Westministenders: The Non Re-Opening Of Parliament

[RedToothBrush]

Parliament will reconvene tomorrow, at 11.30am, as if proroguation never happened as the Supreme Court ruled that the government acted outside the limits of its power and this was therefore unlawful.

The most senior court in the UK has ruled unaminously to defend Parliamentary Sovereignity and the Rule of British Law.

Unusually for a Wednesday there will be no PMQ, however there will be time for Ministerial Statements, UQ and Debate under S024.
See the abbreviation thread if you are struggling with these

So tomorrow is sure to be explosive on way or another.

The Government is hitting back by questioning the Supreme Court whilst also saying they respect the Supreme Court's authority. This is an oxymoron. Its being done for political reasons and is, in its own way, a direct threat to the Rule of Law.

Robert Buckland is, again, having to do a lot in Cabinet to assert the point of the importance of the Rule of Law and how it prevents mob rule. Something that seems to keep getting forgotten by anonymous No 10 sources.

The political fallout from the ruling is sure to lead to calls for the Supreme Court to be politically elected. This has been a long term goal of parts of the hard right.

Johnson, is currently in the US, so the announcement that parliament will be back tomorrow has rather spoilt his jolly to see his mate Donnie. He will have to get on a plane smartish.

But for all the hard talk there will also be ramifications for Johnson. Whilst there will be a lot of 'nothing has changed', and there is no chance of a VoNC in the HoC being tabled by the opposition whilst no deal is still on the table on the 31st Oct, there will still be problems for Johnson.

There will be a post mortem within his own party. The next Cabinet Meeting will almost certainly be explosive. There are already attempts to set Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General who apparently advised that proroguation was lawful, under the bus as the fall guy. This will perhaps be a deflection to try and protect Dominic Cummings, as there will be moderate Tories who will seek to use this as an opportunity to have him sacked. But more than this, its likely to result in other Cabinet Ministers being more forceful and to challenge Johnson more, both for their own political gain and for their own political protection. He will certainly be more questioned from within, about his poor judgement.

We also have him facing an investigation from the London Assembly over his conduct and suggestions of an inappropriate relationship with a busty blonde American woman.

Next weeks Conservative Party Conference is now in tatters. Whilst Corbyn has wrapped up the Labour Party Conference early to avoid a clash with Parliament being open, Johnson is stuffed. Next week's PMQ will clash with the schedule for his Party Speech. Normally parliament would be in recess for the conference season, but parliament has to vote to allow this. And there isn't a majority for the Conservatives to now be able to do this. So Parliament almost certainly will be sitting next week.

Unfortunately, the Tories are a little stuffed with their conference being held in Manchester. If (and lets face it, with the gloves off and time short) the opposition want to cause mischief, they will try and schedule crucial and embarassing debates during the party conference, to keep MPs stuck in Westminister as much as possible. And with good reason under the circumstances.

We still have the small matter of the 31st October deadline which Johnson is still sticking to saying we will either have a deal or we will leave without a deal - unlawfully.

Remember on that note, Johnson has already acted beyond his power and unlawfully on the basis of bad advice. Johnson being hulk, rather than a girly swat, relies on the advice of others more heavily than his own wisdom and experience - of which he has been exposed time and again - to be somewhat lacking in.

As a side note, its also worth reflecting on the NCA having dropped charges in relation to Leave.Eu and how the Electoral Commission has commented on this decision:
"We are concerned about the apparent weakness in the law, highlighted by this investigation outcome, which allows overseas funds into UK politics. We have made recommendations that would tighten the rules on campaign funding and deter breaches. We urge the UK's governments to act on those recommendations to support voter confidence"

In the context of an imminent General Election, this is really very concerning indeed.

Just WHO is in control? Cos it doesn't look like its Boris Johnson right now, thats for sure.

@Margots74, many, many of us on here have said that we will accept a deal to avoid no deal. We understand that the result is what it is and that people are becoming entrenched. But alongside that, we shouldn't take what's happening to our democracy lying down. We should be rallying against the likes of Trump and Johnson. The two things need to be looked at separately.

