Political Crystal Ball Gazing

My view of Owen Smith standing for Labour is simple: I don't like him and I don't trust him. He says he's a socialist and a bit of a left winger.

He did march with the miners in South Wales, but somewhere along the line he became a consultant for the large pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and he followed the 'choice' line of his employer. He received a six figure salary as he went into Parliament. He favoured more of the Private Finance Initiative, which was Gordon Brown's Budgets fiddle that mortgaged the NHS and schools to private builders and costs a fortune into the future.

He didn't oppose austerity and did not oppose the Conservatives opening welfare cuts under the capitulating leadership of Harriet Harman.

He supported the renewal of Trident, voted for airstrikes in Iraq and Libya and has attended a few arms fairs.

I am not a socialist, but a social liberal. In the 2010-2015 Coalition the Liberal Democrats embraced economic liberalism and dumped their own supporters after a long period when the Liberal Democrats represented radicalism and were for quite a time to the left of Labour.

They propped up the Tories. I quite liked Miliband as he had social justice and libertarian leanings, a man of compassion. But when he faced the headlights of the General Election, he froze like a rabbit. He wasn't allowed to be himself, and he was probably insufficiently skilled to handle the criticisms, the legacies.

Whilst I overlap with Jeremy Corbyn and regard him as being what it says on his tin (unlike with Owen Smith), I don't think he is a competent organiser or has the necessary bite to be a Prime Minister. Whilst there are longstanding ideological objections to him from sitting MPs, and there is more to their objections than his competence, he is clearly incapable of organising his own office. What worries me are the more 'thuggish' types behind him who'd give him his backbone, as they have over this leadership election. I don't like the culture of some of the groups behind Corbyn, and he would never deal with them.

Theresa May's Opening Night of the Long Knives was, like Macmillan's long before her, a statement of weakness not strength, but neverthless a stamp of her feet. Corbyn on the other hand is letting MPs "unresign" and crawl back on to his front bench, which he can hardly fill. May is as yet untested when it comes to the near future of decisions. But to set up overlapping key ministries of potential opponents is a key political skill, by which decisions come up to her. She can dodge and weave, but in the end she can sow overlap and confusion among others in order to rule herself.

So far May has shown an ability to lead, but these are early days. Corbyn may have 'ideas', but if he cannot lead, he's no good. Women seem to be rather good in politics (even if disliking their policies): witness Hillary Clinton's speech against the lunacy of Donald Trump. Angela Merkel is all about a steady hand, and she didn't get where she is (and stay there so long) through Corbynist gentleness and simply ideas.

The EU referendum has created a divide and is reworking politics. When Corbyn said that Article 50 should be invoked immediately, he immediately lost any of my support. He also didn't consult his 'Labour team' (if there is one).

Politics is a sluggist game of timing and opportunity. Some of us think the referendum was wrong to be had in the first place (regardless of the result), a reckless gamble of party before country, that it became a misdirected protest by people who were never told how the EU works, and one campaign for in was wholly defensive and lacked any hope and idealism, and the other was a pack of tribal lies.

I don't know what "Brexit means Brexit" means. Theresa May has also said, "As we leave the European Union", which sounds like a process not a completion. Some of us think leaving the EU is a disaster and becomes, for the future, the number one issue and to resist. For every reason: for the economy, for liberties, for wider world (sharing) idealism on a political level, for free movement of young and elderly, for science co-operation and intellectual sharing, for voting transnationally.

I'm worried that Nick Clegg, not exactly the country's most reliable politician, is approaching 'monitoring' this exiting the EU as something that is going to be done. He should be resisting it, and saying a General Election is the opportunity for voting to reverse this. I want Tim Fallon to lay it on the line in a manifesto to say he will do everything so that Article 50 is never invoked: that he and his MPs stand for election on this basis.

So what does the future hold?

It looks like Corbyn will win easily. There is no doubt about this. Owen Smith is dodgy by history and by expression. He is televisual and no doubt can run things, but he is back to the same-old. It doesn't actually matter if he was fantastic. The fact is he will lose and badly.

