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> To be fair, the reason that the UK has not left the EU is because the Tory Eurosceptics refused to vote for Theresa May's deal. Not once, not twice, but three
by tomatocracy 7y ago
> To be fair, the reason that the UK has not left the EU is because the Tory Eurosceptics refused to vote for Theresa May's deal. Not once, not twice, but three times.
If all the Eurosceptics had voted for May's deal, it still wouldn't have had the numbers to pass. I think its fairer to lay the blame on the opposition parties who voted against it largely to try to create chaos which they thought would lead them to an election they could win.
- iainmerrick 7y agoIf the government needed opposition votes to pass a deal, why didn’t they make any concessions to opposition demands? To the contrary, May’s government only tried to appease the hard-liners in her own party. Johnson has taken it even further in the same direction.
- disgruntledphd2 7y agoThat is completely incorrect. If everyone supporting the UK government at the time had voted for the deal, it would have passed. The ERG and the DUP were the cause of it's failure (and I'm looking forward to the reckoning the DUP get in the next elections as a result of this)>
- tomatocracy 7y agoThe pro European Tory votes against the deal together with opposition votes were enough to sink it. Even if the entire ERG had voted for it.
- disgruntledphd2 7y agoSorry, which pro-European tories voted against Theresa May's deal? Can you supply a list? Like, the first vote definitely wouldn't have passed with them, but the third definitely would have. Now personally, I think the Opposition should have voted for the deal, but the primary respionsibility falls on the government.
- tomatocracy 7y agoAt least Guto Bebb, Phillip Lee, Dominic Grieve, Sam Gyimah, Jo Johnson, and Justine Greening (there may be others I’ve missed). May’s majority including the DUP at the time was 7 (I think - this was after the defections to the Independent Group) so those 6 would have tipped it into a loss on their own.
- disgruntledphd2 7y agoCool, fair point. I didn't think that they'd rebelled till later. I still stand by my contention that the withdrawal bill would have passed were it not for the trenchant opposition from the ERG and DUP, but accept that the numbers don't entirely suport my story.
- tomatocracy 7y agoI think to be fair, if the DUP had supported it then there’s a very good argument that that would have changed minds sufficiently elsewhere that it could have passed. Playing counter factuals on this type of thing is very difficult though because, for example, some MPs likely took a view that they wanted to be on the winning/losing side for reasons mostly unrelated to the contents of the deal itself.
- mpweiher 7y agoIt's not the job of opposition parties to vote for the policies of the government. Otherwise you don't have an opposition, and then you don't have much of a democracy. It's the job of the government to secure the votes it needs for its policies, and conversely to propose policies for which it can secure the necessary votes. That's democracy.
- rtempaccount1 7y agoThat's just not true. If the DUP and the conservatives had voted to pass Theresa May's deal they absolutely had the numbers to pass it, especially given that on each of the votes there were a small number of Labour MPs who voted with it.
- sjogress 7y agoDidn't May have a majority of 1 vote (Tories + DUP) through the negotiations though?