Greetings from the Mark Steyn Cruise, currently sailing the beautiful Inside Passage of Alaska. Across the continent and an ocean, Westminster continues to be roiled by Brexiteers and Remoaners locked, like the latter seasons of Dynasty, in ever more demented plot twists. Today Her Majesty's Government suffered its first resignation since Boris Johnson took over as Prime Minister. The Minister for Universities and Science quit, and is leaving Parliament. His name is Jo Johnson. Any relation? Why, yes. He's Boris' brother. In the normal course of events, no normal person knows who the Minister for Universities is, or indeed that such a post exists, or, if aware of this grand office, what the chap who holds it does all day long: He ain't a heavy, he's his brother - that's all. But the junior Johnson, a Remainer, has walked out on the senior Johnson, a Leaver, so it's the biggest thing since Cain fired his Secretary of State for Sheep-Herding. Boris was his brother's keeper, but he couldn't keep him. So the Remainer leaves, putting a question mark over whether the Leaver can remain.
~All sides are throwing around media accusations of "constitutional outrage", ever since Boris got the Queen to prorogue Parliament and was instantly ungraded from PM to Caudillo of the new dictatorship. I am more sympathetic to the charges against his opponents: Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, has been claiming for months to want a general election. Indeed, there is no reason not to have one. On Tuesday the Prime Minister formally lost his majority, when some Tory nobody I'd never heard of crossed the floor and became a Liberal. So Boris and his team cannot govern. Indeed, even their minority is shrinking by the hour, as he removes the whip, expels and deselects those who vote against him on Brexit.
And yet Corbyn voted down Boris' motion for a general election - because the Opposition Leader is determined to force the Government to enact not its own but the Opposition's policy, by making Boris go to Brussels, grovel, and beg for another extension of Britain's zombie membership in the European Union. To put it in American terms, the legislative branch wants to maintain the executive branch in power purely as its dead-eyed sock puppet. That is certainly a constitutional abomination, and, cautious as she is in such matters, I have no doubt the Queen regards it as such.
~Why is Corbyn doing this? Isn't an Opposition Leader supposed to bring down the Prime Minister so he can force an election and replace the bloke? Yes, but Corbyn would lose that election, and Boris would likely win. The guff about the will of Parliament and the people's representatives obscures the reality - that this situation exists because of the ever wider chasm between the people and their representatives, between a citizenry that voted to leave the European Union and the fanatically Remainer Liberal Democrats, openly Remainer Celtic nationalists, covertly Remainer Labour Opposition, and semi-Remainer Tory backbench all determined to subvert the will of the people. You can dress that up in all kinds of parliamentary flimflam, but, when politicians who've been bleating about a "people's vote" for over a year refuse to let the people vote, you know these tribunes of the masses have gone rogue and left the masses far behind.
~Who's to blame for this? My old boss Charles Moore has no doubt:
When one important person breaks the deepest conventions, it is a case of 'untune that string and hark what discord follows'. The great untuner in all this is not Boris Johnson by proroguing to a timetable to suit his political convenience (as other prime ministers have done in tight spots). It is Mr Speaker Bercow — in general because the Speaker must be impartial, and he isn't; in particular because he keeps trashing the rule by which the government controls the business of the House. This really has upset the balance of the system. The British tradition, eloquently expounded by Jacob Rees-Mogg in his speech in parliament on Tuesday night, is that we are governed through the House of Commons, not that the House of Commons is the government. Once the Commons tries to become the government, no one can function as prime minister, so a general election becomes necessary.
Bercow is an appalling partisan travesty of a Speaker and a disgrace to his office. But I would also blame another - David Cameron, the modish twerp who gave Britain the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. A concession to the Liberal Democrats in his coalition, this alleged "modernization" of the system has, in fact, wrecked it. In the old days, Boris would have gone to the Palace and said, "Your Majesty, I can command no majority in the House, and so your Government cannot govern. Put Corbyn in or call an election." Now he requires a two-thirds majority of the House to get that election, and the House won't give it him because they wish to hold him hostage in his inability to govern.
