Westminstenders: What hangs in the balance?

[RedToothBrush]

Yellow Hammer (and Black Swan if it exists) and other documents the government itself has produced are our truths and our evidence.

I look to Thomas Jefferson quotes in trying to defend liberal democracy.

His most famous of quotes is

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration states, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….”

Self evident truths. These are the bedrock of democracy.

There are many more quotes from Jefferson which talk about the shining beacon of truth and the threats to liberty from falsehoods and those who tell them.

He argued that when the power of the state is used to avoid scrutiny we should be worried and afraid. As a leader he should never be afraid of the truth, because the truth always exists and you can only merely hide it before it makes itself apparent anyway.

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

Today I feel the need to dust off old Jefferson for my own sanity and to remind myself of what matters. Jefferson helps me focus on dangers and how you fight back. It always comes back to exposure to the truth - how do you work to expose this (and the role of journalism in this)

Seek the truth. Talk the truth. Even if that means being self critical and humble in admitting your mistakes and errors.

It is not your identity as Leaver, Remainer, Tory, Labour, LDer, SNPer, woman, man, English, Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh or European right now.

These identities are harming us, by making us look at the wrong thing rather than see the real danger facing us. They divide us whilst they conquer us.

What you should be focusing on NOW is your commitment to democracy in the face of someone in power actively and explicity saying the rule of law does not matter and the courts are wrong. That is advocating mob rule.

Johnson stood and said threats to MPs were humbug. And refused to moderate his language despite so many (mainly female) MPs saying the threats they received were extremely serious (remembering we've even had a prosecution for a plot to kill Rosie Cooper as well as other successful prosecutions for threats to MPs)

This is where we are at.

Focus on it.

No Deal Brexit and the future of liberal democracy in this country are indivisible and inseparable. They are entwined by the rule of law.

Brexit is NOT in of itself a threat to liberal democracy. It is HOW we leave that is.

I wish this was being said and emphasised concisely and cleanly.

One of the weird things about Seumas Milne is that he still seems to support Russia!

The Benn Bill requires the PM must by 19 October request an extension, if there has been no Exit Deal agreed at the October EUCO,
but
there is nothing that legally, specifically rules out No Deal

There can't be anyway, because the terms of A50, party of an international treaty,
mean that No Deal happens automatically if time runs out before the UK chooses another Brexit option.

To avoid requesting an extension, BJ has options:

@red & anyone else: What do you think he will choose ?

1. Allow the formal request but send it with an open letter - hammed up to his adoring public - threatening that if the EU grant it, then the Uk will cause mayhem to wreck all EU business

• disadvantages:

. Some Brexiters mights still see this as giving in to the "Surrender bill" because it gives the power to the EU to decide . The EU may ignore the threats - either he will soon be replaced by another PM, or he will win a GE and leave soon anyway . He may get into legal trouble if the courts regard this as wilfully disobeying the Benn law

2. Resign as PM and gamble the rebels can't agree a new PM in the remaining week or so before automatic No Deal

• disadvantages:

. They might agree on a moderate as PM, get an extension and call a GE before Brexit, which Labour might win, or be able to form a govt with C&S That would lead to a PV of the WA vs Revoke, with No Deal excluded . He likes being PM too much - and doesn't want the humiliation of being in the history books for the shortest ever tenure

3. Ignore the law and dare the Supreme Court to do anything about it

His populist rhetoric has ramped up to an extent that he may be considering this
Even if he was jailed for contempt for a few weeks - and judges would shudder at jailing a serving PM - he would repeal the Benn bill if he wins the GE; possibly even abolish the court

• disadvantages:

. He would not like jail, even as an injured martyr - he would hate being subject to orders all day . He might not win the GE, in which case Corbyn - and other parties - would let the law deal with him, so he could stay in jail for some time.

and judges would shudder at jailing a serving PM

So it is one law for us, and another for them ? Every petty criminal jailed since time immemorial (1189) was right all along ?

