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.

Thanks, Red.

I read through all the last pages of the last thread this morning as I went to bed early, I can only echo what others have said. This is a sad, sad state of affairs and I am horrified by the man who holds the office of Prime Minister.

Jess Phillips Esq., M.P. @jessphillips 32s
Maria Miller is right, I lose my temper in the chamber I have never suggested otherwise. I don't have a strategy that is specifically designed to create fear and division to help me keep my job. I am badly behaved I'm not a calculated machievelli.

Respect to Phillips for the honesty in this tweet.

I'm seeing a lot of social media pumping out Cedrillon's 'they're all as bad as each other' line.

I'll correct you once again. I don't think all sides are as bad as each other. I think the far left that has colonized the Labour Party is much, much worse than any other. If you're going to cite me, at least get it right.

And social media is quite correct to observe that the left's hypocrisy when it comes to language policing is almost without limit.

"Calling for calmness and politeness"

When these go, it makes it much easier to take the next steps into violence

I'm mostly calling for respecting our democratic institutions,
saying that the PM & govt must be bound by our courts, our laws

If those institutions go, then anything else doesn't matter
We would no longer be a democracy

Whether we have a nuclear deterrent is not the slightest help in resisting a future British dictatorship, whether of the hard left or hard right

There have been crux points left vs right every few decades - MrsT vs Foot in the early 1980s was the last major one in the UK

They come and go
O course each party should vigorously campaign for its policies to win

However, if ever we say that it is more important that our side win this one than keeping our democracy institutions,
then the whole country loses

Back in Germany in the 1930s,
most of the right and much of big business, supported Hitler because they were so afraid of Communism

• and of the much higher taxes and the nationalisation planned by the socialists

So they turned a blind eye to the minor matter of exterminating an entire race
and the destruction of the courts and parliament
because of course that was just talk and the left were as bad
and protecting their money had to be more important than anything else

That's not to say communism wasn't a serious threat then:
After German unification, the head of Stasi was charged with the murder of a policeman back around 1930
There were other communists who murdered too

But in the end, smashing democracy to fight the communists smashed the whole country and the continent

Probably worth pointing out that People's Vote/European Movement are putting together a webpage to help people vote tactically in any forthcoming GE.

It's difficult work because - as we all know - the political situation is 'fluid'.

Red I have always been quite naive about the machinations of politics & for a long time a little part of me always thought that sense would prevail & compromises sought. You & all the posters have educated me, informed me opened my eyes to just how important defending our freedoms & liberty is, I can’t even begin to be as articulate as many posters on these threads, but I do my best when in discussions with others in trying to get across that this madness was never really about Brexit, it was always about a much more frightening agenda from the far right fractions in politics & business, I wholeheartedly agree knowledge is power, so thank you everyone.

To coin a phrase, BigChoc, when all you have in your mental toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a Nazi. Corbynism is a much greater threat to the country than a (grossly!) opportunistic man whose entire career has been as a liberal conservative.

But you crack on with how Boris is planning exterminations, or somesuch. It makes you look really credible.

Hats the consequence of having a proven liar as Prime Minister.

Jim Pickard @PickardJE
Apparently the biggest cheer at the 1922 meeting of Tory MPs was when Julian Smith called for an electoral pact with the Brexit Party and Boris Johnson rejected it, arguing it would repel as many voters as it would attract

Natalie Hunter @NatHunter_BBC
Boris Johnson tells the 1922 Committee he won't be bullied over the language he uses. 'PRIME MINISTERIAL HARRASSMENT! WITCH HUNT! SAD!' he shouted.

Sebastian Payne @SebastianEPayne
Boris Johnson has arrived at a meeting of the 1922 committee of Tory MPs. Cheering as the prime minister arrived but one person inside says “half the room is silent”

Some suggestion (but I can't find a proper source yet) that he doubled down and said he would continue to use the phrase surrender as the message was cutting through to the public.

De lurking to say a huge heartfelt thank you to all for these threads and RTB I applaud you for your clear thinking and ability to cut through the noise and see and express things as they are.

At the heart of all this to my mind is the fact that some humans do not have empathy and are shockingly capable of acting in ways that damage and hurt others.

We are shocked and terrified by this and we should be shocked and terrified by it, always.

In my opinion one thing we can all do, however powerless we are, is to counter this in our every day lives by being kind, by feeling our human empathy and expressing it to each other.

As tempting as it is to be angry and fling insults and hate at others, we are just adding to the poison, to the sense of individual humans pitted against each other. The only available redemption for humanity is working together as one group of interconnected beings who care for each other.

Kindness is powerful.

I was hoping PV or Gina Miller would do a tactical voting guide. We've got to be smart with fptp. We mustn't split the remain vote.

