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Following on from the indicitive votes (round 1) last night, initially I’d said I thought parliamentary arithmetic may be on Theresa May’s side for vote 3 on her deal, and it still may be, but with the DUP appearing to be authentic and reliable in their decision not to support her deal (isn’t that part of the confidence and supply arrangement?).
Anyway the arithmetic looks something like this:
ERG Die Hards – 15 MPs (Against)
ERG Waverers – 43 MPs (Probably a mix of For and Against, but assume all vote in favour)
DUP – 10 MPs (Against)
May’s deal loving Tories – 218 MPs (For)
Soft-Brexit Tories – 30 MPs (For)
People’s Vote Tories – 7 MPs (Against)
Labour MPs with Tricky Brexit Seats & Independents – 7 (For)
Everyone else (including 7x Labour Brexiteers) – 308 MPs
Totals: 342 Against; 298 in Favour (Difference 44 votes)
To pass the 3rd “meaningful vote” needs 321 votes – So Theresa May needs just 23 votes. If it is even allowed to be retabled, which depends on the Speaker.
Parliamentary arithmetic without the DUP (over constitutional issues) and some Brexiteers (who want a very hard Brexit or No Deal Brexit) is a unlikely to pass. Which means British politics must hang its head in shame, and the hopes of many must pass to the indicitive votes round 2 – on Monday. Unless May can find 23 to support her, which assuming the 1 abstention last night and possibly the 1 guy unable to attend due to the birth of his child – may only be 21 votes, and oddly that seems significantly less of a hurdle than 23.
Honestly I wouldn’t say categorically at this point it won’t pass a 3rd time (three times the charm, 3rd time lucky etc) but mathematically doesn’t seem to be likely. Though when in recent times were the hard sciences a respected in Westminster? Right now I’m not sure the laws of physics apply there. Somehow Theresa May has survived when gravity would normally have crushed her government into a tiny particle.
If you’d like to do your own parliamentary arithmetic (using click buttons) to see who would need to switch to support May’s deal to help her win, visit this lovely page at The Guardian.