Today’s events – and Queen’s inevitable compliance – mean 5 December likeliest date for new general election
The Queen has granted Boris Johnson’s request to prorogue Parliament, preventing MPs’ wish to pass legislation to block his attempts to take the UK out of the EU with no Brexit deal.
This alternative plan – pushed by MPs desperate to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Number 10 – makes a no-confidence vote the only option for those who wish to remove the unelected, anti-democratic PM.
However, the likely no-confidence vote is not one that will be tabled by Labour.
Tory MPs who cannot bring themselves to support a Labour no-confidence motion now have an alternative, because they now have a government-tabled opportunity.
In bringing a Queen’s Speech to Parliament – the mechanism he has exploited to force the suspension of Parliament – Johnson has in effect tabled his own vote of no confidence. A defeated Queen’s Speech is the equivalent of a no-confidence vote.
This presents squeamish Tory MPs, who would quail at supporting a Labour motion against a Tory PM, with the best landscape to vote against their government.
The success of Johnson’s request means that the most likely date for a parliamentary no-confidence vote is 17 October, the date he has set for his Queen’s Speech.
Given the two-week process legislated for attempts to win a confidence vote in an alternative government, this would result in the calling of a general election on 31 October – the day the UK is set to leave the EU – and the mandatory minimum period for a general election campaign would mean ballots would be cast less than three weeks before Christmas, on Thurs 5 December.
Activists need to start preparing now – and local Labour parties need to push their regional offices hard to ensure trigger ballots and candidate selections are arranged without delay. The general election campaign is likely to cost Labour around £14 million, so party supporters will be asked to dig deep.
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This BoRis , pig head fucking Bollinger Club bigot, brigand , bully and traitor to the people of Great Britain is a DicKtator and needs to GO
Sheelah, I am on twitter and FB and I love your rants, I second everything you’ve just written.
do something useful and sign the effing petition
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/269157
Certainly not. It is an attempt to prevent a No Deal Brexit which is the only way of making the extension of public ownership (which should be at the heart of any Labour Left programme) a lawful policy. At the moment any attempt at significant nationalisation would be struck down by the courts for breach of EU law. The Theresa May Withdrawal Agreement has the same effect as does membership of the European Economic Area.
The Labour Left should back a No Deal Brexit instead of being squeamish about ‘recklessness’ – a real bit of Labour left-Tory role reversal.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/nationalisation
Best tell that to Corbyn who unlike you speaks sense , BTW he will do everything possible to stop a no deal , You Danny are NOT Labour
Danny with creative ways and means, and – more importantly with the WILL – this issue could perhaps be got round.
You will ask me how. I’m not sure but it is fun trying to figure out ways, preferably over a beer with some well informed friends. One of those lateral thinking quizzes – what would you do if you wanted A, but B, C, and D were in your way.
The rest of the EU were never stupid enough to privatise everything in the first place. It is no skin off their noses to let Corbyn renationalise, and I am sure they would gladly do so if that is what it took to keep us in the EU.
Thanks rob done that do wish they would use the legaly correct word Royal prerogative…..Still worth the debate though in parliament
No worries Joe count now at 460K and demos being organised in London and Manchester.
I hope this is the straw that breaks the camels back .. and finally kicks the slumbering UK into action
December poll? If so, Labour has had it!
It will kick the bucket in any autumn/early winter election.
It gives me no pleasure saying so, as someone who rejoined the Party because of Corbyn and voted for him in both leadership elections.
Corbyn’s Labour has DOOMED ITSELF in advance because it has thrown away most of its Lab-Con target seats – SEVENTY PER CENT OF WHICH VOTED LEAVE – by capitulating to the Blairites (and Fake Left left-liberal EU-adoring Corbynistas) over Second Referendum plus Remain.
It will not escape the attention of voters in those Leave-voting marginals that Keir Starmer rather accurately boasts that Labour is now a Remain Party.
Such voters are hardly likely to vote Labour with the party promising to kick them in the face over their votes in the EU Referendum.
My guess is that we will not only lose the election but actively lose seats and we’ll have a smaller Labour Party representation than in the present Parliament.
Oh FFS, Danny – find someone to hold hands with and get in touch with the living :
Labour was always a Remain *party*. By a large margin. Pretending otherwise was always flying in the face of actuality in order to placate the Faragist Mann’s and Hoey’s of this world. And that went well, didn’t it?
