Jeremy's Den: August 2019

20/08/2019

Westminster Projection and then some - 20 August 2019 Update

Hallowexit Doomsday-72 and 51st Anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies
Also Nigel Dodds' 61st birthday and Robert Plant's 71st

General election polling remains quite confusing. Pollsters agree there has been a 'Boris Bounce' coupled with a 'Nigel Slump'. But there is also circumstantial evidence of a 'Jeremy Bounce' with Labour skyrocketing to 25% or more in some polls, coupled with a 'Jo Slump' with LibDems plummeting below 20%. But the Boris Bounce is not as high and strong as Tories expected when they morphed into the Cumminist Party of Little England to promote a Crash Out Brexit. Then everybody is currently focusing on something else as Jo Swinson, Dominic Grieve and the mainstream media have successfully diverted the public's attention from the ends to the means, the variously implausible incarnations of a National Unity Government that nobody even considered a serious option before Commons' Summer Break. But two things have become clear because of this: LibDems and rebel Tories dislike Jeremy Corbyn more than they despise Boris Johnson; both would rather let Johnson have his way with a hard Brexit than put country first and unite behind Labour's leadership. Only the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens have been consistent and responsible during all the stages of the Summer Recess Circus. Don't be surprised then when polls again send mixed messages though certainly not predicting a Borisunami at the Poppy Season Snap GE.

The twelve polls fielded since Johnson's Accession to the Despatch Box (aye, that's the correct spelling in Commons' Auld Englishe) show the Tory voting intentions flatlining and even slightly down from Peak Boris three weeks ago. This is certainly not the sign of a convincing and sustainable bounce, especially as the extra Tory voters come from the Brexit Party and Labour remain in relatively good shape despite all the Europhile votes lost to the LibDems. Of course polls might very well take yet another turn now that the First Minister of England is busy preparing to set the country on a wartime footing in peacetime while getting ready for an immediate snap GE. I think Jeremy Corbyn should be happy about the latter as Johnson bringing back Lynton Crosby is in fact good news if you remember he was the brains behind Theresa May's 2017 GE campaign and Labour should definitely welcome the help. It will all be about Brexit anyway and YouGov conducted an interesting poll just days ago.

YouGov polled four different outcomes, regardless of their likelihood to happen: UK leaves EU without a deal, which looks like Johnson's official policy now; UK leaves EU on the terms of the negotiated deal, which would have to be Thresa May's thrice woodchipped Withdrawal Agreement Bill; UK leaves with a freshly negotiated deal including remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union; UK holds a second EU referendum and Remain wins. Respondents were asked to rank the four options from 'very bad outcome' to 'very good outcome' with 'acceptable compromise' thrown in the middle for the faint of heart. The results (as usual after undecideds removed) are quite enlightening and basically not good news for Johnson and only moderately good for Corbyn.

Unsurprisingly May's Deal is still less popular than No Deal, though a third of the electorate have resigned themselves to describe it as acceptable for lack of a better option currently on the table. It is a clear warning to Johnson and probably Corbyn too that a second referendum delivering a Remain victory is the strong first choice of all opponents to a crash-out, with the renegotiated deal a second choice but also the preferred option for two thirds of the electorate when 'acceptable compromise' is added. Johnson is thus made painfully aware that he no longer has any mandate as people have an unalienable right to reconsider in the light of new information, and his gesturing and posturing is of little effect. Clearly his trips to Paris and Berlin ahead of his first G7 Summit now look more like a walk to Canossa than a victory lap, as Macron and Merkel must surely be aware of the shifts in British public opinion and that Johnson is in no position to demand anything from anyone. Unfortunately for Jeremy Corbyn YouGov also tested two hypotheticals: UK leaves EU with no deal and Jezza never becomes PM; Jezza becomes PM and holds a second referendum with Remain on the ballot. And the results are quite devastating for Corbyn.

In a major contradiction to their choices on the four earlier options, a significant majority would accept the crash-out if it also keeps Corbyn out of Downing Street. Even more than a quarter of Labour voters and Remainers would take No Deal over a Corbyn Premiership. This is surely the result of Labour's sticking to 'constructive ambiguity' for far too long and lacking credibility as Born Again Remainers, but also the expected outcome of lingering doubts on Corbyn's fitness for the job and ability to deliver any positive outcome to the current shambles. More on this and even worse somewhere below. Corbyn is obviously right to hit hard at Johnson as it may convince doubters to back him after all, but should be careful what he wishes for as a snap GE might no longer be Johnson's to win but could still be Labour's to lose.

The current weighted average of voting intentions shows only minimal and statistically insignificant change from what we had ten days ago. Current Poll'O'Polls includes the six most recent ones, conducted between 29 July and 15 August. Super-sample size is 11,278 with a theoretical 0.89% margin of error. Bear in mind though that the spread of voting intentions from poll to poll is much higher than this, at 4% for the Conservatives, 6% for Labour and a massive 8% for the LibDems. Only the SNP's voting intentions remain relatively steady around 40% of the Scottish electorate.

No party should feel secure on such results. The electorate has taken wild turns one way or the other repeatedly in the past so nothing is set in stone. The trends of voting intentions since the 2017 GE show an almost stably normal situation for about 18 months with the two traditionally main parties still strongly in the lead despite a slow rise of the LibDem vote, then all hell broke loose and froze over in the run-up to the European Parliament election. The one that was and should never have been but sent pollsters and voters alike spinning into disarray. What happened since the beginning of this year is the most remarkable part with the foreplay and aftershock of the European election moving the goalposts again and again. Then Brexit PTSD (pre-traumatic in this case rather than post-traumatic) reshuffled the deck again and made any definitive prediction quite risky.

Even with Labour and the Conservatives gaining back a fair share of previously lost votes, they are both in a rather precarious position. Voters have already sent the message that even the best laid schemes of Lab and Con can go askew, and might feel empowered to do so again in the near future. Traditional party loyalties have been ripped apart by the European election and the countdown to Brexitocalypse is still unlikely to fully restore them. The predicted breakdown of voting intentions by nation and region, as per the latest Comres poll, again supports this.

The British political landscape as we knew it in 2017 after UKIP's terminal meltdown has vanished out of sight and what we have is now more reminiscent of something 2015ish when the New Model Blackshirts still scored in the double digits, only made worse by lingering doubts about the two main parties' actual abilities to govern properly, exacerbated by a feeling of insecurity fuelled by the realization that self-destruct is incoming and major shortages of basic goods are no longer a fantasy. None of the historic Red and Blue heartlands have been restored to their former glory and both parties will certainly soon find the next campaign to be more of an ordeal than anticipated.

Current polling would again deliver a hung Parliament as the alleged Boris Bounce would fail to deliver a Conservative majority. In this awkward outcome where both Labour and the Conservatives would lose seats, again only the SNP and the LibDems would have reasons to celebrate. Though the LibDems might choose to go easy on the pink champagne as 40-50ish seats is far from a spectacular success for a party who only recently bragged about bagging 100 or so. Then dancing days would be here again though you have to wonder who would lead the dance. Boris Johnson fighting the election on a Pure Brexit manifesto and flunking it would inevitably lead to his demise, and a similar fate would certainly befall Jeremy Corbyn for delivering the worst Labour result since 1983, coincidentally or not the very year Jezza was first elected for Islington North. So all political business would come to a grinding halt unless some interim leaders emerge overnight from the Red and Blue ruins. Philip Hammond and Keir Starmer anyone?

