[Politics] UK Suspends Parliament
- Thread starter Terminal Blue
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Someone did a study and suggested that since the 2016 referendum, enough old people have died and young people become 18 that (given the voting intentions by age) the UK became pro-Remain nearly a year ago by simple demographics.Lil devils x said:
Of course it doesn't quite work like that, because some people have changed their stance. Currently, polls suggest about 53-47 in favour of remain. It is of course trickier than that, because "Leave" represents two different, rough positions, and some leavers may prefer to remain than accept the the other.
Johnson is doing worse than even I expected. Four parliamentary defeats, including on a bill legally obliging him to seek a Brexit extension; several resignations, including his own brother and the Scottish Tory leader; a loss of his majority; mass deselection of his own MPs; a genuinely abysmal first performance in PMQs, undermining the idea that he could easily beat Corbyn in a debate. He's now giving a speech to the Police Force, after turning up late and forgetting what he was saying, and failing to recite the Police Caution.
...meanwhile, the front page of The Sun carries a photoshopped image of Corbyn's head on a chicken.
...meanwhile, the front page of The Sun carries a photoshopped image of Corbyn's head on a chicken.
Thing is, they voted him in as leader over the others in the first place knowing full well of his ineptitude. They thought he'd be the most electable regardless of the risks in doing so - lovely ole Boris...he was on TV shows n stuff! The public will love him! - would hesitate to guess Trump's success emboldened them towards this thinking somewhat, and they thought very very wrong. Maybe meeting with Bannon and Co for advise ain't the bright idea it first seemed. The point being they prioritised gambling further power over any concern for the public until it all blew up in their face.Silvanus said:
Just awful. Pathetic and awful.Silvanus said:
The Mail, Sun and Telegraph: their chosen one got an embarrasssing humping, and all they can do is pretend otherwise.
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Labour did the right thing to not allow Johnson the election. Johnson is in his "honeymoon" period, and he's tried to set an election just when the (massively pro-Remain) students have gone to university so are unlikely to be registered in the place they are living. They couldn't let him get away with that.
Let him fail around for a while, break his promise to leave the EU 31st October, fail to arrange any meaningful deal. Then see how much the country loves him: I suspect the varnish will long since have rubbed off.
Ah, I had wondered what he'd hoped to gain by that. I just couldn't see what he stood to win by calling an election; best case scenario he's left with the same Tories who are currently rebelling against him. I guess if he could cut out the student votes he'd hope to trim some of Labour's supportAgema said:
After the utter egotism of getting the Queen to prorogue Parliament so that he'd get what he wanted by default, consequences be damned, watching him get slapped around like this is schadenfreude of the highest order. If only we could do that here in the US....Silvanus said:
But I thought the media has a complete Left wing bias. They always attack the right....Agema said:
(I wouldn't be suprised that there would be some people who think the Sun didn't go far enough and are still showing Left wing bias)
Bojo sured fixed the problem. I wonder what Farage would have done if he got in power, because I don't see anyone breaking this deadlock.The Rogue Wolf said:
I also like consequences for actions. I can understand wanting to leave (even if I disagree). I can't understand circumventing parliament just becuase they aren't toeing your line. (Especially when a major reason for leaving is to give parliament control "back" from the EU.) That's the opposite of their job
So I'll fully admit that as an American I don't really understand UK politics, but is normal to kick 20ish members of your party out of your party when your government has/had barely a majority? And doesn't it essentially put you 20 below the threshold for a majority? Because that seems to an outsider to be something of a recipe for political disaster(for your party at least).
Does that force an election or is there something else going on here? I know Bojo apparently wants one now but Parliament has to aquisence to make it happen.
Just a simple explanation of how exactly this is supposed to work would be appreciated. Apparently a lot of this isn't actually codified but was rather a series of traditions and norms, which is proving to be problematic now.
Does that force an election or is there something else going on here? I know Bojo apparently wants one now but Parliament has to aquisence to make it happen.
