoconservative government has held sway for the last four decades have had enough. We are at that point where the ruling elite will resort to a soft coup.

Can the dialectic of history be held at bay by a tiny elite, even if that elite appears to have a monopoly of power?  I don't think so. But the dialectic, though it cannot be stopped in its tracks, can be co-opted, misdirected, subverted.

Tories to Refuse to Ask EU for Brexit Extension + NFL Week 1

The Brexit news this morning is that parliament will be suspended this evening after the "no crash out" bill becomes law and Johnson's second attempt at snap elections is defeated. Parliament will not return until October 14. The press is now floating the idea that Johnson will refuse to ask the European Union for an extension as the new law mandates, or that he will formally make the request but attach a side letter outlining the government's rejection of that request.

Yves Smith, without any acknowledgement that she underestimated the potency of the opposition and the canniness of Jeremy Corbyn, still thinks, that Boris Johnson is in the driver's seat: "So while the Brexiteers have made lots of own goals, and Johnson is entirely capable of scoring more, it is too soon to write them off for dead." This despite continuing defections from his cabinet and internal polling that shows the Tories headed for another poor election performance.

At this point I think Johnson's only hope is an assist from Emmanuel Macron and a French refusal to allow for another Brexit extension. It's a possibility but a remote one.

****

The first week of the National Foot League's centennial season began on Thursday with a horrible game in Chicago between the Bears and the Packers. Green Bay upset Chicago. I watched maybe a quarter of the game, switching back and forth between it and Amazon Prime's "The Boys." Mitch Trubisky did not look good.

Having an injured a calf muscle that made walking to and from the kitchen difficult, a Sunday of immobility in front of the television was about all I was capable of. That's what the NFL is really all about -- pacification, consumption. At least in the first game, Rams vs. Carolina, another lackluster match-up, I learned that Cam Newton has gone vegan; too bad it didn't improve his play, which, like Trubisky's, was flat. Los Angeles won more easily than the score would reflect.

The afternoon game was another spiritless affair, with the hometown Seahawks receiving a gift from the gods in the form of a one-point win over the improved Cincinnati Bengals. Seattle looked terrible.

I didn't waste much time with the Sunday night game, a blowout of the Pittsburgh Steelers by the defending Super Bowl champ New England Patriots. I saw one Patriots offensive series -- Brady making short passes which gashed the Steelers defense -- and that's all I needed.

Last year NFL ratings rebounded after a two-year precipitous decline. My prediction for the 2019 season? Television viewership will resume its descent.

Blue Wave 2020

Signs clearly point to another Blue Wave in 2020, none of which, to my mind, are bigger than the implosion of the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson. 

Johnson went "Full Trump" once he became prime minister, promising a crash out from the European Union on October 31, and was rewarded by losing control of parliament. BoJo now governs with a majority of minus-21. The bill delaying a crash out will become law on Monday, and Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, will determine when new elections are held, not Johnson.

Remember, three years ago Johnson fronted the successful Brexit campaign for Tory Leavers, prefiguring Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton five months later. For Johnson now to be reduced to a chained, buffoonish zombie in the run-up to a presidential election year augurs ill for Trump.

Another ill omen for the faux-populism of Johnson and Trump is the new M5S-DP government that took office yesterday in Italy. Matteo Salvini, the Italian Trump, made a huge blunder when he collapsed the M5S-League coalition government in order to trigger snap elections. Apparently Salvini could not foresee that the existential enemies of the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party would nestle down together to keep him out of power.

Whatever hopeful, "Big Tent," anti-establishment, anti-war vibe which filled the Zeitgeist three years ago, uniting Alex Jones conservatives with Jacobin-reading leftists and giving us Brexit, Trump and an Italian government led by Beppe Grillo's M5S, no longer exists. It has been replaced by a rump hard-shell anti-immigrant Know Nothing nationalism overshadowed by an approaching anti-austerity, anti-neoliberal, anti-war Blue Wave. 

