Is this how our democracy dies?

[Soph0571]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2019/aug/10/boudicca-boris-johnson-in-his-no-deal-brexit-chariot-cartoon

Mr Johnson’s plot to subvert democracy is more dangerous than Brexit itself

The suggestion that they could take this sensationally reckless course seems to have originated with Number 10’s de facto chief of staff, Dominic Cummings. Some regard him as the second most powerful person in this government and others suggest he is the most powerful. I don’t know about that, but I do know that a man who has been held in contempt of parliament is no respecter of conventions. He reportedly told a meeting of special advisers that the mission of this government is to take Britain out of the EU on 31 October “by any means necessary”. That’s a phrase loaded with menace because it was made notorious by Malcolm X to suggest that anything was justified, including violence, in the pursuit of justice for black Americans. I am sure Dom X is not advocating violence of the physical variety, but it does suggest that he might not be averse to inflicting GBH on constitutional norms. This would apparently include Boris Johnson refusing to leave Number 10 even if his government lost a Commons no-confidence vote, and turning himself into the world’s most extraordinary squatter in order to delay polling day until after 31 October. That would make it impossible to stop a crash-out Brexit in the middle of an election campaign, possibly even on election day itself, and even if the country was about to vote for a different outcome.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/11/boris-johnson-plot-to-subvert-democracy-is-more-dangerous-than-brexit-itself|

If they are allowed to get away with this out democracy is dead. More than anything because once done once there is nothing to stop someone in the future to claim this as convention and just squat in Number 10. This cannot be allowed to happen, however I fear that the lack of integrity and gravitas we are witness to at the moment in our elected members mean that is they try it they might actually get away with it!

The very idea of a united kingdom is being torn apart by toxic nationalism

Recent polling shows a majority of Scots support Scottish independence. In a new Hope Not Hate poll, many more – 60% – agree a no-deal Brexit will accelerate the demand for independence. Only 15% disagree.

What is most worrying is not just that so many think the union will end but how at least for now so few appear to care. Only 30% of British Conservatives (and only 14% of Brexit party voters) would oppose Brexit if it meant the break-up of the union: 56% of Tories (and 78% of Brexit party voters) – in total 70% of Leavers – would go ahead regardless, even if the union collapsed.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/10/very-idea-of-a-united-kingdom-being-torn-apart-by-toxic-nationalism|

Nationalism is such an ugly thing.. not terribly British chaps..
We are somewhat in peril

[hlthe2b]

1. I used to look on UK governments with interest but detachment. No longer. The US demise/UK demise

are intricately linked, with hatred of "the other" behind both.

[democratisphere]

2. Johnson and drumpf and their followers must go.

Otherwise Democracy is lost.

[Denzil_DC]

3. When the last tatters of the UK are flapping in the breeze, Gordon Brown will

Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2019, 05:00 PM - Edit history (1)

still be clinging to the scraps of the union flag.

He's very eloquent on the subject of what he terms "English nationalism" (the historically invisible nationalism that subsumes the UK member nations and offshoots under the mantle of "Britishness", and for too many, "Englishness", as if the country was in any way united or uniform).

He then seemingly shifts seamlessly to including the drive for Scottish independence under the rubric of "toxic nationalism" or even "dysfunctional nationalism" (with Ireland/Northern Ireland and Wales tagged in as if an afterthought since their desires are as yet less clearly expressed) while offering no evidence for this beyond his usual dogma - he's widely ridiculed in Scotland for having given the same largely irrelevant speeches and publishing the same irrelevant articles since before the first independence referendum, one Scottish cartoonist routinely depicting him as a dinosaur fitfully awoken to stir from the Old Centrist Left's tarpits.

He equates the anti-democratic machinations of Johnson, Cummings et al. with a Scottish independence movement that has so far played everything by the constitutional book - painfully so for those who're impatient for a second indyref. He conflates an inward-looking, incoherent xenophobic nationalism with a movement that's self-defined as internationalist and inclusive and holds those ideals dear and wants to be able to develop them unencumbered by its neighbour's drive (democratically or undemocratically) in another direction.

That movement pre-dated Brexit. Its arguments have only become more compelling as time has worn on. Brown has no answers other than slavish devotion to a rosy concept of a "tolerant, inclusive and outward-looking" UK that in reality never existed.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Unfortunately, we left it too late for a vote of no confidence. Cummings doesn't need "any means ...

... necessary", just the existing laws and conventions.

The first day the Commons sits after the summer recess is Tuesday, 3rd Sept. Corbyn can then request a vote of no confidence on Wed 4th. If that's won, then the Fixed Term Parliament Act says there are 14 days, starting the following day, to get a different government through a confidence vote in the Commons. That takes us to the end of Wednesday 18th. The act says parliament must dissolve on the 25th working day before the ensuing election.

Our elections are, by convention, on Thursdays; the last one before the Brexit date is the 24th Oct (and even that invites chaos - a government has to be formed, probably as a coalition which needs days of negotiation, and then that government has to agree with the rest of the EU that Brexit won't happen on the 31st). That means parliament must dissolve at one minute past midnight on Thursday 19th Sept. But the Act says the PM has to advise the monarch on the date for the election; and then will have to come back to parliament to say when the election is, and thus when it will dissolve. But it's too late for that.

What we will need is to either form a government from the opposition parties and rebel Tories with the confidence of the Commons in those 14 days (unprecedented), or to take complete control of the legislative process and draw up and pass a law (including all stages in the Commons and Lords) to stop Brexit (again, with support of all opposition parties and sufficient rebel Tories- unprecedented).

It's us who need "any means necessary", not Cummings. We didn't check the calendar in time. Even when Swinson asked Corbyn to put down a motion of no confidence before the recess started, he refused. There should have been public knowledge of what that meant, and pressure on him to do it.