Jeremy Corbin writes in The Guardian that the British people must make the final decision on Brexit. Boris Johnson promised Britons a deal on Brexit. He has since changed his mind. He changes his mind a lot:
Johnson and fellow Conservatives who campaigned for Leave in 2016 promised people that they would get a deal. In 2017, Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, proclaimed: “There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a deal.”
In late July he promised EU citizens he would legislate to protect their rights. Now we learn the home secretary will end freedom of movement on 1 November without any new immigration rules or protections in its place. Clearly, this is not a prime minister people can trust.
Last week the Advertising Standards Agency banned a Home Office ad about EU citizens registering to stay because it was misleading. And the government registration app won’t be ready until the end of the year (months after the home secretary plans to scrap their rights).
As the Spectator – the magazine Johnson once edited – warns: “There are worrying signs of sloppiness, even negligence, in the way the Home Office is handling all this.”
This is seat of the pants politics. And the consequences will be disastrous:
No deal would destroy jobs, push up food prices and hand our public services and protections over to US corporations. And most of the public want nothing to do with this Trump-deal car-crash Brexit they are being driven towards.
Johnson knows he doesn't have a majority to push through a car crash Brexit:
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, let the cat out of the bag when he told his French counterpart that parliament is being suspended because “we’ve suddenly found ourselves with no majority”.
There is a much better option than proroguing Parliament. Johnson should call an election.
Will he? Stay tuned.
Image: Murdoch London
4 comments:
One thing I do admire about the British, Owen, is their willingness to demonstrate for what they believe in. Considering the massive turnouts for the Extinction Rebellion and anti-Brexit demonstrations, I would say Boris should be very worried should an election be called.
Judging from the images I see, Lorne, it appears that, while the majority of the members of the Conservative Party may support Boris, the majority of Britons don't.
Changes his mind a lot does our Boris, because he has no plan for anything, so flies by the seat of his not very smart pants. A Guardian op-ed opinion piece the other day called him and his crowd masturbatory public school boys.
The only operating theme Boris uses throughout that counts is the glorification of Boris himself. Nothing else matters to a sociopath. Any excuse will be proffered for a change in policy, because it's unimportant to him what actually happens so long as Boris's charge towards greatness as he sees it is unimpeded. A very dangerous twit. Well, that and the fact that he associates with the rentier and aristocrat class, the prime leeches on the general population, because they own real property and rent it. And foreigners to them are wallies, who should be scared by the UK leaving the EU, not the other way around. British is best and it's 1898 Empire greatness to that lot.
All the manufacturers' trade associations who've lobbied the Tories over and over and now Boris about the production problems of a no-deal Brexit, no investment going forward, matter not a whit to the insane asylum in charge. Regular jobs and people don't count in their worldview. Nor is the elite bureaucracy much concerned what the average peon thinks or says because they know better - think of Yes, Minister. And after all, the top public servants want to join the idle elite class after they're knighted for services rendered. Nearest I've seen here in Canada is that highly objectionable Michael Wernick who operated like an autocrat with the lower-graded public servants, with sniffing and look down his nose quality social standards of his own, while obsequiously brown-nosing the Privy Council and JT -- now we pay for his gilded retirement.
From what I've read, the UK rentiers are only responsible for 30% of economic activity, while manufacturers and regular companies look after the other 70%. The latter simply are too lower class, even if they are BMW, Toyota, Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover, to understand the upper class gets its needs attended to first, and a no-deal Brexit is of no consequence to the sit-on-their-backsides idle leeches of others' income - everyone needs a place to live, after all, old boy. Let the commoners eat chlorinated chicken from US animal factories, it's game pheasant and quail for the rich. The fact that British Steel already closed down amid the uncertainty - who cares? They have dirt under their fingernails, filthy blighters.
The Advertising Standards Authority is, surprisingly enough, a series of private companies, the main one of which is the association of British advertising companies who came together over 40 years ago to come up with a cohesive set of standards for ads, and to "police" what was out there. Easily Googled. It followed the introduction of the Trade Descriptions Act which disallowed false claims in advertising or sales and also made vendors responsible for things like the cost of returning goods that didn't work at all or were entirely unsuitable for purpose, including bus fares incurred! I was studying in London when that Act came out. So the Tories' proposed advertising ran afoul of a private company. The irony is delightful considering the extreme neoliberal outlook of Thatcher's descendants. Kudos to poor old John Major, though. He was a Tory PM but has come out opposing a no deal Brexit recently and particularly the prorogation horsesh!t.
BM
Boris is not the first leader to conflate his well being with the well being of a nation state, BM. History suggests, however, that such sophistry never ends well.
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