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.

All this being 'scared' of Jeremy Corbyn / the left feels very sixth form politics. While I'm a centrist so hard left policies don't appeal, I'm not scared of him / them.

What I am scared of is this authoritarian government pushing through changes which will negatively effect the whole country for at least a generation purely because their leader is beholden to investors. That should, frankly, be a criminal offence. As much as Smug profiteering from decisions in the House which he's influenced.

I despise Corbyn and don't want a Corbyn government. But I fear No Deal more and would reluctantly take a Corbyn government over No Deal.

Exactly that, bellini. Lesser of two evils, pragmatic approach.

From someone else who knows BJ:

John Bulll@garius*
.....
He's not funny.
He's not clever.
He's a sociopath who will burn this country down for ten more minutes in Number 10.

He terrifies me. Pure and simple.
I have spent time in that man's company and there is not an ounce of compassion or understanding in his being.
Everything is an act.

He has one single focus: Boris Johnson.

And there are no depths he wouldn't sink to, or worlds he wouldn't burn, to be Prime Minister.
.....
But he is a terrible human being.
I don't say that lightly but it is true.

He will destroy every norm we have. He will play the populist card and break democracy. All he wants is to win
There's no "well he's made some good points" with Boris. He doesn't do fairness.

He will take whatever benefit of the doubt he can get whole simultaneously playing to the basest of motives elsewhere.
If it gets him his win, it's fair game.

And if you don't believe me, go ask his brother - a genuinely caring MP (who i disagreed with on plenty)
who decided that he'd rather leave politics entirely than serve under his own brother.

@360eyes thank you It really was something else reading the posts over there. I remember reading somewhere many years ago that stereotypes exists for a reason and the brexit arms seems to prove that. I'm usually very against stereotyping but over there it's like they are proud of being one.

Bare-bones and untested: Brits in Europe face chaos under no-deal

https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/09/26/bare-bones-and-untested-brits-in-europe-face-chaos-under-no

But there is another element which has been too little discussed and understood: the impact on Europeans in the UK and Brits in Europe.
The first is troubling.
The second is even worse.

Free movement was never supposed to end in an avalanche of bureaucracy.
When Eastern Europeans came to the UK in the late 2000s, they had to register for little more than a national insurance number.
Brits spending their winters working in bars in Meribel or buying holiday homes in the Costa del Sol barely needed to think about paperwork.

But now EU citizens on both sides of the Channel are scrambling to compile employment and address documents going back years
while calculating whether the latest Brexit drama will pause, avoid, or escalate the Kafkaesque red tape that is threatening to overwhelm their lives.
.....
It remains to be seen if they can bear the weight of mass-processing over short periods.
Bureaucrats are struggling to understand what lies ahead.
Colleagues and I recently conducted interviews for a Migration Policy Institute Europe research project on the status of Brexit contingency planning and found that
officials from the EU27 were upfront that their resident UK nationals could be one of the main collateral costs of a no-deal Brexit.
No one seems to understand exactly what the scale of the chaos could be or where problems might arise.

In most EU countries, contingency planning for UK nationals is skeletal. EU27 states had put all their eggs in one basket - the Withdrawal Agreement - and only developed a Plan B in the early months of 2019, after a nudge from the European Commission.
.....
But the sudden deadline meant that plans were by necessity bare-bones - a patchwork of different approaches with much to be decided later.

EU and UK officials acknowledge that negotiations on health and social security, for instance,
will have to happen as a matter of urgency if there is no deal.
But there is still no decision on whether these will be bilateral or involve the EU speaking as one.
The UK lacks the resources to pursue 27 negotiations in parallel and time is short to prevent gaps.

The EU has ensured entitlements acquired before Brexit are protected,
but issues such as future contributions and pensions uprating require reciprocal agreement.
....
The UK government's commitment to cover health costs for pensioners, posted workers and students living in the EU27 for just six months
was met with disdain by interest groups representing Brits abroad.

imo, we should avoid stereotypes at any time
but especially when we need to come together and find a compromise that most people could accept

I agree but over on that thread compromise looks impossible. Such anger and bitterness and hatred towards remainers. There is little to no common ground, no desire to compromise, no critical thought and no care for anyone who might be adversely affected because we won, get over it. It seems worse this week than normal as though exposing bozo's lies has caused them to become more fervent due to fear of being found to be wrong about him. Their heads must hurt from the mental gymnastics they have to conduct in order to believe that brexit is a good thing.

