I noted this tweet from Robert Peston:
“Notwithstanding the ‘breach of international' law” the cabinet secretary “has determined that ministers and officials are operating in accordance with their obligations under the ministerial code and civil service code”. Quite the most astonishing Whitehall statement! Help! pic.twitter.com/bBJrCOZKFE
— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 10, 2020
There is much that can be said about this, including the fact that the opinion does not come from the Treasury Solicitor, who has resigned over this issue, but is instead from the Cabinet Office and as such carries no legal weight. Politics is very clearly over-riding the law in this statement.
But more significantly, that political over-ride is resulting in the claim that ‘notwithstanding' that the law has been breached civil servants and ministers are complying with the law, as required by the Ministerial Code, when very obviously that is not true.
And this matters. This is not just the usual lying that so much politics involves. This is outright, blatant and contemptuous corruption. It is, of course, the type of corruption common in a fascist state. It's the sort of claim that deliberately breaks down the resistance of the administrator until they will undertake any task asked of them because they are told it is legal, even if it is very clearly not.
This, then, is not just astonishing, as Robert Peston notes, because that is a massive understatement of what it is: this is the act of a profoundly corrupt and now very obviously neo-fascist government, intent on disrupting order in pursuit of its own aims that are very clearly only capable of delivery by way of breach of the law and all reasonable ethical standards. Down this route there is totalitarian control. And with it comes the aggression that cannot help but lead to conflict.
The action of this government is the deliberate and flagrant breach of the required respect due to the sovereign status of another country inherent in the agreements that we have reached and signed. The pursuit of our supposed self-interest is, despite any claim made To the contrary, also an act of international aggression. I see it as akin to the reoccupation of the Ruhr in 1936. And the justification is as blatantly false as any used to support that.
It's time the media said such things. What is happening on Northern Ireland is not an act to preserve the peace, as all aggressors claim in defence of their opening moves. Instead it is blatant international aggression. And that makes it profoundly dangerous, which is precisely why it has to be described for what it is.
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Agreed. I feel so depressed watching the UK fall down this route and even more so seeing the lack of foresight by our corrupt and supine media, particularly the BBC, who have fawned over Spaffer and his cohorts as if they were just a cuddly comedy act. A now muted opposition and the growing consequences of climate change and ecological collapse is deeply disturbing. My only hope is a people’s response. Otherwise next month millions will be getting a taste of UC!
This is Henry VIII all over again – only a Government ran by a pretend historian like Johnson could concoct something like this in modern times aided an abetted by the arrogance of a game show chancer like Michael Gove.
Lets face it, the crisis we had with the Pope all the years ago was all about enabling the King to have his leg over with another woman! So much for the over-vaunted history of this ‘septic’ isle!!
It all comes back to the rule of law. When that is weakened then everything else is at risk.
If the government is willing to break the law, in limited and specific ways, then what next? Sack inconvenient judges and appoint pliant ones, ban judicial oversight, change electoral law, rule by decree (some of that already in the coronavirus regulations, and the wide order making powers under Brexit legislation), award lucrative contracts to friends and family with no oversight (some of that already too), give the police and security services new powers (watch for peaceful political protesters being labelled as terrorists), beef up surveillance infrastructure (thank you China). We have already seen that normal rules don’t apply to those in power, which is another breach of the rule of law.
This suborning of the power of the state to the will of one person, and I don’t mean Boris Johnson, is frightening. If this carries on for four more years, this country is going to be unrecognisable, and a very much nastier place to live.
Yesterday Met. officers arrested Extinction Rebellion supporters who were setting up a book and leaflet stall on the grass in Parliament Square as they had done in recent days. It is time for the arrest of Johnson, Gove and Cummings and for their remand in custody. Other MPs who have advocated breaking the law should be arrested and charged.
But that is just the start.
The planet is on fire.
There will be no opportunity to ‘build back better’. Combustion of fossil fuels needs to be reduced to the maximum extent in the shortest possible time.
A coalition government should establish ‘world-leading’ legislation. For example, a national speed limit of 50mph from midnight tonight; Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) and tradable housing quotas (a restricted number of square metres of floor space per person); a substantial levy on ALL flying with the intention of ending tourism other than on foot or by bicycle; no new structures that have not already been started … Green houses and means of food preservation could be exceptions.