My goodness @RedToothBrush

Your posts of the early hours of this morning are terrifying and incredibly prescient.
I completely agree that Bojo has been coached by the Trump administration. He is completely goading and inciting his supporters in the country to “ do or die”.
They are being wound up and there is going to be an emotional, knee jerk reaction on the 1st of November, if the UK has not left.
The moderate MPs and people in the country, are going to be snookered. Either we have to agree to No deal or or TMs WA and leave on the 31st or BoJo will incite violence. It’s starting now.
This is nothing to do with Brexit; that is just a red Herring.
It has gone beyond and it is democracy itself at stake.

Now that you, RTB have explained the mechanisms and reasoning behind impeachment; there is no question in my mind that BoJo needs to be impeached and the true facts laid bare.

He has been pushed into a corner, and his lack of remorse is terrifying. I also hold all of those in his party, grinning and cheering on the front benches, personally responsible for propping up this terrifying autocrat.
He is not even funny, bumbling and incompetent but a terrifying mouthpiece for fascism.

And even if Bojo is removed, and a caretaker PM is put in place, with social media, the man will not be silenced.
I just cannot believe that politics has come to this.
It really is the fabric of democracy at stake.

He is one scary gaslighting psychopathic lying fucker. He totally refuted what [was] said in the judgement and totally refused to listen when Peston tried to correct him.

It’s totally ridiculous.

Yes.

And Farage is the same gaslighter, shifting his position, switching from Norway to No deal, dipping in and out of political parties, opposing the Tories then supporting them. Revealing and then denying plans for a health service that is only available for those who can pay. Even having plans to go to the US revealed twice (if he can get in). Having two EU wives and consequential other passports for his family. Even saying it's no longer about EU membership.

The visitors and lurkers who are devotedly loyal to people like de Pfeffel and le Farage must surely have nagging doubts. When they get into bed at night those doubts must be there nibbling away.

It's admirable bravery in some respects. Supporters must feel invincible themselves to trust and support politicians who demonstrate daily that whilst you support them, they are likely to gaslight and betray you.

On a positive note, it's been a good week for girly swots

I never thought I would see the ruination of our democracy. I cannot believe last night. I don't want to believe last night. I don't know who or what to blame. In the end it must be down to us. Society. The world has changed people now have no constraints, no lines not to cross, me first and last, no thought for fellow people to get what they want.
At one time I thought it was just me being a moaning 69yr old git. But honestly I'm glad I don't have many years left on this earth. I could not stand a long time in a society as feral as it is getting.
There will be many turning in their graves that fought for freedom and democracy after last night. All I can add is good luck to all in the future. We sure are going to need it!

So, Johnson clearly thinks the numbers aren't there for a GNU, hence his goading. Let's assume that yesterday has stiffened the resolve of the opposition and they have a GNU plan in place. What's the process?

1. Table motion.
2. Vote - Johnson loses.
3. Johnson and government resign.
4. 14 days to form GNU / hold vote to confirm majority support.
5. Go to Queen to be installed as PM or no GNU, GE legislated for.

If Johnson thinks there is GNU support (which would be the only reason there'd be a VoNC, after all), what happens if he refuses to resign? I know we had this conversation a while ago, but I'm not sure what we decided the outcome would be? HMQ sacking Johnson when the leader of the GNU asks for an audience? How would it pan out? As we've said before, it's convention, not law, for him to resign. And he gives no fucks about legislation anyway, given his attitude to the Benn Bill.

And do we think the opposition will finally get its act together after last night? If they don't, then they're almost as much to blame as Johnson if we no deal.

And do we think the opposition will finally get its act together after last night?

I do. I was surprised that they acted so decisively and swiftly with the Benn bill, but it gave me hope.

The anger and language are getting more shocking, but expect more of the same and increasing as our politicians refuse to take the lead and our democratic institutions are torn apart by legal action.

The legal action was right to defend the rule of law. Its the last line of defence of the people. The courts including the ECHR defend our rights.

This also needs to be seen in context and outside of Brexit.

It needs to be seen in context with how May abused the law and disenfranchised many from their right whilst she was at the home office (and after she left by continuing cases after she left) in a manner which is hard to see as anything less than merely put of pure spite.

May deliberately tried to get around the rule of law, knowing that many of her victims would never be able to seek justice or if they did it would be retrospectively after she had already abused the power of the state, achieved her goal of removing foreign nationals and denied them their rights.

Leave.EU and many on the hard right of the Tory party have long had their eyes on human rights as the power of the courts is one thing that stops the state abusing power. They have already sought to undermine the justice system via cuts to legal aid etc. Many no longer have equal access to justice as a result. It leaves the vulnerable to abuses of power from above.