Now some MPs will indeed unresign, because if Corbyn doesn't do it the members will: MPs that do not follow the Corbyn line will get deselected. So some MPs will keep the meal ticket. My friends who have joined Labour and paid £85 each to vote know that they will also be voting to deselect Karl Turner if he doesn't buckle under. Personally, I think he is a lousy MP so I hope he is replaced.

But some Labour MPs have clearly crossed the bridge. They have been so open in criticism of Corbyn that they will either informally or formally break away. Informally means just organising their own voting whilst being nominally Labour; the result will of course be deselection. The formal break away is a new party, one that reflects a more social democratic view. And that means back to co-operating with others. We think some could be Liberal Democrat; crumbs, some could even be Conservative at the fringes. What may well make the difference is Europe, and the pro-EU MPs go into loose (presumably) arrangements with the Liberal Democrats.

As for the Conservatives, their change would have been sooner with Remain vote, as they would have shattered: the "war would have continued" as Farage put it regarding UKIP before the results appeared. The Out vote has meant pro-EU Conservatives "having to accept the result" - at least as a process gets under way.

But it does not add up. You cannot have a single market without free movement, unless the EU changes this and the EEA too (the EU obeying economicf area for countries that might join). You cannot be in the single market if greater immigration control and sovereignty is asserted. You cannot have England out of the EU and Scotland in; there cannot be a UK out and Ireland in with no customs border between Ireland and the North of Ireland. The EU was essential in Ireland because it undermined nationalism, as it always does, so long as you are in the EU and voting transnationally. I mean, to have Irish MPs throughout the island in one Parliament is fantastic, even while Northern Ireland is part of the UK and Eire is independent. Plus the UK is a weak entity because it is not a federal state but a unitary state with a devolution that can slice through it like splitting slate.

Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary now, changes his mind anyway; it was that actual marginality of opinion ostensibly immediately after the result which got him knifed by Michael Gove. David Davis is having to square impossible circles and Liam Fox is currently jumping the gun trying to make trade deals when we cannot and we are not even in the World Trade Organisation. It is pre-arranging what might never come about.

What can come about, and is the second likeliest, is Article 50 is invoked and then the EU sits on its hands (the French will for sure) so that the EU achieves more and Britain less as the clock ticks for two years and you're out; the flexibility offered may be towards Scotland in a possible different independent future. Everyone will take a hit, but the EU hit is recoverable via relocations, whereas the British will have to devalue and scrabble around for trade deals here and there and attract investment towards a largely domestic economy.

The further problem is that we do not have enough legislative time or Civil Service resources to undo forty years of the EU running through the UK political and legal bloodstream. Look at how the Universal Credit has been so time-consuming that it is delayed and delayed - and that is just one major change. Imagine trying to replicate agricultural subsidies: do we go back to the pre-EU supply subsidy or replicate (yet change the funding streams) EU price based support? What about regional policy that became EU based?

How does it work? We continue to pay into the EU to get access to the single market AND we have to find the money for all the subsidies and supports that were part of the original dirigiste basis of the EU? So taxes will have to shoot up. Who is going to arrange all this and see that it works?

So what is most likely to happen is nothing, because at the moment we are doing nothing (except for a lousy offshoot Civil Service unit investigation of what needs to be done: even I know what needs to be done in general terms). Come the repeal of the 1972 Economic Communities Act, a whole void opens up and effective political panic. Would MPs even do it?

So the likely political result is the resignations of David Davis and Liam Fox. And that will be the end of the policy, because May will say they were in charge and that the Brexit means Brexit but not after its policy makers failed. When Davis and Fox goes, the Tory party will itself split. The 'loonies running the asylum' will be back 'outside the establishment'.

And there could be anyway a General Election, enormously unpredictable because four parties in a first past the post turns the contest into a lottery. If Lib Dems can attract the current 48%, then they will impact, but who knows whether UKIP will strengthen or weaken, or whether the Tories' current command over Labour will maintain itself, or Corbyn will attract the disaffected or instead find in the Midlands and North the same as happened to Labour in Scotland. But even a huge Tory majority would likely lead to a Tory split as the exiting the EU is demonstrably impractical, so a Tory party becomes two.