Canadian agriculturalist Marc Doll posted the following on Facebook this yesterday:
Everything you understand in terms of the functioning of the climate will be altered if Arctic ice disappears.
And, it is about to disappear. Not today, not tomorrow but ridiculously soon… yes in your lifetime.
The Arctic is a weird Ocean. Where other oceans get colder at depth, the Arctic gets warmer. A layer of Cold fresh water floats above warm Atlantic water keeping it frozen … once upon a time (In my 20s), year round.
As climate has warmed, the ice has melted, increasing water turbulence and drawing this warm Atlantic water up. In many areas where it used to be 350m below the surface it is now only 80 and around Norway, it is already at the surface.
There is enough heat in this water to melt all the ice in the Arctic four times over and keep it ice free year round.
Time for a war on climate change.
Time to declare a war on fossil fuels.
Time to stop economic growth based on resource extraction
Time for a war on wealth hoarders.
Time to think of the ‘we’ over the ‘me’.
Time for a universal basic income. UBI
Time for extreme minimalism.
Time to bring your family together.
Time for a war on industrial food production.
Tune to invest trillions into alternative energy.
Time to tax the hell out of carbon.
Time to tariff and embargo fossil fuel producing regions into submission.
Time to dedicate all human energy to carbon sequestration.
Time to think local.
Time for a ‘needs’ not a ‘wants’ based life.
Time to turf every Conservative, and Liberal from every position of power. Liberals have downplayed the truth and failed to lead while Conservatives have lied and denied. Both have let themselves become dependent on the cash flow from those they need to reform. [Canadian politics but similar thoughts aapply here.]
Time for all of this and much, much more.
Even with all these ´war on drugs/pandemic’ type wars…. survival of the luckiest is where we are likely headed.
As always, build community, build soil, learn new skills and grow food.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/18/8107/353233/Weakening-of-Cold-Halocline-Layer-Exposes-Sea-Ice?fbclid=IwAR0yNLIM7IAP_QPBKJSXdAvoE9zWyZrXjVwQUJVe6RkmcosRYAnAEBY-JJY
You are so right. Adolf Hitler would have been proud of the useful idiot Jonathan Jones!
He didn’t write it
Indeed, Jonathan Jones has resigned, though he is seemingly working his notice (!) and this brief from him drops the new Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case right in it. As Peston says (click on the tweet above to see more of the thread) “This is the Treasury Secretary serving up revenge piping hot.” (Peston is confusing the issue slightly by calling him Treasury Secretary when he is Treasury Solicitor)
I must confess to being a little lost until I read David Allen Green’s masterful thread, linked above by Peter May. I suggest everyone on here bad-mouthing Jonathan Jones read it. He has, remember, resigned over this issue. David Allen Green’s final sentence makes plain Jonathan Jones’ intention: “Perhaps overall the most important thing about this is the sheer distance the Treasury Solicitor is putting between him and a ‘statement’ of the ‘government’.”
I agree with Richard and others on here who are saying the Internal Market Bill is the action af a nascent facist state. Although I take some comfort from Marina Hyde, who in her column in the Guardian, points out how utterly inept our would-be autocrats are, I am also aware of the other aspects of the bill which seek to undermine the devolved governments. It seems lately that everything Cummings/Gove/Johnson does boosts the popularity of the idea of Scottish Independence, but what chance of any fair negotiation on this, when they are prepared to negotiate in such bad faith with the EU?
I’ve been suffering from an alarming conspiracy theory that has come to mind…. that the lock downs and local restrictions linked to covid19 are a dry run for a post Brexit imposition of martial law. I’m not sure it’s not crazy.
‘Fascism’ sounds exaggerated, ……..but is it?
This recall of how the Nazis got ordinary Germans to go along with creeping nazificaiton is very pertinent:
https://medium.com/@cfhorgan/this-is-how-it-happens-c289765df373
It includes the ‘constant motion’ strategy of surprise after surprise , breaking the rules, each time a little more brazenly which kept people bewildered …
But why should it be Richard Murphy and not our leading modern constitutional historian Lord Peter Hennessey doing this? Surely not because he is already fully co-opted?
https://medium.com/@info_99507/whats-my-problem-with-lord-peter-hennessy-31958d300324
Thank you for the CF Horgan link. I have been trying for months to find again an article I had read making a similar point. Gradual probe – draw back – probe again. Steadily pushing morality out of public life. The Trump/Cummings playbook.
