Last night Vince Cable had a no-preconditions meeting with Theresa May over the extraordinary Brexit farce she's created, then lo and behold today he's announced that the Lib-Dems have de facto joined the Tory-DUP coalition by refusing to vote no confidence in Theresa May again, no matter the scale of her future incompetence or malice.
This solemn pledge of Lib-Dem fealty to Theresa May is intended as an attack on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, but even the most blinkered of "centrists" surely must be wondering how a Lib-Dem pledge to keep Theresa May in power indefinitely would harm Labour more than it harms the Lib-Dems themselves (especially if Theresa May continues her reckless game of "no deal" brinkmanship).
The loyalty pledge is intended to force Labour into backing another EU referendum, but leaving Theresa May in power during such a referendum would dangerously stack the odds in favour of Leave by giving the Tory party control over the options on the ballot, the wording of the options, and the timing of the vote. All decisions that would be made to maximise Tory party advantage.
Cable is clearly a gambler who just wants another roll of the dice so badly he doesn't even care whether they're loaded dice or not. What's even more worrying is that Cable is an unbelievably inept political strategist with a history losing referendum votes. The delusion that Remain would be guaranteed to win a second referendum with the Tories still running the show and an incompetent like Cable fronting the Remain campaign is inexplicably commonplace.
What's even more extraordinary than the assumption that this loyalty pledge will hurt Labour more than it hurts the Lib-Dems is that Vince Cable is doing Theresa May this enormous favour in her hour of need in return for absolutely nothing!
In 2017 the Northern Irish DUP sectarians showed up the Lib-Dems' feeble 2010 coalition negotiations by bagging a vast £1.5 billion bribe, a veto on the Brexit deal, and the ability to just wash their hands and walk away from it at any moment should they chose, all in return for just 10 parliamentary votes.
In 2010 the strategically inept Lib-Dems tied themselves into supporting every single illiberal piece of Tory malice for five years, supported policies they knew their core demographics would hate (like tripling tuition fees, abandoning House of Lords reform, and turning Libya into a lawless terrorism breeding ground), and generally acted as human shields for the Tories for the full five years.
They sold themselves out completely in a spectacularly one-sided coalition deal that ended up costing them 2/3 of their voters and 85% of their parliamentary seats when they had a comparatively huge 57 parliamentary votes to bargain with!
But instead of learning their lesson about the strategic ineptitude of adopting a weak bargaining position with the Tories, Vince Cable and the Lib-Dems have just gone and promised to keep Theresa May in power indefinitely (no matter what she does) in return for absolutely nothing at all!
Jeremy Corbyn is refusing to meet with Theresa May until she drops her malicious threat to punish Britain with a "no deal" economic meltdown if she doesn't get her own way, and Vince Cable meets her with no pre-conditions at all then comes away bragging about the loyalty pledge he's just given her in return for absolutely nothing at all!
And perhaps most amazingly of all, after making this hypocritical, absurdly one-sided, and strategically inept Lib-Dem loyalty pledge to the Tories, Vince Cable is accusing Jeremy Corbyn of being the one "playing party political games"!
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2 comments:
once a dummy - always a dummy..
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