As they have to renovate the HoP I would like to see the Chambers altered away from the two sides facing each other to a curved shape. Let’s have more proper debate and less histrionics.

All sides need to respect the democratic structures in this country. I have no doubt that most MPs do and most voters do. Polling showed that most people were neutral or accepted the SC judgement. Most people accepted the first Miller case too.

We need better behaviour from politicians and better education about politics and constitutional matters.

Can you have a look at Corbyn's statement at 12:16 Cendrillon and contrast it with the Prime Minister yesterday saying that people's safety is dependent upon getting Brexit done? We all need to keep cool heads and refound the centre ground. We can be on opposite sides and disagree about economic choices without putting words into each other's mouths.

To coin a phrase, BigChoc, when all you have in your mental toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a Nazi. Corbynism is a much greater threat to the country than a (grossly!) opportunistic man whose entire career has been as a liberal conservative.

Johnson is no longer liberal or conservative, if he ever was. And neither is the person who wrote this ^

A rather late PMK. I’m at work - so I’ll catch up this evening.

As I posted, I am not of the left

In the past I have criticised those who have used Nazi or fascist to mean merely someone on the right with whom they disagree,
or say the Drugs Squad enforcing antiquated laws

I said that a time might come when we would need to use those words because we genuinely faced fascism
I never really believed it could happen though
Not in the UK

red is right about terminology:
Since "facism" has been too often used when wildly inappropriate, "authoritarian" is much better to use now

I was hoping PV or Gina Miller would do a tactical voting guide. We've got to be smart with fptp. We mustn't split the remain vote.

This is no longer a Remain versus Leave split.... It’s gone way beyond that now..... It’s Democracy versus Demagoguery. To stop BJ is to stop the defenestration of our democratic institutions. We need to unite to stop this country descending into autocracy. I have very little time for Corbyn indeed, and voted Tory in 2015 and 2017 (I know that will make me a pariah on here), but I’d rather have Corbyn as PM than this second-rate Trump mimic.

The comparisons with the US and Trump are huge.

As a Democratic voter in Nancy Pelosi’s district I got an email from her last night about democracy, the separation of powers and the rule of law. It could as easily be applied to the UK as the US.

Cendrillon, you should not excuse or minimise abuses of power occurring NOW under Johnson (and previously May) because of fear of abuses of power that may or may not happen in the further under a Corbyn government.

One is visible tangable and happening now, one is a theorectical possibility.

I've expressed my dislike and concerns over Corbyn, many many many times.

That does not mean I ignore whats going on, here and now.

I criticise Labour in the hope it will get its house in order, but ultimately what IS happening is more concerning.

Not least because abuses of power under the Tories, open up and make abuses of power by a future government more likely because the institutions that stop those abuses have been eroded deliberately by the Tory Party. Tactics used by one side, could be used by another.

That, of course, assumes that there will be an opportunity for a change in the government to a leftist agenda.

If we carry on, in this path, democracy will be so badly damaged there will be no chance of that ever happening. Maybe this is what you would like, but it is fundamentally would be a deliberate advocation of the destruction of democracy and government accountability.

Hannah Al-Othman @HannahAlOthman
Another former Tory MP, David Gauke, says there are concerns that Boris Johnson's language is part of a deliberate strategy of "division and confrontation."

Yep.

Well at least people are recognising the Culture War.

That, of course, assumes that there will be an opportunity for a change in the government to a leftist agenda.

And thus, all the anti Corbyn things you are screaming about Cendrillon could come to pass, enabled by a Tory PM behaving as though he is above the law.

I see Corbyn as being much further left than I want

• well, he would be, as I'm a centrist

but he doesn't scare me in the sllghtest - other than for my money, as I'm reasonably comfortable
I understand for some with a bit of money, keeping it is the #1 and only priority
but don't conflate someone who wants to tax you 5% more with someone intending to destroy our democracy

Cummings has said he must destroy first, so that people will accept what comes next
He controls BJ, who is too lazy to plan for himself

McDonnell alarms me and Milne scares me a lot - maybe the Tory Cummings

"Now I don't feel as alone as I did on 24th June as I sat on my stairs and cried, fearing what would happen next. "

redtoothbrush You are not alone 💐 🤛🏼

You saw it before any of us, but now Westministenders have caught up with you
(barring the occasional visitors)

In the spirit of clarification and seeking central grounds, obviously I am not a politician, just another anonymous noise on the internet and not the most articulate. Regarding my previous post I could probably be accused of hypocrisy there, putting words into Johnson's mouth about people's safety depending on getting Brexit gone. That is however one interpretation, one with strong evidence, of his words and behaviour yesterday. The Prime Minister is not there to 'reflect the views of the country'. He leads it. He needs to remember that his Office leads the views of the country, that he has been instrumental in doing so for some time, and he needs to own up to both of those or leave that Office to a more suitable candidate.