Now, now! I live outside the country and haven’t had an opportunity to keep up with everything that’s been going on, but “Adolf Hitler would have been proud of the useful idiot Jonathan Jones!” is way below the level of discourse I usually encounter here
It was actually wrong here – obviously a misreading
You need to get up to speed Ralph Cunningham the EU have given Boris Johnston 20 days to withdraw his bill seeking to alter the Withdrawal Agreement otherwise they are taking legal action. Does this sound serious enough for you and remind you of another ultimatum in 1939 that was the culmination of much diplomacy to get Hitler to see sense. For the newly appointed Cabinet secretary to condone the British government breaking the WA after three years of negotiation and consideration of it (not a rushed job as that liar Johnston tries to pretend) is the action of a cultist not a serious individual! I would remind you what may be at stake here – violence – the IRA resuming its bombing campaign!
The claim is simply that Parliament sets domestic law without limit or restrictions and that if domestic law conflicts with International law or treaties then domestic law wins. Sounds about right to me.
Imagine if an International treaty with the US set a limit of 19% on UK Corporation Tax or some other restriction that you hated in your drive for social justice. You would reserve the right to override that using Parliament and UK domestic law no matter what treaty you were breaking.
You don’t like this particular breaking of an international treaty but I am certain you would reserve the right to have Parliament break one you didn’t like!
The US has done that, in effect
But it’s not a breach of international law
It’s very odd how weak you on the far right are at making your case
Surely the difference here is that this was an agreement signed by the same people who want to break the agreement. It is not something that the Government inherited and strongly disagreed with and had vowed to change it when it got into power. It looks like there was every intention to disregard the agreements even before they were signed. What we have is a Government that cannot be held to account either domestically or internationally because it reserves the right simply to re-make history when it chooses something all despots do. The problem arises that eventually no one will want to do business with you because you cannot be trusted. The EU or any other entity seeking a trade deal would be fools to accept any Government assurances on State Aid rules, Proof of Origin for Goods, product rules or services regulations without very strong safeguards because the risk that the UK would simply change the law to accommodate its new position is too great.
Sometimes I give you the benefit of doubt because you are very committed to political change but other times I think you just have mental health issues…..
What possible section of my comment could give cause to either a personal attack such as “weak” or for the claim that I am “far right”?
You have become punch drunk, lashing out at anything that does not completely agree with you, sad to see.
I read your comment
I think far-right has described your motivation for a very long time
If you don’t see that then you’re the person I worry for
But I would remind you that the far-right do have a habit of questioning the mental health of their opponents
“The claim is simply that Parliament sets domestic law without limit or restrictions and that if domestic law conflicts with International law or treaties then domestic law wins”.
According to ‘Richard’ this “Sounds about right to me.” Only it isn’t right.
Simply for the record: ‘United Kingdom Internal Market Bill’, pp.33-35, Sections 42, 43 and 44 on export declarations, exit procedures and on Arcticle 10 and state aid related to the NI Protocol; and Section 45 (further provisions related to sections 42 and 43) give powers to Ministers of the Crown to vary regulations, notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law which may be incompatible or inconsistent with the regulations in Sections 42 and 43. In short the Government are handing arbitrary power to Ministers to run roughshod over domestic law.
Precisely
But the far-right want that
They forget that old line that in the end they come for you
I haven’t
Kim Jong-son.
Actually, that’s an insult to North Korea. Don’t think they so blatantly and openly break international law.
Johnson can now be compared to Hitler, who conned Chamberlain about peace in our time and had no intention of honoring what he had agreed to either. I knew the ERG had fascist tendencies, you only have to look at some of them to see that, but Johnson was just a chancer. Let’s see how many tory mp’s really are honorable members and vote for this.
However, to be fair this is mostly an English disease, with the rest of the UK being dragged along, supported by neo fascists with little support like the DUP. I desperately hope that opinion polls taken from now show a collapse in tory support, but I fear the opposite. England seems to have made its bed and now has to LIE in it.
It’s not the English per se – it’s the English representation at Westminster and the bland, mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly middle-aged, mostly men, mostly disconnected-from-anything-akin-to-the-99%, who are comprehensively trampling on everything that most of the people contained within the borders that constitute England, hold most dear. And by that, I mean exactly the same things that everyone else in every other part of the globe holds dear – like freedom of speech, freedom to congregate, freedom to family life, freedom to live without the spectre or threat of fear or violence.