Whoever leads the two prospective government parties, getting a strong and stable majority would be more of a challenge than ever before. No stairway to heaven for anyone here as the Con-DUP alliance would fall ten seats shy of a majority, or four if they managed to get the Brexit Party MPs on board too, provided no still sane Tory MPs defect to kill such a hard-Brexit pact. At the other end a Labour-led Rainbow Min coalition would fall fifty seats short with the LibDems sitting on the fence, which is the likely outcome at least for the first few days after the election. That's where an hypothetical PM Starmer would come in handy as he would deprive the LibDems of their main talking point: no deal with Marxist Corbyn. Of course PM Hammond would also fit the profile as he would deprive the LibDems of their second talking point: no deal with Buffoon Johnson. But both parties might also opt out of the emergency leader option and go on with Bozo and Jezza, and then all bets are off and Oor Lass Jo ends up the kingmaker, a once-in-a-generation opportunity she would relish.

Whatever the configuration and her close circle's best advice, there is still the distinct possibility that Jo Swinson would be clegging (Wiktionary: gaslighting your own bandmates and negotiating in bad faith by putting impossible demands on the table that will ensure the negotiation fails and you still can shift the blame on the other party's intransigeance while getting what you always aimed for in the first place but dared not tell out loud for fear even the most gullible would see through your stunts, also recently known as johnsoning in European Union circles). Then PM Jo might also want to think it through thrice and wonder how voters would react to her putting personal dislike over country and crutching an ERG War Cabinet, and they might even regret kicking Jared O'Mara the fuck out of Sheffield and Oliver Letwin out of Dorset, as current polling predicts. Unlike felines, LibDems are not entitled to nine lives and making the wrong choice here might be their one and final Day of Reckoning. Not that many would shed but a crocodile tear about the LibDems becoming an extinct species by their own shenanigans.

Now a quick aside on what other projection methods make of current polling, for completeness' sake. Pure PNS (Proportional National Swing) is a theoretical construct as no general election has ever matched the results it predicts. But there is always an outlier, think Scotland 2015 when the SNP multiplied their vote share by 2.5 nationally and this was pretty much duplicated across all constituencies with double-digit swings. UNS (Uniform National Swing) is generally accepted as the less unreliable method but there are also some outliers. For example in 1997 UNS from the 1992 GE would have delivered 401 Labour, 212 Conservatives and 11 LibDems instead of the actual 418-165-46. Remember you should never underestimate the LibDems. Finally Electoral Calculus' Advanced Regression Model has an in-built 15-seat bonus for the Conservatives but still remains quite close to UNS and is probably just as technically good when you bear in mind that the polls' usual margin of error can easily displace two or three dozen seats one way or the other.

Current projection says 105 seats would change hands, which is close to what happened in 2015 with 111 changes and 1880 with 113. But while 1880 and 2015 qualify as realigning or at least readjusting elections, this one would only muddy the waters a smitch further. The summary and cartography of gains and losses illustrate the ambiguity of the projected results. Labour's seven gains would in fact be only retaking seats they won in 2017 and whose MPs later defected and they would even lose John Woodcock's and Angela Smith's seats. Likewise LibDems would lose only Streatham and Totnes who would come back home to Labour and Conservatives respectively, who won them in 2017. Then I guess LibDem HQ would have moved Chuka Umunna and Sarah Wollaston to friendlier neighbouring constituencies. Just think Richmond Park or Twickenham for him and Torbay for her.

Here only ten members of the English Government would lose their seats. No genuine Portillo Moments as the Muckle Dugs like Rudd, Raab, Buckland or Sharma, who were once not so long ago seriously threatened, would now survive. Only a Mini-Portillo with Alister Union Jack going down and having all the time he wants to spend on his 486-hectare (that's 1,200 acres in ERG Measurement Units) farm near Lockerbie, though I doubt Fiona Bruce would grant him a special mention in the middle of the massive SNP gains on Election Night. Unfortunately the full updated list of the 45ish Private Parliamentary Secretaries is still covered by the Official Secrets Act so a few names are missing from the fatality list, and would surely have included a couple more Scottish Tories as the bag-carrier-cum-rat slot is the only trinket left for Wee Andy Bowie, Absentee Referee Dougie Ross and Boaby Snatcher Ross Thomson, the three Scottish Boristas who did not make it to the frontbench. Then Johnson might possibly discourage his Cabinet Ministers from putting Fanboy Thomson in such a position as he might misunderstand the true meaning of 'feel the mood of your fellow Members'. Better safe than sorry.

Ironically former Tory Grandee Oliver Letwin, who could have been a credible substitute (oops, sorry, not Led Zep) Swinson-approved PM after a mediocre election result leading to Johnson's resignation, would also lose his West Dorset seat to the LibDems by a hair. Which would also be a parachuting opportunity for Sarah Wollaston if she agreed to cross county boundaries to hang on to a seat.

There would still be a modicum of hope left for the projected losers who might be able to sneak back in through the out door as 74 seats would qualify as marginals, including 27 of those predicted to change hands. Most of them would be the traditional Red-Orange-Blue battlegrounds with the Brexit Party now almost out of the picture. On current polling the Conservatives would be deeper in the danger zone than Labour with almost twice the number of marginals.

The alternate scenarios after reallocating the marginals to the runner up would not really deliver better outcomes than the direct projection. The basic result being something of a lose-lose situation for both Labour and Tories, reshuffling the marginals could do little to improve it significantly for either side, though some combinations could deliver a number of quality moments for the smaller parties during coalition negotiations.

The best case scenario for the Conservatives would deliver just a ten-seat majority. At first glance this might look safe enough, but John Major in 1992 started the 51st Parliament with a 21-seat majority and ended his term as a minority PM relying on UUP support to get legislation passed. What happened once can happen again and probably earlier in the term, and wreck Johnson's premiership. At the other end of the spectrum Labour's best case scenario would turn out to be quite nightmarish for everyone involved. Even a deal with the LibDems would leave the Tories one seat short of a majority, which is just the kind of tricky situation the LibDem leadership might want to avoid, especially if a mediocre Labour result led to Corbyn's resignation and a more Swinson-compatible leader being elected. A Labour-led Rainbow Max Pact could then rely on 350+ seats, depending on which smaller parties would join it. Not totally bulletproof as internal tensions might implode it sooner than later, but that's the best we could get.

This week Deltapoll polled Boris Johnson's and Jeremy Corbyn's leadership valence, which is the assessment of their attractiveness vs averseness (rocks vs sucks to make it simpler) on various criteria related to their perceived leadership abilities, and then some more personal stuff. This 'the people as character witnesses' exercise is definitely bad for both but arguably even worse for Corbyn. First both are perceived as untrustworthy and out of touch, definitely a bad start for an aspiring PM. Even the 'principles' item is not as good as it seems as the precise wording hints that the true meaning is 'opinionated' rather than actually 'principled' and both get roughly the same result anyway so this is a tie rather than giving either an advantage. I'd say the first half says BOZ 0-0 JEZ.