So one supposedly modest "reform" by Cameron, its virtues obvious to all right-thinking people, has wrecked the balance of centuries. The Mother of Parliaments is now, as the rappers would say, the Muthaf***er of Parliaments: It is not a becoming sight.
~ The obvious characterization of these last few days of Parliamentary histrionics is George S Kaufman's, after the Germans invaded Russia: "I think they're shooting without a script." As for Boris, when Donald Trump does something baffling to conventionally minded political sages, he is said to be playing 3D chess. By that standard, Boris would have to be playing 9D chess. We shall find out very soon.
~For glimpses of our Steyn Cruise on its first day out of Vancouver, please see Anthony Watts' dispatch at the world's Number One climate website, WattsUpWithThat, and also Blazing Cat Fur. We have hundreds of Steyn aficionados from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and even a couple from the Czech Republic. If it sounds kind of fun, well, there's always next year's Third Annual Mark Steyn Cruise, sailing the Mediterranean with Michele Bachmann, Conrad Black and Douglas Murray among our shipmates. As with most travel and accommodations, the price and the choices are more favorable the earlier you book. If you have any queries, do call or email Cindy, our super-helpful cruise manager: If you're dialing from almost anywhere but Australia (ie, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America), it's 001 (770) 952-1959; if you're calling from North America, it's 1-800-707-1634. Or you can put it in writing here.)
Because of the cruise, Mark will miss his regular Thursday telly appearance with Tucker. But, for that brave band who enjoy him on camera, we will have some alternative video diversions for you tomorrow.
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How prescient to have chosen the West coast instead of the East coast for the cruise this year as Dorian spins out over Halifax! Who saw that coming?! Wondering if it'll regain just enough to make it to Greenland, just for the grand finale of its curious path. Two days stubbornly churning over the Bahamas was enough to let everyone discover the billions$$ Chinese ports there, one a joint venture with of all countries, Denmark, practically shouting distance to the US. There really is something rotten in Denmark!
Dorian and Gabrielle are en route to the British Isles having failed to rendezvous with Greta. So predictably unpredictable. Look forward to reports of extreme extremes, even as I pack my surplus COâ‚‚ in boxes.
On another thread I noted "China used to be the proud owner of great piles of US debt and with it the regular interest paid in more green . One day they realised that all they had was an ever increasing pile of green stuff so started using it to buy stuff."
Splashing the cash on seaports doesn't get you very much. Gratitude?
The constant drip of negative comment about China sounds like the work of Men with an Instruction Manual.
Reverting to Dorian, it hovered over the Bahamas while locking on to the Gulf Stream, as Mr Gore has rightly pointed out.
LOL! China's work of Men with Instruction Manuals just got totalled in the Bahamas - a pair of wildly strategic deepsea ports, billions$$ under water - two days churned under a parked Cat 4. How many people realized China had forward-based that close to the US coastline, what 90 miles from Broward County (of all places)? And what's up with NATO Denmark being not just OK with, but partnered with that? Srsly? What does one call an ally who joins forces with a hostile nation? Did Denmark allow China to "buy stuff" in Greenland, too? Is that what the mysterious tweet was all about? Who even thought of Greenland or Denmark two weeks ago? And journalists would rather talk about anything else, even if it has to be made up.
OMG. Our ouf!, it was a Cat 5 and it was on high speed shred for two days parked exactly between two Chinese-owned ports in the Bahamas. Numerous Meteorologists pointed out that a large LOW front crossing the US west to east was going to push Dorian's track NE. Like three consecutive days of pointing it out and its approach, and its affect on the hurricane. So, who rightly pointed out what?
Still watching the track, it restrengthened CAT 2 so it's still chugging along past Halifax... Well, like Bob's your uncle! What's NE of Nova Scotia?
What's NE of Nova Scotia? The British Isles. Gabrielle is the more interesting as it's riding the Gulf Stream, Dorian having stepped off it for the healing properties of cold water a couple of days ago. I'm sure VP Gore is blogging about it.