Please don’t distinguish us as if we are the “other”. We are you, pretty much. And just as Scotland has its exceptions, and Wales, and Ireland, and North Korea etc, so does England. I can’t help where I was born, and I don’t want to be shamed into regretting something I had no power over to change. I’d rather be aligned with all humanity than set apart, just because of where I was born.
Please work to change things then
It is clear that the Johnson lead Government intended to break the WA and international law very early on. Johnson claimed, correctly it would seem, that businesses in Northern Ireland would not need to complete any form of customs documentation in a statement in early November 2019. It seems reasonable that this duplicity in regard to the Withdrawal Agreement was known by Johnson, Gove and Cummings at this date a full 10 months before the changes were put before Parliament. That strikes me as a clear case of misleading The House. It also seems clear that despite the signing of the WA this Government intended to break the legal agreement and to make the border issue an Eire/EU problem and not a UK one perhaps even before the WA was signed. There was never any intention to follow what had been agreed. If this law change goes through it will become the responsibility of Eire/EU to implement a border or to implement special rules for goods entering and leaving the island of Ireland. It is no coincidence that the UK Govt law change is couched in terms of “maintaining the integrity of the UK internal market” the same wording the EU employed as part of the reason a backstop was required to “maintain the integrity of the single market.” No doubt these public school boys think they are very clever. Their actions are nonetheless childish posturing. Britain has always been at the forefront of international agreements and law albeit from a position of power. As Britain’s international strength has waned it is possible to see the tawdry, despotic future that will be delivered by the “ruling classes”.
“We have a corrupt, neofascist government. The media needs to say so”
Sadly the media is perfectly happy to dish out modest criticism to the fatberg & his crimi-clowns. But that is all. Hand wringing.
If one attempts – as I did yesterday in the Guardian – to suggest that citizens should make their feelings & thoughts known directly to their Tory MPs, I was moderated off.
Apparently democracy (Guardian style) is to vote every couple of years – & that is it.
Post Jan 1st 2021 – as supermarket shelves start to empty UK citizens should visit the homes of Tory MPs & make their views and thoughts known directly & forcefully.
It is time Uk politicos understood that their actions have, direct consequences for them, personally.
The current crop seem to think they can do what they like – with no blow back – time to change that.
UK Citizens – “take back control”.
David Allen Green has an interesting twitter feed analysing the statement text
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1304145976895188997
It is excellent
Good take down of the new pompous ass Cabinet Secretary. Can he be hauled before a Parliamentary Committee and made to justify his statement under international law? Can he also be made to justify why this Conservative government wasted everybody’s time for all these years since the Brexit Referendum agreeing to legislation that it never had any intention of observing? In other words that it wilfully misled!
Your comments, comparing the government to the Nazi’s as you have done is simply disgusting.
I will be reporting you and this blog to the relevant authorities and your employers as hate speech.
I was offering political analysis on whether We have an fascist state
I also comment on Marxist, failed and other states
It’s what political economists do
Using threats to opposes opinion is, of course, what fascists do.
Maybe you can’t see the paradox in your actions
PS I am my employer
You do stir up hatred..having been on the wrong side of a libel charge you should indeed be careful what you say.. you also have a history of reporting those who, in your eyes, unfairly comment on you or parody you..you can’t have it both ways
Sure I lost a libel charge and I won’t discuss the rights or wrongs of it again
But what I have said today is not libellous
And nor do I stir up hatred. I am commenting on those who do
As for reporting anyone: no I have not. I have never reported anyone, and I know precisely to what you are referring. It is sad that you do, which I presume is solely for the purpose of stirring up hatred. But it is you who has this wrong. A person was found guilty of gross professional misconduct for abusing me, by his employer who began and closed the investigation without any involvement by me, at all
I’d get your facts right
What a ridiculous comment Annie made. If she’s upset about accusations of Nazism there are far more people on word press that would not be deleted if she complained than good old Richard! Quite silly comment
For the record, the similarities between Cummings‘s capture of the British state and hitlers of the German one are quite striking. Obviously there isn’t the violence and assassinations. But for a neofascist wouldn’t that be something to be proud of – a bloodless fascist coup?
