I’m sorry, what?! That is ludicrous, even more so the reasons they’ve given for doing it. Johnson and his government are insisting this is to do with the domestic agenda and not Brexit, which is so much bullshit I don’t know where to start shovelling. This is clearly about trying to steamroller a version, any version of Brexit through by the 31st October. Johnson is so keen to be seen as holding to his promise that Britain would leave the EU this year that he will take a bulldozer to parliamentary procedure to make it happen.
And all this in the name of upholding the result of a democratic vote. It is truly ridiculous that this is what the situation has devolved to. A vote called to try and quell rebellions in the Conservative party, which returned a marginal majority, that wasn’t even legally binding and was purely advisory. The government then charging into invoking Article 50 before any substantial debate on what form Brexit would take had been held, setting an aggressive stance before the negotiations had even begun, calling a snap election to enlarge their majority and losing it entirely, limping on trying to play hardball before having to walk back on previous statements to get a withdrawal agreement, not a trade deal, just an agreement on how and when Britain will leave the EU. And to top it all off, they can’t even persuade the majority of their own party to get behind the Prime Minister and pass the agreement through the House of Commons. One of those who defied the whip is the man who will supposedly plot the course for the rest of us mere mortals to follow into the glorious new era, Boris Johnson. A man who absolutely does not have a reputation for talking utter nonsense and lying through his teeth to advance up the greasy pole. *COUGH* £350 million for the NHS on the side of a bus *COUGH*.
And Labour are just as guilty in this whole debacle. Under Jeremy Corbyn, they have never been a truly effective opposition in the House of Commons. Prime Minister’s Questions is largely a shouting match where the two leaders try and score points with funny little quips and digs at their opposite number, but it’s outside that venue where he and Labour have failed. The bottom line is that ordinary voters outside the party and outside his fanbase do not trust Jeremy Corbyn. It is as simple as that. I never believed him during the referendum campaign when he was supposedly campaigning to stay in the EU. It is unfair, however for the Tories to continually him with chaos is rather the case of the pot calling the kettle black, because the chaos is already here and it’s only going to get worse.
It just rubs me the wrong way that this is the way that those in power have decided to try to do this. And I think that has stemmed from the fact that the referendum did not return a decisive or super-majority. If the final vote had been 60% to 40% in favour of leaving I would accept this more readily. I wouldn’t like it, I’d still think it was a stupid thing to do, but I would accept that this was the outcome the vast majority of people wanted. But it was so slim that I just don’t feel we can make such a monumental decision that will have such a wide ranging impact on the future of millions of children and young people in this country on such a tiny percentage swing. It’s also just wrong to say “In the name of democracy and the regaining of our sovereignty (which we never lost in the first place because we signed up to join years after we turned down the opportunity to be one of the founding countries), we will shut down the democratic legislature of the country and force this on many millions who did not want it, in the name of democracy.” I just can’t helping feeling worried about the precedent this might set for the future.
Eat, Sleep, Blog, Repeat 