To think the right wing tabloids have gone too far?

[Mistigri]

Reactions of the Mail, Express and Sun to yesterday's court decision on brexit:

The Mail's front page has a picture of the three high court judges with the headline "Enemies of the people". One judge is criticised for being "openly gay".

The Express says this is the UK's greatest crisis since the Second World War.

The Sun (proprietor: R Murdoch) takes to task the "foreign elites" who brought the case. Because their readers are less likely to approve of attacks on white pensioners (the other claimant), they focus their attack on the non-white woman claimant.

The Mail is the most problematic IMO; attacking the judiciary is another step on the road to facism.

How can we have any reasonable political debate in this environment?

[Mistigri]

Hmm but surely the referendum, the result of which DC made clear would be followed, was authorised by parliament, so iy could be argued that parliament had already authorised triggering article 50

You need to pay attention in class. Parliament authorised a non-binding referendum (it could have made the result binding but it chose not to).

[PausingFlatly]

From the actual judgement:

(8) The Referendum Act 2015

105. The Secretary of State's ease regarding his ability to give notice under Article 50 was based squarely on the Crown's prerogative power. His counsel made it clear that he does not contend that the 2015 Referendum Act supplied a statutory power for the Crown to give notice under Article 50. He is right not to do so. Any argument to that effect would have been untenable as a matter of statutory interpretation of the 2015 Referendum Act.

106. That Act falls to be interpreted in light of the basic constitutional principles of parliamentary sovereignty and representative parliamentary democracy which apply in the United Kingdom, which lead to the conclusion that a referendum on any topic can only be advisory for the lawmakers in Parliament unless very clear language to the contrary is used in the referendum legislation in question. No such language is used in the 2015 Referendum Act.

107. Further, the 2015 Referendum Act was passed against a background including a clear briefing paper to parliamentarians explaining that the referendum would have advisory effect only. Moreover, Parliament must have appreciated that the referendum was intended only to be advisory as the result of a vote in the referendum in favour of leaving the European Union would inevitably leave for future decision many important questions relating to the legal implementation of withdrawal from the European Union.

108. We emphasise that the Secretary of State's position on this part of the argument and the observations in the preceding paragraphs relate to a pure legal point about the effect in law of the referendum. This court does not question the importance of the referendum as a political event, the significance of which will have to be assessed and taken into account elsewhere.

[Bolding is mine.]

[LarkDescending]

a7mints

It can't sensibly be argued that by the Referendum Act 2015 Parliament authorised an Art 50 notification, because that Act clearly made the referendum advisory rather than binding.

The Govt (sensibly) conceded this point at High Court hearing.

[LarkDescending]

*at the High Court

Massive cross-post anyway!

[Motheroffourdragons]

Libra - this thread isn't about convincing anyone about staying or leaving, it's about whether the right wing press have gone too far.
Whatever you think of the bureaucrats in Brussels doesn't really matter here.

[RufusTheSpartacusReindeer]

Yep agree with others that the actions of the mail etc are beyond the pale

I said to dh yesterday that you imagine that authors of this argument are reasonably intelligent and know what they are saying is bollocks

They are just shit stirring

[RufusTheSpartacusReindeer]

Argument Should be '-article'

Righteous anger and typing do not go well together

[Adnerb95]

Agree with OP - the pillorying of the judges for doing their job is absolutely disgraceful and a number of the papers have also in recent weeks come close to/crossed way over the line of incitement to racial hatred, which last time I looked, was against the law!!

So many people are also confusing the referendum result - to leave the EU - with scrutiny by Parliament of the terms and conditions of the exit. 2 completely different things!!

[roundaboutthetown]

Well, of course powerful and wealthy press barons who want Brexit are conveniently confusing Brexit and the terms and conditions of Brexit - because they want the executive to be able to push through Brexit before too many people realise that it isn't going to result in less immigration, improved trade terms with other countries or more attention being paid to neglected parts of the UK, as if they did realise, they might be less keen to spend huge amounts of money and time unravelling it all.

[raisedbyguineapigs]

Libra The result of the judgement doesn't stop us leaving the EU. It is saying that Parliament should have a chance to scrutinise the conditions of us leaving. Do you think we should just pull out and leave the government (with a majority at the moment of 8) to decide what type of brexit we should have? How do we know what they will decide? How do we know what their position is going to be? Do you just trust them to decide what they want and hope it's what everyone wants, when nobody even wants the same thing? That isn't how Parliamentary democracy works. It's how dictatorships work. Article 50 is a no going back type of thing. It is going to take every minute of those 2 years to untangle ourselves from the EU, then we will have no chance to argue the toss and say 'Oh we don't like the way this is going'

[vulpeculaveritas]

The Mail and express were absolutely shocking and an affront to democracy, the very thing they wanted to campaign for, proving that in fact this whole exercise has been about one thing.

Power.

There are certain people in this country, with extremely large resources and political allies that dislike having to operate under the fairly socially democratic yoke of the EU.