Ports are nice big static targets for any passing vandal. The Bahamas gets rinsed regularly in the Hurricane season. Not my idea of a place to bury treasure, even if they are handy for the casino ships running out of FL. and the Broward malls.
The Instruction Manual belongs to the existential threat China recognises.
So, what you're saying in support of China's government is that their Instruction Manual says to get rid of its existential threat by building forward operating bases as close as possible to the US seaboard?
Quite the reverse. The Instruction Manual is what is guiding those that China knows are the existential threat.
Ports are nice big static targets for any passing vandal. They would be better advised to garrison Dearborn MI.
Oh. With a nic choice of 'journolist' one would be much more knowledgeable of how that "men with instruction manuals" operates than most people.
By the way, from my long-ago law studies I have realized that this is a witty headline.
The vs in English Law is read and spoken as 'and'
So it is Johnson&Johnson. A family Firm.
Remember, "Johnson & Johnson is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer."
Careful you don't get sued. "A family firm" is the TM of SC Johnson and has nothing to do with Johnson and Johnson. After J&J lost their opiate case some idiot pol made the same joke and is now getting sued by SC Johnson.
Thanks! I shall plead ignorance of the law - it seems to work for the Speaker.
Apparently, Boris will be" ignore-ant" of the new law.
And,,,
Why no legal challenges to Bercow's clearly unconstitutional actions?
There is a legal challenge to Article 50, bogged down in the courts. Familiar?
Lawfare, indeed.
In this matter you are directed to seek the assistance of Mischon de Reya LLP (Offices in London and New York).
If there is no answer, try Gina Miller.
My learned friends are correctly "Mischcon de Reya LLP".
My excuse for the error is that I am packing my surplus COâ‚‚ in boxes and await collection.
Bercow went from Hang and Flog supporter of white South Africa to hardcore Napoleonic socialist.
Someone must have refused him a K.
We are all hoping that Boris will advise Brenda to withhold the Royal Assent.
As a Yank who knows nothing about this thing in the UK they call Parliament, with it's House of Lords (are they really, still?) and House of Common(er)s, I must say I canning get enough of your observations and analysis, Mark. Please continue to (translate) the blow-by-blow of this drunken-boxer political fight. Is Parliament the new WWF? Is this all fake? When will they start throwing chairs, and brawling in the aisles? I'll make some popcorn. This is fun to watch, even though I really don't know what's going on (I don't understand 9D chess, either)
I'm with you, Roger CJ, a Yankee know nothing, actively observing without fully understanding, except now I find this quite painful to watch, and I'm coming along with getting things ever since club member Owen Morgan explained to me very thoroughly months back about how things worked in Parliament, specifically how members got elected, but for the Brexit story what was very helpful was doing a Brexit search in the Search box on this very site and reviewing Mark's contributions and some of the club commenters.
Also, there is a cover story in The Washington Examiner by Sumantra Maitra, "Everything You Know About Brexit is Wrong," back in March that may shed some more light and currently another by him at The Transom through The Federalist, "Parliament Gives a Full-Fledged Finger to the British People." You can get it with a free trial.
After they voted to block a general election. Boris stood up and called them frit and it was the first an opposition has blocked a GE in UK democratic history. Bercow burst out laughing as he knew it was pathetic. He couldn't stop laughing. Then another Tory MP stood up and said it was the first time in history an opposition has propped up minority government, Bercow was off again and you could see he was trying to stop laughing.
He probably stopped laughing when he realised the joke was on him too.
There are lots of ways Boris can just leave on Halloween. Nigel Farage thinks he wants the EU surrender treaty.
We will know on the 1st of November. If the EU have one little say, then the Brexit Party will be a new force in UK politics.
I am a bit nervous about where Britain and Brexit are headed; I am resigned to Whatever Fate Chooses for them, including a diluted, welfare-ridden, woke version of the old England sliding down the Progressive Rathole; but I am certainly enjoying Mark's narrative of it all.