Former Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg is predicting a Blue Wave in 2020. But for the most part he is an outlier in the mainstream. Mainstream media continues to stem the tide. For instance, Disney's FiveThirtyEight is forever trying to explain away the progressive tilt of the Democratic Party.

Keep your eye on the UK general election. Great Britain is the Potemkin village for global neoliberal representative democracy. Tories and Blairites have run the show since the 1970s. For that to change in the next few months would be truly amazing.

Johnson Defeated. Labour in Control.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, whose votes Mr. Johnson needs to call an election, has said repeatedly that he will not agree to an election until the law stopping a no-deal Brexit is on the books. That way, Mr. Johnson would be denied the wiggle room to, say, schedule an election after the Oct. 31 deadline for leaving the European Union and letting Britain crash out of the bloc without a deal.

Benjamin Mueller, "Parliament’s Next Brexit Brawl: When to Hold Elections"

We are at that part of the Brexit "Walking Dead" story where the zombie has actually been commandeered by a human being, put on a leash and guided this way and that.

Boris Johnson, suffering three defeats yesterday in parliament -- two on the bills blocking a crash out; one on snap elections -- is done, kaput. After a feeble attempt to block the anti-crash out bill in the House of Lords, Johnson allies have capitulated; the bill is supposed to clear the chamber by the end of the week.

Johnson is now taking his demands for new elections to the public, and it is a mighty perverse poetry. The Tory Party, guided since June of 2017 by the single imperative to avoid another general election, is unable to bring one about.

But, please, make no mistake. Johnson's demand for a people's vote is yet another ruse. He wants to lock in a crash out under cover of a snap election. That's why the opposition is completely correct to wait until the anti-crash out bill is signed into law before agreeing to an election.

It's taken a long time to get here, but let's savor it for a moment or two.

UK Parliament to Pass "No Crash Out" Legislation Today

This morning Niqnaq re-posts Politico's "London Playbook" for an hour-by-hour breakdown of what will be today's historic happenings. Yesterday, if you managed somehow to miss it, Boris Johnson lost control of parliament. Today, the rebellious parliament plans on passing "No Crash Out" legislation, legislation which will instruct Johnson to seek another postponement in Brexit.

Johnson responded with a call for new elections. The conflict today will be over if and when those are elections to be held. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wants to make sure the "No Crash Out" bill is passed before supporting Johnson's snap elections. If "No Crash Out" goes through, we should see Labour voting for new elections.

Yves Smith, per usual, is unusually pessimistic: "Even though Boris Johnson may wind up being the shortest-lived Prime Minister evah, the press coverage on Parliament’s efforts to stop a no-deal Brexit is generally out over its skis."

Smith's strength, as well as her weakness, is that she generally cannot imagine the defeat of the neoliberal world order. So, in the case of Brexit, she sees Labour performing poorly in a general election; and, assuming that Johnson fails to get his vote for snap elections through parliament, Boris will continue to occupy Number 10 as a rotting zombie, a prime minister of smashed party unable to govern.

The great failing of Smith's take on things is that she doesn't mention Johnson's purge of 21 anti-crash out Tory MPs. Craig Murray believes that Johnson has "radically changed" the Conservative Party, the ramifications of which will be felt for generations.

Murray is not nearly as pessimistic as Smith regarding Labour's chances. I tend to dismiss blank anti-Labour predictions because the last general election, June 2017, it was the same. We were told that Labour was headed for a historic rout. But what actually happened was that Theresa May lost her Conservative Party majority and she had to cobble together a coalition with the votes of the Ulster Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Don't count Labour out.

Brexit: We Should Know by Next Week if Labour Can Block a Crash Out

What was initially reported yesterday as a tricky move by Boris Johnson to extend the time that parliament is in recess following its break in September for party conferences, hyperbolized as the day progressed into #StopTheCoup prorogation. Craig Murray captures the spirit with "Boris Johnson Crosses the Rubicon: We Must React Now":

Boris Johnson has crossed the Rubicon today by announcing the suspension of Parliament at this crucial time, no matter how many days the suspension lasts. The United Kingdom has found itself with the most right wing government in nearly two hundred years. I still find it hard to believe that Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel hold great offices. Even that minority of those voting who put this Tory minority government in place did not expect that. Now that right wing coup is being doubled down on by the deliberate suspension of the Westminster parliament just as the most crucial and divisive issue in several generations is being resolved.

