For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
He's officiallly more deluded than the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
He does sound weirdly confident. And there are intriguing reports of Boris being far bouncier than one would expect.
Hmm. Do they possibly have a cunning plan, after all? What could it possibly be??!!
I hope they surprise us on the upside; I doubt they will.
If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .
You missed: "If you have no idea what's going on, tell everybody that everything is going according to plan, and that you're winning."
I could have done - but that's not a quote. Although it could be equally true. Who knows?
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
John Major warning the government might try to use an order of council to overrule the Benn act. Frightening stuff. I think parliament is going to have to VONC this government next month.
That's the flaw in the purported plan. By law Bozo has to ask for the extension by 19 Oct and there is time enough to depose and replace him after that, whatever way he finds to avoid sending the letter.
Major was almost certainly hinting at the Civil Contingencies Act. Just as the Supreme Court was with its specific reasoning and device in the prorogation ruling. It's exactly the same reason and device they'd use to quash a State of Emergency declared undrr the CCA. It's another reason why it's a very well crafted ruling.
He didn't mention the CCA. Although I believe Jo Maugham has warned that they might go down that route. Major certainly didn't mince his words, to see a Conservative PM speaking about his successor like that was quite remarkable.
It is not clear the conservative party survives this.
It is not at all clear that it should survive this.
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
Apparently it's OK to call me a fool for suggesting that 52% is a higher number than 30% though.
Oh well.
Don't remember saying anything of the sort. The fool bit is that you think that a government elected in a 2019 election fulfilling the manifesto which got it elected to majority is "undemocratic". I am confident that you are aware that our system is first past the post thus national percentage vote tallies or percentages are largely irrelevant. That a majority government elected on 35% national percentage is as legitimate as a government elected on a 50% national percentage. That no parliament is bound by the laws or actions of its predecessors.
You surely know all this. That you disagree with it - and think that somehow overrides the reality - is the foolish bit. You and all the other people spouting the same nonsense.
The mental contortions you have to go through to think it's "democratic" for a vote of 30% to override a vote of 52%.
For what it's worth, I've already argued across several threads that a Tory majority in the commons at a GE on 30% of the vote to take us out with no deal would be equally illegitimate.
He's officiallly more deluded than the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
He does sound weirdly confident. And there are intriguing reports of Boris being far bouncier than one would expect.
Hmm. Do they possibly have a cunning plan, after all? What could it possibly be??!!
I hope they surprise us on the upside; I doubt they will.
If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .
You missed: "If you have no idea what's going on, tell everybody that everything is going according to plan, and that you're winning."
I could have done - but that's not a quote. Although it could be equally true. Who knows?
Wasn't that the strategy of the generals in War and Peace?
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
Parliament was elected by us. It reflects our divisions. I'd rather have a Parliament - however foolish - that I elect governing me than some elected nobody, no matter how clever he thinks he is, who thinks he can ignore the law.
I want to live "constrained by law but not constrained by tyranny". Such straws in the wind are there are suggest we may well end up subject to tyranny but have no law to protect us.
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
I will have to dig it out. It was an offer to ensure that there was no Parliamentary business on three days next week so MPs could attend. Something like that.
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
What I don't get is the final line. Is that saying that 4 in 10 of those who think he should be impeached don't think or don't know whether he committed an impeachable offence but should be impeached anyway?
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
I will have to dig it out. It was an offer to ensure that there was no Parliamentary business on three days next week so MPs could attend. Something like that.
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
Well, it would be if anyone knew about it.
As it is, the Opposition have somehow managed to make a story about the Government illegally proroguing Parliament into a story about them acting like spoiled three year olds, even if they haven't.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics. In that way he's more like Thatcher or Blair during the lead up to Iraq than anything else.
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
What I don't get is the final line. Is that saying that 4 in 10 of those who think he should be impeached don't think or don't know whether he committed an impeachable offence but should be impeached anyway?
39% of independents at this early stage is not good for Trump.
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
What I don't get is the final line. Is that saying that 4 in 10 of those who think he should be impeached don't think or don't know whether he committed an impeachable offence but should be impeached anyway?
It reminds me of one of the Times’s great howlers, about an Israeli prisoner: “few believe him to be innocent and even fewer think he should be spared the death penalty”.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics. In that way he's more like Thatcher or Blair during the lead up to Iraq than anything else.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics. In that way he's more like Thatcher or Blair during the lead up to Iraq than anything else.
He reminds me actually of a certain Second World War leader, who was unshakeably convinced of his own brilliance and took power in a series of highly - ahem - extra legal actions including shooting some politicians.
But I don't think Johnson would be flattered to be compared to de Gaulle.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics. In that way he's more like Thatcher or Blair during the lead up to Iraq than anything else.
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
I am glad you have made clear that you are motivated by an ugly sentiment, which has nothing to do with good governance.
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
What I don't get is the final line. Is that saying that 4 in 10 of those who think he should be impeached don't think or don't know whether he committed an impeachable offence but should be impeached anyway?
