O/T:- Who needs Parliament?

[countygump]

Have you seen the state of the LibDems recently?

And as for Labour, how can they sing from the same hymnsheet when their voters 'couldnae agree on the colour of ****e'. I can't even agree with myself on the issue.

The Lib Dems are at present the only ''revoke'' party meaning a section of the voters that this policy appeals to, may well vote their way. The Tories are now a ''leave'' party as are the Brexit Party. What are the bloody Labour Party??? A bit of everything really???

[jackal2]

I think people are being very naive about BoJo. He is an incredibly intelligent person who hides behind a bumbling persona. I think he has played the remainers and they have fallen for his trap hook, line and sinker.

I don't believe that Boris Johnson really minds if we leave in October, or December, or March next year for that matter. He knows he cannot deliver in the current climate due of parliament and his own party. This is obvious and he clearly knows. He is preparing for a general election far more than a no deal Brexit on the 31st of October. What he has been able to do is to get rid of some relatively unpopular MP's fairly easily who will vote against him, meaning that any Tory majority will be a true majority come election time. A general election (when it will inevitably come) will allow him to fill those seats with those who support him and win around the full support of his party.

By parliament passing laws regarding pushing no deal brexit back and getting parliament to squirm on an election after calling for one weekly for over a year, Boris has managed to highlight to the British people that remainers are "against" democracy in two ways, they won't respect the referendum result, AND they don't want an election on the matter either - they don't trust the British people to decide (because they know that they will give the Brexiteers a majority). All Boris has to do is to give them every opportunity possible to continue with this course of behaviour and rile up the electorate. The Brexiteers get up and vote, and the remainers either are truly a minority or they just don't bother voting. The "Youth Vote" of the last election was a lie and a fallacy - it swung nothing and if that is the extent of the Youth Quake then they shouldn't be too scared at all. The SNP will do well, but they won't be in parliament by the next election anyway (and why the hell would we want them to be?); the Lib Dems will "gain" ground of frustrated Labour middle class voters and some CUK's and Labour will lose major seats in the North and even more in the south - the stage is set.

If I'm correct, Boris has played it brilliantly. He is shooting up the polls and soon enough as he continues to allow the remainers to be remainers and to "frustrate" his attempts to deliver brexit he will only get more and more popular. There will be a General Election in March or so and between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party they will walk it.

Theres your trap. The left have fallen for it big time. I despise Tony Blair, but he seems to be just about the only one who has seen through it and is calling out Boris's actions as a trap. An election before Brexit is basically a second referendum, but with the remain vote split between SNP, Labour, Greens, Lib Dems and CUK's (lol). There are too many moving parts there to be able to develop any sort of coherent coalition.

A thoughtful, well-reasoned post and I don't think you're far off the mark with this.

I posted a couple of weeks ago that all of the focus on 31 October was a red herring and that this was really about positioning for a General Election. The aim is to ramp up the anger and frustration of every Leave supporter to fever pitch and convert that into as many votes for the Conservatives as possible. Every supposed political or legal 'victory' for the Remainers just reinforces that agenda.

You refer to the Conservatives and the Brexit Party walking the election, but it's unclear to me how much of a factor the Brexit Party will be. The Conservatives have now positioned themselves so squarely on Brexit Party territory that many Tories who supported Farage's party at the European elections - in frustration at the likes of Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke - might now be persuaded to return to the Conservative fold, especially knowing that Brexit Party would need a miracle to overcome the first-past-the-post hurdle and get any more than a handful of MPs. In the past two weeks that shift back to the Tories certainly seems to have been happening, with the Conservative support rising in many polls and the Brexit Party dropping back.

That could still be undermined, however. If Boris isn't as smart as you think and weakens his position by trying to sell some repackaged version of May's deal, then the Brexit Party could play on such nonsense to regain some initiative. The Conservatives won't want to rely on a pact between themselves and Nigel Farage, but it will probably all depend on how much support they feel they have clawed back from the Brexit Party by the time the General Election is called.