The next items on Deltapoll's laundry list are even worse for Corbyn. Of course you might question Johnson's judgment when his cherrypicked Foreign Secretary only recently learned about the English Channel, and even argue that the crises he handles best are the ones of his own making. But the respondents have spoken and Corbyn does not even do that well on 'fairness and equality', to quote the full wording of the item. So I say the second half is BOZ 2-0 JEZ. Bully for you, comrade.

Then Deltapoll treads on more personal ground with questions about kindness and baws. I fail to see how kindness can be even remotely considered an asset in the shark-infested Westminster swamp but then it's their questions, not mine, and anyway it's a draw with slim majorities concluding that both Bozo and Jezza are actually mean. Then the last two items are devastating blows for Corbyn. Though I again feel quite flabbergasted by Johnson's ratings. In my book Do-Or-Die is more akin to watching a dead dog floating down the Thames (hint: scroll down to the end of Chapter XIII) on a summer day than to actually making any kind of decision, tough or not. I also question the assessment of Johnson's ability to get the job done as he actually has got fuck all done so far and when he does it will be more like Timothy McVeigh getting the job done in Oklahoma City than Winston Churchill getting the job done in World War Two. But Deltapoll's respondents are merciless and the third half is definitely BOZ 2-0 JEZ. And we have game, set and match for Johnson on an overall BOZ 4-0 JEZ. Holy fuck.

For your complete information 38% would enjoy spending buddy time with Johnson and 48% wouldn't, while 21% would enjoy it with Corbyn and 61% wouldn't. Guess the feisty buffoon image has some perks that the long-faced dogmatist image hasn't. On to more practical concerns, 32% would trust Johnson to drive them home after a party while 49% wouldn't, but only 31% would trust Corbyn while 53% wouldn't. Which sounds a bit odd as I would trust Johnson to have one too many at a party while teetotaller Corbyn would have stayed on Diet Malvern. But then Corbyn admitted he does not own a car so that may be a factor here. Also 25% would trust Johnson to look after their children while 56% wouldn't, and here Corbyn fares just as badly with 25% who would trust him and 55% who wouldn't. Remember one of them will have to be trusted with the future of our children, not just occasional daycare. Just sayin. The only major piece of information lacking here is which one people would trust most to safely walk their dog. Guess we can trust Deltapoll to ask about it next time.

The now world-famous Lord Ashcroft poll about Scottish Independence seems to have been the spark that broke the camel's back. It surely has lifted some inhibitions and opened the gate to a flood of good feelings towards Scottish Independence, or at the very least the Scottish people's inalienable right to have the final say on this. Of course the loudest outraged shrieks and howls came for the usual suspects right here in Scotland, who are delusional enough to think their opinion matters beyond their small circle of cronies. I give you Ian Murray and Jackie Baillie. Don't bother searching for Jackie's ulterior motives as she's too thick to have any and it's transparently clear the post-Blairite MSPs were not actually targeting John McDonnell but just wanted to undermine Richard Leonard. Crosstabs from the Ashcroft poll offer some interesting perspective on the three stages on the road to Independence. All results here with undecideds and non-voters removed, first on support for holding IndyRef2 in the first place, broken down by past votes.

There is only a slim majority in favour of holding IndyRef2, which is quite surprising when compared to previous polls and the other findings of this one. Oddly Ashcroft did not include LibDem voters in the crosstabs, probably because their 7% vote share in 2017 does not give them that much of an influence on the overall results. Of course there is also some ambiguity and margin for interpretation in these results. Though it makes sense for some Yes supporters to oppose IndyRef2 if they fear Yes might lose it, or for some No supporters to support it because they hope Yes would lose it and make it a one-in-many-generations event. The crosstabs of voting intentions add some information, beyond the 52% for Yes that made headlines.

The most surprising part is 12% of 2014 Yes voters now switching to No. Possibly this has to do with Brexit and unwillingness to add 'chaos to chaos', as the Unionists talking points describe it. It should be noted too that the combined Yes-to-No and No-to-Yes switches would deliver roughly a 50-50 split. Yes winning in the headline question comes from people who did not vote in 2014 and for the most part they must be younger voters as this category is massively pro-Independence (72% of the 18-24yr olds according to this poll). Surely Ashcroft will poll 16-17yr olds too next time to get a more accurate snapshot. Then the final stage is which outcome people see as the most likely: would the Union prevail? or would it be Independence? A massive majority think Independence would win, a significant result as it confirms momentum is on the side of Yes, with Yes voters showing much more confidence in their cause than No voters. Though one in six Yes voters doubt the outcome, probably the same ones who would not hold IndyRef2 in the first place.

Just a few days after the Ashcroft poll was published, Opinium added a question about IndyRef2 to their standard voting intentions poll. They polled respondents on whether the UK government should 'allow' or 'prevent' holding IndyRef2 (their wording, not mine) but this time UK-wide and not just in Scotland. Oddly they included a 'Neither' option to their prompts, an unlikely answer for what is basically a Yes-Or-No question (pun fully intended). Even so the results, with undecideds and neitherers removed, are quite impressive. Support in Scotland is a significant 6% higher than in the Ashcroft poll and majority support across all English regions is also quite an upset. Though of course I don't rule out some ulterior motives like BritNats supporting IndyRef2 to make sure the Sweaty Socks Subsidy Junkies are kicked out of Our Precious Union and the Barnett dosh is channelled to Surrey where it belongs. Though of course there would be no Barnett dosh of Scottish origin left after Independence, but we shouldn't let minor facts get in the way of a good fantasy scenario. Or should we?

Opinium's crosstabs with current voting intentions, not the 2017 vote this time, are equally impressive if not even more. Massive support from Labour and LibDem voters is obviously the most important and unexpected result and I'm ready to count it as genuine support for Scotland's unalienable right to decide our own fate. Some 40% overall of right-wing voters supporting IndyRef2 is more ambiguous as they are the ones most likely to entertain 'Kick Out The Jocks' ulterior motives. But you know what they say about a gift horse…. even when you have every reason to beware of Brits carrying gifts. Ultimately what matter most here is the solid majority UK-wide supporting holding IndyRef2 even it would be foolish to believe all do it genuinely out of the goodness of their hearts.

All these results show that Scottish Labour and Scottish LibDems are definitely and dramatically at odds with their fellow party members Sooth Of The Wall, which should convince Jo Swinson, Willie Rennie and Richard Leonard (or whoever sits as Branch Office Manager at 290 Bath Street G2 4RE come next week) to take a deep breath and think it through. But will they? Even if they don't they will have to face the harsh and simple reality someday soon. The United Kingdom is falling apart thanks to Boris Johnson and all the Queen's corgis couldn't put it together again.