They think he should be impeached for being a massive bell end presumably
Apparently it's OK to call me a fool for suggesting that 52% is a higher number than 30% though.
Oh well.
Don't remember saying anything of the sort. The fool bit is that you think that a government elected in a 2019 election fulfilling the manifesto which got it elected to majority is "undemocratic". I am confident that you are aware that our system is first past the post thus national percentage vote tallies or percentages are largely irrelevant. That a majority government elected on 35% national percentage is as legitimate as a government elected on a 50% national percentage. That no parliament is bound by the laws or actions of its predecessors.
You surely know all this. That you disagree with it - and think that somehow overrides the reality - is the foolish bit. You and all the other people spouting the same nonsense.
The mental contortions you have to go through to think it's "democratic" for a vote of 30% to override a vote of 52%.
For what it's worth, I've already argued across several threads that a Tory majority in the commons at a GE on 30% of the vote to take us out with no deal would be equally illegitimate.
No contortions, just basic principles of a system: 1. The government is formed by whichever party can hold the confidence of the House of Commons 2. This is the result of MPs elected as an individual in an individual and entirely separate election in each constituency where the required majority over any other candidate is a single vote 3. Parliament once elected is explicitly free to pass any laws it sees fit to pass including ones that change amend or repeal laws that already exist. No parliament is bound by it's predecessors
What's more in your argument you demonstrate that you know in detail how the system works, you just disagree with the current situation. And are therefore prepared to bemoan the things that you know are true as suddenly being untrue. It's anti-politics. It's the road to fascism - get a result you like (the referendum, the election of Blair/Thatcher/Hitler) and declare that any further electionproducing a different result to be undemocratic as the will of the people was expressed once and only once
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics. In that way he's more like Thatcher or Blair during the lead up to Iraq than anything else.
The only thing Boris believes in is Boris.
Recent events suggest he doesn't even believe in himself any more.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
Yet again this is about what’s best for the Tory’s not the country we have had numerous lectures about how the only thing that matters is the prospects of the blue team from an occasional poster on here. From start to finish this is a Tory crisis created by tories and their responsibility to resolve. We’re here because Cameron was worried about UKIP, UKIP for gods sake Tory problem let the solve it.
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
What I don't get is the final line. Is that saying that 4 in 10 of those who think he should be impeached don't think or don't know whether he committed an impeachable offence but should be impeached anyway?
So really there’s a small group not interested in the technical aspects of a specific crime committed therefore impeachment, they just want an impalement? Impale him without asking what is it he’s done now?
He's officiallly more deluded than the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
He does sound weirdly confident. And there are intriguing reports of Boris being far bouncier than one would expect.
Hmm. Do they possibly have a cunning plan, after all? What could it possibly be??!!
I hope they surprise us on the upside; I doubt they will.
If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .
You missed: "If you have no idea what's going on, tell everybody that everything is going according to plan, and that you're winning."
I could have done - but that's not a quote. Although it could be equally true. Who knows?
Wasn't that the strategy of the generals in War and Peace?
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
I will have to dig it out. It was an offer to ensure that there was no Parliamentary business on three days next week so MPs could attend. Something like that.
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
Well, it would be if anyone knew about it.
As it is, the Opposition have somehow managed to make a story about the Government illegally proroguing Parliament into a story about them acting like spoiled three year olds, even if they haven't.
That's some achievement.
Indeed. If only we had an opposition worthy of the name.
We have to rely on some independent-minded ex-Tory MPs to act as an opposition.
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
Except Boris's and the Conservatives polling keeps rising and Labour's is flatlining at best since they took this path?
Maybe showing the whole country that a Boris majority is the only way to get Brexit done wasn't the smartest move?
I, an idiot: Impeaching Trump will be good for the Democarts You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
Except Boris's and the Conservatives polling keeps rising and Labour's is flatlining at best since they took this path?
John Major warning the government might try to use an order of council to overrule the Benn act. Frightening stuff. I think parliament is going to have to VONC this government next month.
That's the flaw in the purported plan. By law Bozo has to ask for the extension by 19 Oct and there is time enough to depose and replace him after that, whatever way he finds to avoid sending the letter.
Major was almost certainly hinting at the Civil Contingencies Act. Just as the Supreme Court was with its specific reasoning and device in the prorogation ruling. It's exactly the same reason and device they'd use to quash a State of Emergency declared undrr the CCA. It's another reason why it's a very well crafted ruling.
He didn't mention the CCA. Although I believe Jo Maugham has warned that they might go down that route. Major certainly didn't mince his words, to see a Conservative PM speaking about his successor like that was quite remarkable.
It is not clear the conservative party survives this.
It is not at all clear that it should survive this.
It’s not clear if anyone or anything survives this.
Actually I joke. Not a shred of doubt in my mind this week has been a tipping point. Like when the sky is still dark and threatening, but you now see linings of white on the horizon.