There is an irony here. Johnson has been able to take over without facing the electorate because of the polite constitutional fiction that it is the same Conservative government continuing and nothing has changed. Yet he justifies the prorogation of parliament by the argument that it is a new government and a new Queen’s Speech is thus needed. Johnson is of course famously in favour of having cake and eating it, but the chutzpah of this is breathtaking.

As countries slip to the far right, the failure of the more decent forces in society to unite and to react with sufficient vigour is crucial. Jo Swinson and others need to stop their caviling and get behind Jeremy Corbyn’s no confidence plans.

The flinty Yves Smith thinks the #StopTheCoup outrage is overdone:

Mind you, as much as the Government’s ploy is awfully cheeky, it’s not as if Parliament was distinguishing itself in terms of its seriousness in trying to stop Brexit. Parliament took its customary summer recess. Perhaps I missed it, but I did not see any serious effort afoot to curtail the normal autumn caucus recess. As a result, the practical impact of this gambit is to reduce the time in which Parliament was set to be in session on its normal schedule by a mere four days.

But Smith misses the point of prorogation -- possibly due to the fact that she posts very early in the morning EST and the breaking stories yesterday did not define Johnson's gambit as a prorogue -- that when parliament returns for the Queen's Speech in mid-October it will be a new parliament. Stephen Castle explains:

Lawmakers are scheduled to return from a summer vacation next week but Mr. Johnson’s move means that Parliament will be suspended some time the following week. That heads off any attempt by his opponents to tack on a few more days, a tactic they were considering.

His new timetable has Parliament resuming work on Oct. 14, after the political parties hold their annual conferences — and several days later than previously expected. In addition, he has scheduled an address to Parliament on that date by the queen, laying out his government’s agenda, which lawmakers must then debate, taking up several critical days.

Mr. Johnson had the option of continuing the current session of Parliament into October, but instead he is starting a new one, meaning that any pending legislation intended to bind his hands will not carry over. If lawmakers who want to prevent a no-deal Brexit cannot draft, introduce and pass legislation in the next two weeks, they will have to start again from scratch in mid-October.

Labour promises to introduce "Standing Order Section 24 Motion and that would be to try and have an emergency debate."

So we'll know by next week if enough Remain Tories are willing to step out from Johnson's shadow and collapse his government. Clearly there is a move to bolster their confidence that the Tories will do just fine in a general election; therefore, they should stand pat with Boris.

The Brexit zombie drama is reaching a climax.

Boris (Finally) Shows his Hand on Brexit

The breaking news on Brexit this morning (see Stephen Castle's "Boris Johnson Seeks to Stifle Brexit Opposition With Surprise Parliamentary Delay") is that the British prime minister plans not to prorogue parliament but to reconvene it later than usual:

Parliament, currently on vacation, is scheduled to meet during the first two weeks of September, and then to be suspended for annual political party conferences. Parliament had been scheduled to reconvene on Oct. 9.

But in a letter sent Wednesday to all members of Parliament, Mr. Johnson said he intended to resume on Oct. 14, with a speech by Queen Elizabeth II, laying out the agenda of the Conservative government under Mr. Johnson, who took office last month.

A new session of Parliament begins with a queen’s speech, an elaborate ceremonial occasion that requires a significant chunk of parliamentary time, and the prime minister has great leeway in deciding on the timing. By scheduling it before the Brexit deadline, he would further limit the time available to opponents of a no-deal Brexit.

This has caught Brexit watchers by surprise. Johnson seems to have successfully feinted the other day when it was leaked that he had asked attorney general Geoffrey Cox whether parliament could be prorogued for five weeks starting September 9.