May continued this as PM by trying to trigger A50 without scrutiny.

But it goes beyond this too.

It's in all those government contracts with businesses which we can not Freedom of Information request and therefore scrutinise. This is widespread at local council level. Where is all our money going, and to whom?

Where is the local government accountability?

It's in the abolition of the audit office.

It's a drip drip of the removal of checks and balances.

Johnson is merely the result of the erosion of all these things and no one standing up and questioning what is more or less corruption - even if it happens to be legal.

It's like what Trump is doing in plain sight. Milking the systems for his own financial benefit. We know and understand the issue of breaking the US constitution with emoluments

The desire for politicians to look for loopholes to get around the system is regarded as legitimate. So legitimate that its resulted in the opposition having to resort to it, in order to try and halt no deal.

Their actions in doing this are a symptom of the problems we have from the erosion of democracy rather than a cause of it.

These things did not start under the coalition government either. You can clearly trace them back to Blair. PFI was all about essentially circumnavigating around the system of transparency and checks and balances to make the books look like we weren't borrowing as much as a nation. Frankly it'd cost us less to just let the state borrow the money.

All these things are connected and we didn't fully understand what we were doing or the price it was costing us.

It will take those who were involved and made those errors to acknowledge them to start to reverse things. There are many whose faith in politicians is zero because they know and understand these things along the road. Farage did too and he's kept his power dry understanding this anger and how he could harness it.

Johnson was an opportunists but Farage has long seen this coming and how he can exploit it.

Remember this does not end with Johnson.

Dismissing death threats as 'humbug' May actually be that final straw. Not the contempt of Court and Parliament, but dismissing and minimising death threats, that's utterly contemptible.

I'm going to struggle to sit on my hands if my mother defends this pathetic excuse of a man today. I will try, for the sake of family relations, but I really hope she's seen sense now. I sent her that post from RTB, trying to appeal to her reasonable side. I also raised Christian values, as she supposedly is one, despite vilifying 'remoaners', and calling Bercow a berk. I'm dismayed at her lack of ability to use rational and critical thinking. I'm thinking it must be part of the mental health issues she's had for almost a decade. Not that she's just an intolerant, ageing, Brexit-voting stereotype!

Dismissing death threats as 'humbug' May actually be that final straw

How many times have we said that about May or Trump. Yet no one stands up and says enough because they are still getting what they want in other ways or still to naive to understand how they are enabling it and that those concerned really don't have any moral compass and won't stop of their own accord. You can not moderate them.

This is my fear.

Have they learnt the lesson yet and how they must react to that.

I don't think BoJo is that calculating. I think this is pure narcissistic rage because of the SC ruling. I think a lots of Trumps behaviour stems from that too.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_rage_and_narcissistic_injury

Neither are fit for office

I have just been watching James Cleverly lying on BBC Breakfast.
It was disgusting to watch. He dismissed what Paula Sheriff said. All he could do was talk about the election soundbites.

It's my fear too. But I'm really hoping that the bloody idiots like Swinson actually look at what their ridiculous stance re a GNU leader is doing and actually just fucking DO something.

I can but hope. And there is hope until there is none! Even if it's a fucking disaster right now.

I feel quite tearful this morning after witnessing all that last night. I foresee a day of drinking tea and watching Murder, She Wrote.

There are not words bad or strong enough to describe our PM.

Jo Cox hubby on radio said basically how dangerous polarisation is and its consequences.

I agree with you all - I think he has been coached by those who underpin the Trump administration. Both countries are at a very dangerous stage in their history. The abhorrent rhetoric and goading last night were both shocking and vile.

It is definitely filtering down into local politics where I live. I've seen some abusive behaviour that utterly mirrors what is happening at a national level. It is an infection that threatens the fabric of our democracy at every level.

Hi all....I didn't get chance to drop in yesterday but I had Parliament Live on all day. I missed the evening though and caught up this morning. I am not a very emotional person but felt almost in tears this morning watching BJ's 'performance' re: Jo Cox.

I wrote to my MP this morning - he was in TMs Cabinet but isn't in Johnson's. Here is my email:

Damian,

We have corresponded recently on my offer to help out in [Redacted] to look at reinvigorating the high street.

I want to thank you for your help with this, it’s been my first and only direct contact with an MP and you have been most helpful.