Meanwhile the trends from recent polls point to really good times for the SNP and really bad times for the Unionist parties. Unfortunately we don't have a post-Boris full Scottish poll yet, but only subsamples from GB-wide polls that we know are volatile and possibly unreliable. With all the usual caveats, these look quite consistent over the last six weeks and have the SNP up to about 40% on average, Conservatives down below 20%, Labour and LibDems tied on about 15%. While it is always fun to see John Curtice once more stating the obvious for the benefit of an Edinburgh Fringe audience, he remains oddly noncommittal about the number of SNP seats to be expected, while predicting a number of LibDem MPs GB-wide that a ten-year old would have easily got from Electoral Calculus. Then I will say it: the last full Scottish poll, conducted in late June, predicted 50 SNP seats and the current trend is likely to deliver 51 to 53, with only the LibDems holding their ground while both Labour and the Conservatives are on a downward spiral.

Of course Scottish Labour very publicly imploding does help the SNP as it hammers home their utter irrelevancy in today's Scotland. John McDonnell's conversion to IndyRef2 was but one more nail in Scottish Labour's coffin as some soon started questioning his ulterior motives: sincere belief in Scotland's unalienable right to decide our own future, or just a stunt to get SNP support to a minority Labour government? Whatever the explanation it shows that Labour have not learned from their recent mistakes. After their shambolic twists and turns about Brexit, a self-engineered cats-in-bag brawl about Scottish Independence will do nothing to restore trust in their policies. Sad and lonely days indeed for Richard Leonard when El Lider Maximo himself hangs him out to dry out in the cold under the bus, a position most awkward, and endorses IndyRef2. An interesting side effect is that the Guardian have toned down their usual anti-SNP stance quite a few notches, with arch-Unionist Scottish correspondent Severin Carrell often giving way to more neutral commentariat lately. The Guardian publishing a piece acknowledging that Independence is inevitable is quite a sign of the times but don't read too much into it just yet. We've already seen the Guardian's conversion from LibDemism to Corbynism to English Macronism to whatever it is these days, so they still might change their stance on this depending on which way the wind blows next month.

The Scottish Twig Office of the English Conservative Party too is in complete disarray. Not that David Mundell saying the exact opposite of what he said before being sacked by the First Minister of England is anything of a surprise. And of course it has a lot more to do with pissing off Johnson than actually acknowledging Scotland's right to democratically decide our fate. It just strengthens my case that the SNP should fight every forthcoming election on a strongly worded pro-Independence manifesto and make it the core issue of their campaigns. Even threatening UDI sounds like a good idea these days, just to see what the Minister for the Union would come up with to call the SNP's bluff. I guess even the promise of SuperDevoMax, Federalism in a word, would not quite cut it as the dominant feeling these days is not just 'Yes to Indy', it's also 'Break away from England's post-Brexit self-destruct' whatever way it is achieved. Never mind what condescending arch-Unionist journos say, Johnson is indeed the gift that keeps on giving and the end is near. For the Union. And a new beginning for Scotland.

1,153 days on from the EU Membership Referendum that left the whole British political establishment dazed and confused, and six dozen before the Great Leap Backward, the song remains the same. The Conservatives have kept all options on the table, except seeking another Brextension, revoking Article 50 and passing a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, while still claiming it's everybody's fault but theirs and hoping enough gullible voters will fall for it and vote for them. Of course when the First Minister of England has nothing to offer but 'Drink The Kool-Aid, Oiks', it will work only with those daft enough to buy that high levels of expertise in procrastinating, obfuscating, blame-shifting, fabricating, fearmongering and grandstanding are also proof of fitness to govern. Like a third of the English electorate, give or take, and a disturbing fifth of the Scottish electorate. Saddest part is that the oppositions look like having quite run out of options too when 72 calendar days before Halloween actually mean only 22 Commons working days left to defuse the B-Bomb. Unless you count The Guardian's latest fantasy scenario of a Lucas-Swinson ticket excluding 'separatist' SNP and Plaid Cymru as a viable option.

At first it looked like Jeremy Corbyn (or rather Labour's legal advisers) might have hit the motherlode when he asked Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, the Head of the Civil Service, to spell out the rules regarding purdah. By convention purdah starts six weeks before Election Day. But the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act (FTPA) stipulates that dissolution happens 25 working days before the scheduled Election Day, which is also six weeks, give or take a couple of Bank holidays. In the one example we have so far dissolution was effective on 19 April 2017 and purdah started on 22 April to achieve six full weeks as the election was scheduled for 8 June. So whatever the scheduled date for the election, purdah starts on the day of dissolution. Which means that, whichever date Johnson chooses for the snap election, all Government activity basically stops as soon as dissolution is announced. Unless if it does not as constitutional experts beg to differ and are not willing to offer a definite opinion. So it might be up to the courts to decide whether strict observance of purdah means that only passing new controversial policies through Commons is strengstens verboten, or if implementing ones that have already been passed is also off-limits. The tricky part here being of course that No Deal Brexit has technically never been passed by Commons and has become the default option only by default, as the name implies, because May's botched Deal failed thrice and revoking Article 50 was never on the table. Now Sedwill's refusal to clarify the rules and 'make it up as we go' attitude makes it likely this would have to be settled in court, with no indication whatsoever of how long it might take or which way it might go. Note to Comrade Corbyn: whatever you choose to do, act quickly if you want a ruling before Halloween as courts ruling in your favour retrospectively would not look that good. Just sayin.

Then it looks like Westminster is bracing itself for an all-out nuclear constitutional war, and Elizabeth Windsor could very well be the Mother Of All ICBMs in this conflagration. The irony here is that Remainer MPs' amendments to the Northern Ireland Bill, originally designed to make prorogation impossible, now backfire as no business other than the Northern Ireland Bill can be addressed until 9 September, almost a week after Commons reconvene. Silver lining is that it allows the Scottish Court of Session time to rule on the case against prorogation fast-tracked to them, though it would still have to go through the Supreme Court afterwards. Sad part of the news coverage is that media are all over the place with the cats-in-baggery between the National Unity People's Vote Front and the People's Vote Front of National Unity and that some of them have managed to make Jeremy Corbyn the problem while he is part of the solution, and quite possibly The Solution for the few weeks needed to properly organize a snap GE, whether Jo Swinson and Dominic Grieve like it or not. But now we have reached this irony-filled point in the storyline where Boris Johnson's Nemesis might very well not be Jeremy Corbyn but Philip Hammond, provided of course his nineteenish partners in crime agree to put their baws on the table and go all the way. Because a good coup is like a good fuck, half of it is worse than none at all.