As to constituencies ‘voting’. As said elsewhere – they don’t.
Fighting the Tories, the Brexit Party and UKIP over solid conservative Leave votes whilst gifting shedloads of Remain votes to other parties is as dim a strategy as anyone could conceive. That third of the electorate is already spoken for … might be an idea to work on the more perceptive in the remaining two thirds.
True RH and Danny needs to grasp that this is NOT about Brexit now its about our DEMOCRACY being taken down by an unelected twat in number 10
If it was ALWAYS a remain party – WHY was there no 2nd ref/ remain option decided at conference 2016, in 2017 or even 2018?
In fact – It NEVER WAS decided by conference, was it?
When Scargill ordered the miners out instead of going to a vote it gave thatcher all the ammunition (and then some) that the arl bastard needed. The way they’ve gone about getting the 2nd ref is NO different.
I get what Danny’s saying. I hope he’s wrong and people see sense to get the priority of a labour govt over eu membership (Or even with if it has to come to it) but I simply cannot disagree with votes having been/ will be lost because of watson & starmer’s (But especially watson’s) carryings-on.
They will have alienated more than they will have attracted. The proportion of the brexit party at the last (Unnecessary and pointless) eu election reflected as much.
The lib dems are NOT in contention in the overwhelming majority of those marginals Perhaps they might claw back one or two in their west country stronghold, but they’ll be for the toerags. In the north it’s a far different tale.
It’s really NOT that hard to grasp.
**FROM the toerags
Oh rob ! – The whole Brexit shambles has been about perverting democracy : subsevience to the US coupled with deregulation and boot-filling by the gambling industry and rentiers. This is just the next stage.
Do catch up.
In answer to your question, Toffee – I was talking about the party as its membership (which should be the lode star for Labour.
But Conference decided – quite excusably – to try to bridge the unbridgeable and pander to the Leaver brainstorm, mistaking lack of decisiveness for accomodation. History.
@RH Oh rob ! – The whole Brexit shambles has been about perverting democracy
I KNOW , it is that some others do not ,,, yet or refuse to grasp that fact .
After Ten Years of Tory Neglect and Tory Austerity (though they immediately gave tax cuts to the rich and big business corporations TO PROTECT THEM FROM AUSTERITY) and after 3 years plus and counting of Tory Dithering re Brexit they are now suddenly promising to get things done from the Tory Magic Money Tree!
I would like Labour to take up a brilliant idea by a Leftie and put on election leaflets examples of the bills for NHS proceedures WE would have received if it hadn’t been for our brilliant free NHS and this is what could happen to YOU if you let Johnson in to do a trade deal with the US which opens up our NHS to their private healthcare companies!
But I would also be tempted to pull the rug from under Johnson and say Labour will offer a Better Brexit Deal.
I just hope with Labour’s new line we are not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
The new refined line of a GE then A Better Brexit Deal with an option to Remain, I get, but is it enough to win the left behind with too?
It will be the fight of our lives and we’ll have to be like last time and give everything for a JC transformative Labour Govt, millions and particularly the poor are depending on us if not billions around the word and remember “Only the stars will ride the storm!”
Wallasey CLP (suspended for 18 months on a pack of lies) need to act quickly now to dispose of the enemy within. I won’t be squandering my vote on a worthless Quisling.
Well Danny I thought that in March 2019 when the snap election was announced. Yet here we are.
Nobody said the revolution would be easy. (As my friend who was acting as a polling clerk said to a lady who was cross because her pencil had broken)
Steadfast and with solidarity, with enthusiasm and humour, let’s see what happens.
That’s one witty friend you have there, Bay. Best laugh of the day! 😅
It gives me no pleasure saying so,
Don’t lie, Danny, of course it does. It’s why you come on here every chance you get to do so!
Say something constructive or piss off!
Exactly my sentiments timfrom.
mine as well
And there is a rally organised in Leeds, 11am at the Town Hall.
Painful watching Corbyn bleating the remoaner “oh, it’s terrible” line – from a ‘new kind of politics’ to Establishment tool. Outside the bubble voters just want done with it and will not thank JC for looking like a centrist.
John…its bozzo thats conniving with the head of the Establishment theQueen to suppress the parliament.The argument regarding the ignoring of the majority that voted to leave is a different argument?We the Labour party are now being trashed by the establishment….come on board there’s an election to be fought!