These are very worrying times and you are right to highlight it Richard.
High time Annie you made the effort to understand how Hitler undermined democracy in Germany. Read some history there’s plenty of it. You might also remind yourself that the UK’s supreme court told Boris Johnston in no uncertain terms he had no legal standing to prorogue Parliament for the time he intended. I think you should also read up on what the Rule of Law is all about. I’m making a serious accusation that this government is intent on undermining the Rule of Law. Now make a serious response to that accusation!
“employer who began and closed the investigation without any involvement by me, at all”
You know this is a complete lie!!! You contacted the employee’s company direct. This is well known..you are an outright liar..
With respect, I know exactly what happened and my version is entirely correct
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/12/15/why-is-the-acca-employing-someone-as-head-of-audit-and-assurance-who-has-just-been-fined-for-professional-misconduct-by-the-icaew/
Well if this doesn’t show you a liar what will..or you might call it disingenuous.. much the same really. Either way you’d fit perfectly into our political system if you ever find the bottle.,
As that makes very clear, I reported nothing
I thought Michael Izza was aware of what I presumed to be common knowledge
That’s not reporting
What he then did with the information that I inadvertently provided, presuming he knew it, was his business
But I have a very simple question. A man abused all the rules of his profession and was found guilty for it and you want to defend him. Why is that? What is more you want to abuse me, who he abused. Again, why is that?
And you accuse me of lying, when it is very apparent I did not. Why are you lying?
Please explain
“the information that I inadvertently provided”
Says it all. You are disingenuous and manipulative. That’s the best I can say..
And the result was justice was done
I have nothing to apologise for
But you support abuse
Wow Annie – its good to see a proactive , concerned citizens like your self are still are around. What would we do without the likes of you?
Tell us, did you report your Prime Minister when he spoke of some of our BAME brothers and sisters looking like ‘ post boxes’ or ‘picaninnies’ ?
Or how about that poster of Farage’s – you know – the one with the queue of people apparently wanting to get into the UK?
How many letters to the Home Office did you write concerning the Windrush scandal?
Please tell us how you got on bringing this hate speech and practices to light because I’d love to be as caring and proactive as you.
Thanks.
I understand that Katya Adler was censured by the recently enthroned head of the BBC for describing Michael Gove as ‘delusional’ in a tweet from April.
I think Katya should issue and ‘apology’ on twitter, something like: ‘I described Michael Gove as delusional – I now realise that I was very much mistaken 😉 “
🙂
Many are being closed down from commenting now
I note Lewis Goodall has fallen silent
Annie, I wonder where you think the difference lies between the early days of the rise of the nazis in Germany and what is happening in the UK now?
I wondered why the previous cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, was replaced this week.
This is for Annie:-
https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/02/07/hannah-arendt-the-banality-of-evil/
Writing of Eichmann she said the following:-
“What he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”
Now do try thinking about the feelings of individuals in Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland, for whom the GFA came as immense relief!
I assume that if Boris Johnston refuses to back down on breaking the Withdrawal Agreement in regard to Northern Ireland the EU will go to The United Nation’s International Court of Justice seeking the right to blockade imports at its discretion from entering Northern Ireland. This will avoid having to erect customs check points on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will leave Boris Johnston having to seek Parliamentary approval to go to war with the EU. He will not get it because it won’t have support of the British people. Johnson will be forced to resign.
Johnson is a lightweight, lazy opportunist devoid of principles whether moral or political. He would almost certainly not have ventured to breach international law without the direction of his masters. It’s above his pay grade and too much like hard work, which is done by Dominic Cummings but also on behalf of those masters. To stop the fascism they are heading for requires those masters to be identified and called out. They certainly reside within the monarchy though HM is probably kept safely out of the loop. Insufficient evidence? Perhaps, but keep the notion in mind as events unfold.
Let’s cut to the chase here.
After ten years of successive Conservative governments telling the public that austerity cuts must be imposed on the provision of public goods and services because the UK government has no money of its own (that it cannot deficit spend, which if you bother to seriously think about it the private banks do all the time with their loans) it’s now possible for the government to get round an increase of tariffs levied by the EU by massive government subsidy.
