Do or Die Incumbency Pulls...

Boris’s expulsion of 21 Conservative MPs (sorry “withdrawing of the whip from”) leaves several curious questions in my mind.  The first is whether or not he thinks Brexit is a giant game of Escape from Colditz.  And the second is...

 

Well, it doesn’t look to me like Mr Johnson does much in the way of “plan Bs” but one has to wonder how – if Boris gets his wish of a general election in October - CCHQ are going to get candidates in place in that time?

Assuming they've even thought that far ahead...?  Okay half a dozen are retiring anyway but that still leaves two dozen....

Back in the days of David Cameron prospective parliamentary candidates were dispatched to their constituency associations a good two years in advance of the election.  This allowed them to deluge local residents (particularly in ultra-marginals like mine) with industrial quantities of paper Tory propaganda before the short spending limit kicked in during the actual election campaign...

Of course the local associations’ candidate choice processes were not always the most democratic (see here) but at least they bothered to go through a pretence at internal democracy.  With no time to run an exhaustive ballot process will CCHQ effectively just dump candidates on constituencies?
 

Also withdrawing the whip from sitting MPs is never quite as easy as it sounds.  During the 00s David Cameron withdrew the whip from then Croydon Central MP Andrew Pelling in a scandal that became known locally as Pellingate (see here). 

Mr Pelling then sat as an independent while the police investigated but when they couldn’t get enough evidence together to make a case out of Mr Pelling asked for the whip back and Dave said no.  So Mr Pelling stood as an independent splitting the vote.  

Mr Pelling had a lot of money (from supporters) and from his 2^nd career as an Investment Banker which he’d managed to keep going despite being technically off sick from his parliamentary duties with depression and managed to pull 3,239 votes.

A bit of a worry when it’s the 2^nd most marginal constituency in the country.  His successor Gavin Barwell later lost the seat at the next general election (called by Theresa May who gave him a Downing Street job by way of apology which he also lost but that’s another story…).

The point is that sitting MPs are known (by those in politics in polling) to have a thing called “incumbency pull” which basically means because they’ve been there for ages there are a certain number of voters who will tick their box simply because they’re local, seem to be nice or they’ve met them. 

This is why after Dave got rid of Andrew Pelling he gave Gavin a good 2 years to bed himself into the constituency prior to the next election.  Gavin had a blog, a twitter account and generally wandered the streets posting leaflets more frequently than an actual postman.  Boris’s substitute 14 will not have this advantage at the next election …so one wonders if mercy may not be shown to those who grovel?  Or perhaps not…   

Anyway Pelling’s antics give us a possible scale for the size of incumbency pull in the region of 3000 votes (and keep in mind there is no scandal about the below unlike with Pelling) so let’s see of the 21 which have such a majority…

Kenneth Clarke 8,010

Philip Hammond 18,050

David Gauke 19,550

Greg Clark 16,465

Sir Oliver Letwin 19,091

Justine Greening 1,554

Dominic Grieve 24,543

Rory Stewart 15,910

Sir Nicholas Soames: 19,673

Alistair Burt 20,862

Sam Gyimah 23,914

Stephen Hammond 5,622

Guto Bebb 635

Richard Benyon 24,380

Steve Brine 9,999

Richard Harrington 2,092

Margot James 7,654

Anne Milton 17,040

Caroline Nokes 18,006

Antoinette Sandbach 11,942

Edward Vaizey: 17,380

… out of the 21 above at least 1/3 are, as I say, retiring but I count at least 3 seats where incumbency pull could be a real vote-splitting problem if the current soon-to-be-ex-Tory MP stood against a Boris-Conservative candidate …?

Still that’s first past the post for you…

My preparations for Brexit...

I put very brief details into the Government Prepare for Brexit website and it seems that all I need to do to be ready for it is this...

What you need to do now to prepare for Brexit
Based on your answers, we know:

You own or operate a business or organisation
You work in retail and wholesale (excluding food, drink and motors)
Your business imports goods from the EU
You do not employ EU citizens
You do not exchange personal data with EU organisations
You do not use or rely on intellectual property protection
You do not receive EU or UK government funding
You do not sell products or services to the public sector
You are a British national
You live in the UK
You are employed in the UK
You do not plan to travel after 31 October 2019

Your business or organisation
Check if you need to register as an importer and apply to be a 'place of first arrival' to import plants from the EU

The plants may be delayed or rejected when they reach the UK if you do not register.

Read the guidance: Importing and exporting plants and plant products if there’s a no deal Brexit

It takes up to 3 months

Check if you need to pay a tariff on goods you import from the EU

Your goods will be held at customs if you do not pay the correct tariff.

Read the guidance: Check temporary rates of customs duty (tariffs) on imports after a no-deal Brexit.

It takes more than 4 weeks

Get an EORI number that starts with GB to move your goods into or out of the EU

You will not be able to buy goods from or sell goods to the EU without an EORI number.

Read the guidance: Get ready to move goods between or through common transit countries including the EU

It takes up to a week

Register for Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSP) to make it easier to import goods from the EU

You'll need to make full import declarations each time you buy goods from the EU if you do not use TSP.

It takes 2 to 4 weeks

Set up a 'duty deferment account' to pay your customs duties, import VAT and excise duties monthly by Direct Debit, if you need to pay duty

You'll need to pay your import duties as soon as your goods pass through customs if you do not have a 'duty deferment account'.

