As promised earlier (here), I am now taking a closer look at the editorial in today’s Daily Telegraph, quoting extensively from it because it is behind a paywall. The title says it all:
“MPs have handed our fate over to the EU. The political establishment has humiliated itself”
That is a fair and just verdict to which all can subscribe who have watched the proceedings and debates in the HoC this week.
The article was published after yesterday’s votes in the HoC and the events there inform this article. It is the unvarnished truth, unpalatable to the Remainers of all stripes:
“Today brought a very significant moment in the history of Brexit, as the Commons voted to request a delay to leaving the EU. The British political establishment is humiliated.
The Commons has voted many times to say what it opposes, including the Government’s Withdrawal Agreement, a no-deal Brexit and a second referendum. It even voted against holding indicative votes to find out what MPs prefer instead (a cynic might say that they are wary of their own judgment). The basic problem is that the Commons has no earthly idea what it is for, and by voting for delay it signals to the EU – and the voters – its indecision and incompetence.”
Count me in amongst the cynics! And yes, the incompetence of MPs was clear to all who sat and suffered, listening to the debates. The description above is true and well-balanced. Being cynical, I’d also say that the Remainers, in the end, were frightened of their own ‘courage’ – or perhaps they had an inkling that their constituents would not be happy with their decisions …
Moving on:
“Consider what happened to an amendment calling for a rerun of the Brexit referendum: despite previously suggesting that it was in favour of the idea, Labour decided to abstain.”
And consider that all those ‘champions’ for a 2nd referendum or a ‘people’s vote’ showed yesterday that they prefer to keep their hands clean and leave that decision to the benign leadership of the EU: ‘it wasn’t us, guv, the EU made us do it’. Cowards!
“[…] does it not bother these so-called democrats that an extension hands power to the EU to decide the UK’s fate? European leaders will sit in judgment over our Parliament, waiting to see if it is capable of rescuing the Withdrawal Agreement, which might mean a short delay, or has no alternative whatsoever, which might mean a delay lasting years.”
That is what is so galling, that is why so many of us are incandescent with rage about the posturing peacocks in the HoC who put ego before Party before Country. The debates this week provided ample proof. for that. Then there’s the constitutional aspect which has been overlooked by most political pundits so far, thanks to the smoke-and-mirror production in the HoC. This is a crucial point:
“As a tired Government looks to put its deal to yet another vote, step forward John Bercow. Parliamentary convention as laid out by Erskine May says: “A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session.”
Who gets to decide if the motion is “substantively the same”? The Speaker. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if Mr Bercow had a reputation for impartiality, but he does not, and a political row could easily turn constitutional.”
It could – if some MPs were to find their round dangling objects or even were to discover they had a spine and stood up to the Speaker. Some of them did so yesterday, to no avail (report here). For Brexit’s and our sakes, I hope these few will do so again, next week. If the Nation were to conclude that Brexit is not just destroyed by weak and feeble MPs but by the manipulation of the Speaker, then he better watch out.
The DT editors conclude with this sobering observation:
“Proof, again, that Brexit is not only about Europe. It is a stress test of Britain’s political institutions, to see whether or not they are capable of effective representation. They are currently failing that test in the most embarrassing manner.”
Just so. There’s nothing to add to that except to say: I concur.
The shameful behaviour of our parliamentary representatives is, I believe, a wake-up call to the electorate of our country. A wake-up to post war neglect and apathy. A wake-up to undeserved deference. A wake-up to the massive loss of responsibility we have to our society. A wake-up to the indifference of creeping ideologies ruining our way of life our culture and our freedoms.
I hope they get worse!
I hope they push the boat out!
Don’t stop now go the whole hog push us all over the edge!
Please! Wake us up and finish your complete demise, and quickly.
it will be a short extension to avoid eu elections
followed by a longer one
I agree with your analysis. MPs voted against having a second referendum, probably knowing full well that any extension to Article 50 will include a requirement by the EU to hold a second referendum anyway.
-“It wasn’t us, it was the EU!”
Labour don’t care about Brexit, they don’t care about a second referendum or Peoples Vote – they just want a General Election because they arrogantly believe they will win by a landslide. And perhaps they also know that any Article 50 extension may include a requirement by the EU to hold a General Election anyway. Once they are in power, they will just do whatever the hell they want, and just watch how quickly the Blairites move to ‘take back control’ of the party.
