Benn-Burt bill article 50 extension
The Benn-Burt Bill has just completed all of its stages in the Lords, without any amendments, which means it does not have to go back to the Commons. The Government has confirmed it will get the Royal Assent on Monday and become law, before the prorogation kicks in. SO what now? In particular will Boris Johnson get the October General Election he wants? Right now it doesn't look as though he will. Jeremy Corbyn is clearly desperate to have an election - he keeps on hinting that he is now going to support one but then Keir Starmer and John McDonnell clearly have to take him away and sit him down and remind him of his lines.
Thus it's still uncertain but does look as though we aren't going to get an election until November, after an extension has been asked for. Please don't come up with yet more wizard wheezes that will prevent that - they all ignore the fundamental reality of the balance of power in Parliament and the determination of the Establishment to stop a no deal Brexit no matter what. The question of whether BoJo experiences the humiliation of having to go the the EU under orders to ask for an extension or does what I think would be the smart thing of stepping down and having Jeremy Corbyn do it as head of an interim government is actually secondary now.
What are the odds?
If the election does take place on 15th October I would give the Conservatives a 45-50% chance of getting a majority (that's what the betting markets say right now). I would rate the chances of another hung Parliament at slightly better than even money (about 55%). However if it's in November things change. A recent poll shows that if the election is held after the deadline has passed without us leaving then the Brexit Party's support would double from 9% to 18%. That is bad news for the Conservatives and their chances of getting a majority go down sharply.
However, I think the Labour Party are wrong if they think that this would clearly and unambiguously rebound to their benefit. They would come under pressure from the Brexit Party as well (and I think that poll underestimates the size of the surge that would take place in the BPs vote). The very likely outcome then would be another hung Parliament and this time with a decent chance of a number of Brexit Party MPs. Moreover I don't think even with the Brexit Party hampering the Tories that Labour would get a majority so they would have to seek support from several other parties. At that point Corbyn's unpopularity with other parties would kick in and even if it didn't he would get screwed by the SNP and others. I think an election in November is much more likely to result in more division and a very weak and fragile government - so expect another election sometime next year I'd say.
What a failure to get an October election would do is put the spotlight on the Conservative Party. If we get a later election then the pressure will mount for an electoral pact between the Tories and the Brexit Party. I would still bet against that happening because all of this is as much a fight to the death over the future of the British right and its direction as it is anything else. However if there is a pact or if in the absence of one the Brexit Party did have a breakthrough then the transformation of the UK right, which is going on before our eyes right now, would be completed in a matter of months.