There's a lot going to happen this week. It looks like this week will present the only chance for our elected representatives to assert the fundamental principal of British democracy- that parliament is sovereign in the UK, not the government or the Prime Minister. If Johnson and Cummings plan to drive a No Deal Brexit through by proroguing parliament is going to be stopped in the Houses of Commons and Lords then this is it. I hope they are up to it.
The large numbers of people out over the weekend marching show that there is public outrage and fears about this Tory right wing power grab but the pressure has to be maintained. Although Albert Square was fairly full on Saturday afternoon there were significantly more people shopping in the Arndale Centre or going to watch City play Brighton. There is an apathy about the English, a feeling that it couldn't happen here coupled with the view that Johnson is a man of action and he's getting things done. Marches and demonstrations are easily ignored by governments. A million people marched against going to war in Iraq. If parliament fails this week, the numbers on the streets and the intensity of the marches have to be increased. I sometimes think that witty placards and polite marching isn't necessarily going to do very much and that the only way the strength of feeling will be noticed is if things start getting smashed up. I'm not one to advocate violence but it worked with the Poll Tax.
It turns out that the people who talked so loudly in 2016 about taking back control and returning sovereignty to the mother of parliaments don't really give a fuck about that- they are ignoring the very thing they said they wanted to restore. What the last week has shown is that this country seriously needs a revolution, a wholesale change in its systems and practices. At the very least the UK needs a codified and written constitution, formally setting out the powers of the different branches of government with clearly delineated checks and balances. This necessitates a Head of State with actual political power who would have the constitutional right to resist the request from three members of the Privy Council to prorogue parliament last week. The Queen had no way to do this. I have no idea if she wanted to resist or didn't but that doesn't matter. Politically constitutional monarchy is dead in the water and has to go. Outdated, hamstrung and archaic, it serves no practical or political purpose. The House of Lords has got to got too, obviously, replaced by an elected second chamber (private education needs abolishing as well if we're going to break down the completely unrepresentative run of Prime Ministers who went to Eton). We need significant change, asap.
In 1989 Spacemen 3 called for a revolution. The one that Sonic Boom had in mind may have more due to the harassment he got due to his chosen lifestyle and the supply of hard drugs in the Rugby area than any real political concern but he does get to the point with 'well I'm through with people who can't get up off their ass to help themselves change this government and better society' before concluding 'hold on a second... I smell burning... and I see a change coming round the bend'.
5 comments:
I hope some sort of change is coming. But I fear the seduction of apathy.
Me too.
I see change coming too SA but I fear it is not in the direction that we are looking for and if I turn out to be right and we north of the border try to go our separate way which is becoming inevitable I think that it may get rather nasty and ugly.
You couldn't be more wrong. The country voted to exit. The anti-freedom pols have dithered and delayed. Only a no-deal Brexit on the table will give the UK some leverage in the exit deal.
I cannot believe how many fellow hipsters are falling for the globalists - The globalists will be the end of individual freedom ffs.
Good to get a spread of opinions Maria. I'm not a hipster, don't have even a single tattoo. Don't really think of myself as a globalist either although I realise that its become a zero sum game in which you're either leave or remain, us or them, one or the other, a globalist or a little Englander.
The phrase 'the country voted for Brexit' isn't really true is it? 52% of the people that voted, voted to exit. Part of the problem is that since June 2016 52% has been rounded up to 00 and 48 down to 0. Johnson's No Deal fantasy is his attempt at hardman politics and to win back those Tory voters that voted for the Brexit Party. He/Cummings have calculated they can win an election with just English leave voters. This may be true. we'll find out sooner or later. But the win if it happens will be pretty hollow if No Deal happens.
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