Let’s face it, there is no point in extending Article 50 if Theresa May is just going to use the time to keep flogging her dead horse Withdrawal Agreement and trying to get it through Parliament. Because there is not going to be enough time to come up with any realistic alternative plan to it.
So the EU is only going to offer an extension, with the proviso that there must either be another referendum, or a General Election. And it will be stipulated (though not made public) that the result must be that the people ‘change their minds and choose Remain’.
The other alternative scenario is that the EU declines to extend Article 50. At that point, so late in the day, MPs will face the stark choice of either a) voting in favour of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, or b) leaving the EU with ‘no-deal’ that they so badly want to avoid.
I believe if we somehow ‘accidentally leave the EU with “no-deal”‘, all sorts of shenanigans will then ensue, with MPs and Government flailing about in chaos, “this is a disaster!” etc, and thus begins the campaign to get the UK to rejoin the EU. Because none of these people are prepared to ‘roll up their sleeves’ and get on with making post-EU Britain a roaring success.
For UKIP, a General Election would probably be the better outcome, rather than a second referendum. I wouldn’t expect UKIP to win outright, no way, but they could get enough MPs into the House Of Commons to throw some spanners in the works. People in general are wising up to the Conservative/Labour coalition, they need ‘something different’ to vote for.
Stuart,
A second referendum would certainly be rigged; all it needs is more than 2 options on the ballot paper to split the vote. Somehow the count would be “managed” if it looked like a win for leavers; nothing is beneath them. We may also be sure that Project Fear in overdrive would be used to scare those voters who still had some trust in government.
Trust them at our peril.
ONE BRITISH O.A.P’s TRUE FEELINGS OF OUR GOVERNANCE:
I remember being taken by my Dad, as a young school-boy, into the public galleries of Commons and Lords. Dad was concerned that I might be disinterested.- He should never have been worried ! What I saw was a magnificent building with a total air of permanence and majesty. I was looking down upon those who were charged with the Government of this old Nation. I was overtaken with my fantastic good fortune of having such excellent parents, but also with being born into Great Britain with my hopes and expectations in the capable hands of the MPs and Minsters that I was now seeing.
I was just old enough to have known about Winston Churchill’s war-time speeches, and it took no effort to see in my minds eye, a ‘British Bulldog’ growling at the despatch box, with other Bulldogs taking their que from that great leader. Dad asked me if I was alright ? I just nodded, unable to speak ! ….. A life-time later, what do I see on the TV’s Parliament Channel ? No Bulldogs now, but in their place a lot of little mongrels, yapping at one another, with their utterly inconsequential drivel being recorded in Hansard and their stupid idiot faces shown upon the telly ! The matter in hand being that we should ‘ask’ the EU for an extension to the EU’s Article 50, in order for Parliament to concoct what it is that they want !
Good God, (and He is) ! Just how low can the mighty fall, and left to this rabble, how much further are we bound to fall ? I well remember Charles de Gaul investing Winston with an honour in France, and publicly saying, ”France owes Great Britain a debt that it will never be able to repay.” Now in France we see a French nobody, happily involved with a Treasonous British ex PM, giving advice upon how to avoid the will of the British people ! ….. It’s all in the hands of the British People. The quickest correction is to give UKIP a landslide victory to a Government of Democratic Patriotism. (Note, not Nationalism, that can be dangerous) ! It is almost impossible due to so many groups splitting the vote, plus erroneous out of date Party loyalties, as well as the MSM doing all it can to avoid this necessity of such beneficial change, but if the people want it they will have to vote for it !
There is no way UKIP can form a government let alone any seats in Parliament . It could not win any when it was 25% in the polls . The party ,at it`s best is spread too thinly across the country .
We need to get some leave MPs in Parliament whichever leave organisation they are part of; that needs UKIP and those other organisations to cooperate and not put up opposing candidates. The LibLabCons may still win but better that we use our vote against them. The likely GE is but one battle in the war against the traitors ruling our country and the fight must go on, whatever it requires.
Yes but look closely and figure if any are really Tories coming up from some other drainpipe, trying to get the chance to carry on duping people. Controlled opposition?
“It is almost impossible due to so many groups splitting the vote”. One of the people splitting the vote is Gerard Batten himself.