The plot thickens so stay tuned for further broadcasts

There is great chaos under heaven, the situation is excellent
Mao Zedong

08/08/2019

Westminster Projection - 8 August 2019 Update

Fifty years ago today the iconic cover photo of the Beatles' Abbey Road was taken at a zebra crossing just outside the EMI Studios on Abbey Road in London and the Manson Family committed the Tate Murders at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles

Also 45th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation and Dennis Canavan's 76th birthday

A week ago the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election came and went and was rightly described by the media as a blow to Boris Johnson. But as always, and despite the apparent triumph of the United Remain Front that propelled LibDem candidate Jane Dodds 14% up on the 2017 vote, there is more here than meets the eye at first glance. Rather than an unmitigated success for the opposition, this by-election is a mixed bag and not as bad for the Conservatives as you might think. The most recent Welsh poll was extremely good for the LibDems, having them almost 12% up on the 2017 GE while Conservatives polled 9% down, so the seat was predicted to switch whatever the context. Yet the actual result was much closer than both my model and the one poll fielded in the constituency predicted. Both had the LibDem vote about right but failed to accurately measure the impact of the 'Boris Bounce' with the Brexit Party vote falling lower than predicted. This must serve as a warning that GB-wide polls might very well also underestimate the Conservative vote. Definitely very bad news for Labour who almost lost their deposit in Brecon and Radnorshire and must brace themselves for yet other nasty surprises. Let's not forget that turnout was also a factor as it was quite high here for a by-election on nearly 60%, and past experience proves again and again that potential Tory voters are more likely than average to make the trip to the polling place.

The media also made headlines about the Conservative-DUP majority being reduced to just one seat. Which is technically true with 310 Tory and 10 DUP MPs facing 319 MPs from all other denominations combined. But this does not necessarily reflect what would happen in actual votes. In case of a no-confidence vote I think the result would be 322-317 rather than 320-319 with independents Charlie Elphicke and Sylvia Hermon both voting for the government. Any Brexit-related vote would be trickier and might actually take down the government. Up to 46 Tory hardliners are likely to vote against any sort of Brexit Deal, even one without the Irish backstop. On the other hand a No Deal Brexit would be voted down by about 20-30 'moderate' Tories and would fail even if a handful of Labour or ex-Labour MPs supported it. Quite a catch-22 situation for Boris Johnson as the only two choices readily available are losers. So Boris Johnson might very well gamble on a snap GE at the earliest opportunity, and he would not necessarily lose it.

Then an important side of the story is how the Conservatives and Labour will interpret this by-election and in what way it will influence their strategies. I just hope for Labour that they don't take the Guardian's columnists as election spads. Just bear in mind that current polling shows potential Brexit Party voters swarming back to the Conservatives in droves while the LibDems hold their ground, and more significantly still keep away liberal-progressive Remainers from Labour. So Owen Jones' point that Labour have little to fear from the LibDems does not really hold water. He's right to state that there are very few Lab-Lib marginals, though current voting patterns have increased their number from a couple to a handful, and the two he mentions (Leeds North West and Sheffield Hallam) are both predicted to switch. What he totally misses, although that's the heart of the matter, is how a stronger LibDem vote can hurt Labour in Lab-Con marginals. And the answer is: a fucking lot, lad. Katy Balls' column also misses a major point: that the 'Boris Effect' has indeed already put the Brexit Party back in its box, and much quicker than I expected and would have happened under May or Hunt. All things considered, the LibDems remain (pun intended) more of a clear and present danger to Labour than the Brexit Party are to the Conservatives. At least that's what the most recent polls say.

On 24 July around suppertime Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson shook hands with Elizabeth Windsor, a distinct change from his predecessor who had actually curtseyed and kissed, and became First Minister of England after being elected by 92k Conservative Party members, half of whom had voted for the Brexit Party at the European Parliament election just two months before. Two weeks and a Grand Culling of the Huntistas on, General Election polls have taken yet another weird turn. If the latest batch are to be believed there is actually a 'Boris Bounce' among the electorate in England and Wales, with Scotland again out of sync and quite immune to Johnson's attempts at seduction. Here is what the post-Boris polls say right now, all seven fielded since his accession:

There is no doubt there is actually a Boris Bounce though I couldn't possibly tell how high it would be on Election Day. There is still a lot of uncertainty in the polls with the last batch predicting anything from a 1% Labour lead to a 10% Conservative lead. Polls also show that the Conservatives are definitely snatching back a fair share of the Brexit Party vote, while Labour are gaining close to none from the Greens and LibDems. A lot will also depend on the date of the snap GE. Comres tried four variants of the poll they conducted 24-25 July. They published the detailed results and crosstabs only for their 'Scenario two' but the other three still give a pretty good idea of what Johnson should do if he wants to maximize the effect of the Boris Bounce. Which would be holding the snap GE after a 'successful' No Deal Hallowexit but probably not too long after that so the negative effects are not felt yet. So I guess that kills my pet scenario of a Brexit Day Snap GE and pushes it to some Thursday in November. 14 November looks good to benefit from both the Brexit Bounce and some Patriotic Bounce in the wake of Poppy Month. Wait and see.

Anyway what Comres found is quite frightening and says a lot about the gullibility of huge parts of the electorate. That's the part where the First Minister of England morphs into Bo-Got-Baws Johnson, all his sins are forgiven and he is rewarded for sailing Britannia over the cliff and onto the reefs at flank speed. The downside for the Tories is that this scenario is far from being anchored in solid rock and every grain of sand that might derail a No Deal Brexit would also wreck their chances at winning the next GE. Then I guess it makes the case for the English electorate suffering from acute psychosis, that is living in a fantasy world where Brexit is good, Europe is the enemy and Johnson is Churchill. And don't forget Scots are subsidy junkies hellbent on conning Surrey Tory voters out of their hard-earned dosh and should be kicked out of Oor Precious Yoonion. Have to agree with the conclusion here even if the premises of the demonstration are just buckets of chemically pure fucking cooshite.

One of the major factors is still how well the Brexit Party will fare in the next batch of standard polls, excluding all 'alternate timeline' scenario. So far polls say that Brexit voting intentions have gone down quicker that UKIP voting intentions in the same timeframe in 2014. What they will be at the end of August is anybody's guess and could push Johnson one way or the other. If he actually chooses to gamble a snap GE, Johnson will have to make a decision as soon as Commons reconvene on 3 September as the Conference Recess is likely to start on 12 September. So a no-confidence vote would have to happen then and be lost whatever it takes, starting the countdown on the mandatory 14-day wait for a possible alternative majority, which will never show up. Then Johnson can have Elizabeth Windsor giving assent to dissolution on the day of his choosing, which has to be exactly 25 working days before the day selected for the snap GE. Bear in mind though that that there are different opinions about possible options among constitutional experts and the real risk of a major constitutional crisis whatever path Johnson chooses. Anyway late August polls showing a 10% Conservative lead and Brexit below 12% would meet the criteria for starting the process. Which is just what we have in the most recent polls right now, but will it last?

If a psychiatrist were to take a deep dive into England's collective psyche, he would most certainly diagnose a deep-rooted case of sado-masochism. As in sadistic Betters vs masochistic Oiks, or how else can you explain such high Conservative voting intentions when James Cleverly's Armageddon Clock is ticking louder than ever? Which of course will come as a surprise only if you have lived in a fallout shelter since the days of Edward Heath and aren't aware that the Betters control the media and write the narrative the Oiks are fed.

