Westminstenders: The Tory Party Spectacular

[RedToothBrush]

A row over parliamentary language and conduct and how MPs are afraid of extremists has over shadowed talk of Brexit.

Cummings has said if you don't want to leave without a deal, vote for a deal.

Yet there isn't a Johnson approved one in front of the Commons and the EU are utterly despairing of Johnson's blank non papers and his full on Trump bullshit.

Then there's the threats to the rule of law.

Apparently there are five known suggestions to bypass the Benn Act and refuse to ask for an extension.
See Twitter Thread Here

This weekend sees the start of the Tory Party Conference. With a parliamentary vote to block a recess, its rather scuppered plans for the rest of the conference. Johnson's planned speech at the conference clashes with PMQ so he may well not attend the Commons.

Expect the conference to be.... Er... Inflammatory...

To be really honest, I actually think that uk needs to be out of the EU.
With No Deal and BJ playing the authoritarian head of state.

Because just now, the whole of the country needs to realise that they are not special because they are English. That they have been and are still arrogant twats that see themselves above everyone else. And that includes the idea that it’s not possible for Britain to descend into civil war/have a dictator/properly struggle economically.
I now dont think that people will realise it actually learning the very hard way.

Now, in reality, I dont really want that. Too many people that will get hurt, incl myself and my own family!
But I’m and that no one is actually seeing what is happening right in front of their own eyes. Too many people much too sure that they/the U.K. is well above other countries (such as Turkey, Argentina, Hungary etc etc) to see that sort of thing happening here.

Just when you thought the bats couldn't get any more diahorrea, they are in full-on cholera mode:

"No. 10 launched enquiry into remainer collusion with the French."

(It's in the Currant Bun so it must be true.)

When a country is so bitterly split, then a compromise is the best way forward

The WA is a compromise

• even if we end up with a Canada-type Brexit, it will at least be an "orderly" Brexit,

not a No Deal Brexit when the UK just leaves all its responsibilities behind and becomes an international pariah.

The WA could also led to a Norway++ Brexit, or anything between Canada & Norway
The voters will choose the government they want and hence the Brexit they can at least accept

I don't regard the WA as "appeasement,"
because the vast, vast majority of Leavers have not the slightest wish to riot etc and don't threaten to do so.

"Appeasement" is something you do to violent people, authoritarians like BJ & co,
not ordinary peaceful fellow citizens, who are angry because they won a referendum and their vote hasn't been carried out.

If Remain had won with 52% - or does so in a future PV - but Parliament decides not to carry it out, or demand another PV, I'd be peaceful but bloody furious too
even though I know Parliament is supreme.

Note:
that might happen if a GNU organises a PV, then falls before it happens:
a Tory govt would likely decide they can ignore 52% Remain, or probably anything under 60%

Also, even if the GNU held on and Revoked, the next Tory govt could just Invoke and leave immediately with No Deal.

Because Parliament is supreme

I open the Times app at arms-length on Sunday mornings, and often don’t read any of it. But today it’s notable in how excoriating it is towards Johnson; 4/6 top stories lay into him.

Outrageous to hold an enquiry into Remainer "collusion" with France, an ally, on no evidence

Especially without not an enquiry into collusion with Russia, an enemy on considerable evidence
and evidence of longterm hedge-funder donations, US donations from oligarchs and big business

That's classic authoritarian tactics in the early stages of taking over and eliminating effective opposition

At this rate, prominant Remainers will be getting tax audits and being bugged by the security services

• I hope Remainers are already taking precautions against the latter, since MI5 reportedly bugged the SNP even under Cameron

Steve Hawkes @steve_hawkes
Fascinating by @ShippersUnbound palace officials briefing that Major wouldn’t have joined Supreme Court action without approval of Queen’s aides. Bucks Palace can’t moan about Cam if they’re indulging in this

The thing about the Royal Perogative is that its power is potentially unlimited: SCOTUK rules against you? - Abolish SCOTUK. Parliament votes you down? - Arrest the lot of 'em. Queenie refuses to sign RP decree? - All Hail King Boris.

The only real check on this is what the public (and perhaps the army) are willing to put up with.

@Myriade I get the same frustrations; someone shouted in my face when drunk that "it's hardly going to be like f*&^ing Argentina, is it? Stop being so bloody over dramatic!" This was just after Yellowhammer came out the first time around. I still see no reason why not, yet she appears to still think I am just over-reacting. Her ex is Argentinian and even he doesn't seem to see the similarities which is baffling to me. My No Deal Leaver was signing petitions for arming police with tasers last time I was on there. I see he got his goal with £10mil ringfenced funds for tasers, in the same week they admitted many of them have never been properly vetted . Just in time for A2 frustrations, with Kent getting the majority of tasers . More depressing than I care to over-think on.

And thanks for the link @Basilpots Love the hand holding going on there!

"Just because it should not be used (because its power does not extend that far in law) does not mean that Johnson won't try to use it. "

red I completely agree

People should stop assuming this govt will follow any normal conventions, even laws

Invoking the CCA might at least waste a crucial couple more days during 19-31 October
iirc, under the CCA, Parliament can't revoke it within 7 days, so it would be an urgent matter for the courts

Invoking would ramp up the Brexiter narrative of parliament & the courts thwarting the people's willy
which is obviously BJcum's main / only GE strategy

Myriade - I am struggling with the same thoughts

I am increasingly having to suppress the opinion that Fuck it, they're only going to realise that England is no longer a colonial power exploiting its colonies leader of the Empire when they actually experience cold hard reality because such a scorched earth policy even though it would be put in place by our own government is not fair on all those who would suffer even though many of them supposedly voted knowingly for it

Invoking would ramp up the Brexiter narrative of parliament & the courts thwarting the people's willy which is obviously BJcum's main / only GE strategy

But I think a lot of ordinary Leavers are fed up with it all. The sort of Leavers who didn't spend much time thinking about the EU before, because it didn't really touch their lives, in the way that housing, schools, hospitals did. So all this Johnson willy waving may be counter productive. I hope so anyway.