Yves Smith had a helpful write-up yesterday, "Brexit: Sound and Fury," where she once again illuminated the bottom line:

We’re in Groundhog Day territory yet again, with the tired threat of not paying the so-called divorce tab again rearing it ugly head. It is quite astonishing that most of what passes for the elites in the UK seem not to grasp that Brexit is not the end of the road, but merely an irrevocable first step in what will be a long and taxing process of forging new trade agreements with the rest of the world and making significant legal, economic, and lifestyle changes as a result of that. Those of you who are keeping tabs on the finer points of the Brexit negotiations likely took note of Barnier saying that any trade deal with the EU would require the UK to commit to the main points of the Withdrawal Agreement, in particular, the exit bill, the provisions regarding movement of people, and something a lot like the backstop (Clive pointed out it would be very hard to devise an analogue to the backstop arrangements absent a transition period, which comes only with a Withdrawal Agreement).

At least Johnson has shown his cards. And what do they reveal? Really what we've known all along: That the essence of the Tory position has always been delay; delay until a crash out becomes inevitable.

Unless Jo Swinson, new leader of the Liberal Democrats, changes her tune and agrees to Jeremy Corbyn's unity government, it looks like Johnson will be successful.

This morning Corbyn is promising to block Johnson when parliament meets next week.  But if Corbyn can't accomplish this, even if Johnson loses a confidence vote, it doesn't appear that there is enough room left on the calendar to prevent a crash out.

Tories Lose Another Election. General Election Likely in October.

The other day I proclaimed a desire to mention Brexit only rarely, the reason being that Brexit talk moves endlessly nowhere. There is a lot of noise but at the end of the day the Tories are still in power and the UK is part of the EU.

But yesterday something consequential happened. The Conservative Party lost a by-election in a Welsh Tory stronghold, Brecon and Radnorshire (see Stephen Castle's "Special Election Defeat Poses a Thorny Problem for Boris Johnson"), and Boris Johnson's governing majority in parliament is effectively reduced to a single MP.

While the press wants to label the by-election a referendum on Boris, more likely it is a one-off since the incumbent Conservative MP, Chris Davies, was recalled for falsifying expense reports yet he only ended up losing to the Liberal Democrat by less than 1,500 votes.

The Liberal Democrat, Jane Dodds, benefited from the Greens and Plaid Cymru agreeing to stand down, leaving an open lane for an unadulterated pro-Remain candidate.

It worked, making one wonder if similar arrangements can be made once a general election is called.

Labour was not part of the agreement, and the Labor candidate came in fourth behind the Brexit Party, which is an ill omen for both the Conservatives and Labour. Nigel Farage has said that the Brexit Party will field candidates in the next general election.

After summarizing the results in Brecon and Radnorshire, Castle spends the rest of the story pondering whether a general election will be called pre- or post-crash out.

My guess is that Johnson will call a general election before a crash out.

To attempt to lock in a crash out Boris would have to expend far too much energy in prorogation to prevent the House of Commons from toppling his government. He's been campaigning since he entered Number 10. Maybe holding a general election at the same time as the Brexit deadline arrives is Johnson's secret plan to guarantee a crash out. I would imagine though that before adjourning for the election parliament would instruct the government to seek another extension.

In any event, elections in October. Hopefully.

The Countdown to Brexit Zombie Apocalypse Begins Anew

Yves Smith this morning (see "Brexit: Can Anyone Take the Wheel From Johnson?") begins anew what will likely be a series of gloomy crash-out speculations:

Richard North argues in today’s post that unless Johnson changes his mind, a crash-out is baked in. The spectacle of the pound falling almost 3% today on his bluster won’t make a difference. Sterling is at January 2017 levels against the dollar. This isn’t a sterling crisis, and it’s not clear how much financial markets distress it would take to move “fuck business” Johnson. And he and his Team Leave stalwarts seem remarkably unconcerned about wee problems like not being even close to where they need to be to re-do UK legislation to untangle it from decades of integration with EU law.

I am going to try to avoid posting much on Brexit conniptions. Boris' media circus isn't meant to do anything else other than transfix voters right up until Halloween. His scotching of the Irish backstop guarantees that the EU will not deal with him.