Katie Hopkins challenged Nigel Farage, Gerard Batten and Anne Marie Waters to at least agree not to stand candidates against each other in the same constituencies. Anne Marie Waters agreed to met the other two and talk. Gerard Batten said that UKIP does not make make deals. Nigel Farage didn’t even reply.
The problem isn’t there being multiple groups, it’s with those two men whose egos are so large they would rather Brexit fail than talk to two other leaders they loathe.
I agree.
Between them Nigel and Gerard have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory :
Nigel resigned in JUne 2016 when surely with all his knowledge of the Great British Establishment he ought to have realized that they would regroup and re arm and fight back.
Gerard , despite knowing that Brexit had not been achieved and was in mortal peril, could not resist opening up another front, and then palling up with a serially convicted criminal ~ if you had tried hard to invent a mechanism to ensure UKIP would be regarded as beyond the pale I don’t know what it would have been.
At the very very least Gerard should be offering to divvy up Regions between UKIP and The Brexit Party so that we do not stand in the same locations in the upcoming Euros. Maximising the pro Brexit vote is more important than anything else at least for the present.
Thats right blame Batten. He’s been warning all these years about the dangers of voting mainstream. How about blaming instead all those dim wits who voted Tory even though they’d been warned.
I dont think its ego with Batten. He probably views Farage as untrustworthy and that joining forces with him would be similar to joining forces with the Tories . Cant say I disagree with that.
Nigel Farage didn’t even reply to Katie Hopkins’ challenge. It was Anne Marie Waters’ offer to agree a split of constituencies that Gerard Batten has refused.
Whether you like AMW or not, she has given no reason for anyone to think that she is untrustworthy. When the security services placed an agent to follow her round and film her for six months, hoping to destroy her should she win the leadership of UKIP, they got nothing. What she says in private is (except for the odd swear word) exactly what she says in public.
Gerard Batten has said “UKIP makes no deals” because he sees UKIP as more important than Brexiteers of any stripe winning MPs.
We told them what to do -Leave. But as for the last 40 years , our MPs have to ask Brussels what to do . What do we pay them for ? and what is the purpose of their staff, the Squeaker and elections if its only to send requests to Brussels ?
I can do that by email from my khazi .
How any Brexiteer member of the Conservative or Labour Party can remain in their respective parties after this institutionalised treachery I just do not know.
Yes Jake, odd how the shadow ‘ministers’ were forced to resign defying party policy but May’s ministers who defied collective responsibility are still in post.
May is blackmailing Brexiteers – vote for my deal or I’ll ask the EU for an extension of a year or two. If she gets her deal through the House she says she’ll only ask the EU for a ‘technical’ delay of a few weeks.
This is monstrous – and we’ll make sure she knows it at the ballot box next time we’re given an option, but for now? What can we do?
One thing seems crystal clear to me. Catherine Barnard Cambridge Law lecturer on Question Time last night confirmed my suspicions when she said that the EU drafted the Withdrawal Agreement.
Since the EU is all about the destruction of the nation state idea and a majority of the British people want to reverse that idea then it is not hard to understand that the EU is not going to give us a mechanism by which we can escape. It may well give us a mechanism which looks like a deal but is a trap, as has happened
Mrs May is a Remainer and her sole role is to present to the people a pretence escape and hope they will fall for it. Twice the Commons has seen through it and rejected it. so, why, unless she is an agent of the EU does she keep coming back with the same proposition?
That the EU or EUSSR is part of a plan for World Government and deliberately anti-democratic can be seen on http://www.cravenfreedom.com
After buying the Daily Express for 35 plus years and then realising that it didn’t really believe in real independence from the European Union and then moving to the Daily Mail which was even worse, I then made the transition to the Daily Telegraph, a well written quality paper employing journalists of substance. Yes, it is more expensive, but the news is more in depth and infinitely more balanced and truthful, and long may it continue. I noted that yesterday when I read the UKIP Facebook site, that there wre over 2000 posts made within a couple of hours of those traitorous votes in the HoC. Maybe, just maybe some of the electorate that hitherto have buried their heads in the sand for year in year out, are now starting to wise up on our duplicitous political masters. Most were stating that they had or were intending to join and vote UKIP in future. Quite a few were asking why UKIP didn’t have candidates here there and everywhere. If only they knew that the party is not backed by big business and trade unions etc, and is virtually run on a shoestring with a patchwork of activists.
