I'm wondering if they're going to just going to declare the firearms on the list as prohibited, grandfather individual owners, and leave an indefinite voluntary "buyback" scheme in place to drop the costs to nearly nothing but also not admit defeat. They'll then claim they got the guns "off the streets" (which was always true) and walk away from the smoldering wreckage. Gun owners lose because they can't use their property, but the costs to the government drops significantly. It also gives then a "frozen issue" they can use against the Conservatives.