Of course Trump might win in the USA so we might all end up as nuclear toast anyway, or carved up by Putin, or something similar. The Pope says that we are at war already, largely economic (and social) too, never mind everything else. It sure could get worse. We sure should not be leaving the EU at times like these.

May to End in Failure?

Goodbye Cameron. Thanks for all the austerity, for freezing benefits, for attacking the young in particular, and most of all, thanks for the gamble that lost us our place in Europe because people had one huge protest vote about immigration and blamed the wrong thing.

An occasional pub acquaintance who has gone on for the last year about getting out of the European Union said to me on Tuesday that his side won but then lost. I said not to be so sure. I used to say why I was for being in the EU and I had assumed in would win. Of course he won. but he does not think so.

Is the Foreign Secretary a 'top job' now? It was once, and might be again, but in the EU a whole range of Secretaries of State went to the Council of Ministers. Appointing Boris Johnson to that role is either ridiculous or brilliant. Ridiculous because he can't handle detail and can't be a serious mouth that doesn't make daft statements. But if might be brilliant because after winning he wrote the Daily Telegraph article that suggested some rowing back from his campaign position. It was Gove's public moment to knife Boris, despite being in on Boris's conversion to 'out' all along. On the other hand he acts as a sort of presentation man beyond the diplomats. The real job goes to David Davies, and one wonders as to how he will square the circles of leaving. Liam Fox presumably has to find other markets for trading, start to see how Antarctica will do a trade deal. Well, it is several countries and no country at once. As for Theresa May as Prime Minister, she has a strong authoritarian streak, evidently; she will be to her new Home Secretary Amanda Rudd as Gordon Brown was to Ed Balls- "I know more about it than you." You end up overshadowed. I don't trust all this equality talk, and it's likely to be more of the same.

In a sense May is asking those who broke it to keep it, those who knocked us off the shelf to clear up the mess. But she is the one who has said, "Brexit is Brexit," about which more below.

I don't agree with most of my friends, who paid the full fee to join Labour and will still be able to vote. Others who went for the cut price option now have to stump up the full fee. Labour's coffers must look pretty healthy at the moment. To me Labour is finished. Despite the gerrymandering, Jeremy Corbyn will win easily. Owen Smith might offer a second referendum on the EU; I think a manifesto to stay in is quite sufficient. After all he can only offer it if in power, if he wins, so why not restore representative democracy?

Labour is finished because 80% of his MPs are now into open season in attacking Jeremy Corbyn in such a manner as nothing restores after a win by him. John McDonnell is virtually hated as the hard man behind Corbyn, the ideologue. So when Corbyn wins again, the MPs will be unable to work under him. This means they will have to be deselected one by one, but while in Parliament they remain as MPs.

If they are deselected they will have no choice BUT to form a new party. Only a new party can have a selection method that will avoid the Corbyn contradiction. Some may cross over to existing parties. They won't like it, but there will be no option. Some will just leave Parliament.

The Liberal Democrats may pick up a few, but more likely there will be a separate grouping, possibly informal, but will have to be more formal once there is a General Election.

The betting must be that the Conservative government under Theresa May invokes Article 50 in 2017, possibly by executive diktat but maybe held back by the need to repeal The European Communities Act 1972 and a legislative mountain of changes of laws that reflect our European place for the past 40 years. By then a majority may have been lost to do it. Assuming it is invoked, the danger then is that Britain doesn't get what it wants and finds itself out of the EU with nothing. This end could find the government hitting failure, a stress level to the UK that is simply unalterable. This all relies on Qualified Majority Voting from the others, and the UK is left bereft of anything decent, causing relocation of business and us to end up having to compete as a cheap, low cost labour, island - all exploitation to try and make up the difference.

The talk, however, is putting tanks on a more moderate Labour's lawn. If May's government is more redistributive, then it will add to the sense of Labour's end in Parliament.

Of course, should we find our way out of the EU, the perceived need to find our way in again might be with a huge price - none of the opt-outs we once had. There might be the ready-made EEA, but that's just the EU plus the cost minus representation. It is the worst outcome of all. Again, it won't be altered for our benefit. The EEA is for countries that might join, not those that come out.