That's significant too, red - so many parallel signs that our democracy is in increasing danger

Both sides dragging in the head of state, or trying to
Making allegations about partiality

Farage has already launched at least one savage verbal attack on the royal family

I've read reports that Brexshitter Steve Baker has also talked of tearing down the monarchy, along with everything else

Brexit has put the RF in more danger of falling than anything since the 1930s

George Trefgarne @georgetrefgarne
1. Sunday Times @YouGov poll is interesting, despite a blizzard of Tory commentary saying the Supreme Court judgement was political, 51% say it wasn’t and believe it was right.

2. Conservatives are on 33%. I don’t think that is very much and certainly not enough for a majority.

3. And I say Tory commentary in a very specific sense. The attempt to suspend Parliament, which anyway has been a fiasco, was straight out of the Stuart playbook and those defending it are like pamphleteers defending James II’s “dispensing power”.

4. This was the origin of the word Tory. But once the crisis came the majority actually switched and sided with the Whigs to support William and Mary.

5. The whole Conservative attack on our institutions is madness, a folly backfiring.

6. The winner is this crisis is going to be the person with the gumption to switch tack and come up with a compromise which works, a new Glorious Revolution if you like.

Interesting historical comparison (which I don't agree with personally) but I think it has value to consider different perspectives.

Trefgarne is a Conservative Leaver but he's a moderate.

I was all for compromise. But the behaviour of the government and others supporting Leave (not all Leave supporters by any means) makes it hard.

One thing Bj's behaviour risks doing is pushing moderates on both side more towards revoke is the only option.

@Myriade that's exactly what I meant. Authoritarian & paternalistic (not to mention the decisions to deport Jews) = attitudes which are anathema to me.

I was drawing a distinction between types/shades of authoritarianism & what form might emerge.

This is so strange - the right wing talking of tearing down the Monarchy. I thought it was the Lefties, who were agin it?

I think once the Queen passes away it will be much more likely to be toned down severely (rather than abolished), and they will have a profile more like the Dutch and Scandinavian monarchies.

I did laugh to see that both Cameron and now Johnson have blotted their copybooks with the Monarch. Who would have thought it? The old Etonians, whereas John Major, from a much more humble background is well liked.

To be really honest, I actually think that uk needs to be out of the EU.
With No Deal and BJ playing the authoritarian head of state.

Because just now, the whole of the country needs to realise that they are not special because they are English. That they have been and are still arrogant twats that see themselves above everyone else. And that includes the idea that it’s not possible for Britain to descend into civil war/have a dictator/properly struggle economically.
I now dont think that people will realise it actually learning the very hard way.

I very much agree with this. There are too many arrogant, complacent people, many of whom have “switched off” from any Brexit stuff but just “want to get on with it”.

Nobody is getting a majority. Our broken electoral system will see to that. And so much of this goes back to the forgotten referendum of 2011, where Labour's cowardice in not participating in the campaign was bolstered by their hatred of Clegg and desire to see him humiliated.

What they got for their pains was a Cameron majority in 2015 and a bouyed Cameron who after Av 2011 and Indyref 2014 thought he had this referendum lark licked, much as Blair thought after Sierra Leone and Kosovo that wars were good and easy to win.

A lot of "ordinary" leavers may well be fed up of it.

But a) some of them think that "No Deal" = a clean break and that "we" can then get on with life and that "trading on WTO terms" will be just fine if they even think that far ahead And b) some of the rest think that No Deal = just stay with the Status Quo

That's why part of me (still just the minority part) thinks that the only way that they are going to be educated is to feel the full force of what being outside of the EU without a deal is like

Of course, they are now been conditioned, Ministry of Truth fashion , that any negative effects are not the reality of where/what the UK is without the Empire behind it but instead are the fault of the EU for not kowtowing to the superior English

Johnson on the Andrew Marr show denying he used the word ‘humbug’ in relation to Paula Sherriff’s plea regarding death threats.

So hard to watch this.

BCF I find the MoS story very chilling.

There isn't a drop of evidence about what is being investigated nor what anyone is guilty of other than potentially thought crime.

Now this does concern me, because of how in the last year or so, the law has been used by those with a leftist agenda to try and silence using hate crime legislation.

There has been a lot of vexatious attempts to prosecute both through the CPS and civil courts. They have been unsuccessful but the nature of the cases has been chilling.

It costs money to fight such cases and it can have an effect on employment, mental health etc etc.

It's easy to see how similar could be done by others with a completely different political agenda, even if the law upholds the freedom of speech and of thought of those being targeted.

It isn't such a leap to wonder where things might go if we get into the realms of politically appointed judges either.

If you haven't been scared yet, you damn well should be now.

We shall never know, but Queenie reputedly never got on with any of her Old Etonian PMs. Her faves were Churchill and Wilson, her Lord Melbourne and Dizzy if you want a Queen Vic analogy.

Re MoS story.

Sam Freedman @samfr
Buried about 30 paras into the story:

"However Downing Street declined to discuss what evidence they had against the MPs or the exact nature of the probe."

That is some embarrassing "journalism" right there. "Yes Mr Cummings how would you like me to phrase that? Of course Mr. Cummings. Whatever you need."

This is the fucking problem atm.

Amplification without verification.

Peston and Kuenssberg have been particularly bad offenders too.

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
Will there be a violent popular uprising if Brexit doesn't happen on Oct 31? PM doesn't say no, and suggests a national nervous breakdown: "The best thing for the country's psychological health is to get Brexit done" #Marr