Will people telling pollsters they are voting LibDem, green, lab, be aware and motivated to cast vote to maximum effect constituency to constituency? Will Boris boorish tactics and continued threat of no deal actually motivate his opponents into using their vote to maximum effect? 😉
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
It’s gone - and so quickly. Populist English nationalism, wind-up the lefties is what the Tories are all about now: the party is a coalition of hard core xenophobes and Oxbridge men-children. Once Brexit is done it will collapse.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
There were also more votes in total thN the referendum I believe
Apparently it's OK to call me a fool for suggesting that 52% is a higher number than 30% though.
Oh well.
Don't remember saying anything of the sort. The fool bit is that you think that a government elected in a 2019 election fulfilling the manifesto which got it elected to majority is "undemocratic". I am confident that you are aware that our system is first past the post thus national percentage vote tallies or percentages are largely irrelevant. That a majority government elected on 35% national percentage is as legitimate as a government elected on a 50% national percentage. That no parliament is bound by the laws or actions of its predecessors.
You surely know all this. That you disagree with it - and think that somehow overrides the reality - is the foolish bit. You and all the other people spouting the same nonsense.
The mental contortions you have to go through to think it's "democratic" for a vote of 30% to override a vote of 52%.
For what it's worth, I've already argued across several threads that a Tory majority in the commons at a GE on 30% of the vote to take us out with no deal would be equally illegitimate.
No contortions, just basic principles of a system: 1. The government is formed by whichever party can hold the confidence of the House of Commons 2. This is the result of MPs elected as an individual in an individual and entirely separate election in each constituency where the required majority over any other candidate is a single vote 3. Parliament once elected is explicitly free to pass any laws it sees fit to pass including ones that change amend or repeal laws that already exist. No parliament is bound by it's predecessors
What's more in your argument you demonstrate that you know in detail how the system works, you just disagree with the current situation. And are therefore prepared to bemoan the things that you know are true as suddenly being untrue. It's anti-politics. It's the road to fascism - get a result you like (the referendum, the election of Blair/Thatcher/Hitler) and declare that any further electionproducing a different result to be undemocratic as the will of the people was expressed once and only once
I understand how the system works, I still fail to understand how a minority party seizing power and telling 17m people, a majority of all those who voted, "sorry, your vote didn't count" is good for democracy.
Although we come from opposite sides of the political spectrum I had you down as a fairly sensible sort and am trying to understand your recent conversion.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the true-Brexiteer, and Corbyn blocks any deal, pretending he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the lifetime believer in Brexit.
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
That seems thin at best and probably wrong. You can defend judges while saying they got the decision wrong. Judges aren't blessed with Papal Infallibility and if the law said that we need to say that we agree with the decision when we clearly don't then that would violate fundamental free speech.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Not sure Boris will even notice Majors attack on him this evening.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
Wow. New YouGov poll on impeachment over Ukraine scandal shows support from 76% of Democrats and 51% of independents...but the number that should scare the hell out of Trump & the GOP is that it's also supported by 32% of Republicans.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
If Boris/Dom tries another legal trick to suspend or delay legislation I would expect SC to grant an immediate injunction to stop it. And to call them in to answer for Contempt of Court.
Basically what you are saying is the Supreme Court (a new Labour invention) is highly political.
Time to start appointing the Supreme Court by the PM.
Really? You Leavers embarrass yourselves so much.
The current Supremes are appointed on the recommendation of the PM.
Glad to see leavers now agreeing that we don't need to repatriate powers to make laws to British Parliamentarians and British courts because both have far too much power to make laws.
Time for a fatherly dictatorship. And Boris and his Johnson have already fathered a lot. So he knows what he's doing when it comes down to "technology lessons"
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
Except Boris's and the Conservatives polling keeps rising and Labour's is flatlining at best since they took this path?
For all the hysterical blustering one fact remains.
The opposition parties could bring down the government tomorrow and install Corbyn as PM to deliver the extension request followed by an immediate GE.
If the country is in such grave danger why are they not taking this action?
1 they want Johnson to have to do it because it is a problem of his own making 2 I would trust corbyn as much as I trust Johnson to do the right thing
The way out is for Johnson who wants an election to seek an extension to morrow which when granted will allow him to seek a GE which could take place in October, what is wrong with that? Problem solved everybody gets what the want after all a 10% in time extension of article 50 is neither here or there to ant body without paranoid fears.
Johnson is not going to extend as it will destroy him. It is like asking him to sit in an electric chair and turn on the switch himself.
Which is why everyone is going to do everything possible to make sure Boris can't duck out of a mess of his own making when back in June he promised we would leave on October 31st.
Except Boris's and the Conservatives polling keeps rising and Labour's is flatlining at best since they took this path?
If Boris/Dom tries another legal trick to suspend or delay legislation I would expect SC to grant an immediate injunction to stop it. And to call them in to answer for Contempt of Court.
Basically what you are saying is the Supreme Court (a new Labour invention) is highly political.
Time to start appointing the Supreme Court by the PM.