The story in this zombie apocalypse remains "When oh when will a general election be called?" I think Johnson realizes an election in the near term cannot be avoided. He's campaigning now. Yves Smith thinks Labour will lose seats. I can't recall if she successfully predicted May's utter failure in the last general election in 2017. Most were predicting then that the Tories would add seats. Don't dismiss Labour just yet.

Boris Goes to Number 10

It's official. Boris Johnson will be the United Kingdom's prime minister.

According Reuters, "Johnson, the face of the 2016 Brexit referendum, won the votes of 92,153 members of the Conservative party, almost twice the 46,656 won by his rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt."

What now? Boris will replace Theresa May tomorrow. Then the charade of renegotiating Theresa May's Brexit deal with the EU will begin anew. The only difference is that Boris is an avowed "Leave" Tory who campaigned on promises of prorogation -- suspending parliament without dissolving it -- in order to ensure a crash-out from the European Union.

Yesterday the number two official at the Foreign Office, Alan Duncan, resigned over Boris' ascension to Number 10. According to The New York Times,

Mr. Duncan, the Foreign Office minister who resigned, pushed for an emergency vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday to test whether Mr. Johnson could command the support of a majority of lawmakers. Mr. Duncan’s bid for the vote was rejected, but he warned that the government could collapse in the fall.

There will be several months of fiddling, but sometime in September or October, when crash-out looms, a vote of confidence will be called and Boris will lose. Since the Tories have done everything possible to avoid parliamentary elections, Johnson could even try prorogation.

In any event, the Tories are likely headed towards greatly diminished status. Writers in the mainstream have begun to believe their own propaganda about Labour -- that it is split, wounded and ineffectual. I think not. I think Corbyn heading a Labour Party campaigning unabashedly for peace and against austerity wins -- if not an outright majority certainly enough seats to form a coalition government with the SNP.

The Coming Collapse of the Conservative Party

What's interesting about Stephen Castle's "Labour Ekes Out a Win Over Brexit Party in a Local U.K. Vote" is the contortionist nature of the piece. The headline should read "Tory Collapse Continues at the Polls," but, per usual, Castle, for the most part, buries the onrushing collapse of the Conservative Party beneath a narrative of the Brexit Party's Golem-like rise and Labour's dissipation.

Fortunately, the facts manage to shine through the burlap of Castle's reporting:

In a closely watched by-election that was narrowly won by the opposition Labour Party, Mrs. May’s Conservatives were pushed into third place, behind the Brexit Party, led by Nigel Farage.

The result follows the Conservative Party’s disastrous performance in elections for Europe’s parliament last month. Mrs. May’s Tories finished fifth, with just 9 percent of the vote, one the worst performances in their long history.

The defeat in the Peterborough constituency marks another low point for Mrs. May as she ends her leadership of a Conservative Party that has been deeply wounded by her failure to extricate Britain from the European Union, as she had promised to do by the end of March. The election took place on Thursday and the results were declared early Friday.

Peterborough is 75 miles north of London. A majority of its constituents supported Brexit in 2016. The Labour MP who had held the seat was forced to vacate it because she was jailed for lying about a traffic offense. According to Castle,

For Mrs. May’s Tories, there was little to cheer because, under normal circumstances, they would have expected to do well in Peterborough, as Labour and the Conservatives have competed closely there in recent elections.

In the general election in 2017, the Conservative candidate lost by just 607 votes and, given the circumstances of Ms. Onasanya’s departure, the by-election would normally have been an ideal opportunity for the Conservatives to recapture the seat.

All in all, the Tories were well placed for a pick-up. The fact that they ended up third augurs ill for the party headed into a leadership struggle to replace Theresa May.

Who is going to win the Tory poll to succeed May? Boris Johnson is running as the crash-out candidate. Michael Gove is running as a May clone (fudge Brexit). Rory Stewart is running as a Remain Tory. I don't know about Jeremy Hunt. Probably another May clone.

Whoever ends up winning the contest, the Conservative Party is going to be totally fractured and absolutely incapable of delivering any version of Brexit.