Just a simple explanation of how exactly this is supposed to work would be appreciated. Apparently a lot of this isn't actually codified but was rather a series of traditions and norms, which is proving to be problematic now.
Circumventing Parliament has a pragmatic function: Parliament represents to a large extent the massive divisions in British society over Brexit. When Brexiters whine about Parliament not doing their job, they don't consider that the British public themselves have no consensus about what to do about leaving the EU either. Most critically, no public mandate exists for the conditions of the UK leaving the EU, and that's the sticking point. (Nor should the current government forget that the UK would already have left the EU if only they'd voted for Theresa May's deal. We're still in it because of them)trunkage said:
The government is thus under an onus to deliver Brexit (or send it back to the public), but kind of can't. This also explains why Theresa May tried to circumvest Parliament right at the start, and why she later called an election: because she knew passing the deal she wanted with Parliament composed as it was was a non-starter [footnote]She could easily have passed a "Norway" style deal with close EU relationship as Labour would have supported it - but it would have split the Conservative Party (and, y'know, party over country.)[/footnote]
At this point, they are trying to turn the people against Parliament itself. Trust in politicians is not high, and this of course is just trashing it even more: it's politically ruinous. One of the things they know is going here is that vast swathes of the British public don't really understand or care about its constitutional niceties. When the judges ruled against the government back under May, the Mail called them "Enemies of the people". Yep, the law means fuck all because the people have spoken. People don't really get representative democracy - even some MPs don't quite seem to get it - MPs are to exercise personal judgement on behalf of their constituents, not do exactly what they're told whenever "the people" (which people?) want.
And this really is how populist autocracies begin: because leaders attempt to overturn procedure and law because they have a mandate from "the people". Yet in practice, they rarely have a clear and direct "mandate" for specific tasks - they just do as they will and claim the people have said they can on whatever thinnest justification they can.
Its almost unprecedented on this scale. Deselection is usually the 'nuclear option', reserved for those who display obvious and consistent wrecking behaviour. Voting against the whip is very rarely considered grounds for it.Dalisclock said:
Corbyn was constantly under fire because local parties would threaten their MPs with deselection. None actually got deselected there, though.
It doesn't force an election. The Fixed Terms Parliament Act, introduced by David Cameron, schedules general elections for once every five years, unless there's a 2/3 majority in parliament for an alternative, earlier date. The idea was to prevent PMs just calling elections when it was advantageous for them, as Johnson has attempted to do.
Now that he's been thwarted, he's blaming Corbyn for it, even though the Conservative Party introduced the Act in the first place.
Boris is a massively incompetent idiot who feels he's owed everything, and does not react well when he doesn't get his way.Dalisclock said:
He likes to project the image that he's a silly, fluffy, harmless buffoon, but he's a spiteful, nasty piece of work who'll act on his hurt feelings, not what's logical.
Okay, that helps. So basically, without an election, the Conservatives don't have a majority(even with DUP) and it effectively ties their hand as a government unless they make deals with Labour(I think that's the biggest opposition party) and nobody really wants to schedule an election at the moment due to BoJo's Shenanigans? Am I getting this right so far?Silvanus said:
That sounds like he's the British version of Trump, except BoJo actually has meaningful opposition within his party.Windknight said:
Indeed. Although Boris at least has one level of at least middling level ability - which is that of giving jobs to people reasonably competent. As long as his cabinet and staff can gete stuff done for him, he can surf on their hard work for quite a while. The twat.Windknight said:
Pretty much. Without a majority, the government cannot pass legislation without support from other parties, and the DUP are no longer enough. Opponents of "no-deal" are meanwhile able to pass legislation much more easily, and they've taken full advantage of this in the past few days.Dalisclock said:
Johnson hoped that by calling an election, he could win back a majority and then control the agenda. Labour had agreed with the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid and the Greens that legislating against no-deal was a more immediate priority than bringing down the government, and thus decided not to risk the current situation by backing the election, since they already control the agenda more than the government. Labour made the right call strategically.