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
It is not an attack on the judiciary to claim a court judgment is wrong. Did the Blair government, of which Charlie Falconer was Lord (high?) Chancellor, attack the HoL judges' independence when passing the 2006 Compensation Act to reverse Corus v Barker?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
What changed between 2013 and 2016?
The disgraceful way the EU refused Cameron's reasonable and moderate changes he sought in the Bloomberg Speech.
A couple of times I've said he's bad but not as bad as May. I now have to admit I was wrong. He's worse. Much, much worse.
Mea culpa.
What about the argument it’s not the man but believing the trump style aggressive strategy is a winner? If Boris became PM ten years ago, long before President Trump existed would he be the same?
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics. In that way he's more like Thatcher or Blair during the lead up to Iraq than anything else.
Johnson will do and say what he thinks is best for himself. He always has done and always will. What happens to other people - whether they be his wives, his friends, his colleagues, his employers or the electorate - is of absolutely no interest to him, beyond what he gains from their respective fates.
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
It is not an attack on the judiciary to claim a court judgment is wrong. Did the Blair government, of which Charlie Falconer was Lord (high?) Chancellor, attack the HoL judges' independence when passing the 2006 Compensation Act to reverse Corus v Barker?
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
I will have to dig it out. It was an offer to ensure that there was no Parliamentary business on three days next week so MPs could attend. Something like that.
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
Well, it would be if anyone knew about it.
As it is, the Opposition have somehow managed to make a story about the Government illegally proroguing Parliament into a story about them acting like spoiled three year olds, even if they haven't.
That's some achievement.
Indeed.
I wonder what the effect of this week's events will be on the Baker-Francois gang.
Will they be more inclined to view things on party lines and support a 'BorisDeal' ?
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
I could have chosen to quote his draft pro-remain Telgraph column from 2016 also. You know, the one he wrote then changed to the exact opposite.
You mean the one he didn't publish?
When making a difficult decision putting down pros and cons is a very longstanding and proper way of crystalising the issue and helping make your own mind up. Its nothing to be ashamed of that he thought it through and isn't a fanatic like Baker or Mogg.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
The thing with that is that Boris can say he has informed HMQ that he "regrets any embarrassment caused to Her Majesty by the wrongful interpretation of the law by the Supreme Court ". The Palace can't answer back and that's that box ticked.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
What changed between 2013 and 2016?
The disgraceful way the EU refused Cameron's reasonable and moderate changes he sought in the Bloomberg Speech.
That changed him supporting the UK staying in the single market to supporting a No Deal Brexit? Bloody hell!
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
Apparently it's OK to call me a fool for suggesting that 52% is a higher number than 30% though.
.
Don't remember saying anything of the sort. The fool bit is that you think that a government elected in a 2019 election fulfilling the manifesto which got it elected to majority is "undemocratic". I am confident that you are aware that our system is first past the post thus national percentage vote tallies or percentages are largely irrelevant. That a majority government elected on 35% national percentage is as legitimate as a government elected on a 50% national percentage. That no parliament is bound by the laws or actions of its predecessors.
You surely know all this. That you disagree with it - and think that somehow overrides the reality - is the foolish bit. You and all the other people spouting the same nonsense.
The mental contortions you have to go through to think it's "democratic" for a vote of 30% to override a vote of 52%.
For what it's worth, I've already argued across several threads that a Tory majority in the commons at a GE on 30% of the vote to take us out with no deal would be equally illegitimate.
No contortions, just basic principles of a system: 1. The government is formed by whichever party can hold the confidence of the House of Commons 2. This is the result of MPs elected as an individual in an individual and entirely separate election in each constituency where the required majority over any other candidate is a single vote 3. Parliament once elected is explicitly free to pass any laws it sees fit to pass including ones that change amend or repeal laws that already exist. No parliament is bound by it's predecessors
What's more in your argument you demonstrate that you know in detail how the system works, you just disagree with the current situation. And are therefore prepared to bemoan the things that you know are true as suddenly being untrue. It's anti-politics. It's the road to fascism - get a result you like (the referendum, the election of Blair/Thatcher/Hitler) and declare that any further electionproducing a different result to be undemocratic as the will of the people was expressed once and only once
While you are here, you can apologise if you like for your outrageous post earlier repeatedly associating my name with death threats to a child and the murder of a woman.
I understand you have the zeal of the convert at the moment, and can probably get away with saying whatever you like as a new Lib Dem, but do you honestly have any idea how ludicrous that was, especially in the context of a post supposedly about reining in inflammatory language?
<< Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Hull East and a shadow minister, confronted Dominic Cummings in Westminster today. Footage of the incident, posted online by the BBC, showed Turner criticising the prime minister’s inflammatory tone and telling Cummings: “I’ve had death threats overnight; ‘should be dead’.”
Cummings responds: “Get Brexit done.” >>
Extraordinary. We are at a point where the most senior unelected official in the country is insinuating that violence and intimidation is merely the correct momentum to get things done.
No challenge to this whatsoever from the 80 stoney-faced Tory MP's so far.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
What changed between 2013 and 2016?