My current Poll'O'Polls includes the six most recent ones fielded between 24 and 30 July. The last one is more than a week old, as if pollsters are benidorming too after a flurry of instant post-Boris polls. Super-sample size is 10.781 with a theoretical 0.91% margin of error. Though this does not mean much when you have contradictory polls so the individual margin of errors might be a better indicator than the aggregate one, and that would be around 3% with the usual 1k sample sizes. And again this weighted average should have most parties scratching their heads rather than celebrating. Not to brag about it but the only ones in a position to claim a mandate from such voting intentions are the SNP who would be up about 4% on their 2017 result, or about 10% relative to their previous vote share.

The breakdown of these voting intentions by age brackets is quite enlightening. This is based on the last three Comres polls, as they are the ones offering the most detailed crosstabs here. The older generations are the most conservative as expected. But contrary to common wisdom the younger voters are not the most progressive, with unexpectedly high LibDem voting intentions. Actually the 25-34yr olds are the most progressive with the highest Labour and Greens vote shares and the second highest SNP vote share. Both Labour and the SNP should take this as a warning sign as the passing of time will not necessarily improve their electoral prospects as much as they expect.

Meanwhile Labour are so busy witchhunting each other they don't have any spare time to campaign against the Conservatives. I didn't make that up, they're selling the story to the press themselves. When they should probably pay more attention to the class divide, or voting intentions by social grade to use a more neutral wording. Again this is based on the Comres polls only, which are generally more favourable to Labour, but the differences between the categories matter more than the absolute values. What these numbers show is that class identity is much less of a vote predictor than age, which is not really news as we have seen this already in earlier polls. Then you could make a strong case that class identity as such is no longer a reality in today's UK as the Thatcher and Blair eras both included deliberate steps to blur the historic class divide. Sure thing though is that the Conservatives should not take the upper middle class for granted because of their strong Europhile leaning fuelling a higher-than-average LibDem vote. Neither should Labour take the working class for granted because of their strong Euroscepticism. .

On the other hand the People's Vote campaign for a United Remain Front all across the UK has a really microscopic probability to succeed once the ball gets rolling for the snap GE. Tactical voting might happen locally based on some very specific criteria but I definitely don't see it happening on a pre-arranged national scale. Brecon and Radnorshire was the one-off test run and they nearly flunked it, so the parties have a lot of reasons to not touch any Remain Pact with an eighteen-meter (that's a sixty-footer in Jacob Rees-Mogg's pet Imperial Units) bargepole. The snap GE campaign will certainly be dominated by Brexit and its fallout, but I hope Labour and the SNP will challenge the Conservatives when they try to obfuscate and avoid debating other major issues. Then don't count too much on the election spads as they mostly tend to offer simplistic answers to complex questions, which won't make nobody none the wiser. Also beware of triple negatives, just sayin.

Current polling would deliver an awkwardly hung Parliament. Of course the Boris Bounce, aided and abetted by FPTP, would trigger dramatic changes from previous projections. Especially as the Conservatives would now be 8.8% ahead of Labour in England outside London, instead of 'just' 7.7% in 2017. Ironically even this would not be enough to offset the Grand Culling of Tory MPs in Scotland as the Tory-DUP pact would end up a handful of seats shy of a majority and even the support of the couple of Brexit Party MPs would not get them past the hurdle. The hypothetical Labour-led Rainbow Max coalition would also fall a couple of seats short so basically the fate of the Empire would depend on the LibDems, and how long it would take them to renege on their 'Neither Boris Nor Jeremy' pledge, as I think we can agree PM Jo is not really a serious option.

Jo Swinson would have to do some heavy soul-searching during the short time it will take Fiona Bruce to read out the exit poll on Snap Election Night, before finding the right words to justify crutching an ERG-soaked Tory minority government. 'In the name of national interest, we chose to help the country heal its wounds and recover from Brexit' wouldn't quite cut it with Brexit-crazy Tories. Though, when you think of it, it's still better than 'we so love ministerial cars we could not resist' which would be the only credible alternative. Then I guess some of her MPs would remind her of the Coalition and its aftermath, in case she had forgotten: live by the trough, die by the trough, Jo.

The most distressing part for Labour is that they would lose ground everywhere as the seat projections by meta-region show. While they showed unexpected resilience facing the Brexit Party and LibDem surges, now they would be quite helpless in front of the Boris Bounce that would deeply hurt them even in Wales and London. Ironically Scotland would prove to be the last bulwark against Johnsonism as the almost complete extermination of Scottish Tory MPs would be the major factor in preventing a Tory majority. So again we have evidence that a General Election can never be a win-win game, though this one would be something of a lose-lose situation, except of course for those ready to surrender all residual shreds of dignity for a backseat on the frontbench, and I'm not thinking of renegade Remainer Tories here.

We're familiar now with pollsters exploring alternate realities so I have tried one of my own. What would happen if a Remain Pact was set up at the next GE (and one also including the SNP since we're in an alternate timeline here), or a Conservative-Brexit Pact, or both? Rules are simple: both pacts first protect the incumbents, and then the party selected to run in the other seats is the one who did best in 2017 for the Remain Pact, or at the 2019 European Election for the Con-Brex Pact, no matter what the current projections say. Which means a Remain Pact would, quite counter-intuitively, not be more favourable for the LibDems than the status quo. Simply because they could not challenge Labour in the few Lab-Lib marginals, and more importantly would have to give way to Labour in seats that were Con-Lab marginals in 2017 but are predicted to switch to Con-Lib marginals under current polling, so Labour would be the main beneficiary of any such pact. The main caveat then is that the existence of pacts would obviously disrupt the voting patterns. A Remain Pact would switch more Brexit Party voters back to the Conservatives as was already the case at the Brecon by-election, while a Blue Pact would boost tactical voting for both Labour and the LibDems in their respective competitive seats. Anyway here is what these scenarios would possibly deliver:

A Con-Brex pact without the counterbalancing Remain Pact would be totally disastrous for Labour as it would switch most of their Leave-leaning seats in the North and Midlands and also totally nuke them in Wales. Then the combination of both pacts would turn all seats into two-way battlegrounds, pretty much like the US House elections or the second round in French legislative elections, but the workings of FPTP would hugely favour the first party as they do most of the time. It's worth noting too that a hypothetical Blue Pact would be stronger than the Remain Pact and would manage to win the election even in a one-on-one confrontation. A major factor here would again be heavy Labour losses in Leave-leaning parts of the North and in Wales, in constituencies where the LibDem or Plaid Cymru vote is not strong enough to effectively counterbalance the Tory reinforcements to the Brexit Party vote in 'open' seats. In Scotland the Remain Pact would allow the SNP to wipe out all Tory incumbents, while a Con-Brex Pact would save two more than the current regular projection (Jack and Bowie). But we all know all of this will never happen, as nobody actually wants any pact to ever materialize. Not Invented Here, as they say. But could have been fun.