With you on all scores, J. We do have fun, don't we?
I dislike your frippery concerning the brothers. They are brothers.
Britain is a country divided , have you just noticed ?
North, South , city , rural.
The UK is divided. The London elitist cultural Marxist and the rest of the UK.
Mr Speaker Bercow; There was a time when his head would have resided on a spike somewhere (The Tower, Traitor's gate or London Bridge or whatever).
Such a pity that treason is not what it was!
I've said before on these boards that I have no personal stake in Brexit, one way or the other. That remains the case. I do however have some stake in how the decision will be taken. My experience suggests that hasty and/or inflexible decision-making, whether or not it was impelled by actual hubris, almost invariably ends in tears.
"[W]hen politicians who've been bleating about a 'people's vote' for over a year refuse to let the people vote, you know these tribunes of the masses have gone rogue and left the masses far behind." True. The same argument might apply also in relation to the refusal to permit a repeat referendum now that some of the misconceptions and outright lies blithely peddled, inter alia, by the same Mr Johnson have been exposed.
This is a messy process, evidently, like any divorce, and characterising a 52:48 majority of people who actually thought they understood the problems, costs and benefits as a conclusive definition of the absolute and immutable will of the people does nothing to simplify it, as far as I can tell. It seems to me that the will of the people is far from clear-cut and is seldom cast in concrete, and that in this case the debate and the need to resolve it appear to be far from over.
Certainly it seems to me that there is a rational and responsible argument to be made for both sides of the Brexit debate. Speaking for myself, I do not like to discern such a high proportion of emotive argumentation in addressing a concrete and important policy matter. I do not like the characterisation of the "enemy" as elites, any number of arguments which amount to cutting off one's own nose to spite one's own face, such as discounting valid economic sectors and concerns on the grounds that they represent wealth, and the bizarre vindictiveness of arguing that Brexit will be a good thing because it will hurt Europe more than it will hurt Britain.
I do not know that Plato even considered humanity's proclivity for impulsiveness and chicanery, let alone sheer stupidity, when he outlined his model for the operation of democracy, but I for one believe that partisanship should never be allowed to over-ride proper consideration, the more so when there are political careers nailed, as it were, to particular masts. If Britain at large needs to reconsider before it does anything it may regret, and there is time for reconsideration, it should do so. Review and adaptation are essential elements in organisational learning, after all: nations should be capable of the same. I realise that the immediate counter-argument is that indefinite delay would amount to a win for those opposed to Brexit. That is a good argument, of course, but leaves open the question of when delay becomes indefinite.
Another obvious rejoinder is that policy review is the purpose of elections, and that it is precisely an election which Mr Johnson proposes. I do not see the threat of an election during which the properly-separate questions of Brexit and the appalling prospect of Mr Corbyn governing the country will be commingled in a single vote as anything less than a very transparent trick, never mind any talk of a sensible review process. I do acknowledge of course that it is a trick played regularly by sufficiently unscrupulous politicians, including those in board-rooms.
It is fashionable and in my opinion justifiable to deride Mrs Merkel for failing to alter her immigration policy as soon as it turned out to have been based on a misappreciation of the flood to come. One cannot however deride her but demand that Britain should plunge on regardless in a course of action which had evidently not been fully understood when it was embarked upon. It is equally fashionable to applaud and quote a handful of cognoscenti who originally opposed Brexit and have subsequently changed their minds, but one cannot do that and then demand the silencing of those who did not, or those who originally supported Brexit but subsequently realised that it would entail costs far in excess of those originally anticipated.
I hope Britain will arrive the best decision. I'm sure some perfectly sensible folk will argue that it has already done so. There is evidence that there are other perfectly sensible folk who think that more thought is needed. Perhaps it will be said that it is the measure of my own double-standards that I characterise all who associate themselves with "green new deals" as dunderheads, but am reluctant to do the same in relation to either side of the Brexit debate. I would argue that I cannot see any merit whatever in "green new deals", but that there is a case to be made both for and against Brexit. But I repeat myself. I'll stop that right now.