The principal purpose of the party at this point is to avoid a general election because in any general election the Tories are going to lose and lose big. I think avoiding a general election becomes impossible now. That's the importance of May's resignation.

The question is when is a general election going to happen. Before or after October 31? Probably after. Does that mean crash-out is inevitable? No, I think the EU grants another postponement pending the outcome of a general election.

A Silver Lining in Britain's European Parliament Elections

Those polls from a couple weeks back showing the Conservative Party placing fifth in elections for the European Parliament proved to be accurate. According to Stephen Castle in "Nigel Farage’s Populist Brexit Party Wins Big in European Parliament Elections":

With many of the votes counted, the Brexit Party was ahead with 31.5 percent of the vote. The Liberal Democrats were second with 20.5 percent, followed by Labour with 14.1 percent and the Greens with 12.1 percent. The Conservatives pushed into fifth position with 9.1 percent of the votes.

The Conservative Party’s dire performance will increase pressure on those campaigning to succeed Mrs. May to take a hard-line approach to Brexit that could result in the country leaving the European Union without any agreement.

At first glance the results do appear to favor a crash-out. On the other hand, if the Tories end up selecting a Leave ultra, then the opposition in parliament could coalesce to torpedo the government, triggering new elections. May's particular zombie genius was to fudge, dither and burn the clock; it's going to be hard, I would imagine, for whomever ends up as the new prime minister to replicate that.

New elections, as Nigel Farage boasts, would not likely lead to a Brexit Party as a member of a governing coalition. Look at the vote totals. Evening assuming the 9.1% Tory vote is all Leave, that means the Brexiters are at a little less than 41%. Add the Remain vote together (the assumption here is that Labour can be categorized entirely as anti-Brexit) and you get almost 47%. Not a majority, but significantly larger than Leave. There is a possibility that Labour could form a new government.

Finally, the Demise of Zombie May

Wonderful news to begin the holiday weekend: Two Fridays from now, June 7, Theresa May will resign her role as leader of the Conservative Party. The following week the process to select her replacement will begin formally, with her successor in place before parliament's recess at the end of July.

In all the sententious write-ups of May's departure there's precious little about what actually triggered it. A pre-resignation story from yesterday by Benjamin Mueller (see "Britons Pause to Vote in an Election Many Did Not Want") leads one to believe that Tory backbenchers had marshaled the votes to rewrite the 1922 Committee rules, paving the way to topple the zombie prime minister with a new no-confidence vote:

But Mrs. May’s undoing seemed more a matter of timing and choreography than anything else. She will meet on Friday with Graham Brady, who leads the committee of Mrs. May’s Conservative backbench lawmakers. He is holding onto secret ballots from some of those lawmakers that could allow the party to change its rules and try to unseat Mrs. May almost immediately.

The event that put some pep in the 1922 Committee step is yesterday's election to the European Parliament. The Tories are predicted to be headed for another catastrophic rout; this coming on the heels of the disastrous local elections of May 2. Apparently the foul odor of the zombie prime minister finally proved to be too much.

In fact, the zombie May is a perfect personification of the reigning, tottering neoliberal world order. Caught between rising demands for a return to social democracy on one side and an establishment drift to neo-fascism and ultra-nationalism on the other, mainstream leadership chooses to fudge, dither and run out the clock, hoping that the dialectic of history somehow reverses course. That's why Theresa May's predicament has been worthy of attention, particularly since her shockingly poor showing in the June 2017 general election: how long can leadership deny the obvious? In May's case, the answer is two years. Her minority government was a joke to begin with.

Boris Johnson will be no improvement, assuming he will be the new prime minister. Nothing will have changed, other than support for crash-out will have gained momentum. So we're right back to crash-out or a snap general election. Since all Brexit decisions are guided by the Tory avoidance of a general election, odds at this point are on a crash-out.