Furthermore the UK can then use Northern Ireland as a channel to push “de-tariffed” goods and commodities into the EU through its border with the Republic of Ireland and will do so irrespective of the “Troubles” this may resurrect as the EU seeks to put custom check points on this border to protect its own manufacturers from being undercut.
Why undercut? Because the UK can simply “re-badge” goods and commodities from non-EU countries or even act as an assembly facility using components from non-EU countries.
For me this is reminiscent of Nazi Germany using a parallel currency in the form of MEFO certificates to re-arm under the noses of the Allies. I have quoted Hannah Ahrendt in a previous comment about Adolf Eichmann in that she perceived him as a sociopath unable to identify with the feelings and views of others. In a similar vein the new Cabinet Secretary, Jonathan Jones, had stood up to justify the Brexit economic strategy of Boris Johnston’s government I have just outlined, a strategy which can only be described as akin to the sociopathic policy of the Nazis in terms of the harm it is capable of causing!
You are getting rather confused on cabinet secretary’s
Jonathan J0ones is the resigning Treasury solicitor
This may seem irrelevant, but tonight’s Last Night of the Proms, was no longer the usual somewhat self-ironical celebration aimed at ourselves and the wider world, with an audience waving many nations’ flags and union jacks.
It was a desperate red-white-and-blue- deluged, po-faced exercise in crude nationalism, no longer talking to the world – only to ourselves, (or the BBC talking to the government?)…’one flag, one music, one folk’?
We had union flags on the post office tower, all round the inside of the Albert Hall , flickering red white and blue flooding the whole outside of the building, red white and blue on the South Bank and the London Eye etc.
These images repeatedly flashed during the music…not even a little line of other national flags cowering beneath the union flags…..welcome to our little brave new world.
I could not watch it
“Fascism: A Warning” by Madeleine Korbel Albright gives a horrifying insight into what is happening now in the light of the activity of the fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s. The parallels in the use and abuse of the constitutional and legal systems are uncanny. We must be on our guard and not fall into the traps that moderate politicians and civil society succumbed to then.
“specific and limited way”
Hang on – that sounds like a Mens rea to me – the ‘intent’ element to commit a crime or break a law before you actually do it.
I can only conclude a number of things from this:
That the Government is indeed arrogant and thinks it can do what it wants or;
It is stupid.
And even worse – it is both!
I had thought of using the very term…
I cannot help but think that in 1932 Hitler was thought to be a reasonable chap and the least worst of the available candidates at the upcoming election.But all such apparent democrats get corrupted by office if democratic forces have only tenuous roots in the political soil.Which seems to be where we are going in the UK and the USA.
I’m not sure how “reasonable” anyone thought Hitler was in 1932, but even in the highly fragmented and violent German election in July 1932, Hitler and the Nazi party only won 230 of 608 seats on about a third of the vote, and their numbers of votes and seats actually fell in November 1932. Hindenburg was persuaded to appoint Hitler as Chancellor – an office to which he arguably had some claim as leader of the largest party – but perhaps mainly because Hindenburg and the other grey men thought they could control Hitler.
He immediately moved to call new elections again, but even with the Reichstag Fire and then the Reichstag Fire Decree curtailing civil liberties, Hitler still didn’t get a majority in March 1933, but then the Centre party and the Conservatives threw in their lot to pass the Enabling Act so he could rule by decree.
By the time Hindenburg died the following year, the last possibly barrier – the armed forces – were persuaded not to intervene, and away it all went.
Things are never the same twice, but it is still shocking how quickly and easily a turbulent democracy can turn decisively towards authoritarianism within a matter of a few short months.
Meanwhile, we live in a country with a doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, where the governing party has a majority of 80 seats in the lower house and the ability in principle to pack the upper house, so it looks like we are again going to test the constitutional boundaries of our elective dictatorship.
I can’t help thinking they can’t be making this much fuss about state aid. This new bill must mapped out train weeks or months ago. What are we missing? Is this just a strong-arm negotiating tactic? Are they looking for political cover for the “no deal” result they always wanted? Did they never intend to respect the Withdrawal Agreement? Was that suspiciously soft “oven-ready” deal just what was needed to win the last election and get five years of power? Are we too much in awe of the self-appointed Machiavellian mastermind? Is there in fact a long-term plan, or are they lurching from one ad hoc position to another that seems a little more expedient at the time?
See my blog this morning
I agree with you; there must be more to this