Good questions BCF.

tobee This is one of the strange things:
Most who were hard left USSR supporters are still hard left, but support Russia

Fairly obvious why they may be so entangled with Russia

Warning:
The USSR always had an extensive system of moles within the British Establishment, people outwardly rightwing or military or intelligence services etc

- we can assume most of those still support Russia too

He is using Trump tactics, but UK electorate v different from US.
I don’t think it will work

For a start, politics here is no longer (if it ever was) binary. The FPTP system may have made it continue to look that way, but now it is breaking down and tactical voting is becoming more effective.

We can look forward () to a series of hung parliaments and/or to governments that have such a small majority that they are not stable.

It's not just the increasing popularity of the LibDems in the face of frustration at both the Conservatives and Labour. It's the rise of the SNP (who ironically are still/ in favour of PR even though it would reduce their numbers) in Scotland, Plaid in Wales and yes, the rise of the Turquoise Party.

The EU is correct in its assessment: the UK, until it gets its shit together, which doesn't look like will happen for years (decades? ) to come, will be a toxic and disruptive neighbour. It does not augur well for a Trade Deal any time soon

Maybe if Scotland can escape FUKD, then an alternative way forward can be demonstrated. But I'm not holding my breath

On the positive side, for the moment, I think, thanks to our non-binary party choices (differentiating from the binary Referendum Leave:Remain choice), that Parliament is going to have to learn to work with governments that have (decent) C&S arrangements (and the DUP is not an example of a decent deal) as a minimum and maybe even be grown up enough to have a GNU. That in itself may save us from extremes of right or left.

It's an indictment of Cameron's referendum and campaign that we're ending in an emergency situation that may well require a GNU in a time of peace

Maybe while the GNU is in place, they can look at altering our voting system to a proper PR system (I recommend the hybrid d'Hondt system used in Holyrood which arguably and ironically was designed to keep the SNP out of power ).

While WM is getting its long overdue refurbishment, they should consider properly revamping the HoC. It was designed to be confrontational and febrile (deliberately too small and encouraging the "them and us" toxic atmosphere. That is infantile and not what is needed in today's politics.

PMK. Thank you for thread, Red.

Trump tactics aren't working that well in the USA either.

I was interested to read today that Alibaba have developed their own hardware (a chip) in response to Trumps repeated hot-cold flushes over Chinese tech trade with the US

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/26/alibabas_fai_chip/

Suggesting that Chinese tech is going to slowly rival US tech very, very soon. Clearly something is rattling US firms, as they're advocating an open standards approach to future tech

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/25/us_spies_call_for_open_standards_to_fight_huawei_threat/

which is pretty much as anti US business philosophy as you can get.

DG Compare how the upper classes are treated when they commit crimes, in comparison to the rest of us

e.g. Bullingdon Club trashing a restaurant, or a college library
vs lads from Brixton or Newcastle

Do you expect Prince Andrew ever to face any police questions ?
To be subject to the US-UK extradition law that the US can extradite anyone they want without needing to make a case ?
Or will his mum - and later his nephew - so very publicly keep choosing to sit next to him ?

@BigChocFrenzy

Presumably the most likely scenario is BoJo won’t ask for an extension. He doesn’t give a stuff about breaking the law; he’s ignored the Supreme Court ruling.

The opposition has to use the time between now and the next EU council (17th October) to find a mechanism that it’s a Parliamentary majority that can ask for an extension not the PM.

The SCOTUK ruling made it abundantly clear that the “Executive” ie the PM; is answerable to Parliament.

In addition, we leveraged the geographic clustering of complex trait variation to further disentangle regional differences in socio-economic and cultural outcomes through genome-wide association studies on publicly available regional measures, namely coal mining, religiousness, 1970/2015 general election outcomes, and Brexit referendum results.

personally looks like straying too close to astrology for my liking (and I can cast a horoscope by hand). And that's before we consider the less than glorious forays into eugenics of our forbears - no matter how respectable they tried to make it sound ....