European Parliament Elections this Week. Brexit Party Looks to Topple May

Once-every-five-years European Parliament elections are to be held this week. For a soporific write-up, see Steven Erlanger's "European Elections Will Gauge the Power of Populism." Erlanger's assignment is to inflate the Salvini-Orban-Le Pen bogeyman, a wrathful specter designed to keep the good folk penned in on the dystopic neoliberal reservation, something that Erlanger fails to do when he acknowledges that the anti-EU populists are slated to win at most 180 seats in a parliament that seats 751: "Opinion polls suggest that populist parties could win up to 180 seats in European Parliament, enough to create serious delays and difficulties."

One anti-EU party expected to top the polls is Nigel's Farage's new Brexit Party, which, as Robert Stevens writes in his excellent "Conservative Party implodes over Brexit crisis as May agrees to stand down next month":

The crisis of rule in Britain and the meltdown of the Tories will be exacerbated by the expected victory of the newly formed Brexit Party in next week’s European elections. A victory for the Brexit Party, set up by former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, will further polarise divisions within the main parties. The vast majority of Farage’s support comes from disillusioned Tory voters and is particularly strong among older generations.

According to opinion polls, the Brexit Party is set to win by taking anything up to 34 percent of the vote and could possibly score higher than both the Tories and Labour combined. There are even estimates that the Tories may only poll in single figures and finish sixth overall—which would be the worst national election result in their history.

Farage's Brexit Party has seemingly accomplished something that none of the other UK parties and their various factions have been able to do -- topple the zombie prime minister Theresa May. Last week it was announced that after a fourth vote in parliament on her Brexit plan in June she would make way for the Conservative Party to select her replacement, a process that will gobble up the newspapers this summer. Jeremy Corbyn responded to the news by pulling Labour out of the Brexit negotiations with the Tories:

The moves by the Conservative Party to replace May prompted a letter from Corbyn to May on Friday morning. Corbyn wrote, “I believe the talks between us about finding a compromise agreement on leaving the European Union have now gone as far as they can … The increasing weakness and instability of your government means there cannot be confidence in securing whatever might be agreed between us.”

It's hard to believe that May is in fact on her way out. If true, it is a cause for celebration. We've been here before though, and the zombie prime minister always manages to plod on.

What would that take now? The Tories would have to over-perform this week and the Brexit Party would have to crater at the polls; Labour, too. Then possibly May could fudge her replacement until after the new October 31 crash-out deadline.

Brexit: Indicative Votes Tomorrow

The Brexit goalposts have been moved. The crash-out date has been pushed back from Friday to April 12.

Prime minister Theresa May has delayed bringing her withdrawal agreement before the House of Commons for a third "meaningful" vote. The thinking now is that May will reintroduce her divorce deal later in the week. Tomorrow the House of Commons will hold a series of "indicative" votes on alternatives to May's proposal. Those alternatives likely will include a customs union (soft Brexit), another referendum, or revoking Brexit outright.

As Stephen Castle reports in "Parliament Grabs Control of Brexit From a Wounded Theresa May":

Mrs. May is still hoping that no alternative will command more support than her blueprint, giving her a realistic shot at pushing her plan through by presenting it as the only alternative to a no-deal Brexit or a long extension.

Critics think that Mrs. May is favoring the interests of her Conservative Party by being willing to contemplate a no-deal Brexit — something hard-line pro-Brexit Tory lawmakers back — over a cross-party effort to produce a softer Brexit that might win approval from Parliament but would split the Tories and possibly precipitate a second election.

On the other hand, moderate voices in the party complain that allowing a no-deal Brexit against much opposition would be a risky move that could haunt the party for years to come.

There is a chance that a soft Brexit might garner a majority tomorrow. May is trying to beat that back by saying that a soft Brexit will precipitate elections.

It is important to remember that Brexit terra firma is erected on the avoidance of a general election.

But with head of the zombie May hanging by a string elections appear to be inevitable; to avoid them -- to usher May out without holding a general election -- would require a miracle.

On the other hand, Yves Smith interprets recent events as too little, too late to avoid a crash-out. See "Brexit: Controlled Flight into Terrain."

EU Gives UK a Second Chance. Labour Must Call for Another No Confidence Vote

A Brexit crash out has been delayed. After meeting in Brussels yesterday, leaders of the European Union crafted a multi-step compromise. Call it a zombie shuffle.

