At the time of writing, it’s 36 days, 15 hours, 12 minutes and 28 seconds until the day of Brexit. I know checking my Brexit countdown app every morning may not be the most efficient use of my time, but it would be useful for the media and politicians to give it a glance once in a while.
You may have seen this week’s distraction from Brexit: eight Labour and three Conservative MP’s have defected from their respective parties to form The Independent Group (TIG) in Parliament. Although the group have no official leadership or party status in the UK, they have a clear ideological goal to break away from current mainstream politics. Despite this, TIG seem to be already polling at 10% indicated by a recent YouGov poll, it will be interesting to see if the market research outfit can be wrong again following Brexit. Among others, the members include the infamous Anna Soubry, Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and have one common theme of stopping Brexit.
The initial breakaway has been compared to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) split from a radical left-wing Labour Party in the early eighties, led by Michael Foot. The move certainly does have comparable elements when assessing Jeremy Corbyn’s current socialist agenda, but the big difference is votes will now be taken from both major parties. The Labour leadership’s decision to approve suspended former member Derek Hatton [Ed: Hatton has already been suspended from Labour, after 48 hours …] so soon after the announcement can only cement the TIG’s doubts. You may be left wondering if Hatton’s Militant Tendency movement was any different from Momentum today. The SDP, now irrelevant in British politics, did play a role in the 1983 General Election achieving 11.6% of the vote paving the way for a Conservative government, can UKIP capitalise on these divisions?
Nigel Farage took to social media to formulate his argument: “This moment may not look very exciting, but it is the beginning of something bigger in British politics #realignment”. I certainly don’t agree with everything Nigel has said post Brexit or his own emerging Party, but I can’t help to agree on this issue. It starts to show the disillusionment that even paid MP’s are starting to experience at the hands of mainstream politics. I think even the most ardent Tories can agree we are in one of the worst governments of recent times which pales into insignificance by the Labour opposition. The political climate for years in the US, Italy, France, Austria, Sweden, Greece, etc is moving towards real populism, policies for the people. I think this is one step in the direction for the UK following suit and my opinion is this shift can only benefit one party whose policies have been consistent for years with this rhetoric since inception, UKIP.
Whether the inevitable shift is positive for British politics remains to be seen but we must still judge the situation in a systematic and democratic process. All eleven MP’s stood on party manifestos during the 2017 UK elections. This week TIG members have defended their decisions and claim voters supported themselves individually irrespective of party values. However, Labour and Conservative manifestos both clearly stated during the campaign to honour and respect the Brexit outcome, so how can any MP who stands for a second referendum justify a betrayal of the electorate? I would urge the MP’s if they have any sense of democratic process to call By-Elections like that of many before them inclusive of UKIP’s former parliamentarians Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless. It seems as if when it’s a version of their own “Peoples Vote” they are not as keen.
Additionally, this week has seen the campaign to stop ISIS runaway Shamima Begum from re-entering the UK result in success. The decision has been taken by Sajid Javid, The Home Secretary, to revoke her citizenship and side with the overwhelming will of the people. Shamima has recently been the centre of a nationwide debate from politicians and journalists alike who seem to have been singing from the same hymn sheet despite Sky News reporting that 76% of UK residents do not want her to return. The victory has culminated in no small part due to the campaigning, support and petitions from the public. This goes to show that a true sense of populism as discussed above can bring momentous change.
Good news for ukip leave means leave
“The Independent Group”
This is nothing but a fallacy. It needs to be exposed for what it truly is: a group of self-serving MPs, infected with the “Common Purpose” virus, who have nothing but contempt for democracy, as well as contempt for the ‘ideals’ of the political parties they once claimed to ‘share’.
Underneath the veneer of ‘party politics’ there has always been an undercurrent, a ‘hidden agenda’ being pushed behind the scenes, the “Establishment” coalition of Liberal/Labour/Conservative, the “one-party” that disguises its true intentions by manifesting itself as ‘different’ parties with different ideals, but is in truth the same entity with different ‘actors’ (a now popular buzz-word) playing seemingly different roles.
“True” independents would not coalesce together in this manner. The more Labour and Conservative MPs ‘defect’ and join this new ‘group’ as ‘independents’, the more the Establishment reveals its true intentions.
Traditional party politics – at least when it comes to the traditional mainstream political parties – is indeed falling apart at the seams. But what we are truly seeing is the worst, the ‘fake’ politicians coming to the surface.
The good news is that in the event of another general election, the ‘traditional’ Establishment parties are probably finished, but only if the electorate chooses their vote wisely.
You will not see any of these ‘independent’ MPs willingly ask their electorate to cast their vote and choose them as their next MP. Because they know they would lose.
So much for ‘letting the people decide’. 😉
What a farce, two and a half years ago, after the referendum I knew things would get bad but I didn’t expect this level of lunacy.
The trouble is, the way things are going Britain will be left with nobody minding the shop, a power vacuum in other words. We’ve seen the results of power vacuums all over the world, particularly in the Middle East, Iraq etc.
When a political system breaks down for one reason or another, they become unpredictable and there’s always somebody worse waiting for an opportunity to seize power, in our case they’ll probably be singing Ode to Joy and wearing an EU flag.
We’ve been very badly let down by our politicians-leave or remain-and I don’t think this will end well. The Conservatives are on the brink of destruction, same with Labour and none of the other political parties have enough momentum to take power. Perhaps UKIP could become a mainstream political party one day but it’ll be too late for Britain by then, I don’t think our country has ever been in so much danger and this could be the end of democracy as we know it.
This total disrespect for democracy is a tragedy for our country and shows our politicians up for the vile, evil scum that they are.
We need a miracle or failing that guns and plenty of bullets, there’s a good chance that we’re going to end up like the Middle East.
Peter Hitchens was warning for years never to vote for the Useless Tories (or any useless mainstream) and so were UKIP, We just might not have been in this mess if as Hitchens said, we’d destroyed the Tory party about a decade ago and rammed it into the dustbin of history; according to his theory the other parties just might have followed suit. This- just-might have made way for something better. plus the Tories would not have had the chance to lead voters up the garden path for years while meanwhile brexit was getting more and more
difficult . I loathe and curse them from the bottom of my soul.
Mrs May is doing what she always does.
1 Make a speach promising everything
2. Does what she wants, pushes her own thing forward and impliments itwithout telling.
3 Refuses to talk and hides for as long as possible.
4 Finally surfaces and hopes everything will die down.
Thing is she’s not a little girl any longer,
This time if she does the same, whilest everyone waits for her,.if she puts a foot slightly wrong
5 She’ll get a good smacking.
6 As will her co conspirators.
People Vote when it goes against them but they themselves refuse to stand for re election when they change party and manifesto… double standards
Knew it would get published mate well done. Your saying what people are thinking.