The disgraceful way the EU refused Cameron's reasonable and moderate changes he sought in the Bloomberg Speech.
That changed him supporting the UK staying in the single market to supporting a No Deal Brexit? Bloody hell!
It changed me supporting the UK staying in the Single Market to supporting Brexit, deal or no deal. So I see no reason it shouldn't have changed him too.
Well, Dominic Cummings is officially more deluded than Charles VI of France, who refused to let anyone touch him because he thought he was made of glass.
But that doesn't necessarily mean MPs are judging the mood correctly either.
That may well be true.
But MPs have surgeries, receive correspondence from their voters, are out and about in their constituencies and have been elected.
Cummings has been elected by no-one. Who does he talk to? Whom does he represent? How dare an unelected administrator lecture people who have actually bothered to go to the effort to get themselves elected. He has no more right to be heard or to think himself important than any one of us here or a random person in the street. He has one vote just like the rest of us.
He is displaying the same sort of arrogance that Brexiteers usually accuse Eurocrats of displaying.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
I will have to dig it out. It was an offer to ensure that there was no Parliamentary business on three days next week so MPs could attend. Something like that.
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
Well, it would be if anyone knew about it.
As it is, the Opposition have somehow managed to make a story about the Government illegally proroguing Parliament into a story about them acting like spoiled three year olds, even if they haven't.
That's some achievement.
Indeed.
I wonder what the effect of this week's events will be on the Baker-Francois gang.
Will they be more inclined to view things on party lines and support a 'BorisDeal' ?
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
Hello to my new colleagues in the @LibDems. This is day 1 of the rest of my political life. Voted for Corbyn. Voted for Brexit. So very wrong. Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
Yes Joff I have
How do you incorporate the avatar or any for that Matter?
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
Yes Joff I have.
Good on you. Have you met your fellow constituency members yet? I am still debating whether or not I should take the plunge. I am very clear I’m a social democrat and I am not sure I can legitimately share a party with Liberals and Tory wets who, however much I like and admire them in many ways, fundamentally see the world differently to me.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
That seems thin at best and probably wrong. You can defend judges while saying they got the decision wrong. Judges aren't blessed with Papal Infallibility and if the law said that we need to say that we agree with the decision when we clearly don't then that would violate fundamental free speech.
Another non-lawyer claiming to understand the law better than a former Lord Chancellor.
You can disagree with a court's ruling; you can analyse it and think that it is wrong or that the reasoning is flawed in some way. Lawyers do this all the time and sometimes courts will look at the decisions of previous courts and update them and decide that the interpretation was wrong. That is how law develops.
But that is very different from what is happening here, which is that the government is refusing with any sort of grace, let alone any good grace, to accept the ruling of the Supreme Court, even though its own Attorney-General gave the game away yesterday by admitting that the government did not have an unlimited right to prorogue, exactly the point made by the Court.
Furthermore it is saying that its own judgment is better than those tasked with determining the law and has insinuated that the judges have come to this ruling for improper motives or because they were biased. And that is an attack on the concept of judicial independence and the fact that the judiciary are independent and that everyone, including governments, are subject to the law. It is clear that this PM (and, sadly, his A-G it would now appear) have no proper understanding of how government and our constitution work, why this is important and could not care less, even if they do understand.
That is a very dangerous development. There are plenty of examples from our own history or indeed the history of our countries to show why.
If Brexit is to succeed on any level at all it can only do so within the bounds of our laws and constitution. If Britain is to succeed on any level at all post-Brexit it can only do so if those who govern it do not destroy the very concept of the rule of law in this country.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
Hello to my new colleagues in the @LibDems. This is day 1 of the rest of my political life. Voted for Corbyn. Voted for Brexit. So very wrong. Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.
<< Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Hull East and a shadow minister, confronted Dominic Cummings in Westminster today. Footage of the incident, posted online by the BBC, showed Turner criticising the prime minister’s inflammatory tone and telling Cummings: “I’ve had death threats overnight; ‘should be dead’.”
Cummings responds: “Get Brexit done.” >>
Extraordinary. We are at a point where the most senior unelected official in the country is insinuating that violence and intimidation is merely the correct momentum to get things done.
No challenge to this whatsoever from the 80 stoney-faced Tory MP's so far.
Its not the correct momentum, its the natural outcome for saying that you will turn your back on democracy and refuse to implement what people voted for though. People warned about this years ago and were laughed at.
You don't get to say democracy doesn't work, your vote doesn't count, I lost the vote but I know better . . . and expect civil discourse afterwards.
When making a difficult decision putting down pros and cons is a very longstanding and proper way of crystalising the issue and helping make your own mind up. Its nothing to be ashamed of that he thought it through and isn't a fanatic like Baker or Mogg.
He worked through the pros and cons, quite reasonably I thought. His conclusion was that it was best to support Cameron's deal, and remain.
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
It is not an attack on the judiciary to claim a court judgment is wrong. Did the Blair government, of which Charlie Falconer was Lord (high?) Chancellor, attack the HoL judges' independence when passing the 2006 Compensation Act to reverse Corus v Barker?