Under current polling 99 sitting MPs would go down, quite close to 1923 which did result in a change of government and 1950 which did not. The summary and cartography of changing seats again shows some level of crisscrossing rather than a massive swing towards one party, which would be the sign of a real upset. They also confirm we're not (yet?) on the path to a strong and stable Tory majority despite the obvious effects of the Boris Bounce. By the way I should also mention that other methods of prediction deliver slightly different results from mine. Pure Uniform National Swing (UNS) would deliver 313 Conservative MPs, 232 Labour, 50 SNP and 32 LibDems. Quite close but the proportional swing component in my model favours the LibDems, which is not a surprise as they are the ones with the highest relative differential with their 2017 vote. Electoral Calculus' revamped Regression Model would deliver 324 Conservative seats, a four-seat majority, 214 Labour, 50 SNP and 40 LibDems. Again quite consistent with my numbers as Martin Baxter has honestly pointed out his algorithms amount to a 15-seat bonus for the Tories, compared with pure UNS.

The Boris Bounce is also welcome news for the Cabinet and the Tory frontbench as far fewer would lose their seats than in previous projections. Right now only eight are predicted to be unseated, but this is underestimated as the Cabinet has so far failed to update the full list of Parliamentary Private Secretaries or MPs appointed to the mysterious 'Ministerial Team'. Unwritten convention is that every Secretary of State is 'entitled' to two unpaid bagcarrier-cum-rats with the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor often appointing three, despite past recommendations to reduce their number to one per Department. This results in a grand total of 45, quite possibly including a handful of Oor Precious Scottish Tories as was the case under Theresa May, who would be instant additions to the fatality list. The current projection is something of a killjoy as we would be deprived of juicy Portillo Moments with Amber Rudd and Dominic Raab now predicted to hold their seats. The only Cabinet-level loser would be Alist-ERG Jack and I doubt his minutest of name recognitions outside Dumfriesshire would warrant him a Portillo Moment.

Of course this scenario holds only as long as polls show a continuation of the Boris Bounce. Many potential upsets might indeed change this as a possible major constitutional crisis looms, that would be fully on Johnson trying to shut down Parliament one way or the other. Public opinion might also react negatively to Boris Johnson handing the keys to the asylum to Benedict Cumberbatch. They might also lose confidence in a Happily Ever After Brexit when Sleekit Gove's and Dominic Raab's blatant lies about the process and its outcome are debunked, though I wouldn't count on the BBC or the Tory-owned dailies to do this. On the other hand Labour making no attempt to hide a possible coup of their own engineering might also backfire. Time will tell and I only hope the SNP stays out of the whole clusterbùrach and concentrate on a convincing and positive campaign, including a strong commitment to Independence instead of the half-baked talking points of 2017 that lost them a third of their vote and of their seats.

(though Blood On The Tracks was actually released in January 1975 as the video states)

There is still a modicum of hope for predicted losers as 68 seats qualify as marginals under current polling, fewer than after the 2017 GE but still enough to skew the election result in different directions. Another 110 seats would be decided on 4% to 10% so can be considered competitive too under the right prevailing winds. Only two of the marginals involve the Brexit Party, so we're back to the traditional Red-On-Blue battlegrounds with some Orange-On-Anyone thrown in for good measure. The breakdown of the marginals shows that there is a reasonably high probability that Labour's representation could remain at its current level though falling short of the 2017 result, though it is also quite possible that the Tories would skyrocket back to their 2015 level, before all self-inflicted wounds and cumulative incompetence took their toll.

The alternate Commons you get after reallocating marginals are by no means any less doom-and-gloomy than the current projection. The Con Max option speaks for itself. With Tories on a majority the fate of the Realm would be decided by the outcome of the never ending infighting between the English Donald Trump Fan-Club and the Hammond-Lidington faction, provided all of the latter haven't been culled before by some unnatural selection process designed to ensure survival of the unfittest. At the other end of the spectrum again Jo Swinson would be the Kingmaker, not the brightest prospect in all possible future universes. Unless of course the direct threats of major food shortages and breaches of national security make the LibDems think twice before saying it's alright to support the Tories.

Now there are two options even the best pollsters can't test though they're starting to gain momentum: a caretaker Government in charge of sorting out the Brexit mess before calling a snap GE, or a National Unity Government that could possibly stay until the end of the current Parliament term. Some names are already floated around media circles to lead such a Government: David Lidington, Kenneth Clarke, Yvette Cooper and my own favourite Keir Starmer. And next thing you know someone will suggest John Bercow too. Only problem is that any such scenario would involve Elizabeth Windsor coming out of the Monarchical Splendid Isolation that has been the rule since her Uncle Ted was kicked out to prevent him from dragging the UK into an alliance with Nazi Germany, and allowing herself to be dragged into the shark-infested political swamp just to tell Johnson to fuck off. Don't hold your breath on that though. No kidding.

British pollsters seem to enjoy various types of multiverse polling. YouGov and then Comres pioneered the alternate realities polling and now Deltapoll have come up with one of their own. They tried it in their poll for the Mail on Sunday, fielded 25-27 July. The baseline voting intentions in this poll are quite close to the overall trends so it does not look as an outlier. Which does not mean their alternate reality polling should be taken at face value. The alternate option is quite straightforward: how would you vote if Jeremy Corbyn was no longer leader of the Labour Party? You might take that as part of the obsessive anti-Corbyn campaign in the media, and I certainly do especially as they did not specify who would replace Corbyn or if his sacking would also include some policy changes. Anyway their findings are quite flabbergasting, especially the shifts in voting intentions in Scotland.

Deltapoll's baseline voting intentions GB-wide are quite close to the current rolling average but their Scottish results are quite off the current trends of Scottish polling, which are more like the SNP above 40% and the Scottish Twig of the English Labour Party below 20%. Then their alternate timeline is even more puzzling. I totally fail to see what kind of a fucking miracle would switch 9% of voters, that is about 3 million people, to Labour just by ditching Corbyn and not even knowing who would replace him and on what manifesto they would fight the election. Likewise switching 3% of the Scottish vote from the SNP to Labour, or nearly 80k voters, definitely looks like a major outlier as not even Keir Starmer could achieve that. And there are even more surprises in the poll's crosstabs when Deltapoll compares the original baseline vote with what would happen with Corbyn gone.

Of course 7% of Tory voters and 28% of LibDem voters switching to Labour just because of a change in leadership totally beggars belief. Especially as another crosstab from the same poll says 4% of Conservative Leavers would switch to post-Corbyn Labour but 6% of Labour Leavers would switch to the Greens. Which makes little sense if you accept the underlying assumption that the only rational justification for kicking out Corbyn would be to take Labour on a strongly pro-Remain course. So I guess even the staunchest opponents to Corbyn would never find this kind of data reliable enough to provide the basis for a coup attempt. So much for alternate timeline polling.

In this context I think I have to mention another of the Guardian's opinion pieces, this time by Paul Mason advocating a Popular Front between Labour, the LibDems and the Greens. I find it quite ironic that Mason explicitely refers to the French and Spanish Popular Fronts of 1936 when both would be dubbed 'extreme hard left' by today's standards, and specifically by the Guardian's standards. Then of course Clement Attlee and Nye Bevan would also be chastised as 'hard left extremists' if they lived today, and basically everyone to the left of Gordon Brown. Then Mason likening a one-off anti-Brexit electoral mismatch to a long-term anti-Fascist alliance does sound definitely odd, whichever way you try to read it. I also find that quickly ruling the SNP out of the dreamworld Popular Front in the name of a supposedly divided Scottish working class is a bit rich when the most recent polls show that C2DEs are more likely to vote SNP than the average voter. Then I guess Guardian columnists are always a bit confused about the basics of Scottish politics. Or they know and don't care because you can never let facts go in the way of a good narrative. Or can you?