I can't say I've fully digested your argument, Segnes, as it taxes my ability to concentrate. That is a slight at me, I assure you, not your thoughtful self.
HOWEVER...
The matter was put to a vote, and it carried. 52-48 is not a landslide, but it's beyond any margin of error, and a simple majority was all that was called for. Everything else is a dodge. Of course Britain can exist outside the EU. There will be difficulties, repercussions, compromises, but the majority who voted for this future expected--and had every right to expect--that their decision would be carried out. Not delayed until it died of old age. Anything and everything NOT Brexit is a rejection of the vote FOR Brexit.
I respectfully disagree. For the last three years Britaun has been running a high and destructive fever. It does the patient no good to continue them in that state when other nostrums are at hand. A Parlianentary election called to affirm or deny Brexitvwould be one solution but, as pointed out, a combination of David Cameron's miserable legacy and Labour' opportunistic intransigence has blocked that sane and traditional route to a decision. Similarly a new plebiscite will simply keep the fever going. If "Remain" wins then "Leave" will seek a two-out-of-three. As to more debate and discussion., I think that three years of excruciating (and often venomous) analysis is enough. In fact that is what the patient iscdying of.
I personally believe that a "Hard Brexit" is now the only answer. The EU, even as spiteful as they are, will not want to alienate or "punish" as large an economy as that of Britain. The latter will get better economic terms outside of the EU than they will get inside it. Finally, as Mark points out, a hard Brexit will allow Britain to get back to "normal" politics without having the incubus of Brexit hanging around every issue.
One thing you can say for the British, they are a very resilient people. The Remainer elites have lost sight of that fact or simply dont respect it anymore. Letting the clock run out to October 31st will break the fever and allow the country to get on with its business. It will also be an affirmation of western democracy which, God knows, is under attack from so many quarters.
3.5 half years we have waited for our independence and freedom.
We have lie after lie. Obama tried to bully us.
We have faced down all the remoaner lies and project fears. We voted to LEAVE !!!
The EU is corrupt and the cronies in Brussels are just self serving losers.
Look at what they imposed for leaders this time. Convicted fraudsters. You couldn't make it up.
Thanks, J. Apart from being very kind, you're absolutely right, of course. The people who have a mandate for Brexit are entitled to pursue Brexit within the constraints of the legal means available to them. That is not, however, to justify silencing and vilification of those opposed to them.
I speak only for myself in any view I offer, but consider this. If my country voted for a rabidly socialist government by a margin even exceeding 52-48, and that socialist government introduced a "green new deal" which I found stupid and self-destructive, which I happen to think these things are, I'd consider it not only right, but its duty, of my party, now in opposition, to do everything, of course also within the constraints of the legal means available, to obstruct the implementation of that folly. I'd object to attempts to silence my party's endeavours on the grounds that it is acting contrarily to the will of the people, and consequently to represent my party's motives, and mine, as wicked. You're quite right: to oppose the elected government might be construed as a rejection of the popular vote - or anyway 52+% of it. It is also to give effect to 48-% of the popular vote. That's how Westminster democracy works.
The Brexit argument has taken place largely outside party political lines to date. Nevertheless, I don't see harm in acknowledging the legitimacy of an opposing position. Many think the argument is over, but I respectfully submit that it evidently isn't. My conversations and reading suggest that there is a widespread sense in Britain that the Brexit campaigning, for and against, was principally emotive and in many instances led by people who themselves did not fully understand the implications, let alone communicate them accurately. I acknowledge that nobody can ever hope for complete unanimity, and I can't tell you at what point sufficient unanimity is attained, but I feel that things won't move forward until both sides have been respectfully heard. Probably more is needed than that. A referendum is a democratic process, and democracy is like a bushfire: it is not easily extinguished once it has been set. At the least, the minority is as entitled to be heard as the majority, or so it seems to me.