So my occasional pub acquaintance might be right, right in the sense that he was sold a pup by those politicians that promised so much. It won't look much different at all - we just won't have a say in what takes place. In that circles cannot be squared, this government is likely to end in failure simply through the contradictions. If the contradictions become obvious in the preparatory period, it could mean it does not invoke Article 50, which would be good. But she promises to come out. The contradictions will be realised during the two years after which we will come out. So we will come out, although she has not defined her "Brexit means Brexit". So one might see Article 50 invoked, and then contradictions, then a request for an extension. An extension can only be granted unanimously only, and maybe only indefinitely, to the point it is dropped. How so?

The basis of coming out may be such that a second referendum is demanded among the public, but then if a yes vote it would require the unanimous vote of the EU to drop the Article 50 action. There surely is a means among the others to reverse it, should this be the outcome. Also our representatives might bring the farce to an end.

But by then the EU may want rid of us anyway. It's why political parties must get their act together. Only the Scottish National Party is likely to do this with any effect. There really isn't time for Labour to mess about; it's MPs may as well start to transfer once this leadership conference is over. I want to see definite and clear politics based on not invoking Article 50. This has to be the basis of opposition.

Nag Runs Out of Breath

So the loathsome Loadsom has gone. Here's what happened.

In the Tory horse race, jockeys racing close to each in the Party Stakes hoping to exit the main race stabbed each other and their horses so that they all fell bloodied along the course. As a result, the shadowy female jockey and horse over to one side, that was for staying in the main race but suspiciously so, was left well out in front, but another exiting unbloodied horse and female jockey came up on the rails and might have been fancied by the punters eligible to have a bet between only two.

However, this nag was found to lack the wind and energy for the rest of this Party Stakes race. It couldn't gallop properly and was probably only in the race because the jockey had lied about its past and present abilities. Having stumbled simply by running, the jockey pulled it up and gave up.

As a result, race officials will pronounce that the lead jockey and the engine of the horse has no need to continue running. The finish line is assumed and the current holder of the Party Stakes trophy will hand over the crown sooner than he thought.

This was a professional race, but there is another run by a bunch of amateurs.

In this race, the jockey and horse that holds its crown may not even be allowed to run, when they would run. Another female jockey and her horse has entered the race, on the obvious claim that it can run faster. However, there are a huge number of gamblers eligible to have a bet, and it is known that they are only eligible in order to support the present holder of the crown. It's the race community and officials who support having a race at all, with this jockey and nag to take on the incumbent.

If there is a contest there is no doubt that the incumbent will win, because in this race as with the other it is the gamblers who decide the outcome. All you have to be is one of the majority of gamblers, and the incumbent has by far most of them.

But if the race officials prevent the incumbent from running, and leave the contender just to trot along to the finishing pole, the gamblers are likely to start a bloody and protracted process of deselecting the officials and race community. In fact they may start doing this anyway, especially if the now given winner of the other race does not call a wider race where we all get to have a punt.

The amateurs in the race have not really demonstrated that their jockey and nag is up to the race at all. She's had a few gallops here and there, but the job of communicating and connecting seems far from clear. Why should she be any better than the incumbent? If it is simply ideas, then the gamblers will be taking on the task of replacing race officials and the community so that the ideas are more consistent.

The result of this could be that the race community members in some number form a different grouping, either informally or more formally. They just don't have the means, or the rules, to do any differently, to try and say remove the incumbent and supporters. They would have to go elsewhere and make a differently grouped appeal to the wider punters who get to decide the biggest race - one that may still come sooner rather than later.

And as for the previous race, yes, I'm writing as I hear that the Incumbent will have one more little run out, answering a few questions and then will hand over the crown of incumbency. Let's hope that there is no round of applause as with Blair (given what happened to him subsequently) as this incumbent was a reckles gambler who failed and has caused the mess in the first place.

