Westminstenders: Drain The Swamp

[RedToothBrush]

Johnson lost his first vote by 27.

The Commons take control again, and Johnson is now, with his majority gone, is seeking an election.

Whilst the feeling might be one of victory there is a definite sting in the tail.

Johnson has purged the party of 'trouble makers', meaning any replacements after an election are hard liners. And they will be in safe seats. Possibly many of which will be careerists parachuted in.

The party has split. The civil war is over.

Parliament has just lost some of its very best minds in the process. That bodes ill for us all in the long term. The polarisation has just jacked up a level. The centre has fallen even more.

There are no more moderates.

Polling suggests that Johnson won't be blamed for any of this and that's significant.

Take note of this tweet

Douglas Carswell @Douglascarswell
Boris Vs the political Parasites. Guess who wins across suburban Britain?

The optics are not about what you or I are seeing. Nor about what any of the politicial pundits are seeing.

The Democrats and the Media failed to see Trump coming... And this is what now concerns me. His optics are not bad with his core and targets.

Will Johnson be able to have his election?

If yes, I fear the polls look good for Johnson. People want 'Brexit over with' and don't want another extension. They may or may not understand the ramifications of that.

If no, then what? Johnson can do anything with his numbers. Does that mean potentially two governments and the Queen stuck in the middle? Or does he limp on, with no intention of doing anything but take us over the cliff by counting down the clock?

Or something else?

The Brexit Party and Conservatives now seem to have formally united one way or another. They have aligned with current politics alike the divided Opposition parties.

Tonight the penny might have dropped with a few Labour MPs too. They want May's deal to return. Its the only deal there is, in the absence of a Johnson plan and a Labour / Opposition plan. Too little too late...

This isn't going away as an issue either. Stoking up anger against the rebel alliance is a long term project for the fascist right.

Is tonight’s result a victory? Yes, but my fear is its potential to be a Pyrrhic Victory.

The battle today may have been won, but Johnson still looks set to win...

Its very broad and I thought Yorkshire too until I googled him. I love his accent and it's lovely to hear one do broad from the north.

The text of the letter is interesting @DGRossetti When I read it, the bit that stood out to me was this ...

I didn't bother reading it. I already knew how it would read. Betteridges law of headlines and all that ....

This Speaker will only swear 2 new peers per day.

Is he still going to be Speaker of a new Parliament ?

Even if local Toriesaren't able to follow through their threat and deselct him before the next GE,
the new HoC could vote to replace him with a Brexiter

• who could hold a mass session of 1000 peers

Lindsay Hoyle's from Adlington - near Bolton I think. He has grown on me over these past six months, a lot.

Whose first action is to pass an enabling act abolishing elections, and making the PM the UKs "Life Leader". Seriously.
Just to check - you seriously believe this, you’re not being sarcastic? How do you think this enabling act would be passed?

Lord, we'll all be quoting Tacitus next.

The Lord Speaker in teh HoL is Lord Howell, one of Thatcher's timid 'vegetables.'

Lord Speakers are chosen by their lordships.

Whose first action is to pass an enabling act abolishing elections, and making the PM the UKs "Life Leader

It's a good thing we have a Constitution that stops this kind of thing....

Hang on...

I certainly don't expect DG's enabling act to explicitly stop elections

I do expect the Tories to copy the US and Hungary in hobbling their opposition:

• Gerrymandering of seat boundaries

• Voting rules - photo IDs, registration checks on right to be in the UK etc - to reduce / discourage groups that support Labour

• Hitting finances of other parties: restriction of main Labour donations - trade union donations - and harassment of any business donors to opposition parties - no govt or public service contracts or services

• Media: Relaxing laws to allow takeover of opposition media by hard right billionaires
  Also making the BBC a 100% hard right mouthpiece - maybe merging with Breitbart and then privatising

.... ?

In extremis, Queenie will say "Orf with his head," perhaps only metaphorically.

The Lord Speaker is not part of the Government

It is currently Lord Fowler (ironically enough, a Conservative ) and was voted into the role in 2016. Terms are normally 5 years, for a maximum of 2 terms - and this is only his first term.

who could hold a mass session of 1000 peers

If there is anything Brexit has shown us is that we need to look at our Constitution, the role of the Monarch and the role of the House of Lords.

...Yes, Norman Fowler.

(wrong vegetable)

"terms are normally 5 years"

Nothing is normal when authoritarians throw away the rulebook

An old-tashioned Tory speaker can and will be replaced in the next Parliament - if BJ gets a majority in a GE
Not possible in a minority govt afaik

Just to check - you seriously believe this, you’re not being sarcastic? How do you think this enabling act would be passed?

Too easily.

How do you think it would not ?

Times article is about where I'd put things.

Fair enough @DGRossetti.

I was just struck by the timing and wording of this update from the BoE, given the voting that is taking place in the HoC today.

I just hope it isn't enough to sway any middling MPs who might go either way on stopping no deal, because if this Bill attempt fails, where next in preventing BJ and his no deal steam train?

I certainly don't expect DG's enabling act to explicitly stop elections

Not with a law stopping elections. Just something like the CCA which "delays" them for reasons as yet uninvented foreseen.

Of course a good old war is a great excuse to suspend elections. I'm sure we can find a country somewhere on the globe that can be bigged up into a threat. That's if the Northern Irish situation hasn't already descended into full on civil war.

So what happens now then?

I just hope it isn't enough to sway any middling MPs who might go either way on stopping no deal, because if this Billattempt fails, where next in preventing BJ and his no deal steam train?

I'd hope that MPs would read and digest the full report, not act on soundbite headlines. That's the publics job. Which is why some rebels specifically noted they wanted all the details before voting for anything.

Because of our ridiculous voting system, a Brexity BJ-Farage majority or even landslide is not impossible on a modest 40% vote if the Remain parties continue to argue over which end of the boiled egg to dip the soldiers.

Once that happens, you can abolish the Lords, pass a statutory instrument giving the PM full authority to do whatever the fuck he likes, and then when the riots start, so will the mass arrests.

The only thing stopping it is the unwritten "Good Chap" theory that British politicians simply would not behave like that.

Of course a good old war is a great excuse to suspend elections

You just need to watch the Star Wars prequels to see the rise of the Empire as democracy gets eroded.

How do you think it would not ?

Well, first off, my initial gut response was that the whole concept of such a bill being brought to the house was either a joke or paranoia. But seeing as the current government is so far 0/2 on votes and haemorrhaging support from its own benches....I cannot see there being a majority in any post-election parliament that would support such a bill.

I’m really intrigued by your thinking on this, clearly we have very different takes on things here - I honestly thought you were joking, I’m sorry - so you’ll have to explain in a bit more detail, I meant how you see this dystopia unfolding? Which MPs from which parties would make up a future parliament that would vote for this enabling act to abolish elections?

Not sure if this has been shared before. It's an interview with Cummings in Jan 16

www.economist.com/bagehots-notebook/2016/01/21/an-interview-with-dominic-cummings

there is a "strong democratic case" for a second referendum on the final terms of Brexit, if the first vote is for Out

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
More trouble for Boris. Lots of Tory backbenchers in a 1922 Committee meeting with the PM now just cheered Edward Leigh and Damian Green for speaking up for the 21 rebels, and booed Dan Kawczynski for attacking them.

I'm told Boris is now explaining his alternative Irish backstop idea to the 1922, an all-Ireland agrifood zone, by quoting Ian Paisley Snr: "Our people may be British but our cows are Irish”.