Well actually we DID have candidates ‘here there and everywhere’ for quite a few years and in the recent past. How else do you think we won the 2014 Euros ?
The grassroots enthusiasm was truly there. There were many Branches and they all self ~funded ( NONE received a penny from UKIP HQ as far as I am aware.)
What went wrong is that A] Nigel left his duty station in June 2016 and B] there does not seem to have been a single other MEP to be found who was able to put her / his DUTY to the country before selfish considerations.
Viv, the majority of MPs are not incompetent rather they are calculating and devious with May leading the pack.
Is there any MP sitting today who first took their seat in HoC before the 1972 Accession Act?
Just three (Skinner, Clarke and Kaufman), so through a process EUphemistically called Natural Wastage, over the past forty-something years, gradually the makeup of HoC has tiptoed towards a cross party EUrophile majority.
This is why there is the total disconnect between people and parliament today.
Also candidates for Tory MP are selected by Head Office, not by the constituencies – how easy now to ensure that MP candidates are all pro-EU. This practice must stop. Did Cameron ensure new Conservative MP candidates were on his & Osborne’s wavelength. As the phrase goes – ‘do bears s— in the woods?’.
One of the planks of Return of parliament to democracy.
Whatever happens over the next few weeks we need a clearout. Surely the present situation is every bit as serious as that which led Cromwell to kick them out?
Forgiveness for both MPs and the so-called civil servants who are complicit in this mess is not on my agenda; I hope others feel the same.
We all agree with the sentiment. However, sadly, until we have a Proportional Representation system for electing MPs ( and also local Councillors, btw, almost as important to prevent single party statelets becoming entrenched as they have done ) it just won’t happen.
Even now, this week, Lab and Tory local councillors are winning by elections in their respective tribal fiefdoms North and South respectively.
https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/home
The shenneginns of the HoC has gone way beyond the EU & Brexit. Our elected reps are not only ignoring the answer to the question they delegated to the people, they are about to renege on their own Act of Parliament that was passed to deliver the answer i.e. a date when said answer was to be enacted.
We’re entering very dangerous territory. If this was France by now they’d be riots on the streets and serious civil unrest. If Parliament decides that it’s going to ignore the will of the people (having asked for their ‘will’ in the first instance) & then ignores or reneges on its own Act of Parliament then there can be only one winner, the people.
How that comes about is the interesting bit. Hopefully, it’ll be via the ballot box, however Parliament will have only itself to blame if other means are required. I now understand why the US constitution allows citizens to bear arms for the security of a free State. Our State is not free of interference and control by a foreign power. The Establishment has hidden from the people the extent of this subjugation for decades. No longer!
The French seem to be very good at spontaneous AND widespread protest without having to organise too much for it beforehand. I don’t know what characteristics they have that facilitates this, but I think it is something we lack.
If however something sparks civil action maybe it would expand rapidly but small isolated incidents I don’t think are effective. Are people willing to do what may be necessary? Many are incensed with the destruction of democracy as we have just witnessed over the past few weeks, but many others are quite happy, the most important thing for them is that Leaving gets stopped.
Democracy is not so important when things are going your way. The ballot box? Something to be manipulated to give required results, or ignored if that doesn’t work.
John
ANGER, however much justified ( and I feel real, bitter, anger I assure you ) is not enough.
What is your practical way forward ?
Mine is to join the campaign for real votes ~ makevotesmatter.org.uk/home
If you know of a more effective mechanism for ( at some point ~i agree not as soon as I would like ) clearing out the Augean stable which the House of the Privileged Rich and Disdainful has become, please disclose it here.
https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/home
There is another way to make proportional voting even more acceptable. That is to factor votes in the HoC by the number of votes a member achieved in the election. Otherwise it could be apportioned on the constituency population of eligible voters or some other agreed factor. Whatever method is chosen it may be modified if/when necessary by editing a few lines of code.
This is easily achieved provided a computerised voting system were to replace the present antiquated process. It would save time and could also block the votes of those MPs who were not present for a significant period, maybe all, of the debate. Any particular agreed system of vote counting may be accomodated although I personally would object to systems where my vote might be transferred to a potentially winning candidate whom I might oppose.
What we have to avoid at all costs is an increase in the number of MPs.