Politics Has Changed

It seems that if you want to lead a political party, you ought to be a woman. Except Labour of course, because if Angela Eagle stands to be leader she will be beaten by Jeremy Corbyn, Some close to 130,000 have joined Labour recently. Two of these have been my friends, stumping up the full £60 each, both to vote for Corbyn. Both socialists, they haven't been involved as such before.

Now since the Liberal Democrats did the dirty and upheld the Tories, so that at the last General Election they could take the blame, be punished for manfesto dishonesty, and the Tories could duff them up in key areas of the country, I have also been pro-Corbyn or at least as supporting someone prepared to see this rotten economy we have for what it is and to invest instead in people economically and socially. So, a social liberal - that's how I'd describe myself - it was punish the Liberal Democrats and bye bye and adapt to the new situation.

Plus I worry about Tim Fallon's Christianity as much as Andrea Leadsom's, although she is the real deal when it comes to loony religion and loony politics in combination. She's had travel paid for by the neo-Cons when visiting America, she's anti-gay, was always anti-minimum wage, telling the House of Commons of a banking management and stretching her CV when not so, and of course saying things to The Times clearly on the audio tape that she claims she didn't say. But if she's a Donald Trump, then it's all publicity and could energise the nutcases who find a privileged hom in the Conservative Party. The country is going to hell in a handcart and might soon have imposed on to it a horse to gallop it there. Although Theresa May is by far the preference of the Tory MPs, there is nothing stopping the Tory membership from doing a Corbyn and electing Leadsom. Be very afraid.

Everything has changed since this Tory Party referendum was hoisted on to a general public that could not even be bothered to find out how the European Union works, never mind discover its founding principles. The Remain camp would not idealise it, even if flawed. Some thought the EU is neo-liberal: well, if it is, blame the lethal combination of British Economic Liberalism influence and German monetary discipline. We've always had the latter, but the EU was set up as dirigiste in its economic affairs. And had we joined the euro, it would have been a far broader currency and not seen such a division between north and south Europe. Meanwhile the exit camp played on fears and people's mental images of immigration and some wonderworld outside the necessities of sharing sovereignty with people like us. Turkeys therefore voted for Christmas because the people who fed the ideology to them were turkey farmers. The EU referendum was one elite versus another, one able to draw on the frustration of a de-ideologised ex-working class and underclass that has been politically too uninvolved to see that they were being sold a fake prospectus.

And once again on a false prospectus we make a decision to be a bull in the china shop and find there is no plan once the pots are smashed. The Scots will be to us like the Kurds are to Iraq: about the only place to benefit.

But all has changed because I think politics now is NOT about the best deal for how to leave the EU, but how not to leave the EU at all. There is no best deal. Politics for others is also still about leaving, if they can afford it. The people like me at present are a minority, but the minority has to battle to prevent disaster. At present the disaster is starting to unfold due to uncertainty, but it will unfold proper when the UK breaks up, when businesses and finance relocates to the EU (for example, in Edinburgh...). Northern Ireland faces added tension. England faces an even greater dispossessed.

Corbyn's socialism might be the only thing that holds up the dispossessed in a world beyond the EU, but it will only come after a Leadsom has led us all into some kind of marketised cheap hell hole. Go her way, go his: like a manic-depressive on one leg. Except it won't go like that - will it? Corbyn won't be introducing socialism, because the present Labour MPs won't let him. But we might all be sent into the market jungle in a low tax desperate economy based on shelter and food.

Well, the EU referendum made new friends and new enemies. Should the Tories elect Leadsom, then Leadsom might well lose her majority. If Angela Eagle loses to Corbyn, as she will, Labour MPs in the Commons will either temporarily break away from the Labour leadership (deselect them!) and start to make new alliances. The alliances will be based on the EU referendum. So there could (among some) be another SDP type gathering, but this time even wider across, but all with the Lib Dems surely in opposing any invoking of Article 50.