I don't however mean to suggest that the problem is a facile one. It is perhaps unfortunate that the best available forum is the parliament, which works best on party-political lines. Brexit was not a party-political decision, really. It probably wasn't why a reduced majority of people in Britain voted for the Conservative party, anyway, but might have had something to do with the reduction. We're watching a really important case-study in political science developing here, and it seems to be testing the limits of Westminster democracy. Same-sex marriage referendums might have seemed to touch on emotional matters, but at base did not really affect the welfare or behaviour of the average household. It turns out that Brexit is a different matter. My recommendation would be to recognise that both sides of the Brexit matter want what everybody in a functional democracy wants: what is best for the country, seen through the lens of what is best for themselves, and to urge that both sides confine themselves to what we'd call constitutional means to resolve a very tricky dispute.
Or would have been, had my opinion mattered.
Thanks, R. The sincerity of your emotions is obvious, and as you see (and no doubt will continue to see) you have weighty support. I think I may safely take it that you're with the 52%, then. I wouldn't for a moment doubt that you have Britain's best interests at heart, but then I'd say the same thing if you were one of the 48%. I'd hesitate to say the same thing about politicians who have staked their careers on one or the other outcome, but that's just me.
There have been a lot of lies, haven't there?
Ah well, the show goes on. At least we should enjoy the funny bits.
Exactly. It's a straight up matter and everything can easily be worked out. No one be fooled by the nice tailored office suits. This is a thuggy warning to any other nations wishing to bolt. Simple.
When Khartoum threatened new South Sudan, they replied, "Fine. We'll cut the oil off."
Khartoum, "Oh yeah? You can't. You need it."
South Sudan, "Thanks to 20 years of your genocidial governing, we've been trained how to live on nothing. Let's see how long YOU can't eat."
After all the aghast pundit freak-outs that South Sudan was 'crazy,' not long after the oil shut down, Khartoum capitulated. Yep. Turned out the South Sudanese damn well knew when to 'hold them' and when not to 'fold' when playing the big geopolitical game with the oppressors in Khartoum.
"If my country voted for a rabidly socialist government by a margin even exceeding 52-48, and that socialist government introduced a "green new deal" which I found stupid and self-destructive, which I happen to think these things are, I'd consider it not only right, but its duty, of my party, now in opposition, to do everything, of course also within the constraints of the legal means available, to obstruct the implementation of that folly."
It pretty much already happened. Obama won 52.9% of the vote in 2008, yet on that nonexistent mandate rammed through ObamaCare, canceling plans willy-nilly, and disrupting an entire industry. It was (still is) every bit as stupid and self-destructive as the proposed Green Raw Deal, and you better believe those in opposition did (still are doing) everything they could to obstruct its implementation.
I would liken opposition to Brexit, however, not to a legislative scrap, but to the repudiation of an election. In that, Brexit resembles very closely the Axis powers aligned against Trump's presidency. Not merely the man in the office, but to the very election that put him there. On the whole, I have been pro-Trump and pro-Brexit. As "on the whole" is a qualifier, I'll be categorical: I am WHOLLY opposed to any person, movement, or Deep State machination--on either side of the Atlantic--that would nullify an election fairly held and won. By the transitive property, I am now WHOLLY in support of Trump and Brexit. I can do no other.
Thanks, J. You make an excellent argument, and I for one wouldn't want to talk you out of it.
It is interesting that there are underlying assumptions about the nature and consequences of referendums which have not been made explicit. Some folk assume that they enjoy something kindred to force of law; others seem to assume that they do little more than poll opinions at a moment in time. There's a vast middle ground, too. More importantly for this discussion, some folk assume that any executive or legislative measures ostensibly based on any referendum must necessarily be legitimate while others assume that those measures will remain open to scrutiny and amendment. Not that it is important, I have experience of what has scathingly been called African-style democracy - "one man, one vote - once" - and am suspicious of giving blank cheques to politicians. No doubt you were able to surmise that from my original post. Anyway, that is why I personally am inclined to mechanisms and processes which extend reconsideration and debate and retard potential mis-steps.
