Caroline Lucas calls for an all-women cabinet

[Gone2far]

link
I think she's lost the plot and that an all-women cabinet would have no special powers. Why are women supposed to be innately better at governing than men?

when Boris Johnson or JRM suggest proroguing parliament

The difference is that Johnson is PM and could actually attempt to prorogue parliament. Caroline Lucas is the only member of the Green Party in parliament.

If she were able to win the support of the majority of MPs, there is no reason why she shouldn't be PM. That is how parliament works. The Queen chooses as her PM the person who has the support of the house.

The problem isn't that that what she is suggesting is undemocratic, it's that she has no hope of getting the necessary support to carry it out and the all female cabinet suggestion is stupid and patronising.

So the biggest problem is that she couldn't achieve her horrifically sexist proposal ? Do you think if Boris launched a process to prorogue parliament he would actually achieve it ? To me that's a total non-starter. It's evoking the threat of something horrific, which they couldn't do, to make some other faction move a certain, in the same way you explain CL's action as an attempt to budge Labour.

I honestly don't understand where the political world is going. Utterances that should horrify everyone on all sides because they threaten the principles and order upon which our society is built are now fair game as "strategy" in mainstream political thought, rather than being confined to the rantings of the lunatic fringes. I honestly can't imagine anyone 20 years ago saying "we'll just suspend Parliament" or "we make a cabinet of only blokes / women, because they are better for the job" who wouldn't have been thought of as a crackpot or super-annuated.

It's like all meaning has just stopped and nothing matters. All-women cabinets are progressive. Proroguing parliament to reclaim our sovereignty. Advisory referendums are binding. Campaign fraud can be ignored in the interests of democracy. If you have a dick, you can just say you're a woman, and people are legally compelled to indulge you in your madness too.

It's evoking the threat of something horrific

Evoking the idea that she could become PM by gaining support of a majority of MPs is not horrific. It's how parliament works. Her proposal is stupid and sexist, but in the unlikely event that she became PM she could choose a cabinet for whatever reason she wanted. However There is no parliamentary support for the idea of an all female cabinet, so for that and many other reasons, she won't become PM.

That is not at all the idea that she was evoking, for her to become PM through garnering the support of a majority. She even said the leader of this motely enterprise would have to be from the Labour Party.

The idea of an MP trying to form a new government by seeking the support of colleagues is perfectly fine. The idea of an MP seeking it on the sole grounds of physical sex, and basing their cabinet choices on it, is abhorrent. The fact that she couldn't do it should mean it should be ignored. Using sex, gender, race, religion etc... is a discussion which should not be entertained and the person suggesting it should be pilloried. Especially trying to use the cover of a national crisis to enact it.

Whatever her intention, I think her inability to address the rather obvious flaw in her plan - how would her government function without the support of 311 Conservatives, Kate Hoey, the Labour MPs who aren't prepared to abandon Brexit because of their constituents, and 10 DUP MPs? - makes her seem incompetent rather than cunning.

BrainFart, you might think she is trying to raise a revolutionary army, but I think it's more likely that she just hasn't thought things through. If she had she wouldn't have made the obvious error of not including BAME MPs.

Using sex, gender, race, religion etc... is a discussion which should not be entertained and the person suggesting it should be pilloried. Especially trying to use the cover of a national crisis to enact it

Pretty much what Mr Johnson and his backers are doing to force through an illegal, unconstitutional crash out brexit, with his all white all male brexit committee.

Lucas was positing an idea.

It was a suggestion for a temporary administration to avoid a crash out and secure a confirmatory ballot on a withdrawal deal.

It was inspired partly by the cross community/coss class/ cross religion group of Peace Women who managed to initiate the peace process in NI after years of dreadful war.

It was based on the idea of bringing a range of women representing a range of view points together to head off the certain catastrophe of a crash out brexit.

But.......as we were.

The men are doing splendidly, after all.

It was inspired partly by the cross community/coss class/ cross religion group of Peace Women who managed to initiate the peace process in NI after years of dreadful war.

I don't think Peace Women would have got very far if they had tried to take over the government without proper democratic process. I suspect that would have gone down very badly in the circumstances.

What 'proper democratic process' is propelling a crash out brexit?