If so, he should resign...
Changing the law clearly shows the government accepted the court correctly interpreted the law as it was.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
Yes Joff I have.
Good on you. Have you met your fellow constituency members yet? I am still debating whether or not I should take the plunge. I am very clear I’m a social democrat and I am not sure I can legitimately share a party with Liberals and Tory wets who, however much I like and admire them in many ways, fundamentally see the world differently to me.
FWIW...I'm still with Labour and will see it through....
Another non-lawyer claiming to understand the law better than a former Lord Chancellor.
You can disagree with a court's ruling; you can analyse it and think that it is wrong or that the reasoning is flawed in some way. Lawyers do this all the time and sometimes courts will look at the decisions of previous courts and update them and decide that the interpretation was wrong. That is how law develops.
But that is very different from what is happening here, which is that the government is refusing with any sort of grace, let alone any good grace, to accept the ruling of the Supreme Court, even though its own Attorney-General gave the game away yesterday by admitting that the government did not have an unlimited right to prorogue, exactly the point made by the Court.
Furthermore it is saying that its own judgment is better than those tasked with determining the law and has insinuated that the judges have come to this ruling for improper motives or because they were biased. And that is an attack on the concept of judicial independence and the fact that the judiciary are independent and that everyone, including governments, are subject to the law. It is clear that this PM (and, sadly, his A-G it would now appear) have no proper understanding of how government and our constitution work, why this is important and could not care less, even if they do understand.
That is a very dangerous development. There are plenty of examples from our own history or indeed the history of our countries to show why.
If Brexit is to succeed on any level at all it can only do so within the bounds of our laws and constitution. If Britain is to succeed on any level at all post-Brexit it can only do so if those who govern it do not destroy the very concept of the rule of law in this country.
I'm sorry but how is the government "refusing . . . to accept the ruling of the Supreme Court"?
The government has not just accepted the ruling of the Supreme Court, it has implemented it too. Despite disagreeing with it.
The rest of your post follows with a misconception. It is inappropriate to refuse to accept the judgment, it is perfectly acceptable to accept it begrudgingly which is what they have done.
While I agree with you about Cummings, such straws in the wind as we are seeing suggest that whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the situation right now Parliament is making itself look ridiculous. That's not helpful. Their refusal to vote through a recess for the Tory conference was however emotionally satisfying for them both crass and, given the likely events at that conference, very foolish.
Agreed. Though I note that the opposition parties did offer a compromise re attendance to allow the Tory conference to go ahead, before the vote, which the Tories refused. So even there the fault is rather more evenly shared than you are assuming.
I can't find any reference to this. What was it?
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
I will have to dig it out. It was an offer to ensure that there was no Parliamentary business on three days next week so MPs could attend. Something like that.
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
Well, it would be if anyone knew about it.
As it is, the Opposition have somehow managed to make a story about the Government illegally proroguing Parliament into a story about them acting like spoiled three year olds, even if they haven't.
That's some achievement.
Indeed.
I wonder what the effect of this week's events will be on the Baker-Francois gang.
Will they be more inclined to view things on party lines and support a 'BorisDeal' ?
QTWTAIN
Is so then we'll know that they don't actually want Brexit.
Because if one thing should be clear its that No Deal isn't going to happen.
The thing with that is that Boris can say he has informed HMQ that he "regrets any embarrassment caused to Her Majesty by the wrongful interpretation of the law by the Supreme Court ". The Palace can't answer back and that's that box ticked.
How naive of you.
You might recall over the last week a certain "Call Me Dave Cameron" has his bollocks handed to him by the palace without Brenda saying one word.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
I'm tempted. I feel like I ought not leave anything undone that could be done to defeat Johnson.
Boris is nothing like Trump, he's just nothing like May either. He's standing up for what he believes in and damn the critics.
"I am not by any means an ultra-eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it" (B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the ultra-Brexiteer, and Corbyn pretends he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the truer leaver.
Do you think nothing has changed over the last 16 years?
What changed between 2013 and 2016?
The disgraceful way the EU refused Cameron's reasonable and moderate changes he sought in the Bloomberg Speech.
That changed him supporting the UK staying in the single market to supporting a No Deal Brexit? Bloody hell!
It changed me supporting the UK staying in the Single Market to supporting Brexit, deal or no deal. So I see no reason it shouldn't have changed him too.
"Boris Johnson revealed his support for the European Union’s single market in “a pro-European” letter written the year before he decided to campaign for leave, it has emerged.
The likely prime minister’s pro-EU market sympathies were said to be revealed in a letter of condolence to the wife of the late Tory politician Sir Leon Brittan, who died in January 2015.
An account of the letter, shared with the Guardian, underscores Johnson’s lifelong equivocation over Britain’s EU membership"
"The letter came across as “a pro-European letter” in praise of the British commissioner and his efforts to uphold the single market, Peter Guilford, a former spokesman for Brittan who knew both men well, recalled.