Read the guidance: Customs procedures if the UK leaves the EU without a deal - Deferring Duty

It takes up to one week

Check if you need permission to sell someone's intellectual property in the EEA, if you've already sold it in the UK

You may not be able to export your intellectual property protected products from the UK to the EEA without the right permission.

Read the guidance: Brexit and exhaustion of intellectual property rights

Do it as soon as possible

Check if you need to apply for a permit for journeys through or between EU countries

You may not be able to transport goods through or between EU countries without an ECMT permit.

Read the guidance: ECMT international road haulage permits

It takes up to 2 weeks

Check what steps you need to take to sell goods to the EU

You may not be able to sell goods to the EU if you do not get your business ready.

Read the guidance: Get your business ready to export from the UK to the EU after Brexit

It takes up to 4 weeks

Check if your customers can give you the right documents for trade with the EU, if you’re a haulier

You may not be able to transport goods through the EU if your customers do not give you the right documents

Read the guidance: International road haulage: no-deal Brexit haulier checklist

It takes more than 4 weeks

Check what documents you need to transport goods through the EU, if you’re a haulier

You will not be able to transport haulage goods through the EU without the right documents.

Read the guidance: Carry out international road haulage after Brexit

It takes more than 4 weeks

Check what steps you need to take in order to import goods from the EU.

If you do not get your business ready, you may not be able to import goods into the UK from EU countries.

Read the guidance: Get your business ready to import from the EU to the UK after Brexit

Do it as soon as possible

If you buy chemicals from the EU, you will need to register on the new UK REACH system

You may not be able to bring chemicals into the UK if you do not register.

Read the guidance: How to comply with REACH chemical regulations

It usually takes up to 6 weeks

You may not need to do all these actions ahead of the 31 October deadline. The action you may need to take may change subject to negotiations and your circumstances.

And there was me worried for a moment...

Zombie Duck Government...

The current absurdities going on in parliament at the moment are the result of David Cameron.  Not just David Cameron’s referendum … but also the result of the absurd piece of legislation that is the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011.  Worried that his coalition government could collapse at any time Dave decided to rig the system by which general elections were previously called.

He agreed with Nick to take the Prime Minister’s prerogative to call an election away from the government and give it back to parliament ...

...but only if 2/3s of MPs agreed that an election needed to be called.  100 per cent undemocratic.

Previous to this governments could be caused to fall by the Prime Minister declaring any particular motion a “confidence vote” and then declaring that because it had been lost by as much as 1 vote the government was untenable.  Or the PM could just go the Queen and ask for an election and she'd give him one…

However, all this was too democratic for Dave as 50 per cent plus one sounded too much like democracy.  So while MPs are elected by a simple majority and the referendum was won by a simple majority (2 per cent – although 1 vote would theoretically have done) we are now left with the peculiarity that Parliament cannot be dissolved unless two thirds of MPs agree.  This is clearly undemocratic… 

More than that it undermines the constitution entirely.   As the constitution previously worked the Prime Minister was simply the person who could retain the most authority in the house.  As such the Queen made him the head of the executive and gave him the job of appointing other ministers and drafting legislation. 

However, due to the Fixed Term Parliament Act we now have a Prime Minister who is not able to control the legislative agenda in parliament and cannot call a General Election even if he can get a simple majority of MPs to agree with it.

The result is that the Speaker John Bercow is now the most important person not the Prime Minister.  The rotten Fixed Term Parliament Act creates a situation where we have not just a Lame Duck government that can't do much or a Dead Duck Government that can’t pass legislation at all but... 

... Well, actually what we have now is a Zombie Duck Government where the Prime Minister no longer even sets the legislative agenda in the House but Parliament takes over the running of business, votes to take over the order paper, votes to tell the Prime Minister what to do in international negotiations and has cut the Prime Minister so far out of the business of government that he is proroguing them to stop them legislating against him.

At the moment whether or not Jeremy Corbyn is in Downing Street is little more than a question of salary.  We actually have a situation where there are two competing governments within parliament.  Indeed, one might almost argue that we have a situation where Her Majesty’s Opposition is acting as a Government without being in government.  The only things they actually lack are administrative control of the government, government salaries and cars.  This is clearly not how the constitution was ever meant to work.

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act was always nonsense anyway since it only takes 50 per cent plus 1 MPs to vote for legislation to overturn the fact that it takes two thirds of them to throw out the government.  Thus the government can still be thrown out by 50 per cent plus 1 MPs …it just takes longer.

But the Tories don’t really do democracy so there Boris is - hoist with Dave’s petard

Collaborators...

Hello ...if you are wondering why I am trying to steal a whip from Lieutenant Spencer then you have not been paying attention.  

To cut a long story short ... an official document detailing a detailed plot to assassinate the British Prime Minister was thought to have been hidden in a giant knockwurst sausage.   

Naturally when the sausage was opened the document turned out to be a forgery.  This was because I had removed it from the knockwurst sausage by myself for safe keeping.  

However the resistance do not know this and therefore they wish to shoot me as a “collaborator” for destroying their plan…

And if Herr Merkel finds out that the knockwurst sausage is empty she will be very angry with me for not letting her know before that it was a forgery….  

Meanwhile somebody has stolen a whip from our local dominatrix who is reduced to trying to control everybody with a flying helmet and some wet celery.  This is why I am trying to steal a whip from Lieutenant Spencer.

To prevent this situation from escalating I must talk with Comrade Corbyn of the Communist Resistance… wish me luck...