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Comment by redcalx | Hacker News Reader

"There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted."

I believe this is the plan for Monday if the PM's deal doesn't go through today. I.e. list the options you will accept in order of preference.

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But does that vote carry any legal weight or is it just indicative? Don't you still have to have an actual Aye/No vote on a specific question for it to become law? I easily see many scenarios where a motion clearly wins a Condorcet vote but still cannot get a simple majority in parliament when put to a vote.

If the ranked vote produces a clear winner, I think the hope would be that (given the short deadlines and immense public pressure) it would fairly easily pass a straight aye/no vote too. Why would a majority want to vote it down? To the contrary, you’d expect some naysayers to switch just to get it over with and to end up on the winning side.

It’s slightly risky but overall seems like a reasonable approach to me, in the circumstances.

If the last round of indicative votes are anything to go by, they winner would probably the Labour plan or the Customs union, both of which the Prime Minister are against. So either of these winning will almost certainly trigger events leading to new general election and the ´Conservatives know that. So the real question is how many Conservatives want to fight a general election now with their party in the state that it is and what are they willing to gamble to avoid that.

Voting against your PM on an issue you disagree on is one thing. Actually bringing down your government is quite another.

Yes, that’s the tricky bit.

There should have been an election already. I think it was dishonest not to bring down the government in the recent vote of No Confidence, since it was and is blatantly obvious that absolutely nobody has confidence in Theresa May’s government. But they feared letting Labour in.

Edit to add: I would have thought some emergency compromise might work, eg a moderate Tory who backs the consensus plan as PM, maybe Corbyn as deputy, maybe Keir Starmer as Brexit secretary. Get the Brexit process on an even keel now, agree to call an election later.

That’s probably unthinkable on all sides, though. I feel like Corbyn in particular doesn’t actually care much about Brexit either way, and is much more focused on just winning an election and getting a Labour government in.

But they feared letting Labour in.

Or more specifically they fear letting Corbin in. I imagine that if a more center-left, pro-Europe 'Blairite' MP was Labour leader then perhaps some of the more moderate pro-Europe Conservatives might have been willing to give it a punt.

I'm not in the UK. How bad is Corbyn? How much damage is it worth doing to the UK to avoid Corbyn becoming PM?

Isn't Monday too late? Doesn't the agreement with the EU stipulate that there needs to have been some real progress by today to justify extending until May 22, and if no real progress occurs by today, no deal Brexit occurs April 12?

The April 12th deadline is conditional on the PMs deal, if that doesn't go through then May 22nd is the current date at which no deal exit will occur if nothing else happens, i.e. that's the current letter of the law. So the vote(s) on Monday are about finding an alternative to no deal before May 22nd. Even if they agree on an option, the EU can still refuse and stick with no deal on the 22nd.

Edit: See comments below - I got the dates wrong.

You have it backwards.

With a deal, the deadline is May, allowing time for some of the necessary domestic legislation.

noted, thanks.

No worries. It is incredibly easy to get confused. As you know, the backdrop is MPs spouting nonsense, who are not held to account effectively by domestic media.

Also the April 12th deadline gives some time for EU elections to be arranged in the UK, which will be a necessity of any delay now.

Note: I use the word deal to mean the withdrawal agreement, which is an agreement on how we leave, not on the future direction.

Deadlines April 12 -- if mays deal has passed, extended to May 22 to allow domestic legislation to be passed to implement the deal

If not passed by then, then uk leaves with no deal

However May's government can ask for an extension at any point up until April 12th. This extension will rely on the UK participating in the EU elections. Those elections can be held if announced by or on April 12th -- there's a reason it's that day and not April 3rd or 19th.

It's almost certain we'll be looking at a long delay, and either a referendum or general election

That’s almost it, but there’s one extra point.

If the deal isn’t passed today, the April 12th deadline is for the UK to come up with a new suggestion.

If the deal fails, the UK could request a longer extension, or even revoke article 50.

The EU has strongly signaled that they’d be open to adjusting the political declaration in favour of a customs union, for example. If the UK were to vote for that early next week, it could in principle be agreed on both sides fairly quickly.

The main EU requirement is that to avoid a no-deal exit on April 12, the UK has to actually do something different, not simply ask for more time. If the UK requested time for a general election or a second referendum, that would probably be accepted by the EU (although it’s not guaranteed).

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