Boris' public stance is that he would sooner break the law or resign than seek an extension, possibly because he thinks Nigel Farage would exploit any such extension request as a U-turn and proof that the Conservatives can't deliver Brexit. I'm not so sure that Leavers will interpret it that way. So long as Boris makes it clear at every opportunity that he is against any extension and is being forced to do so by a Remain Parliament that will use any means to undermine the referendum result, then I think many Leavers would understand the Prime Minister's predicament and focus their revenge on Remainer MPs, not on the PM. Boris could then campaign on the basis that a Conservative majority - this time without imposters like Clarke, Gauke, Grieve and Letwin polluting the Government benches - would enable him to deliver Brexit unhindered by Parliament, with or without a deal.

[seriouspie]

... excellent summary Skatorna. Perfidious Parliament indeed ... Let's clear the swamp.

"Perfidious" ....... lovely adjective and so true ... especially when describing Bercow.

Anyone who watched the antics the other night when parliament was closed just shows what these yobbos really are. 70 odd grand a year + perks for that sort of behaviour. A wonderful way to demonstrate to the world that us Brits have no class whatsoever, John "I like the sound of my own voice" Bercow is a disgusting example of a self promoting pontificating prat. Stepping down with a million quid pension as soon as he knew the Tories would oppose his parliamentary seat... a big man eh? As said Skatorna ... clear the swamp of these ineffectual tossers ...... but at least Bercow won't get his peerage.

[BigFatPie]

Johnson and the unelected bureaucrats that surround him are strategical masterminds if you accept that they knew that their decision to suspend parliament would lead to;

Unifying a previously divided Remain opposition.

Motivating that opposition to organise a legally watertight Bill and put it through Parliament in double quick time.

Losing their majority and having to expel some of the most long-standing and respected colleagues.

Lose every vote they’ve been involved in.

Having to say one day they don’t want an election and the next day that they do.

Having to talk about breaking the law before saying they won’t break the law.

Be found in court to have lied to the queen about the reasons for suspending parliament.

That list isn’t exhaustive , but if you’re having to do enough mental gymnastics to convince yourself it’s all part of a big plan then fair enough, I’m a Nigerian prince and can I have your bank details?

Labour aren’t taking sufficient advantage of this farce because there’s too many Lexiters surrounding Corbyn, but hopefully that’ll soon change when common sense prevails.

[the_anticlough]

Johnson and the unelected bureaucrats that surround him are strategical masterminds if you accept that they knew that their decision to suspend parliament would lead to;

Unifying a previously divided Remain opposition.

Motivating that opposition to organise a legally watertight Bill and put it through Parliament in double quick time.

Losing their majority and having to expel some of the most long-standing and respected colleagues.

Lose every vote they’ve been involved in.

Having to say one day they don’t want an election and the next day that they do.

Having to talk about breaking the law before saying they won’t break the law.

Be found to have lied to the queen about the reasons for suspending parliament.

Even if Johnson was thrown in jail next week these guys would still be saying it's all part of his masterplan

[the_anticlough]

It was all so predictable if you think about it.

Johnson can't stop himself lying, never has been able to
Becoming PM brings him into contact with the Queen
Johnson lies to the Queen

Quod erat demonstrandum as the stupid twaat himself might say

[bridpie78]

It's one possibility of many as things are pretty fluid at the moment. There is a theory that the more the remoaners/referendum deniers land blows on him, the more the Leave vote come his way, which seems pretty plausible to me. It wouldn't surprise me to see The Lib Dems really make substantial gains while the Labour Party fails miserably. If you try to sit between two stools, you invariably end up falling on the floor.




Meanwhile, over at Labour HQ...

Corbyn wants an election & then a 2nd referendum

His deputy wants a referendum, then an election

His shadow cabinet want to remain

50+ MPs want to agree a deal via Boris & leave

10+ MPs want No Deal

At least they are all on the same page.