I am waiting for David Lammy to change where he sits in the House of Commons. Surely if Corbyn is re-elected leader he will move. Corbyn is not interested in preventing Article 50 as a matter of principle, only as a matter of what will be the negotiating position at its point of invocation. Presumably, if it isn't satsifactory he'd vote against, but he might accept UK versions of the Social Chapter, for example. So what? - with the EU Qualified Majority sitting on its hands while the clock ticks, the UK could well end up with comparatively sod-all, whatever was its position for a negotiation. Bye bye UK, oh and if you ever wanted to come back, it's not on the terms you had before. In fact, some say, the EU is better off without the UK. The temporary economic hit to Europe and its economy will soon be restored by relocations and the EU can be dirigiste again.

Yes, everything has changed. My friends have joined up, and at the same time the EU vote has given me the space to say that, although I overlapped with Corbyn, I am different. I am now prepared to go back to the Liberal Democrats if they offer clarity. None of this "Don't ever vote for them again" nonsense. Politics changes. The sinners have chances to repent.

My own position, personally, won't be much different. In a sense, this is about the rest of these islands. It's about Europe too. It's about my own mental map, my own idealism, the wider view.

I don't know about Corbyn. I don't know when the next General Election comes if he will reconnect with the underclass and just above, or if UKIP will get a tipping point in its favour and return many MPs. UKIP will still be about because they are like a classroom monitor regarding an EU exit and also tweaking at the ordinary prejudices people have when they want to blame other people for what has gone wrong. The danger then of Labour imploding is to end up as a rump, a second Scotland, this time in the North and Midlands, and then of course Corbyn will go, but it will be too late. But he won't go beforehand. He has the Militant Tendency - no, not them - Momentum driving the discipline and lots of signed up socialists to keep him there. Monte Carlo or bust, and bust is most likely.

The only logic for Labour is to deselect its MPs so that they are going to support its leadership. If they don't, then the 80% of its MPs will never work with the Labour leadership, and it will crumble. The immediate future though is the danger that Leadsom will be the right wing tendency for the loonies to run the asylum, just as they did the exit referendum campaign. They all were: Cameron, a loony for calling it, and a loony defensive remain campaign, and the backstabbing loonies on the exit side, most of whom broke the sodding thing and left it on the ground by running away. But I don't want, hell I don't want, Leadsom to be the wild-eyed one to try and put the pot back into one piece. She is a real ever present danger now.

So, with this change, I'm arguing my corner. Some 16000 have joined the Liberal Democrats since the referendum result. I won't - too wary for that (and broke) and I'm waiting for clarity. NOT a policy to have the most pro-European exit, but to stop it. To argue that a General Election with a manifesto to stay in trumps any advisory referendum, and that beforehand MPs are representatives who discern before they vote. And 76% of them were for staying in the EU. Well, will they agree to do what they don't believe? They are not delegates but representatives. If it is too dangerous, and too stupid to leave the EU, then don't do it. If Leadsom (assuming it's her) can't command a majority she won't invoke Article 50. No one has to help her. So don't do it.

Infamy Infamy: He Had It In For Him

I want to learn at least about how to do this. I always want to learn and here is something else to discover: how political assassinations work. So I have been educating myself.

Not from scratch, however. I remember a few short months at the University of Essex, with an MA course and accommodation that didn't work out. For this period, within 1981-82, I had activity as 'an agnostic' in the Chaplaincy and within the Liberals at the Student Union. At that time politically there was a choice as to whether to align with the Broad Left or go with the emerging Social Democrats. The Liberals were a bit lefty and the intention was to go with the Broad Left. Leighton Rees was about - he has since enjoyed well-known public office at the Welsh Assembly for Labour. Well, I favoured the Social Democrats, and I won. I overthrew the establishment so to speak. Someone said I had done this before; I hadn't but seemed to know what I was doing and how to do it. Now, before the outcome, one of the warnings at the time was not to win and then end up leaving the University, as it was known things were going wrong for me regarding settling into the course.. On winning I immediately tacked in the direction of the losers. Then I was given notice of losing the accommodation - a family member needed my place and I'd already moved a number of times. I'd had enough of the course and personnel and left. Consequently I left them with a bit of a mess.

A bit like Boris Johnson, eh, years later? Boris strived out, could have been pro or anti-European, was anti-European, sidelined Cameron, won, then tacked towards Remain, and then left, leaving a mess.