Since I'm talking about my personal inclinations, I'm one of those who instinctively favour building checks and balances into political decision-making which make it difficult for politicians to ram home dramatic measures on the basis of slender majorities. For instance, I think that the folk who proposed that each state should be equally represented in the U.S. senate were very wise, and understood that, without such a check, the house of assembly might on the basis of a slender majority do some pretty zany things. Sometimes I wonder whether there are enough checks and balances. But that is not to invalidate the impatience which anyone might feel with the senate's ability to obstruct "the will of the people", as expressed by an aggregate, possibly slender, majority. That goes for impatience about the implementation of Brexit also.
Such folk probably trust politicians more than I do. That's a nice thing, because it bespeaks a society in which politicians have not been terribly untrustworthy. It's entirely reasonable to want people whom you trust to get things done with a minimum of impediment. My own experience inclines me to become quite anxious when politicians set about re-engineering the economy or society. I'm inclined to see the hole, and not the doughnut, if you will. Returning to Brexit, I have yet to be persuaded that Mr Johnson is less concerned with any "will of the people" than with political opportunity. The referendum presented that to him, and he made hay. He now has both the tee-shirt and the address to commemorate his success. Good for him, but I can quite see why responsible people wouldn't want to present him with a blank cheque. Of course, I can also see why he wants one, and I do not say that all who oppose him are responsible or even rational.
So, for my part, I don't support or oppose Brexit or any particular way of accomplishing it, but I recognise that, in that particular debate, there probably isn't any side of the angels. Frankly, and speaking strictly for myself, I don't see any angels. Talk about "the will of the people" certainly is necessary, but history records that concept being used to justify some pretty awful miscarriages, and in any case people's opinions are inclined to be vagarous and are more complex than yes/no responses to single referendum questions can really reflect. I don't really have a solution for that problem other than to baulk at any Alexandrine cutting of knots. As I have said, none of that is to change your view. My mistrust might well be ill-founded in this instance.
If by "deep state" you mean the civil service, well, there's a whole interesting discussion to be had there, but I diffidently submit that it should not be allowed to distract from the present question of how political decisions should be arrived at and whether political measures should be open to challenge. I'd like to separate support for Mr Trump from the Brexit matter, too. I hope I give no offence when I suggest that opposition to the Trump government cannot really be equated to the problems of Brexit, even were it to become clear that civil servants have been playing an important role in both. Let me be clear about that: I am entirely open to persuasion that the need for Brexit arose because British civil servants in Brussels gave more attention to finger-foods, official functions and their social rounds than they did to promoting and protecting British interests and now are hell-bent on protecting their positions, but that has yet to be demonstrated. Even if it is demonstrated, 'though, it is an entirely different kind of obstruction from that evidently mounted against Mr Trump by secret police mandarins and their ilk. Anyway, separating those issues makes it possible for me to offer encouragement to you in supporting Mr Trump while not taking a side in the how, when and whether questions of Brexit.
I am senile, for sure. "I have yet to be persuaded that Mr Johnson is less concerned with any 'will of the people' than with political opportunity," indeed! I meant that I have yet to be persuaded that Mr Johnson is more concerned with any "will of the people" than with political opportunity. Please forgive me: these errors do not occur because of disrespect for anyone kind enough to exchange views with me.
As soon as I'd read your post, I did submit a post thanking you for your response and responding to it, J. It seems to have gone astray in the system somewhere, but I hope that it might still be published. Please do not think that I've been ignoring you.
Dying of old age? The EU does not approve of anything it has not laid out in a directive. The directives already in place are the fevered dreams of social engineers lit by windmills and solar panels. Zero-carbon is as achievable as the fully autonomous vehicle but it will be pursued with maniacal fervor.
Thanks for the links to the other two sites;) Kathy Shaidle looks like a film star in the shades! Nice tee, Kathy!