I am on board but can’t help but think that Swinson and Corbyn together is a v bad optic.
Just heard someone on R4 arguing that the constitutional crisis is a clash between two types of democracy – ‘public’ (referendum) democracy and parliamentary democracy. I’d like Corbyn to talk in those terms and explain that while Watson, Starmer etc. are believers in the sovereignty of parliamentarians he is a man of the public – hence we get out and move on from there. This would neutralise Johnson’s main tactic – as things are we’re playing into his hands. For me, it’s more important to win the GE than it is to stay in the EU and I don’t see staying being attractive to the electorate.
“Outside the Bubble voters just want it done with “- well it will not be done with if we exit without a deal.
According to the governments own leaked documents there will be chaos at ports, food and medicine and other shortages. Do you think voters outside the bubble want or are prepared for this? Of course not
In relation to your nasty remarks about Jeremy Corbyn, these are totally uncalled for. Jeremy Corbyn is an unambitious man, a man of integrity who suddenly found himself thrust into the spotlight, who had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him, withstood it all and will now lead the attempts to avert a no deal Brexit.
As has been often been pointed out he doesn’t have the numbers in parliament to guarantee success and if he fails it will not be his fault but will be largely down to people putting themselves and there careers above the national interest. Jeremy Corbyn has never done that and never will.
“Outside the bubble voters just want done with it”
Agreed. Most want Brexit to f. off. Stupid idea for distracting the gullible whilst pleasuring the US and the Rees Moggs. Time to ditch it.
In 1979 Thatcher kissed goodbye to what was left of the One Nation Tory party and the post war consensus that whoever got in, you did what was best for the country,
Today the bastard offspring finally took the party over the cliff
REJOICE
I suspect that there is more than just the conservative party involved in this coup……All will be revealed and trust not the enemy within?
UK Government and Parliament Petition
Do not prorogue Parliament /b>
Parliament must not be prorogued or dissolved unless and until the Article 50 period has been sufficiently extended or the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU has been cancelled.
Sign this petition
Signature so far = 1,000,292
Hers’s the link.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/269157
Newsnight showed the 1m+ petition page on screen a few minutes ago… as Paul Mason referred back to the poll tax ‘protests’ having done for Thatcher.
Hint.
David I live in hope that we will rise up and hit the streets to protest against the privy council and Royal prerogative granted to Johnson to destroy the parliament. The only democracy we have in this class ridden country…. With the media’s panicking,knowing they are responsible for letting the dogs out,we finally have a chance to breakthrough and form e Labour government…..if our enemy’s within back off.A political shock is just what the doctor ordered and we will push the advent while we can!
Just watching Jerkob Reet-Smunt smarmed up to the nines 1890’s-stylee telling me the gumment’s found a perfectly legal, constitutional and respectable way to steal democracy from under parliament’s nose.
Makes me want to dig up the pitchfork and march on London.
I hope his brylcreemed hair catches fire and the plastic straw holding his head on melts.
Petition up to nearly 1.4m at 10.23am 29/8.
“Lock him up! Lock him up!”
‘As ignorance lands upon your gate.
Citizens do not slumber.
Drive Barbarian Tories from the door.
With democratic thunder!’
The latest faux outrage by our MP’s shows how incompetent and self-serving they really are. Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament is hardly an affront to democracy as MP’s and the MSM like to make out. It’s a tactic just like any other in politics and it is being used because of the inability of MP’s to get to grip with Brexit. They’ve done their best to stop the will of the people being carried out and yet they have shown themselves to be contemptible in their actions of the last three years.
Boris knows they will never agree. He knows the only way of getting Brexit through is by giving them less time to bung up the works in Parliament. No one wants a no deal Brexit but that is what will happen if our MP’s don’t get a dose of reality. Their best chance was to vote Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit proposals through, they didn’t and that is why we are here at this juncture.
They’ve cut off their nose to spite their face. This faux moral outrage shows them to complete and utter charlatans of the highest order. Their actions will mean we will leave without a deal and they are complicit in the Trump trade deal that will decimate our NHS. They won’t suffer as we pay their stipend and once again the most vulnerable in our society will be left to scavenge for a living. These MP’s (with honourable exceptions such as Pidcock, Corbyn, Abbott, McDonnell, Lavery, Williamson, Burgon, Skinner, Long-Bailey & Gardner) have no conscience nor interest in the country other than to appease their neoliberal and austerity loving masters the EU.