You say you told me that you wanna hold me but you know you're not that strong
Time will tell just who has fell and who's been left behind
When you go your way and I go mine
© Bob Dylan 1965

As the first and probably last Minister for the Union, Boris Johnson's legacy will be that of an undertaker rather than a caretaker. His First Coming to Scotland was not much of a success and this probably ensures there will be no Second Coming. Johnson turning down an opportunity for a longer photo-op outside Bute House when offered one by a devilishly smiling Nicola Sturgeon says it all, and is certainly a first in Johnson's media-savvy career. Then we all know Johnson has northing to offer Scotland save another powergrab by increased Westminster intervention in devolved matters over the heads of Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government. I stand corrected though as Johnson definitely has something historically important to offer: boosting the Yes vote past 50% as Panelbase's June poll predicted. Even 7% of Scottish Tory voters would now vote Yes to Independence. Johnson becoming PM also boosts the Yes vote from 45% to 53% among Scottish Labour voters, and from 35% to 48% among Scottish LibDem voters. And this week a new Ashcroft poll goes in the same direction with 52% Yes, including 5% of Conservative voters and 41% of Labour voters once undecideds removed. And Ashcroft did not include EU nationals and 16-17yr olds, thus underestimating the Yes vote that would have reached the predicted 53% had they been included. So Nicola Sturgeon has every reason to be cheerful and extend a warm welcome to the soon-to-be first First Minister of England.

It's common wisdom that, whatever the IndyRef2 polls say, England has already lost Scotland for quite some time. You can easily make the point that England lost Scotland the day Labour lost Scotland many years ago. But Johnson's attempts at colonial rule will be the final nail in the Oh So Precious Yoonion's coffin. Johnson has been potty-trained since birth in English Exceptionalism and self-proclaimed Entitlement to the Highest Positions of the Realm and never failed a test. Last of which was his total, utter and complete humiliation of Ruth Davidson, a brilliant and unmitigated success in four artistically crafted stages: sacking David Mundell after Ruth (almost) argued you have to be gay to be Scottish Secretary, appointing a toff ERG sock-puppet to replace him, appointing an English MP as Scotland Office's junior minister for the first time in 133 years, and finally appointing a Scottish MP as unpaid junior minister after and only after the legal quota of paid ministers had been exhausted. Nobody could have done more and better to totally alienate Scotland and hammer it home that Scottish Tories count for sour fuck all in Johnson's Britannia. Ausgezeichnet.

Actually Scotland and Ruth Davidson's career plans might very soon be the least of Johnson's worries as Ireland becomes his biggest self-inflicted nightmare. Oddly for a man so fascinated by the United States, Johnson seems to have forgotten the existence of the powerful and politically influential Irish-American community. Now the bipartisan Friends of Ireland caucus in the US Congress has pledged to block any future USA-UK trade deal if Johnson insists on scrapping the Irish backstop, which would essentially kill the Good Friday Agreement by reinstating a hard border. Even if Friends of Ireland currently have only 54 members, the relevant part is that one of them chairs the Ways and Means Committee, the most powerful in the US House of Representatives and the one who sets the tone on proposed trade deals. And there go all of Johnson's and Farage's dreams of a fast-tracked chlorinated-chicken-for-NHS benefits package for American Big Business.

Of course the clearest and presentest danger for Johnson's no-deal no-backstop Brexit is much closer to home with Sinn Féin now openly demanding a Reunification Referendum (the so-called 'Border Poll') in case of a Halloween crash-out. Then Conservatives are so obsessed with Scottish Independence that they failed to notice calls for Irish Reunification, especially as polls about it are scarce and are not always really conclusive. The most recent one fielded in the Republic of Ireland dates back to December 2016 and delivered 46% thinking it was time for a United Ireland, 32% thinking it was not and 22% undecideds. Polls conducted in Northern Ireland over the last six years are not really encouraging as only one showed a majority for Reunification, though they also show that support for Reunification has increased over time and Brexit is likely to be the turning point, just as it is for Scottish Independence.

Two other polls tested support for Reunification against various Brexit options. One was conducted by Deltapoll in Septembre 2018 and delivered 52% supporting Reunification in case of Brexit with a deal, rising to 56% in case of a hard Brexit reinstating a hard border across Ireland. Another was conducted by Lucid Talk in December 2018, testing voting intentions on a Border Poll against three Brexit scenarios: Brexit is revoked and UK remains in the EU, which we can probably rule out now barring some deus ex machina upset of Fifth Extinction magnitude; UK leaves EU with a deal, which at the time was Theresa May's thrice-rejected Withdrawal Agreement Bill and I guess this one too is dead now; UK leaves EU without a deal, so the backstop never happens and a hard border is reinstated. Lucid Talk found respondents evenly split in case of Brexit with a deal and a significant 57% majority (once undecideds removed) in case of a no-deal Brexit. Quite enlightening as this has now become the default option. Or hasn't it?

So what's next? The provisions of the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act of 1998 state that the UK's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland decides if and when a Border Poll can happen, under a rather fuzzily worded requirement. So don't hold your breath for one happening soon. In the meantime Johnson might find time to talk to EU leaders without pissing them all off as happened with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Then it is highly unlikely EU heads of state will fall for Johnson's hat tricks. After all most of them have known him in his previous incarnation as Foreign Secretary and are fully aware he is nothing but an incompetent buffoon and a bombastic windbag with an inflated ego. So when he tries to bullingdon them into subservience, like in refusing to meet them if they don't ditch the Irish backstop, the likely answer is: 'OK Bozo, have it your way and git tae fuck' while laughing their collective ass out and enjoying every twist and turn of the Halloween Snap GE campaign.

In this context Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell no longer ruling out a second Scottish Independence referendum and Shadow Treasury Minister Clive Lewis supporting him is la cerise sur le gâteau (that's icing on the cake in French). Surely the times they are a-changin' and all the pieces will nicely fit together sooner than later. Besides the flurry of outrage from the Scottish Twig Offices of both the English Conservative Party and the English Labour Party are quite entertaining, even if irrelevant. Funny too that neither Ruth Davidson nor Richard Leonard have yet realized they have lost all semblance of authority on their own parties, when both have been sidelined and humiliated beyond repair by their English Puppetmasters and both their parties are embroiled in nasty civil wars and headed for electoral woodchipping. The writing is on the wall, too bad they choose not to see it.

Johnson's long hot summer is far from over and nobody knows what might happen when Commons reconvene after the Benidorm Break, so stay tuned for further updates

You see things and you say 'Why?'
But I dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?'
(George Bernard Shaw, Back To Methuselah: In The Beginning)

20/08/2019

Westminster Projection and then some - 20 August 2019 Update

08/08/2019

Westminster Projection - 8 August 2019 Update

We Must Be Dreaming