BigChocFrenzy

Excellent summary of the options.

I’m going with No. 1.

Boris uses the next month to make his Leaver support rock solid with the kind of rhetoric currently decried.

He submits the extension at the last minute, and the EU accepts it so we don’t crash out. He promises to rip the extension up if he wins the GE.

Result: Boris is still PM, he’s followed the law, keeps BXP support, the Opposition has no excuse left to avoid an election, AND he gets to fight it without the chaos of No Deal in the background.

Win, win, win, win, win!

DG Compare how the upper classes are treated when they commit crimes, in comparison to the rest of us

Oh, I know - P.J. O'Rourke (still can't recommend too highly) had a brilliant chapter in "PoW" called "The Whiffle Life" where he highlights that in the US.

"politics here is no longer (if it ever was) binary."

pretty Under FPTP, the Tories can win a majority with only about 31% of votes

Tribalism is still powerful - many people will vote as they & their families always have,

plus the rightwing media frightens even many Tory Remainers into ignoring everything BJ is doing,
because of the Corbyn bogeyman or nebulous "far left takeover" night terrors.

That might work Cendrillon if it was a referendum. But if it's a general election it's likely to be much more complicated.

How is the continuation of the current rhetoric a win? I am honestly interested

It lasts a few months until Boris wins a majority, the Commons passes whatever deal he tells them to, and socialism is buried for another generation. That’s a lot of win to get out of the current desperate political situation.

The SCOTUK ruling made it abundantly clear that the “Executive” ie the PM; is answerable to Parliament.

The Executive is the PM in and with cabinet. It's no one person. So for all his bluster, Boris is going to have to bring the cabinet with him on any law breaking excursions.

SCOTUK specifically referred to the cabinet collective responsibility in their judgement. No fools they.

In the spirit of how I judge politicians (by what they do, not what they say ....) then it's only fair to discount the guff Boris is spewing, and watch what he does. And that's not to minimise or ignore the disgraceful way he has spoken.

Don't do as the priest says, do as they do, as a cynical person once told me (works with parents too ...)

Re hard left support for russia, how come all the suspicion about trumps involvement with putin ? Trump could hardly be described as left wing or is he just enamoured with putin as the strongman who can do what he wants ?
And the stuff in the media about corbyn/seamus milne coterie being marxists/ stalinists how true is that ? Its difficult to know what to believe ...

because of the Corbyn bogeyman or nebulous "far left takeover" night terrors.

Or rather because of insane policies passed on a national stage at the Labour conference mere days ago. Facts, remember?

He submits the extension at the last minute, and the EU accepts it so we don’t crash out. He promises to rip the extension up if he wins the GE.

Ever heard of Laconia ?

Cendrillon I hope he chooses to obey the law
both for the extension and afterwards, if he wins the GE

No Deal, later removing workers rights, privatising the NHS etc can all be completely legal & constitutional

• whatever one's views as to the morality - if he has the votes in Parliament to pass the necessary legislation

Not however, if he does so by prorogueing Parliament to force through a US FTA which makes some of these things happen automatically

That's really interesting, tobee and BCF. I didn't know about Milne being so supportive of Russia. I've just gone and looked him up, and yes, he's quite the apologist, isn't he?

I'm intrigued you've observed this among certain USSR supporters, BCF, because I've noticed something similar.

People who on all other subjects express quite oldy leftie views (that's not a criticism in itself), but immediately the topic turns to Russia become like Putin's People.

It's as though they have an allegiance to the country of Russia – now a mafia state feeding its far-right – which trumps their well-articulated left-wing beliefs

Very odd to watch, and it does make me wonder what's going on.

TheMShip
Very interesting research.
My DH is from N Africa and they have brain drain issues and I said to him that the people with get up and go tend to get up and go (i.e. they see opportunities elsewhere)

I am originally from S Wales (now in London) and I can see why people with the capacity for higher educational achievement leave. There is no equivalent to the job I do in financial services in S Wales - not even close.