“It came across as a very pro-Leon Brittan letter, in which Leon was defending the single market and competition within the single market, which Britain is now trying to leave,” Guilford told the Guardian."
Oh and here's another way in which the PM is failing to uphold the law. And the A-G who should be advising him on the law is shirking his duty.
PM roused MPs against SC by asserting SC were wrong. Judges can’t defend themselves. Constitutional convention, now contained in Constitutional Reform Act 2005, requires govt ministers to defend judges to preserve judicial independence. PM is breaking that duty fundamentally.
It is not an attack on the judiciary to claim a court judgment is wrong. Did the Blair government, of which Charlie Falconer was Lord (high?) Chancellor, attack the HoL judges' independence when passing the 2006 Compensation Act to reverse Corus v Barker?
If so, he should resign...
Something wrong with the quoting. My response is below.
I've answered that point already.
The government changes the law all the time. That is not attacking the judiciary or its independence as you well know.
When you ask for one of two responses to a question, you pre-ordain that one response will win a majority of voters. When you ask a more meaningful question with all the options - the voters are more free, myth is exposed, the truth is more complex. Such is the 2017 mandate that takes precedence through freedom and recency, like a new testament, over the 2016 forced choice.
John Major's government received the highest ever vote in 1992. Perhaps all subsequent elected governments were undemocratic because they received a smaller number of votes...
Have you really joined the LDs, Comrade? Serious food for thought!!
Yes Joff I have.
Good on you. Have you met your fellow constituency members yet? I am still debating whether or not I should take the plunge. I am very clear I’m a social democrat and I am not sure I can legitimately share a party with Liberals and Tory wets who, however much I like and admire them in many ways, fundamentally see the world differently to me.
I am a “registered supporter”. That’s enough for me for now.
@isam glad to hear that you disown Johnson and his comments of yesterday and all of the people suggesting that the lack of delivery of Brexit by MPs is to blame for the people threatening the lives of these MPs their staff and their children. .I gladly withdraw and apologise for any suggestion that you were providing support or succour in any way to his disgusting comments.
@nichomar I had to Google it. You copy and paste a code off the website the search finds. I have a LD flag and an LGBT flag. Other totems are available...
@SouthamObserver I have more in common with pragmatic sane MPs like Wollaston and Davey than I do with mentalists like Pidcock
Comments
At any rate, the story even in non Tory and unsympathetic outlets is 'recess blocked so Tory conference disrupted.' Very bad optics.
Mr Present But Not Involved is both of them.
You, a genius: What a huge blunder, impeaching Trump will only solidify Trump's base and completely destroy the Democrats electoral chances
https://twitter.com/eyokley/status/1177312117948657664
For what it's worth, I've already argued across several threads that a Tory majority in the commons at a GE on 30% of the vote to take us out with no deal would be equally illegitimate.
At this point he can do almost anything and still be supported . Whether this will change once Brexit happens one can only hope .
Bad optics for the government to refuse a perfectly sensible compromise.
What I don't get is the final line. Is that saying that 4 in 10 of those who think he should be impeached don't think or don't know whether he committed an impeachable offence but should be impeached anyway?
As it is, the Opposition have somehow managed to make a story about the Government illegally proroguing Parliament into a story about them acting like spoiled three year olds, even if they haven't.
That's some achievement.
But I don't think Johnson would be flattered to be compared to de Gaulle.
1. The government is formed by whichever party can hold the confidence of the House of Commons
2. This is the result of MPs elected as an individual in an individual and entirely separate election in each constituency where the required majority over any other candidate is a single vote
3. Parliament once elected is explicitly free to pass any laws it sees fit to pass including ones that change amend or repeal laws that already exist. No parliament is bound by it's predecessors
What's more in your argument you demonstrate that you know in detail how the system works, you just disagree with the current situation. And are therefore prepared to bemoan the things that you know are true as suddenly being untrue. It's anti-politics. It's the road to fascism - get a result you like (the referendum, the election of Blair/Thatcher/Hitler) and declare that any further electionproducing a different result to be undemocratic as the will of the people was expressed once and only once
Heart of stone, etc.
Good night.
Sun Tzu sounds a lot more cryptic. Or prophetic
We have to rely on some independent-minded ex-Tory MPs to act as an opposition.
Maybe showing the whole country that a Boris majority is the only way to get Brexit done wasn't the smartest move?
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176974846938497024?s=20
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1176744281970749441?s=20
Actually I joke. Not a shred of doubt in my mind this week has been a tipping point. Like when the sky is still dark and threatening, but you now see linings of white on the horizon.
Will people telling pollsters they are voting LibDem, green, lab, be aware and motivated to cast vote to maximum effect constituency to constituency? Will Boris boorish tactics and continued threat of no deal actually motivate his opponents into using their vote to maximum effect? 😉
There were also more votes in total thN the referendum I believe
Although we come from opposite sides of the political spectrum I had you down as a fairly sensible sort and am trying to understand your recent conversion.
