Outrage

August 30, 2019 Longrider Uncategorised 9

So… Parliament is prorogued for an effective period of four days prior to a new session and a Queen’s speech and it’s the end of the world. According to Stephen Fry, we’ve had a coup d’etat. But then he always was a pompous buffoon. Perhaps he should stick to putting on makeup and playing pretend, because his political punditry is pretty shit.

In a discussion with an ex colleague, I was told that this is a gross abuse of power. Really? What about Theresa May not holding a Queen’s speech during her tenure? What about the rabble who have been planning to seize power?

As Lucy Allen MP rightly points out, there is nothing new to debate that has not already been debated over the past three years. The role of Parliament holding the executive to account has already happened. If something changes, then parliament will get its opportunity, but until the Queen’s speech, there is nothing more to add. Nothing more to discuss. No holding to account to be done.

However, there is an odd reversal going on here. The ballot paper made no mention of a deal. Article 50 mentions nothing about a deal. When parliament repealed the European Communities act, there was nothing in it about a deal.

Sure, it was reasonable to expect a mutually agreeable withdrawal arrangement to be negotiated, but no one voted for one. Indeed, parliament thrice rejected the deal put before them, so I have no sympathy for MPs who now whine that they didn’t vote for a no deal exit. Yes, they fucking well did. And if they really don’t understand that, they have no business sitting in Parliament.

And that outrage? The coup d’etat? Hysterical nonsense. What we have here is the strange situation whereby the executive is holding parliament to account and forcing through what they and the electorate voted for.

9 Comments

  1. I’ve written it elsewhere, this current round of utter toys out of pram behaviour is nothing really to do with either being in or out of the EU any more. Its a far deeper scream of uncertainty/fear.

    What one has to remember is that the people who voted for Brexit are the outsiders. We are used to not winning, to not having our views in any way considered, for the broad thrust of public policy to be trending in ways that we fundamentally disagree with. If like me you are a low tax, low regulation, small government, libertarian sort of person, then for the last 30 years you couldn’t really point to one government, or one party who stood for what you wanted, and all the moves in law are pretty much against what you would like.

    But if you were the mirror of me, and favoured higher taxes, more government regulation and control over individuals, then the last 30 years have by and large been music to your ears. Yes there might have been ‘Tory’ governments during that time, but they have done nothing to reverse the ‘more government’ process, the general movement of what happened was only in one direction.

    Now with Brexit for the first time since Thatcher that direction is changing 180 degrees to what the ‘winners’ of the last 30 years want. They have become so used to winning that they cannot conceive that democracy means that they might lose. In their heads they ‘are’ democracy. What they want is what democratic countries should choose, and any attempt to do anything else is anti-democratic and to be opposed with all vigour. Its noticeable the same vitriol is now spewing out from Remainers that came from the anti-Thatcherites – that was the last time the direction of public policy was redirected.

    This is why there is such a howl of protest – they consider they and they alone should be entitled to direct public policy, and no-one else should, regardless of votes and elections. Its the same reaction you get from a child when you unexpectedly take its favourite toy away – public meltdown, the brain cannot compute as to what has happened.

    • Excelent summation Jim you spoke for me.

      Thanks LR for your continued blogging always entertaining and heartfelt.

    • The difficulty is that a lot of peoplr who voted for Brexit were the very same people that a few years ago would have voted ‘ding song the witch is dead’ to #1 in time for Maggie’s funeral.

      I think that is a mischaracterisation of BRExiteers generally. From the ones I’ve met, for the most part they are absolutely aware of their reasons for supporting Leave and although they might not be university educated, have worked all their lives and raised families.

      It doesn’t matter if they were nominally Labour, Tory or Monster Raving Loony party voters prior to supporting BRExit. They voted to “Leave the European Union” for their own reasons and nobody else’s.

      The “Ding, dong the witch is dead” chanters (or those that have expressed similar views against Maggie) are primarily those of the hard-left soap dodging variety who almost universally support the anti-democratic legions of “Remain”.

      Even Corbyn’s belief (now suppressed) that we should leave the EU was not based on the merits of most BRExiteers, but rather that the EU would prevent his implementation of extreme socialism.

    • You may indeed be right that there is some cross over between the Brexit voters of the North and the ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ crowd. But I don’t think you’ll find many former miners or shipbuilders among those currently screaming like Violet Elizabeth Bott about coups and how Boris is worse than Hitler. Thats entirely composed of those from the middle class liberal establishment – the sort of people who infest the Civil Service, Local Government, the media, the education system. The sort of people who assume that they are the ‘good guys’ and anyone who opposes their ideas are thus beyond the pale.

      I stand by my assessment that Brexiteers are almost entirely outsiders to the political class, be that more middle class libertarian types like myself from the South, or working class and benefits class types from the North, while the Remain camp, while containing both political insiders and outsiders, contain pretty much the entire liberal establishment, the political classes as described above. And its that political class thats jumping up and down like demented goblins about having lost the vote. Remain voters who are political outsiders are quite happy to accept they lost, they’re used to it. Its the ones who aren’t used to losing who have lost their minds.

      • What I meant was (and I didn’t put it very clearly I admit) was of the Remain crowd jumping up and down about Boris’s coup and Brexit you won’t find many former miners and shipbuilders. That is to say although there are plenty of northern Labour types who voted Remain, they aren’t the ones suffering from Brexit Derailment Syndrome. Thats made up of pretty much entirely the liberal middle classes, mainly from the South. The type of people I described, the political classes, from which are drawn just about everyone who is in charge of anything. They are the Remainers who are jumping up and down, because they are not used to losing. Working class old school Labour types who are Remainers are very much used to losing, so just suck it up.

    • “What one has to remember is that the people who voted for Brexit are the outsiders. We are used to not winning, to not having our views in any way considered, for the broad thrust of public policy to be trending in ways that we fundamentally disagree with. “

      Exactly! Damian Counsell on Twitter put it best – the furore on the Remain side isn’t the sound of ‘losers’, so much as the sound of ‘winners’ losing!

  2. I think that there is nothing more ludicrous than the remainers squawking about democracy whenever they don’t get their own way. They really do think that democracy equals them getting exactly what they want and that other people voting for something different just isn’t democracy by definition.

    I also endorse Jim’s assessment of the current state of affairs.

    When it comes to welfare, I have always been aware that it could be me who fell on hard times, not just other people. When I was younger I found myself unemployed from time to time but I never took long to find another job. More recently I have been very unhappy with my current position and, at the age of sixty, I have found it far more difficult to find another job. As it has turned out, my private pension fund has done well enough for me to be able to retire early next year. Had I found myself unemployed later in life I would have been dependent upon some kind of welfare.

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