Christopher Leave out Double barrel Bailey ,Israeli stooge,and persistent backstabbing of Corbyn and the membership…..some of us have long memorys and we do not need another traitor! …it takes to long to get rid of them
Anyone who thinks this Parliament will vote in the interests of the general public are deluded. Like many Parliaments before it it is fighting for the status quo and business as usual. I could care less if it is closed for a bit longer, what would they discuss or do that they haven’t been ‘discussing’ and playing political games for the last 3 fing years?
I hear Parliament was prorogued during the cash for questions scandal… I don’t recall the cries of ‘coup’ or fight for ‘democracy’ back then. Excuse me if I grab the sick bucket.
The problem is the bankrupt and corrupted political system that allows venal, self interested career politicians to gain majority of seats and an archaic constitutional monarchy that is designed for subverting the public will whenever required.
It’s time to relieve the Royalty of all political decision making,,Clearly she has to many class interests and religious bias towards the establishment to make an informed decision…..Basically after the current fiasco were our Royalty even outdo Thialand and Swaziland for Royal prerogative lunacy,then they must be relieved… I think it’s time for the archiac system to be dumped in the dustbin of history were the Royals belong… Tourist attraction…..but no more playing with our parliament and our lives by the fallacy of an ancient institution appointed by……GOD…??
The royal family as indentured costumed tour guides to the Palaces of the People you say … interesting idea, Joe.
I like it!
Austerity was always a political choice not an economic necessity” – John McDonnell speech at Church House today (Thu 29/08) Full Transcript.
https://labourlist.org/2019/08/austerity-was-always-a-political-choice-not-an-economic-necessity-mcdonnells-full-speech/
Where there’s a will there’s a way.
MPs Plot To Work Through Weekend To Counter Johnson’s Suspension Of Parliament
Rebels opposed to a no-deal Brexit are looking at Friday to Monday emergency sessions. Commons has met on a Saturday just four times since 1939.
Rebel MPs are planning to force parliament to sit through next weekend in an emergency bid to carve out more time to block Boris Johnson from ramming through a no-deal Brexit.
In a swift counter-attack on the PM’s decision to suspend the Commons and Lords, backbenchers are looking at the option of keeping Westminster open from Friday to Monday to allow the successful passage of an ‘EU extension bill
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/mps-plot-weekend-sitting-to-counter-pm-suspension-of-parliament_uk_5d6793dce4b01fcc690f4d01
There is a theory that Boris Johnson wants t obe stopped so that he can call a general election and fight it on the premise that Corbyn stopped Brexit. Landslide for the Tories. Thinking of the EU election result – this does not seem too far fetched.
Such a theory would necessarily presuppose that Doris is 100% certain that Brexit is at least as popular as it was in ’16 – for which there’s no direct evidence – or that she’s a puffed-up power-crazed pinhead overawed by her new omnipotence.
A Tory PM crediting Corbyn with the uncanny ability to stop Tory Brexit from opposition might be asking to get bit on the arse by its own mutts.
Congrats to Skwawkbox for not joining the ‘hysteria’ crowd with talk of Coups – having been privy to witnessing an actual Coup on the ground in Bangkok many moons ago such talk is churlish and an insult to those actually murdered under Coups, many instigated by our beloved Liberal Interventionists.
By extending MPs days off by five days, in my opinion the Clown has played a blinder, that said I’m encouraged by the fact such actions are done out of weakness.
With regards any GE this side of Christmas, for the first time in a long time I’m rather negative about Corbyn’s chances of forming a Labour Administration based on the fact the Party is now perceived as a Remain Party more concerned about Metropolitans than its working class constituents in those areas that voted Leave by decent margins – the maths don’t add up for me I’m afraid given Labour can’t form a Government unless it carries these seats and gains others, the majority of which are not in Metropolitan areas.
In a nutshell, most poor folk are sick to death of Brexit and the amount of time its taken up in Parliament and I don’t think for an instant Middle Class folks at Demo’s waving EU Flags goes down well with our more socially conservative peer group, the very group the party needs to win over if its to have any chance of winning a GE.
I fully agree with your comment.