EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

i was late leaving and forgot where the march was supposed to start so went straight to parliament sq.

I went to Parliament Square because it was about 150m from where I'd just been to work. I had lunch with a Leave-voting Tory colleague first which was interesting.

Dominic Grieve is an excellent speaker but I missed him - like my colleague, I fundamentally disagree with a lot of his politics, but you can have a good dialogue with him, and unlike my colleague, I think he speaks a lot of sense on Brexit.

Wasn't really impressed with Tom Watson reading off a piece of paper, but when I read back what he said later it sounded a lot better. I've never been a fan of his though. David Lammy was great but the picture of Clive Lewis with red pyro has won it for me today though.

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Nicola Sturgeon was proper good - i couldn't care less for scottish nationalist politics but i would follow her into battle

Grieve may be a good speaker and top trumps when it comes to all manner of remain noise but his shame at being a member of the tory party apparently stops short when it comes to delighting in brutalising the poor, disabled and vulnerable in the name of austerity.

fuck that cunt sky high.

I just checked his voting record and it appears they don't keep a record of delight levels while an MP places a vote. I'm calling fake news.

We wandered in from Waterloo, joined the march at Trafalgar sq, sauntered down Whitehall, and onto Parliament Square. The speaches hadn't kicked off so we pottered over to the play park in Victoria Tower Gardens (had a 3 and 6 year old in tow) , had an ice cream, and strolled back to catch Kahn, Toksvig and Lucas. Girls were getting bored by then so escaped for a lovely pint on the Tamesis Dock. Great day out!
Was worried it was not as busy as I was expecting, but now see it was just backed up all the way to Hyde Park and beyond! Mental.

Let's see if it can shift a bit of balance. I'm definitely getting a feeling there will be a swing towards another vote after all this.

Some combination of my W10/Firefox/? prevents me uplifting photos,
but,
one banner was aimed at (unwelcome) acquaintances of yours.
It read;
D eeply
U npleasant
P ricks

Secured the bike just east of Marble Arch,
and,
sauntered down the uphill lane of Park Lane
which was clearly freer flowing than the downhill.
Towards the bottom we had inadvertantly 'kettled' ourselves.
A few started to clamber over the railings into the park.
I climbed over and helped a few others,
including a mixed generation family of grandparents, bewildered 3(?) yo grandchild and affectionate bull terrier.
Could barely hear the early speakers on a screen at the bottom of Park Lane.
Past The Ritz we were overtaken by the Oladum-style constant percussion,
(who received a cheer when they stopped, briefly).
I stepped out at Pall Mall, the temperature had dropped, so I had to put on another layer,
and wolfed down half the Felafel wrap I had bought at ShepBush market.
Dropped down onto The Mall and rejoined the main march at Trafalgar Sq.
Saw Nichola Sturgeon on a distant screen, so forced my way through the dense crowd to get the commentary. Thought Tom Watson did not engage with the crowd.
I hope Jess Phillips got home before her moussaka burnt.
Hard to square the current 'good old One Nation Tory' Heseltine
with the shyster who 'solved' Poll Tax by 'temporarily' increasing VAT from 15 to 17.5% back in the early '90s. Wandered back through the parks to Marble Arch to have a chance to cycle home in daylight.
Better than the CND marches of the early '80s.
Would march for 2nd Ref again.

Great shots!

Sandi Toksvig

Was talking celeb height with Naga & Charlie from BBC breakfast yesterday, Sandi was mentioned. /tangent.

'+ 1 great shots there @skydancer

A friend spotted this one...

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haha best seen so far

Wasn't really impressed with Tom Watson reading off a piece of paper, but when I read back what he said later it sounded a lot better.

Tom Watson made it very partisan, which was the wrong tone for a crowd with people from many different backgrounds uniting for one purpose. And with speakers from other parties alongside him. Sturgeon played that much better.

So, here's a quick of back envelope calc'n if we can get a second ref based on the effect of the fact that over the last 3y, the cohort effect will capture an increased number of youth voters:

4y cohorts in the age group = 3.7million which approx. to 2.775million NEW voters (previously below 18y old, calc'd as 3y (2016 to 2019) of the 4y cohort i.e. 0.75 * 3.7)

Original turnout for 18-24y was 64% which is probably conservative in the event of a second ref, but using that gives a NEW VOTER TURNOUT of an additional 1.776million

Using poll averages reported from BBC for voter preference in that age group of 82% REMAIN leaves a NET ADDITIONAL VOTE OF 1.14million votes to REMAIN from this demographic effect alone.

This is before any change of sentiment with existing voters, and is a conservative estimate as a second ref is likely to mobilise a far higher turnout. (It also excludes the loss of any elderly voters which were biased toward Leave, but this relatively insignificant compared to the capture of new voters).

So, just treading water, it's pretty hard to argue that the previous referendum would be aligned with the wish of what is now the legitimate electorate. Should there be a long extension of 2y, this effect would become even further pronounced all else being equal.

Sources:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/281174/uk-population-by-age/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45098550

Sounds like the Tory party are busy removing May from office;

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound

Scarcely matters who leads the chimaera of the Conservative party,
no-one can reconcile the flatearth brexiteurs with tory remainers.

Until the Tories have a leader that has a house clearing,
(like Kinnock expelling Militant),
and decides which faction carries the Tory banner forward,
CallMeDave's words, 'banging on about Europe' will persist
and will chew up whoever leads.

We really need a few more Tories to resign the Conservative whip.
Oh, hold on, many of them have done that,
but because TMay is such a weak & powerless leader,
they remain on Office.

While I want a second ref (who wouldn't right, more chaos and inaction...), trying to calculate who's now in your gang because the other gang have dead members etc and so on makes about zero difference to whether a new vote will be held.
A general election is necessary or a revocation of article 50.

I think. I've had a wine.

Clearly, when you're whining like me you mean people's vote. Not second ref

Shared the haiku pic - hope that's ok

If May quits there is going to be a leadership contest. This idea - implied in the twitter thread AndyP linked to - that there will be a seamless transition to gove or anyone else is wrong. A seamless transition would require unanimous support from Tory MPs. They are not capable of finding unanimity on anything right now.

We got to Park Lane about 12. At 3.30 we were still on Park Lane. Husband went home. I made it to Hyde Park Corner about 3.45. By the time I got to the end of Pall Mall the signs were saying Thank You, Go Home Safely. March was bloody enormous!

There was talk recently that May was determined to remain as PM for longer than a certain Gordon Brown. She needs a (hilarious) further 67 days!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_tenure#
Sounds like she doesn't have 67 hours left in office.