First, if May can get a third meaningful vote in the House of Commons on her withdrawal agreement (in other words, if Speaker Bercow reverses himself and allows a third vote), and the third time proves to be a charm and her agreement is miraculously approved, then the UK has until May 22 to leave the EU, an additional two months that will be needed to pass various supporting legislation disentangling Great Britain from the bloc.

If May fails for a third time, and there is almost no hint that she will succeed, then the EU has granted a delay until April 12, apparently the last possible date to avoid participation in elections for the European Parliament, to provide time for an alternative proposal to the withdrawal agreement. A second Brexit referendum and a general election were mentioned. If the UK can come up with such a substantive path forward, then the EU will grant a lengthy extension.

So, yes, the EU has thrown the UK a lifeline. The no confidence vote in January should have ousted May. That was the rational decision. But all the Tories who had voted against her withdrawal agreement stuck with the prime minister knowing that having a zombie as the head of government served their intention of impasse and crash out. New elections are to be avoided at all costs.

Nothing has changed this underlying dynamic. One good thing though is that after the withdrawal agreement fails for the third time, Labour will almost certainly make a motion of no confidence in the government. I was under the impression that May was safe for a year from another no confidence vote, but that pertains only to her party organization. The opposition can make as many no confidence motions as it pleases.

Since May admitted in Brussels yesterday that she has no alternative to the current withdrawal agreement, as soon as it fails next week, Labour must make its no confidence motion to prevent May from chewing up any of the remaining two weeks before the new crash-out date, April 12

Brexit Beulah Land

There are eight days before a crash-out Brexit, and even a delay until June 30, which is what May is peddling now, looks to be a long shot. Yves Smith assesses the situation this morning in "Brexit: Opening the Seals."

The EU is signaling its opposition to any extension unless May can get her withdrawal agreement through parliament in the next week. This would require that Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow allow a third "meaningful vote" on May's withdrawal agreement, something he overruled earlier in the week. The EU could facilitate a Bercow about-face by officially approving some side letters to the agreement. This would allow Bercow to argue that the agreement had changed and hence could be voted anew.

But if Bercow waves another vote through, there is no indication, even allowing for a DUP flip, that May's plan now has the votes to pass. The votes would have to come from Labour because the Brexit ultras among the Tories are going to stand pat; they're very close to the Beulah Land of a crash out.

A petition drive is underway to revoke Article 50. May has the power to revoke Article 50, but she steadfastly refuses to do so.

This is it. Time is about to run out. The British parliamentary system is at impasse. Panic will increase in the coming days. Things will not get better; things will get worse. When you've been living a zombie apocalypse year after year -- let's face it, decades -- you can't expect nirvana overnight.

Brexit: Is Anything Clear?

Once again to get a sense of what's happening with Brexit the best place to turn is Naked Capitalism and the posts of Yves Smith. She's hitting her stride like she did back in the days of chicken between Greece and the troika.

This morning's offering, "Brexit: The Kindness of Strangers," tallies the results of yesterday session of parliament. The extension of Article 50 passed overwhelmingly, but a second Brexit referendum was voted down by a wide margin, with Labour abstaining.

So now what? Apparently May's withdrawal agreement will be voted for a third time next week. Smith raises the possibility that the DUP might flip, but this appears to me too little, too late.

Once May's deal suffers its third defeat, the prime minister will head off again to Brussels to ask for an extension. What then will the EU do?

The rest of Smith's post is spent sussing out the answer to that question. Her assessment is uncertain. The EU will want a clear definition of what the extension will be used for. Absent that, the only extension that the EU is likely to endorse is a long-term one, in the ballpark of one year (or so the thinking goes).

If this is the outcome -- a long-term extension -- one can begin to see the path forward. The zombie May will finally be decapitated and a general election called. I think the Tories are confident enough now, following a collapse of Labour in the polls, that they can reemerge will a solid majority. But this doesn't accomplish anything in terms of Brexit; it merely allows the Conservatives to re-position themselves on what should be more solid footing, buying themselves more time.