Braved a phone call to my Dad last night, he starts clamming up if Johnson mentioned and is clearly a strong supporter. He did say in a slightly cross tone he ‘wishes people wouldn’t call it that ‘ when I referred it No Deal and said something else after about it which I couldn’t quite grasp as was trying not to explode. We made it through the conversation and focused on a lack of toilet paper to lighten the tone.

Have woken up to Cummings splattered across the BBC and Peston saying the SNP coming round to idea of Corbyn being caretaker PM. I’m assuming Cummings now trying to provoke Parliament into removing Johnson, installing Corbyn and asking for extension, gambling that this will be enough to shore up Johnson’s vote at next election and returning him a majority. The narrative as we have seen being People v Parliament , hoping to capitalise of the fear of Corbyn that has been generated and the anger at Brexit having been delayed again. He is bang on with this with people like my Dad, that will be exactly his position.

I agree, Bercows. It's actually fascinating in a study of human psyche, but a hopeless cause in terms of compromise or pragmatism.

You see them pop up on here sometimes and there's absolutely no reasoning with them. And it's not trying to persuade them that remain is best, this is purely with regard to no deal. I wouldn't dream of trying to make somebody change their mind about how they voted.

My mother is the same, @PostNotInHaste. We've had to agree to disagree, as she's convinced Johnson is the Second Coming, or similar. Which is a bit of a personality change since her younger days. I find it disconcerting.

It’s hard @NoWordForFluffy isn’t it I try to focus that fundamentally he is a kind man who will talk to Jehovah Witness as feels too bad to say ‘not today thank’ and shut the door. He hates the fact there are people who are homeless and DH has just said he thinks if you sat him down and told him about some of Corbyn’s principles one by one he would agree with a fair few.

Could be worse though, imagine being in the Johnson family!

It seems worse this week than normal as though exposing bozo's lies has caused them to become more fervent due to fear of being found to be wrong about him.

It's classic cognitive dissonance. Most of those people are older, small c conservatives who in normal times place a high value on decency and propriety and lawfulness.

After reading people's posts about their Brexit parents, I keep wondering what my mother would be doing were she still alive (and not suffering from dementia). She would have loved Boris and the Eton Messes but was firmly pro-Europe and would never have imagined leaving the EU was a good idea. Like me, she voted to join the Common Market in 1975 and, also like me (over-60, btw), saw no reason subsequently to change her mind. Certainly not bent bananas or blue passports or fish.

Could be worse though, imagine being in the Johnson family!

Thank heavens for small mercies!

But yes, it's really difficult. We've exchanged a few emails this week before she said she didn't want to exchange opposing views anymore. We did then find common ground on a sensible way forward (unlikely to happen)!

It bemused me when she said that her MP agreed with her. He's ERG, of course he does!

I can't bring myself to contact my dad at the moment. He is 89, had a serious stroke some years ago, is a fanatical brexiter (having been a sane EEA-Brexit supporter previously) and it is entirely possible that Brexit will mean I don't see him again given that no deal would limit my travel for the foreseeable future.

My mum possibly voted leave (based on the fact that she never refers to how she voted) but is horrified and frightened at the turn politics has taken. She voted Green in the EP elections and I think will vote tactically in a GE ... i will make sure she has the right info anyway ;)

Well yes.

I have detested Johnson for a long time (if you search BJ threads from years back I was railing against the buffoon act then) but even I am shocked at how awful he his.

I am centre right in my politics and I found it telling that Max Hastings came out so strongly against BJ several years ago given how much they had worked together. MH is hardly a Labour Party mouthpiece.

We need a PM that can start to heal this country and I have no idea who that is. Labour with McDonell and Milne feel like they are going back to old school class war, the LD haven’t impressed me and the Tories have Johnson in charge.

My mum voted leave but wishes she hadn't. She takes in all I say about what's happening and will never vote Tory again. She's been badly hit by Tory austerity. Most of my family are leave voters. I was NC with the twats before I knew that though. I have no time for them at all regardless of their politics.

Dominic Cummings: PM's right-hand man says MP abuse will cease if they 'respect' Brexit vote

news.sky.com/story/dominic-cummings-pms-right-hand-man-says-mp-abuse-will-cease-if-they-respect-brexit-vote-11820428

Re that Times headline, Mike Galsworthy had something sensible to say about it:

"If the Govt Ministers are implying that they do not care about large peaceful demonstrations, but highly value riots -
^

• then they send out some very unpatriotic & dangerous signals.

Not only are they inciting Brexiters to violent protest.

But they’re also inciting Remainers.^"

Shouldn't Cummings be done for incitement to riot?

Oh Mistrigirl