Yesterday, BoJob’s old mucker Michael Gove appeared on the Andrew Marr Show to be interviewed about Johnson’s coup. And his answer to one question, and outright refusal to answer others shows that he shares his masters outright contempt for parliamentary sovereignty. Marr asked him if the government would obey new legislation from MPs forcing Brexit to be delayed. Gove replied that it may not. This, as the twitter account dedicated to the late Labour activist, Harry Leslie Smith, ‘is what dictatorships look and sound like’. The Parliament UK website states that in the UK, parliament is the supreme legal power, not the government, and parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the British constitution. In stating that Johnson’s government may not abide by parliamentary legislation, Gove has confirmed that this is indeed an administration that is out of control and a threat to British democracy. And the folks on twitter were very quick to point this out.
Mike has a selection of them in his article about this. Apart from ‘Harry Leslie Smith’, there was the quantum physicist and science broadcaster, Professor Brian Cox, who tweeted:
“This statement – that the government may decide not to obey the law – confirms that the current minority government is dangerous. Every MP with integrity from any party must stop them this coming week. This is no longer about Brexit – that can be dealt with afterwards.”
Quite so. Mike himself, after discussing some of the issues that will be raised this week, such as parliament’s ability to pass a ‘Section 24’ law and whether parliament will pass legislation delaying Brexit, and Johnson’s government comply with it, concludes
But the most fundamental question of all must surely be: What will we do if Boris Johnson refuses to accept the sovereign will of Parliament and tries to dictate what the UK does? If he actually does assume the role of dictator, how do we stop him?
Gove has implied Dictator Johnson may ignore the most important part of the UK’s constitution
It’s a good question, and a group of 20 Tory MPs, who are threatening to defy Johnson’s demand to support his Brexit at the end of October, have been told that if they do so, he will withdraw the whip from them in parliament and prevent them standing as Tory candidates in the next election. Johnson will, in other words, purge them from the party. As Mike has pointed out, it’s an empty threat. If Johnson’s government falls, he won’t be leader of the Tories and so will be in no position to make sure they’re deselected. And if they did vote against him, then his government would fall.
They rebel Tories may also call Johnson’s bluff, as there have been reports that say that the 20 may stand as Independent Tories at the next General Election. Which would be a massive, historic split in the Tory party.
The response of Tory chairman James Cleverly was a panicked tweet denying that the Tory party has deselection mechanisms. And the folks on twitter have already compared Johnson’s threats of deselection to Stalin’s purges. Jack D and Henry Zeffman both pointed out that the Tory press has tried to smear Jeremy Corbyn as a power-mad authoritarian threatening mass deselections. Corbyn hasn’t done so, and if he did, he would certainly be denounced as a Stalinist by the Tories. But now the irony is that Johnson, a Tory MP, is set to do this very thing.
See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/09/02/tory-rebels-are-set-to-call-dictator-johnsons-bluff/
Tim Fenton, the Sage of Crewe, has also pointed out that not only would the Tories accuse Corbynism of Stalinism if he threatened mass deselections, but that by supporting Johnson’s threats to expel the rebel Tories the right-wing press has decided that Stalinism is quite acceptable when they do it. He quotes a few headlines to show it. He writes
‘Metro has told readers “ID cards may be withdrawn from rebel MPs … Tory no-deal ‘traitors’ could be deselected”, while the Express has shrieked “BORIS VOWS TO BOOT OUT BREXIT REBELS”. The Telegraph prefers “PM warns rebel MPs: back me or be sacked”, and the Mail agrees: “BACK ME OR I’LL SACK YOU”, as does the Times, with “I’ll kick you out of party, Johnson tells Tory rebels”.’
This isn’t an accident. The Tory press has been entirely supportive of the coup. The Times published an editorial denying that Johnson’s prorogation of parliament was any such thing. As for the mass demonstrations that occurred up and down the country on Saturday, the following day’s papers had very little to say about them. Of course, it may be that the press was taken entirely off guard, and didn’t have enough staff to give them proper coverage. Or they really did believe that other stories were more important, which is the excuse the media always gives for refusing to cover left-wing demonstrations or other events properly, where the Left embarrasses and exposes the incompetence and callousness of the right. But it looks far more like culpable silence. They didn’t want the British people to defy Johnson’s coup, and so were very definitely not going to call attention to their doing so. It hardly happened, as far as they were concerned.
But it was left to Sun to show how really contemptuous of democracy and its institutions the Tory press were. The Scum thundered
“WHY should the Government promise to enact some as-yet-unwritten and arguably illegitimate law being cooked up by Remainers with their rogue Speaker? … The Government runs the country, not a cross-party rabble”.
To which Zelo Street commented ‘Democratically elected MPs? Democratically taken decisions? The sovereignty of Parliament? Pah! Away with them!’
See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/09/press-now-says-stalin-was-cool.html
Exactly. This is one of the fundamental, defining features of Fascism, aside from the militant racism: an absolute contempt for parliamentary democracy. Both the Italian Fascists and the Nazis claimed to have saved their countries from ‘corrupt parliamentarianism’ as the Italian Fascists called it. Democracy had, in their eyes, done nothing but weaken their countries. Only strong government through a dictator could restore them to greatness. The Scum’s denunciation of the ‘Remainers with their rogue Speaker’ and ‘a cross-party rabble’ comes very close to real Fascist rhetoric.
Which shows very clearly how hollow the right-wing media’s claim to hold government to democratic account and prevent the rise of Fascist dictatorship really is.
Tags: 'The Telegraph', Andrew Marr Show, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brian Cox, Conservatives, Demonstrations, Deselection, Harry Leslie Smith, Henry Zeffman, Jack D, James Cleverly, Labour Party, Michael Gove, MPs, Parliament, Purges, Quantum Physics, Stalinism, The Metro, The Sun, The Times, Vox Political, Zelo Street
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
September 2, 2019 at 6:35 pm |
So very, very afraid. I’m old enough to remember Jewish and other Europeans settled here after the war, and even some who were young men who fought in the Battle of Cable street. They all told of vicious political violence by individuals and the state. I spent one summer typing translations of deposition transcripts of those tortured in the Shit of Irans goals. I felt their visceral fear, and this is now making me feel that fear for my friends and family and political activists, perhaps because I know what is ahead. The MSM have crossed over into creating the fascists, instead of fighting them.
September 3, 2019 at 10:45 am |
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