Unfortunately however the ‘performance’ of Boris Johnson in Parliament yesterday has prompted me to make my second contact.

I have disagreed with many politicians and their policies and/or actions - never before has one made me feel physically sick.

The deflection from matters of great importance, lack of any humility over the Supreme Court ruling, refusal to follow an Act of Parliament (the Benn Act) was bad enough but sadly, par for the course.

However his dismissal of death threats against female MPs, including MPs that are his own colleagues (Amber Rudd, Nicky Morgan) when one MP has already been murdered disgusted me.

I was a Conservative voter - I fail to see how any of the current performance is aligned to Conservative values.

What has happened to respecting British institutions like Parliamentary sovereignty and the courts? What has happened to being the party of the rule of law?

Clarke, Heseltine, Major, Letwin, Grieve, Soames - these are the Conservatives I recognise.

The current incumbents in Government are something else - I cannot call them Conservatives.

The party has, in my opinion, finally lost its mind in the pursuit of Brexit and power. There is no integrity left, no common human decency, no honesty.

I know that there are many left in the party who do have genuine Conservative values however after last night I’m afraid to say that moderates sitting in silence are becoming appeasers of what ever this Trumpist type movement is within the party.

Seeing Johnson yesterday has made me wonder where this will all end. We are, in my opinion, on a downward spiral - the country will not be healed after rhetoric like that used yesterday.

I’m not expecting any particular action on your behalf but I felt moved to do something...anything...to register a view from a normal voter.

I only ask that you don’t reply with some cut and paste response justifying this behaviour as implementing the ‘will of the people’ and ‘getting Brexit done’. I understand there is a party ‘message’ but would prefer no reply at all as frankly I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye should we meet,

Regards,

Mojo

How do we CTL + ALT + DEL our politics though? Are we too far gone for redemption?

Allowing the Referendum to continue after the murder of Jo Cox was a disaster.

It legitimated the lie that this was a referendum about the EU and the other lies: that there was some kind of 'both sides' (implying a common ground in liberal, political argument), that 'both sides' were equal, that 'both sides' had an equal right to representation (again, grounded in - and then reinforcing - the myth that 'both sides' were simply a project grounded upon a rational, democratic, political argument about the EU & were grounded in liberal principles and process).

It was insanity.

As Red repeatedly calls out, the EU issue is a wedge and a proxy for a profound assault on democracy & liberal groundings and assumptions - in the UK but also aiming to take that struggle further.

It was a massive failure to not call that out before the murder of Jo Cox - and our media failed us, and Cameron, in particular (owing to his own Party loyalties & implications in those forces) failed us.

It became impossible to call it out afterwards.

Because continuing the referendum was a gross, terrible act of acquiescing to an enormous lie.

I thought it at the time. I remember the shock & feeling of unreality at the time. I remember wondering how we could possibly go on as if nothing happened.

Well, the 'how' became clear: the attacked was a 'line wolf', an extremist, mentally unstable.

And there were sad words, and sympathy, and public grief, and ceremonies of mourning.

All ultimately meaningless.

Because business carried on as normal - and in that continuation, we changed the meaning of 'normal' to include a gross lie, and to accept an existential threat to our democracy - a 'war' waged on proxy political ground - as 'normal'.

Brilliant letter mojo

But I agree with MShip.

There are grounds for optimism.

The sources of optimism - resistance, actually - have to be identified and nurtured with our support.

Despair actually means failure to nurture resistance.

My goodness there is a grassroots resistance.

There is a parliamentary and legal resistance.

We have to amplify, amplify, amplify that.

If you have a Conservative MP, write to them. Call out the part of them that recognises the threat Johndon represents. Call on their humanity and morality. Tell them you see it, tell them you see the distance between them and Johnson, tell them they have support. Give them the strength and the reason to resist.

As that Kendzior twitter thread says, one important line of resistance lies through the Parliamentary Party that gives Johnson cover finding it both politically necessary and also easy to withdraw that cover.

Woman going against populism require a lot of protection

Yes it's the same for Greta Thunberg. Women in possession of opinions, full stop, are undesirables in a lot of (male) eyes.

There’s even less of a mandate for remain. If no deal is not what people voted for, remain definitely isn’t

I disagree. 16 million people voted to remain. More people voted to leave, but the majority would have been expecting us to stay in the SM and CU. Very few (Farage included) were talking about no deal.