You seem genuinely panicked by this BrainFart. I agree it's a dumb idea, but it's hardly "horrific", and it's certainly not novel. You think men don't exclude women from power on purpose? You think it's just a coincidence that politics is dominated by men? The only difference here is that CL has said it in the Guardian, rather than in a private meeting. That and of course the national outcry at the very concept of an all woman cab, rather than the usual no one batting an eye lid at actual all male groups. The idea is, at worst, clumsy and ill conceived, but you're talking like CL is a super villain with a mission to destroy all men!

The men are doing splendidly, after all.

It's been a woman driving the bus off the cliff for the last 3 years.

It was a suggestion for a temporary administration to avoid a crash out and secure a confirmatory ballot on a withdrawal deal.

If this was an actual suggestion for a temporary administration, then she's crazy. I'm pretty sure it was just another silly idea to grab some column inches.

If this was an actual suggestion for a temporary administration, then she's crazy

This is the constitutional process by which a crash out brexit is avoided and a confirmatory vote is affirmed in a parliament of our representatives.

The idea of a cross party group of women MPs trying to sort out the mess that extremist men of all political colours have caused has clearly has triggered quite a few, which has been interesting.

I am amazed so many commentators couldn't see my comment about the Queen was tongue in cheek.

But am astonished at the passive acquiescence that what is going on now isn't pushing the (unwirtten) constitution to the edge. We've already had the Speaker manipulating the Commons timetable, and now we have a PM who without going to the country for a new mandate, ie he is merely taking over the mandate of the Tories at the last election, is now pumping out policy decisions without even Cabinet discussion.

And he is doing it to buy votes, because Dominic Cummings (the UK is his petrie dish for experiments in voter manipulation) is running a click bait campaign, to get an election.

If as has been said they intend to call an election for the day after leave date, in contravention of existing protocol, to avoid the consequences of crashing out influencing voters.

And the more I think about it the Queen as an impartial arbitor has about as much credibility as the House of Commons who have spent the past year grooming the egos while the country falls apart.

And a media that ripped in Theresa May for any tiny fault, but not one part of the media is pointing out that what Johnson is doing, just in relation to spending, is totally irresponsible and questions why we ever needed austerity. Imagine if it were a Labour PM was doing this.

What we are seeing is the reality that party politics does not serve the UK voters. They have been play acting in Parliament whilst TM's deal, actually the EU's deal, is probably based on the almost even split in referendum results the logical "compromise". But oh no, it must be wrong. A weak woman let it happen.

So now we have unregulated male posturing playing to the house, egged on by his media buddies who just treat it all as a reality show, and everybodies just shrugging their shoulders.

At the end of this. Whatever it turns out to be, Parliament will be a joke, and everybody will be entitled to say to any jumped up self appointed constitutionalist, well is Boris can do it why cant Corbyn, or Jo Swinson - or Nigel Farrage.

The idea of a cross party group of women MPs trying to sort out the mess that extremist men of all political colours have caused has clearly has triggered quite a few, which has been interesting.

I think you are missing the point.

It would be great if the Tories and Labour could work together to actually sort this mess out- a government of national unity should have occured when May didn't get a majority.

The idea that this would occur because Caroline Lucas suggests it is silly. Linking Brexit to the genuine point that there need to be more women in leadership positions is silly. Nothing about this suggestion is constructive- that's the issue.

I can't imagine many on FWR actually disagree with the general point that politics is poorer when women are not well represented. Thinking this suggestion is silly is not the same as being 'triggered', this is not twitter.

Caroline Lucas isn't suggesting she heads a Government of National Unity

She is saying that a working group made up of women free of male macho posturing could put forward a more representative way of moving forward than an unelected PM with a majority of one.

Even if it backfired on her TM did go to the country and got re-elected - just.

But more than anything what it shows is that MPs themselves are to blame for allowing such a badly thought out referendum to go ahead, and then thought they were entitled to sit around discussing points of protocol as the clock ticked away.

But in the end it will make no difference. Despite the old media making out the social media is corrupting the process, it is them, the old media with their unelected owners and editors who are setting the agenda.

As I said above, if a Labour PM was acting as Johnson is now doing they would have people out on the street.

None of them care about us. They have as little care for us as the makers of tv programmes like Love Island or Jeremy Kyle.

We are just the lab rats they are experimenting on. They'll be sitting round their dinner tables sniggering at us knowing they have havens they can escape to when the UK becomes an island of shortages with nothing to offer but tourism and zero hours work for unskilled labour. With US medical insurance companies running the NHS.

