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...

I think this one is the best one yet —andI could believe it as well—

Red re Tories demise:
Do you really believe this?
Have you looked at polls or talked to people about this?
I wish it was. Not buying it at all though.

I’m not sure any party will ever have an outright majority again. The Tories’ voter base is changing and they can’t rely on the educated middle class any longer. It’ll take years but I think the Tories are slowly revealing their true colours. (Can’t say what a good alternative would be in the long term for disillusioned Tory voters though!) We may be in for years of alliances, coalitions and compromise. That’d be a challenging lesson in itself.

At this point no-one can predict what will happen, but we’re in for a rocky ride.

I agree with cat that we must resist this. We’ve seen how rattled they get in the face of noisy and sustained opposition.
I’ve recently recruited a couple of previously-indifferent friends to the idea of protest. It took a slow, restrained drip-drip of info from me over a long time. (And the fact that the situation is getting extreme now.) It is slow, but they’re quite keen on demos now!

"It can't happen here we're British" syndrome.

Exactly this - yet another manifestation of British (English?) entitled exceptionalism.

Thanks Red

Just caught up with last night’s Newsnight and the interview with Nicholas Soames, Ken Clarke and Mark Harper. I probably should have long since given up on expecting any sort of logical argument to come out of the mouths of those supporting Brexit but...

Harper stated that the vote last night damaged the prospect of a deal being done because in order to offer/agree a new deal the E.U. would have to be confident the deal would be passed by the HoC.

How on earth can you argue that the HoC legislating against No Deal will make the E.U. think they wouldn’t vote for a deal?

Obvs you can argue it because it goes unchallenged but it makes no sense at all.

Why am I expecting anything to make sense..?

Could the 5 week prorogation work against govt here? If rebel alliance insist on cast iron no to no deal legislation before they'll vote for a GE, that surely means royal assent to their bill. Given the tight timelines, is there any way for all that to happen before prorogation begins? Or would the rebel alliance agree to hold out on a GE/VONC vote until an extension has actually been agreed, presumably after 17th October?

Sorry, this is a little muddled, just about to go in for a tooth filling

Emily cross post!

I wonder will it be a) a United Ireland b) boots back on the streets in NI or c) a UK invasion of Ireland. They seem mad enough. Plenty of money to be made from war I'm sure.

The Leave Campaign has proven you can outright lie to the electorate and it has no consequences. None whatsoever. People actually lap up the lies.

I see Rory Stewart won the GQ award for politician of the year last night. He was sacked by text shortly after collecting his award.

PMK. Thanks Red. I fear a Tory victory at the next election too.

Right calling people evil and selfish isn't helpful. It plays to the culture war.

I forget which holocaust survivor made the point that it wasn't people being evil or selfish that were the problem.

It was people being indifferent or apathetic.

The point he drove home was looking for evil people was something that made the past more likely to repeat.

If you alienate those who are indifferent and apathetic by calling them evil or self you drive them to the very thing you abhor.

Be mindful of how venting anger, horror and frustration is being used against you by the propagandists...

I've perked up a touch grin

I’d noticed your unusually optimistic sounding post earlier DGR .

Made me feel a little hopeful. And that these are strange days indeed...

Watching Sir Roger Gale (Conservative MP for Thanet North) on Victoria Derbyshire BBC News 24 (and BBC2)? explosive stuff criticising Cummings and BJ in the most excoriating fashion. Really worth seeing.

The logic is that the eu will only improve on the wa if they think the alternative is no deal. As long as any other outcome remains in play, it would obviously not be in their interests to do so.

Sorry I can’t watch Victoria.

In other news I have just been to Lidl's (France) wine sale and bought a case of a red wine called "Les Seigneurs d'Arse".
It seemed very appropriate.

@DGRossetti the world is truly off its axis when you are more optimistic than me !!!

(Still waiting patiently for you to top your “ stick that on the side of a bus and smoke it rant”)

Richard Benyon, ex Tory, on too and good and clear as to why he voted for the bill yesterday. Sir Roger less convincing now that he is justifying continuing to vote with the Government....

I'm watching BBC too.

Agree wholeheartedly with Emily, and RTB's points about populist rhetoric.

They are there-huge swathes of folk living ordinary lives who are totally disengaged from politics who naively respond to the simple emotional messages being fed to them in simple language on social media and in the press. I have heard it and seen it.

A subset of this group, as RTB says will actively recoil from learned and intelligent debate. There is a strong vein of anti intellectualism in England which crosses all classes. There are those too lazy to engage, certainly, and there are others- and I highly suspect their numbers are vastly underestimated- who simply cannot and will not ever understand or respond to logical argument.

To call this evil is unhelpful. It misses the subtleties and we must understand it in order to combat it.

What is not logical Megan is on the one hand saying no deal is a massive threat to the EU they are terrified, whilst also saying it’s the best thing for UK to do consequences will be merely ‘bumps in the road’.

It has to be one thing or the other.

forget which holocaust survivor made the point that it wasn't people being evil or selfish that were the problem.

It was people being indifferent or apathetic.

That 1000x

no deal is a massive threat to the EU they are terrified, whilst also saying it’s the best thing for UK to do consequences will be merely ‘bumps in the road

That's true, Basil. But there's nothing logical about any of this except for those who stand to make ££££.

A tweet or email or something was just read out on Victoria live that contained the words "Tory insurgents".

Scottish court case about proroguing thrown out - legal for Parliament to be prorogued

Fascism IMHO is often the spawn of ignorance and its offshoots (fear, hatred, etc) and I think its rise here and elsewhere is part evidence of the general decline of education together with the rise of coordinated disinformation

I know Apile logic flew out the window a long time ago.