Great thread. A few thoughts on this. Seems increasingly likely that whatever happens next spring the Cons are going to lose substantial support, at least in the SR. Consquence both of the nature of Brexit negotiations and their choices abt how to frame them 1/?
Any deal EU will accept will involve substantial concessions, and/or substantial economic disruptions. There are no options that don't involve this. Chequers was first genuine effort to make clear the trade-offs - Cons lost support to UKIP straight away. 2/?
The prob Cons have is that a substantial chunk of their post 2017 electoral coalition - the bit they won off UKIP plus parts of their most Eurosceptic base - will not accept *any* deal because any deal will fail to meet their (unmeetable) expectations. So any deal costs votes 3/?
This is, I think, one of the things that makes "no deal" more attractive to some of the more anti-EU Cons as they believe the cost they will pay for a deal is EU's fault, and believe they can convinced public of this. They are, IMO, v wrong about that 4/?
The truth is that the Brexit fantasist element, though strategically crucial to Con electoral coalition, is only one small chunk of the electorate. There is a much larger chunk that doesn't much care about Brexit, but *does* care about disruption to everyday life.
If we leave with "no deal", that section of electorate will, within weeks, be very very angry with the government, as disruptions to holidays, hospital appointments, jobs, delivery of goods etc etc becomes obvoius. Voters are not patient with govts in situations like this. 6/?
A parallel - when we left the ERM back in the early 1990s voters who had no idea what ERM was or what it did rapidly got very angry when first their mortgage payments shot up and then the economy went into recession. Blaming Europe didn't and wouldn't work then 7/?
Because the simple and ruthless logic when things go wrong is this: "Things are suddenly shit. Your job as govt is to stop things from getting suddenly shit. You have failed, we want rid of you." Disruption from a "no deal" Brexit will almost certainly be worse than ERM.
9/? It is simply not credible to imagine that putting IDS or JRM on the telly to explain its all because of those dastardly Europeans will work - voters will say "OK,they're meanines. But it was your job to stop this and you didn't. So *you* failed". 9/?
10/? Evidence for this comes from enormous literature on econ voting - incumbents get stuffed when there's a recession, regardless of what caused it. They can mitigate the harm. But there's always harm. And "no deal" Brexit will be more obviously linked to govt than recessions.
11/? So the truth is there is no path govt can take from here that won't result in likely substantial loss of support - secure a deal and lose UKIP leaning voters, crash out with "no deal" and lose lots of voters who just want a quiet life. Pick yr poison.
12/? Deal or no deal is not just about the electorate though - its also about the Commons. And that's where things get really tricky. The gap between what a majority of Con MPs will vote for and what the EU will agree to is pretty large.
So there's a pretty plausible range of outcomes where Con govt secures provisional deal which they haven't got a Commons majority for. What then? Three possibilities: 1. Govt manages to win round rebels 2. Govt gets votes elsewhere 3. Govt loses the "meaningful vote".
1. Looks very hard given what Brexiteer MPs think of Chequers already. Will depend, I think, on convincing them that "no deal" is a disaster that will end up reversing Brexit. Hard to do in advance because they are so distrustful of such "project fear" narratives.
2. is poss in theory in that a large cohort of Lab MPs open either to the arg that some sort of Brexit is necessary, or that no deal is irresponsible act of national self-harm. *But* - the "you broke it, you own it" partisan arg is also tempting. Why bail Cons out of disaster?
So 3 - govt deal proposal getting voted down - is pretty possible. Then we will see how much markets and businesses like the idea of no deal, and how willing MPs are to stand firm in the face of a gale force blast of anger from constituents, donors, interest groups, media.
My suspicion is "not very". Either Con rebels would back down, or Lab MPs would back the deal in order to look responsible, and as the damage to Cons' reputation would already be done. 16/?
17/? Thus I think it is quite possible that fear of losses to UKIP, and belief in a fantasy deal with no political costs, could result in govt passing the same deal but instead of losing c.5% to UKIP, losing c.10% plus across the board, in particular to Labour opposition.
18/? I still think a second vote is unlikely but the one way I can see it could happen is if the govt, faced with these unpalatable options, tables a second vote as part of its deal legislation as the least politically costly option - hand responsibility back to electorate.
19/? Would be hard for Brexiteers to argue against it, given their focus on will of the people (though many doubtless will reject whatever Q is proposed as unfair). Perhaps more importantly, harder for Lab to sit that one out than vote on the deal.
20/? SNP votes too? After all, they aren't going to want to undercut args for new referendums given they would like one in Scotland again too at some point. So I can see how we could get "vote on the deal" because its easier to pass than the deal would be on its own.
/end of thread/ Interested in thoughts from others. This is a very tangled web we are in now. Seems increasingly likely the damage to Con support from this will be substantial and lasting.