It wasn't about any of the issues they campaigned on, as has been proved, like the Walrus and the Carpenter they have convinced the little Oysters to come along with them, they will be devoured.

[twofingerstoGideon]

Sweary, but pretty accurate!

[Peregrina]

It wasn't about any of the issues they campaigned on, as has been proved, like the Walrus and the Carpenter they have convinced the little Oysters to come along with them, they will be devoured.

Yes.

[twofingerstoGideon]

PM refuses to condemn the press

This is not about 'freedom of speech', though. The press is entitled to print opinion pieces, but they should not have free rein to incite hatred and call judges 'traitors'.

[Peregrina]

Yes, quite Gideon. The Mail was blatantly copying Nazism. Someone put up a poster on facebook showing a 1930s Nazi newspaper headline condemning judges as enemies of the people, juxtaposed with the Mail headline. I can't find it now, which is a pity, because I wanted to copy it to May with a letter asking her whether supporting blatant Nazi propaganda equates with Press Freedom. Where does she draw the line? I am beginning to feel that the generation which went to war against Hitler made their sacrifices in vain.

[shovetheholly]

I think what we can see on this thread is a divide, and that it's basically between people who understand how the constitutional machinery of law and government works, and people who don't.

[Petronius16]

Pausing many thanks for posting the link - most useful. Read the whole judgement instead of watching boring old Poldark!

And agree with shove. I'm hoping that some voters will start to take a bit more interest in our system and realise that definitions of democracy vary greatly.

[raisedbyguineapigs]

Teresa May has been appalling on this. 'Protecting freedom of the press' when they personally abuse the judiciary, using homophobic and racist imagery and language is unacceptable. The freedom of the press, especially when we have such a risible, unregulated and appalling press is in no way, shape or form as important as Independence of the Judiciary. An independent judiciary is one of the basic tenets of democracy.

[merrymouse]

It is quite possible to respect the freedom of the press and vehemently disagree with an attempt to discredit a judge on the basis they are 'openly gay'.

Freedom of the Press is a red herring.

[raisedbyguineapigs]

Petronius I'm losing hope that we will do this. People who do know and understand the system can't be bothered to protect it. The press care more about whipping people up into a frenzy in order to get more hits on their websites than sensible discussion. I really despair. I've already got to the stage there I have stopped listening to the news when it comes to Brexit. I feel like just hunkering down for the next few years, concentrating on showbiz gossip. I'll make sure my kids are educated enough to just bugger off somewhere else if need be and leave everyone to it

[myfavouritecolourispurple]

I've already got to the stage there I have stopped listening to the news when it comes to Brexit

Me too. And I've unfollowed loads of people on Twitter who tweet all sorts of misery-making Brexit stuff and am going to follow more BBC Earth and Woodland Trust for pretty pictures.

Sticks head in sand.

I'll make sure my kids are educated enough to just bugger off somewhere else if need be

as long as British citizens are allowed in anywhere after all this. I read somewhere on here that the UK was becoming a laughing stock overseas. They haven't forgotten that 48% voted to Remain and that a lot of the rest are really quite sensible too have they? Don't judge an entire nation on the actions of an unelected government and right wing press!

[ForalltheSaints]

This is not the first time the right wing press have gone too far. Ask anyone in Liverpool and they will point to the Thursday after April 15 1989.

[JoffreyBaratheon]

The very people who were whining to leave Europe, because they wanted our judiciary to have the final say, rather than a 'foreign' one... are now whining because our judiciary has had their say?

I think the sooner we regard all newspapers as just 'comics' - the better.

[shovetheholly]

I think at some point we have to confront the fact that the press isn't doing its job any more. Its freedom is important for the sole reason that it is supposed to act as a check and a balance, speaking truth to power and holding power to account. It is emphatically no longer doing this. The media is owned by a small amount of people, and is not by any means run in the interests of the majority. It is, essentially, a faction of power, not a check upon it. We simply cannot rely on nineteenth century arguments about press freedom in a twenty-first century contexts. The Benthamite logic that the 'truth will win out' is nonsense when confronted with the power of ideology.

[JoffreyBaratheon]

BTW, what's deeply troubling about that is the 'openly gay' reference in one of the 'articles'.

So we're assuming once everyone without a white skin is in the concentration camp, the tories/UKIP and their voters will be gunning for gay people, next? WTF was that 'openly gay' meant to mean?

Brexit has certainly made a lot of racists and homophobes come out of the woodwork. It's fecking scary that they were there in such numbers. But don't they feel validated, by their fellow Leave voters, to express such hate? A few months ago we lived in a country that seemed fair and decent. These nutters were there all along (many on the Daily Mail's pay roll). Clearly the hateful shit that repulsive woman whose name I forget, wrote about Stephen Gateley, wasn't a random outlier, in terms of their attitudes - but the true, homophobic face, of the tabloid press, and reflects a deeper current in their world.