His tack-back was a Daily Telegraph essay that even gave a possibility that Article 50 might not be invoked. It's as if he might have another go at getting a deal of loose association but within the EU. He was certainly pro-single market, and he had become 'liberal' on immigration - the basis of so much tribal Out voting. So the going narrative was that Farage suspected backsliding and Gove was concerned and so Gove ran.

Until it turns out that Gove almost certainly had a hand in that article: had looked at it and gave it the nod. The team then was still running. But it isn't just that. It also seems that back in February 16th this year Gove, Johnson, wives and Evgeny Lebedev had a meal at which Johnson was persuaded to back Leave. Gove was always clear Out.

Thus Gove had Boris on his side, and Boris would make a difference. It would severely wound or topple Cameron. Clearly Gove knew that Johnson was luke-warm all the way through, and let Johnson write and publish his highly-paid article. Probably Johnson thought Gove was also being tactical regarding the 48% and practicalities as well. But not so, because it became evidence of backsliding, the Gove wife Sarah Vine then did an email leak (and another newspaper proprieter considered) and Gove stood. Johnson was outmanoeuvred and then became an entertainer again at his 'not me' for the leadership.

Meanwhile, it turns out that all this time through the campaign, Gove has had regular meetings with Osborne - so that in a Gove regime Osborne would have a top job, like Foreign Secretary. One can imagine this the other way around, that had Remain won Gove would have had a top job in an Osborne takeover. Gove would have represented the minority for Out, pressing, presumably, for maximising the terms Cameron had negotiated. Presumably a wounded Cameron who'd said he'd go would have had a succession attempt from Osborne.
The February meal and hand in on the Daily Telegraph article show real political skills of treachery and skullduggery. I must say: I have to admire the man Gove for wielding a very sharp and timely knife.

Unfortunately it never quite works out. What works best is to allow degrees of betrayal and the ability to be flexible. Johnson did lead Leave, he assassinated in the process, but then he had to tack-back and isolate the likes of Farage, Leadsom etc. and possibly Gove. But Gove had set him up all along, and so Johnson fell, and Gove moved from the number 2 to the number 1.

But in doing so, Gove relies on some very disgruntled pro-Johnson people, and cannot rely on the 'stop Johnson' ones either. His hope is that he can be number 2 in the selection process by MPs, and then get the vote of the membership instead of Theresa May. Unfortunately the appearance of the unbloodied - someone who does well from the sidelines and as committed as Gove to being 'Out' - can sap the vote from the knife-wielder himself. He has to find a way to undermine Andrea Leadsom, or she will undermine him and conclusively.

And she has potential to win in the membership against a Theresa May. Suspicions will arise that Theresa May herself will not invoke Article 50. It is why she says the referendum means she will do it, why she 'benefits' from her own very luke-warm 'Remain' position (loyalty to Cameron plus a speech bashing the EU). But she is vulnerable. She has to do the opposite of Johnson, and tack towards the 'Out' people. It might not be enough and Gove is saying so.

Meanwhile the argument has to be made, and if not made become a challenge, that the  Executive alone cannot invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, because its place in UK law comes under the European Communities Act (if I have its name correct) and the Lisbo Treaty like all others is deeply part of UK domestic law. Indeed the Scottish Assembly as devolved is so partly under a European dimension.

That brings it to Parliament and then under the influence of time, and also the authority of a newly led Tory regime, by May or Leadsom (presumably), and its ability to survive under a small majority of Tories when many are driven anti-EU and some pro-EU as well. Labour must only vote for invoking Article 50 if the negotiation is positive. The SNP will vote against. All this makes a General Election more likely, at which point candidates are perfectly within their rights to wish to be elected on a 'stay in' basis.

The Manifesto of a Party or individuals says: the Referendum was advisory. It was called to solve a Conservative Party split and gambled the country. The Out side lied and could not keep their promises. The potential result of removal is evidently destructive. Vote for us/ me and we will not vote to invoke Article 50.

A party that does this, and makes it a cast-iron promise, will attract a lot of votes.

This is not over yet. What we know is that we got here by politicians exercising skullduggery on the risk of destroying the country over which they have had responsibility.