Here’s another piece I got yesterday from the pro-democracy group Open Britain, giving their damning opinion on our new, unelected Prime Minister and his wretched cabinet.
‘Dear David,
Here we go again. Rishi Sunak claims that he is a unifier, that his administration will be a fresh start, and that he will bring “integrity, professionalism, and accountability” to office. Unfortunately, his words are already conflicting with his actions.
Sunak may have seen off Jacob Rees-Mogg today but he went on to reinstate some of the most dangerous ideologues from the Johnson and Truss administrations. It doesn’t look like the fresh start we’ve been promised.
Dominic Raab, a man dead-set on dismantling our human rights framework with a bill that the Law Society says would “damage the rule of law” and “prevent access to justice”, is back in post. Even Truss saw the danger of this bill and it’s astonishing that it now looks to be back on the agenda.
Suella Braverman, anti-woke culture warrior and architect of the reprehensible Rwanda-deportation scheme, is back as Home Secretary. Just six days ago she resigned from office after breaking ministerial rules and jeopardising national security. Don’t forget, Braverman is a former chair of the European Research Group and her reappointment shows that the group’s stranglehold on government priorities did not depart with Liz Truss.
Michael Gove, Therese Coffey, Kemi Badenoch, Steve Barclay and others have also returned. It looks like this cabinet will be more or less a hybrid of Johnson and Truss’ senior teams…the very people who got us into this mess.
But what about Sunak’s programme for government? Well, we still haven’t heard much at all about what his plans are. Perhaps we will get some early clues at PMQs tomorrow, but it is astonishing that he has been installed in Number 10 on the say-so of about about 160 MPs with almost zero discussion of the plans he has to fix the economy and restore political stability. Surely a sign that our democracy is not exactly in tip-top shape.
And while all this was going on in Downing Street, in Parliament the Second Reading of the Retained EU Law Bill was taking place. If passed, that bill will automatically scrap regulations and protections associated with the EU, and give ministers massive powers to replace them with whatever they want. It will put all kinds of regulations in danger, including environmental rules, food safety standards, worker protection laws, and more. It will be a disaster for businesses and will undermine our democracy (Ministers should not have that much unchecked power).
We can be grateful that Boris Johnson isn’t back in office, but this cabinet and these bills remind us that not much has really changed. We’ll be watching what the new PM does over the coming days and weeks, but the early signs are that the chaos will continue and that our campaigning will be as important as ever.
Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours or so has persuaded us that this is what the country needs. We are still firmly of the opinion that the only credible route to sustainable political stability is to let the people decide how we should move forward. We won’t stop pushing for a general election.
All the very best,
The Open Britain Team‘
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