Thanks to those posters who have contributed with a deeper analysis on this than 'so sexist!'.

What shocks me is not that CL, or any other Remain MP, is exploring methods to find a majority of MPs in an effort to form a government to stop No-Deal Brexit . That is fine.

What shocks me is that she is explicitly calling for a group to be excluded from power based on sex. The argument that "well men do it / have done it" doesn't hold any progressive weight.

"Men do it" - where, in 2019, does a male politician explicitly request an all-male administration, openly stating that he believes that they are better for the task free from 'female hysteria or emotion' ? I refuse to believe MN wouldn't go absolutely bananas (and rightly so), if this were the case. Yes, BJ has Brexit 'war cabinet'. But they were primarily selected for being rabid No-Deal bastards, rather than what's between their legs. And even if they were selected for what is between their legs, he didn't explicitly say it.

As for those who suggest that it can't happen because CL can't get the numbers so it can just be ignored. Imagine, say, UKIP, called for an explicitly white cabinet. Would you be so calm ? Or would you take it as proof they are clearly racist and to be fought against at all costs ? I genuinely am a little panicked, yes, that the idea of governments being picked on the basis of an explicit identitarian ideology, rather than content of character / ideas, is being advanced by someone I had considered a progressive force for good, but who is happy to resort to gender stereotyping in an attempt to snag herself a cabinet post.

And thinking about it, the fact that it is CL is probably why i am so annoyed about it. Often voted Green, delighted when she won Parliamentarian of the Year, would have liked 649 MPs like her. If the suggestion had come from someone clearly more on the lunatic fringe, or one of the Guardian's more rabidly-feminist commentators rather than a respected MP, then I probably wouldn't have given it much thought. But the disappointment that someone in whom I believed is happy to go that route...urgh.

This is the constitutional process by which a crash out brexit is avoided and a confirmatory vote is affirmed in a parliament of our representatives.

It would be if she could show that she had the support of the house, but it’s very clear that she doesn’t.

To stop a no deal Brexit CL would need to co-operate with the people she doesn’t find sympathetic, not the people who she does, and they need to unite behind a particular deal that will be accepted by Europe, not ‘yey, girl power!’.

She is saying that a working group made up of women free of male macho posturing could put forward a more representative way of moving forward than an unelected PM with a majority of one.

She is specifically talking about a Government with a cabinet, not a working group.

What 'proper democratic process' is propelling a crash out brexit?

Unfortunately, the inability of parliament to unite behind another leader.

If nobody can command more support than Johnson, he remains PM.

The Labour Party won’t support a government not headed by Corbyn and no Conservative or DUP member (or independent like Ian Austin) would support Corbyn, so unless that situation changes we are stuck with this government.

If nobody can command more support than Johnson, he remains PM
There's a 14 day window to do otherwise.
Then it goes to GE, pobably after the 'brexit' in early Nov.
And on current polling, an extreme right wing executive is put in post, with all the 'emergency' powers available to them.
During the GE campaign, crash out brexit takes place.

The Greens are part of the lunatic fringe they care nothing for environmental issues

Then it goes to GE, pobably after the 'brexit' in early Nov.

Johnson,who hasn’t the faintest clue how to sort out Brexit (and doesn’t have the numbers to prevent no deal even if that is what he wanted) would probably call a GE before the 31st Oct and campaign with the “parliament tried to thwart the will of the people” slogan.

The alternative would be carrying the can for a no deal Brexit after a vote of no confidence, which really isn’t his style.

I don't think its a bad idea tbh.

From a historical pov, there was no widespread outrage about women being deliberately excluded from positions of power for centuries and even after suffrage was achieved so I have no patience with manufactured claims of sexism and discrimination over this. If a male MP, eg Starmer, had created a fantasy cabinet that didn't include women then the narrative would be they were the best for the job and any dissent would be marginalised, as usual.

Second, the average female MP is definitely better than the average male MP imo. It's easy to give examples of a crap ex-MP or a woman who isn't even an MP at all to try to run them down, but the women on the list (and many not on it) are all more intelligent and focused and have more gumption than the men suggested as alternatives. Going back to Starmer; he's been awful as SSSEEU given the debacle over Labour's actual stance and then there's the Warboys scandal from when he was DPP so I certainly have huge doubts about his competence - and he's being written about on here as someone who'd somehow merit a place on this fantasy cabinet.