Yesterday was a surreal day.
Parliament exerted its will on Brexit, under the leadership of failed Labour leadership candidate Yvette Cooper.
And parliament also exerted its will over the intimidation of those who want to remain in the EU, about whose actions the Met appeared indifferent.
Whilst Trump proved that tantrums can close down government, which is something we're close to learning in the UK as well.
None of these things should have been necessary of course. That's why it was surreal.
Labour should have lead the opposition on Brexit. The Met should be concerned about right wing thuggery. And we have a right to expect reason from those in high office. But what should happen and what is happening are not always coinciding right now, which is why predicting anything is exceptionally hard.
The reality is I applaud the cross party consensus that defeated the government yesterday.
And whatever his failings, Bercow (and others) are to be apluaded for reminding the police that fascism matters.
But on tantrums, irrationality and false expectations what is there to say when they are all so pervasive in political narrative on both sides of the Atlantic?
I pray for a return to some sanity. Oddly, another attempt to shut down the government did reflect the fact that such sanity does exist. As David Howarth has noted on The Conversation website, Cooper's was not the only proposed Finance Bill amendment:
More dramatically, New Clause 25, proposed by the Liberal Democrats with the support of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party, uses the mechanism of limiting the government's power to levy income tax and corporation tax (about 38% of government revenue), a power that needs to be renewed every year, to force the government to rule out a no-deal Brexit by default.
At present the government only has the power to levy these taxes until May. This amendment (which will not psss) withdraws that right in the event of no deal, so shutting down a government that would be threatening to shut down the country.
Normally I would doubt the sanity of that. But these are not normal times and I think the smaller parties are right to point this out and declare their wish for sound government in the combined national interest. It seems such a long time since we enjoyed that. And the fact that their amendment will not pass is evidence it will not happen again soon. But one can wish. And ponder on why we reached such an impasse, without the police apparently noticing.
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These amendments looking to shut down government if the UK leaves EU with no deal look dangerously close to proving accurate the accusations of sabotage leveled at remainers by the right-wing tabloids.
I’m really beginning to fear that the Brexit divide which splits the country pretty much in two is going to take a long, long time to repair. I seriously worry about the upheaval that may occur in the meantime.
I am deeply concerned about that
Adam, Cooper’s amendment does not seek to shut down the government in the event of a no-deal exit from the EU. It is an attempt to prevent the government trying to implement a no-deal exit by stating that if the government wanted to use some of the powers in the finance bill to implement no deal, it would have to give parliament a vote first or apply to extend article 50.
So it is Parliament blocking the government’s attempts to implement a no-deal exit. Some of the right wing press may try to portray this as sabotaging Brexit, but , as usual, they will be talking rubbish.
I agree
Sickoftaxdodges,
I get that you and everyone else here will be glad if no-deal Brexit can be entirely blocked or made practically impossible – that’s a given.
What’s also a given is those who wanted to leave the EU aren’t going to be very happy at all by this turn of events and they’re going to blame remainer MPs and their supporters in the country.
Yvette Cooper is pouring petrol onto an already raging fire.
I do not agree
Standing up for Remain is not pouring petrol on a fire
There are so many areas of British life where there is unresolved conflict and bitterness its hard to see why we haven’t gone up in flames yet. Former mining, steel and shipbuilding communities abandoned going back to the Thatcher years. The original EEC vote in the 70s. The rising divide between the rich and poor, both financial and in terms of influence. Racism of all sorts, prejudice and intolerance much of which has been stoked up by those who should know better. Mind boggling connections and complexities that see some of the most deprived areas of Britain voting for a change that is likely to see that worsen. There are people who have set up a facebook page to out homeless beggars explaining that they have monitored these people and have found them to be living in hostels. As if this were the crime of the century. So many stressors in so many different directions, in the end you choose your position based on what you hate the most rather than on the things you cherish or the dreams you have. Like a blown glass ornament allowed to cool too quickly I wonder when the violent fragmentation will occur.
I still pray it won’t
Richard, I was under the impression that the amendment did pass.
Cooper’s did
The SNP et al’s did not as far as I am aware
Ah. I took it that you were talking about Cooper’s amendment.
Well, Yvette has certainly made sure that she is telling everyone about it!
In such times, crumbs like this are better than nothing.
I’m watching the clown show now on Parliament Channel. It’s just like an academic staff meeting and about as effective. Various points of order are delaying any sensible progress after a Speaker ruling the Tories don’t like. In my now 2 year content analysis of the House I can only conclude we have no government informed by intelligent debate. If they are governing at all it isn’t on the basis of what is demonstrated in the chamber.
I know just what Richard means by us having a right to sound government – but we could spend weeks discussing ‘rights’ in terms of the nachtraglichkeit, deconstruction and PTSD. What the House is doing now is even more purposeless. On the basis of what I hear and see my country has no deliberative democratic tradition, just the acting out of pretences from medieval non-democratic times we mythologise as as our democratic origin. I know what I’d put in place of this, but even in the years of this Brexit farce and the incompetence of Parliament we seem incapable of seeing the problems lie in the system itself. Much the same is true of our media, with upper-class twits unable to see they never give people voice. ‘Civility’ is now the first refuge of these scoundrels in evading justified public anger and despair – along with quick focus on extreme idiots nastily harassing individuals in the absence of any possibility of real views being heard, as though the vast majority of us would behave like that. Meanwhile, we are doing vile things and even killing people. How civil of us!
From what I saw of Parliament yesterday, I agree more with Martin Kettle than Anne Perkins.
These are extraordinary times, and I think the Speaker has done the country a service by allowing that amendment – Bercow has actually increased the burden of accountability on May and her shower of shit ministers during this time, enabling some form of rear-guard national Government to have an influence.
For those of us who have always believed that Parliament should have the final say on BREXIT, yesterday was one of the brighter days in this debacle. As to what happens next………………..?
Would it be a little provocative to say that the government doesn’t need to raise taxes to spend money? And then to say that if Howarth thinks preventing the government raising certain taxes would lead to a government shut down, he’s presumably in the same place as Rafael Behr?
It’s just wrong
See a blog published just now
“Sickoftaxdodges,
I get that you and everyone else here will be glad if no-deal Brexit can be entirely blocked or made practically impossible — that’s a given.”
Adam, every decent, responsible person within the UK will be glad if a no-deal Brexit is blocked or made practically impossible. The only people who actually want this are:
1) The disaster capitalists of the hard right who have funded and plotted much of the anti EU campaigns down the years.
2) The ultra nationalists of the far right who hate all internationalist organisations like the EU.
3) The most ignorant and deluded Leave voters, of both right and left, who seem to believe that “there’ll be no disruption, we can just trade under WTO rules”, or that ‘it’ll hurt but ultimately be worth it’.
So are you one of the above? If you’re not, why are you attacking people like me who fully support every effort to avoid what we know will be a disaster? To prevent a no-deal exit from the EU is not sabotaging Brexit – it’s just sanity.