Thanks to Mark for the only intelligent analysis I have seen concerning this travesty. Even the Barebones Parliament of Oliver Cromwell's day made more sense and was a more coherent body than this group of pathetic fraudsters. The British elites of all stripes have shown us, with an appalling candor, that they are unfit to govern or even offer advice to the nation. Its miserable and appalling that supposedly "public spirited" (Oh Brother) men and women should be reduced to such infantile gamesmanship.
Chris Mullin, the author of "A Very British Coup", recently had a sequel published described as the definitive post-Brexit novel. It will be a surprise to someone so deep in the heart of the Labour Party to find the comrades have been steering the ship for decades. The chances of the UK escaping the apparat? Zilch..
Mark, please keep a sharp weather eye for the insufferable eco-munchkin scold, Greta No-Funberg, who has recently taken to the high seas to expand her reach in saving the planet. If she learns there are Deniers on the ship she may try to board. If she succeeds everyone will be bored. Be prepared to repel.
Brilliant, P.
Global warming and the sea air have done nothing to diminish your acuity, Mark. Wonderful oratory! Or, at least it would have been if you had been thundering this in Parliament to Her Majesty's Disloyal Opposition, and lily-livered Tories, as I was imagining. Can't you get your pal, Boris, to appoint you to something, as one of the Queen's subjects, that will give you a voice in Parliament?
[Under] the Fixed Term Parliaments Act . . . he requires a two-thirds majority of the House to get that election, and the House won't give it him because they wish to hold him hostage in his inability to govern.
Could he undo the Fixed Term Parliaments Act with a simple majority? (He may not have that either if I understand this article.)
The Opposition have definitely taken the opportunity to throw Boris Johnson in that briar patch!
My view, from the cheap seats, is the Tories who've fallen on their swords and the MP who defected show how total is the takeover of democratic will by the Parliamentarians the Tories walked over to.
If the Brexit Party's European Parliament victory in May reflects the disconnect between the people and their representatives, then the next general election would seem likely to return a coalition responsive to that, with a leave mandate.
It's curious that the EU itself isn't being invoked much in the discussion. I suppose the entrenchments are firmly in place. But the parochial nature of the multifaceted maneuvers seem inadequate, for the Brexit side, taking place under the shadow of the EU.
"These populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries and they don't like the others," is what the EU president (whose term ends October 31st) thinks of the British majority. Yet the casual observer might think the EU was a benevolent bystander.
A crisis can be a painful but necessary cleansing. It is certainly interesting to see these many machinations compressed into a few days. It's consequential for the future, but considering, say, the Cromwell years puts the hysteria of the Remainers into perspective.
It sounds as though the fixed term election law is void as it attempts to bind future parliament by raising the threshold of amendment beyond a simple majority. Of course as with everything formerly true of England - that principle has probably been surrendered as part of Britain's evolution into the world's leading airport style nation. How can a modern "global" Britain possibly adhere to such antiquated notions such as fair play or accountability - what about the Human Right of the PPE grads to impose economist bylines as law by fiat! Personally I think Bojo should simply deliver verbatim Cromwell's speech dismissing the long parliament - every word of it is true and richly deserved.
Nigel Farage on Twitter this morning: "We are organised, we are funded and we are ready to go.
"But if @BorisJohnson goes for a clean break Brexit we would put country before party and win the election together."
I've liked this guy since long before he and Mark mopped the floor with Simon Schama and Louise Arbour at the Munk Debate. But that performance, and his role in saving Britain from its worst selves (Corbyn, Bercow, et al), should earn him a peerage.
Mark replies:
You're right about Nigel, Josh. Which is why he deserves far better than the degraded peerage of contemporary Britain.
Mark, you said it last week about the US vis a vis China and it certainly seems to apply to today's Brits - we are no longer serious nations acting with any long term purpose. It's all nonsense all the time. Sounds great for a cruise, but not so much in this regard. Btw, congrats on using your James Bond Villian Hurricane Machine to keep Dorian on the opposite side of the continent during your trip. Quite crafty. Cheers!