Add to that list labour announcing they will not back another scottish independence vote if they elected which scuppers any chance of adding numbers to their ranks in the highly unlikely event a coalition were to be required and the libdems announcing their intention to go full on remain which means they will further split labours and their own share of votes in key areas labour and the remainers are finished

I think we'll be out of Europe before the next GE but even if we aren't with a much more workable relationship and polls saying tories/brexit party have 50-55% of the vote it'd be a landslide for leave,(with a tory party that has purged all its most vocal dissenters too)
Nothing has really changed from before the weekend on the leave side of the argument,what we've seen is the remainers destroy themselves by walking into the trap set by Boris and his advisers and all the while they thought they were winning in their own smug self congratulating way.

One of the key battlegrounds was changing the labels,the polarising leave and remain became deal,no deal and anti no deal, i dont think this was an accident, it was carefully orchestrated and split remain into two camps those who would never accept leaving the EU and those willing to compromise,and then those who would compromise were further split because they couldnt agree amongst themselves what to compromise on, my take on things is that most leavers would if pushed would choose no deal over any attempt to remain and that has changed the game.

I would say that leave embraced the internet and social media where remain tried to use traditional media to get their message across ,i have been watching updates from the guardian,bbc and sky with interest in the last month, they have waged a propaganda war the nazi party would be proud of, stories released like clockwork every half hour to promote remain and run down Boris, some of the non stories that were spun to be disasterous have been laughable at times, Amber Rudd quitting has the Tory party in meltdown? really? she was a pro-remain MP in a pro leave constituency that got into parliament by just under 400 votes, she was a dead MP walking and she knew it,she was quickly replaced and will be next seen taking a job with the EU on a nice big salary, none of the above media mentioned her multimillionaire pro EU lobbyist brother who was probably pulling her strings all along

Other MP's have used this as a platform for their future careers, i never once thought Rory Stewart was sincere in anything he said, he reminds me of a young tony blair all soundbites and no substance, he probably has his eye on the top job in 10-15 years time and i'm certain he has a team of PR people and agents telling him when to pop up and comment for best effect, there are others who are using brexit as a tool to further their own careers but he for me has been the worst and people can see it we aren't as daft as they'd like to think we are,just read twitter or facebook or some smaller more unbiased independent news sites people are furious.
While mentioning Blair who's daft idea was it to wheel him out to support remain!! if any one figure is going to turn people off its him, remain would have been geniuses to have had him promote leave

This is the age of social media and people can chat and discuss things 24/7 without having their opinions forced on them by selected media outlets like they have done for decades, when people feel like they are being lied to, patronised or only being told some of the story there is always more just a click away

Remain just didn't get that.

[Elite_Pie]

Even if Johnson was thrown in jail next week these guys would still be saying it's all part of his masterplan

Even if he was found lying dead in a ditch next week they would insist it was part of his master plan to fool remainers.

I think the big problem in his strategy is getting Tory MPs on side. 50% of them don't like him, 25% love him, and 25% will kiss his arse and pretend they like him if they think it will advance their career. Labour are easy to beat at the moment, but I suspect a lot of Tories, both in Westminster and beyond, don't like the way he is trying to copy his puppet master over the pond.

[BigFatPie]

It was all so predictable if you think about it.

Johnson can't stop himself lying, never has been able to
Becoming PM brings him into contact with the Queen
Johnson lies to the Queen

Quod erat demonstrandum as the stupid twaat himself might say

100% correct and his supporters, both here and elsewhere online, almost always see themselves as big patriots and royalists, but are the first to cheer when his cronies are trashing the institutions of the country when it suits their political objectives.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest.

[bridpie78]

100% correct and his supporters, both here and elsewhere online, almost always see themselves as big patriots and royalists, but are the first to cheer when his cronies are trashing the institutions of the country when it suits their political objectives.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest.

A Corbyn fanboy using the words cognitive dissonance is just gold! you couldn't make it up.