Why did nothing come out of the Brexit meaningful votes?

Why did nothing come out of the Brexit meaningful votes?

When the last Parliament had its Brexit meaningful votes, nothing passed. I wrote about the politics and consequences and said that others would write about Labour and the TINGE, it’s taken until now. My article is mainly just reporting but it seems I wanted a 2nd Referendum in which I would have campaigned for remain, The question I ask today is what would have happened if Labour’s No voters had voted Yes, the chart below shows what would have happened.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_votes_on_Brexit#Second_Round_of_Indicative_Votes_(1_April_2019)

A requirement for a 2nd Referendum, the Customs Union and the so-called Common Market 2.0 which contained most of the single market commitments would have passed if Labour’s No voters had voted Yes. This isn’t a Labour problem made by Remainers.

I should add the other’s No votes to see the blame shared by the Lib Dems & SNP, maybe tomorrow and we should note that there were 91 Labour abstentions on the vote on Parliamentary Supremacy, (represented in Wikipedia as “Revocation of Article 50 to avoid No Deal”), enough to have changed the result but I have assumed otherwise that all abstentions were pairings and would not have made a difference. …

Back to the Commons for more on Brexit

Last night the House of Commons voted on four alternatives to No-Deal and May’s Deal Brexit, they were any deal to be confirmed by a confirmatory/final say referendum, aiming for Custom’s Union, aiming for a Customs Union and Single Market membership, and changing the default, currently to leave without a deal to Revoking of article 50. They all failed to win a majority, but the Customs Union only lost by three votes. Here is a graphic from the Institute of Governance showing the votes. I also present the majorities/minorities in bar chart form.

 

A number of MPs and commentators have argued, partly as a result of the ERG’s stupid game playing, that accepting May’s binding deal in exchange for a promise that the non-binding political declaration becomes better than May’s first draft is unacceptable; much of the problem in compromising in or with Parliament is that it can’t bind itself, so its promises are worthless. It’s one of the reasons I still support remain as Pariament can’t break the accession treaties. This means that “Customs Union” and “Common Market 2.0” have questionable value and the Withdrawal Agreement with it’s sub-standard citizenship guarantees and its failure to underwrite the Good Friday Agreement underwrite them. The vote however is meant to be indicative.

I have previously argued that Brexit is either catastrophic or pointless and I have learned that there are at least two forms of decision making, which either polarise or coalesce foci. Parliaments allow coalescence, compromise and the ability of popular second choices to become a reality. It seems that MPs are not yet ready to make these comprises, as shown by the high number of Labour votes against all these positions and Nick Boles decision to resign the Tory Whip. See below/overleaf for the bar charts, … …