(B. Johnson, 2003)
The irony of this whole process is that while Johnson poses as the true-Brexiteer, and Corbyn blocks any deal, pretending he wants a referendum, it's the latter that's the lifetime believer in Brexit.
I’ve seen a clip.
Like being savaged by a dead pea
I could have chosen to quote his draft pro-remain Telgraph column from 2016 also. You know, the one he wrote then changed to the exact opposite.
Wow. New YouGov poll on impeachment over Ukraine scandal shows support from 76% of Democrats and 51% of independents...but the number that should scare the hell out of Trump & the GOP is that it's also supported by 32% of Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:UK_opinion_polls.svg
If so, he should resign...
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1177323681309233154?s=21
If so, he should resign..
He’s not the resigning kind.
I wonder what the effect of this week's events will be on the Baker-Francois gang.
Will they be more inclined to view things on party lines and support a 'BorisDeal' ?
When making a difficult decision putting down pros and cons is a very longstanding and proper way of crystalising the issue and helping make your own mind up. Its nothing to be ashamed of that he thought it through and isn't a fanatic like Baker or Mogg.
I understand you have the zeal of the convert at the moment, and can probably get away with saying whatever you like as a new Lib Dem, but do you honestly have any idea how ludicrous that was, especially in the context of a post supposedly about reining in inflammatory language?
Cummings responds: “Get Brexit done.” >>
Extraordinary. We are at a point where the most senior unelected official in the country is insinuating that violence and intimidation is merely the correct momentum to get things done.
No challenge to this whatsoever from the 80 stoney-faced Tory MP's so far.
In response to @Philip_Thompson
Another non-lawyer claiming to understand the law better than a former Lord Chancellor.
You can disagree with a court's ruling; you can analyse it and think that it is wrong or that the reasoning is flawed in some way. Lawyers do this all the time and sometimes courts will look at the decisions of previous courts and update them and decide that the interpretation was wrong. That is how law develops.
But that is very different from what is happening here, which is that the government is refusing with any sort of grace, let alone any good grace, to accept the ruling of the Supreme Court, even though its own Attorney-General gave the game away yesterday by admitting that the government did not have an unlimited right to prorogue, exactly the point made by the Court.
Furthermore it is saying that its own judgment is better than those tasked with determining the law and has insinuated that the judges have come to this ruling for improper motives or because they were biased. And that is an attack on the concept of judicial independence and the fact that the judiciary are independent and that everyone, including governments, are subject to the law. It is clear that this PM (and, sadly, his A-G it would now appear) have no proper understanding of how government and our constitution work, why this is important and could not care less, even if they do understand.
That is a very dangerous development. There are plenty of examples from our own history or indeed the history of our countries to show why.
If Brexit is to succeed on any level at all it can only do so within the bounds of our laws and constitution. If Britain is to succeed on any level at all post-Brexit it can only do so if those who govern it do not destroy the very concept of the rule of law in this country.
You don't get to say democracy doesn't work, your vote doesn't count, I lost the vote but I know better . . . and expect civil discourse afterwards.
I thought we were all mired in low grade toxic sludge.
Still, Trump’s Ukraine misadventures are giving me a twinge of hope for my 1000/1 on Romney.
If so, he should resign...
Changing the law clearly shows the government accepted the court correctly interpreted the law as it was.
The government has not just accepted the ruling of the Supreme Court, it has implemented it too. Despite disagreeing with it.
The rest of your post follows with a misconception. It is inappropriate to refuse to accept the judgment, it is perfectly acceptable to accept it begrudgingly which is what they have done.
Because if one thing should be clear its that No Deal isn't going to happen.
You might recall over the last week a certain "Call Me Dave Cameron" has his bollocks handed to him by the palace without Brenda saying one word.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/17/boris-johnson-support-eu-revealed-leon-brittan-widow-letter
"Boris Johnson revealed his support for the European Union’s single market in “a pro-European” letter written the year before he decided to campaign for leave, it has emerged.
The likely prime minister’s pro-EU market sympathies were said to be revealed in a letter of condolence to the wife of the late Tory politician Sir Leon Brittan, who died in January 2015.
An account of the letter, shared with the Guardian, underscores Johnson’s lifelong equivocation over Britain’s EU membership"
"The letter came across as “a pro-European letter” in praise of the British commissioner and his efforts to uphold the single market, Peter Guilford, a former spokesman for Brittan who knew both men well, recalled.
“It came across as a very pro-Leon Brittan letter, in which Leon was defending the single market and competition within the single market, which Britain is now trying to leave,” Guilford told the Guardian."
If so, he should resign...
Something wrong with the quoting. My response is below.
I've answered that point already.
The government changes the law all the time. That is not attacking the judiciary or its independence as you well know.
@nichomar I had to Google it. You copy and paste a code off the website the search finds. I have a LD flag and an LGBT flag. Other totems are available...
@SouthamObserver I have more in common with pragmatic sane MPs like Wollaston and Davey than I do with mentalists like Pidcock