THE LAST DITCH An Englishman returned after twenty years abroad blogs about liberty in Britain
Law vs ethics — again.
Inflammatory speech? You ain’t seen nothing yet, mofos!

A fantastic day for democracy?

So says Anna Soubry, an MP for a party with literally zero support. Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition leader with the lowest approval rating since records began, agrees. On the back of the Supreme Court’s apolitical decision, would-be plutocrat Gina Miller smugly continues her well-funded political assault on the biggest democratic vote in the history of our nation. She does so flanked by the leaders of minority parties too “frit” to face an election. This is democracy Jim, but not as we know it.

The law is now clear. The PM erred. I am sure he will respect the decision. That legal judgement is one thing but the jubilant fake-democrats’ equally clear determination to use it to thwart our decision to leave the EU is another. Please don’t quote me that “no mandate for no deal” nonsense, by the way. No deal acceptable to Parliament is on offer and they are doing all they can — in active concert with the other side’s negotiators — to prevent the government achieving a better one.

They will accept nothing short of stopping Brexit. All else is lies, mystification and agitprop.

Several of them referred reverentially to the Supreme Court as the “highest court in the land” but that is a blatant lie. They are straining their every sinew to ensure that our highest court continues to be the European Court of Justice, that our highest political authority remains the EU Council of Ministers and that our government is the EU Commission. These self-proclaimed “democrats” are today celebrating the chance this decision gives them to fight for our judiciary, legislature and executive to remain on foreign soil unaccountable to the British people.

That’s not a fantastic day for democracy but it is a great day for fantasy democracy, fake democracy — for Britain remaining a colony of a foreign power. Because if your Supreme Court is in another country, that’s what you are — a colony. As Tony Benn warned decades ago and as Guy Verhofstadt recently confirmed to rather surprising wild applause at the LibDem Conference, the EU sees itself as an empire. The days of European imperialism are not over, it seems, until the failed imperial powers of the past have another go. 

Unlike the Remain ultras, I can accept a decision I don’t like. The court’s ruling surprises me in light of the Bill of Rights but I am no constitutional law expert and I now accept our constitution is as they say. I have nothing to say against the judges concerned. I won’t reargue a case determined by the court I (unlike Anna Soubry et al.) believe should be the highest in the land.

It changes nothing as to the political and moral rights and wrongs of Brexit however. 

Those calling for the PM’s resignation are hypocrites. He has offered to resign by calling an election. Knowing they would lose, these triumphant “democrats” refuse to let him do that. They don’t want to back him, but they refuse to sack him. Knowing a new Parliament would (if the Conservatives see sense and act in concert with the Brexit Party) be solidly for an immediate Brexit, they prefer to hold him in place and try to use him as their puppet.

The court’s decision is disappointing but the Millerite thugs’ hypocrisy, elitist disdain for the British people and cynical hostility to true democracy is drearily predictable and utterly infuriating to decent patriotic Brits. They are playing with fire and I hope only they get (metaphorically) burned. 

Comments

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Tom

I was disappointed too. The Bill of Rights says the courts should not interfere in Parliamentary proceedings and the distinction made that prorogation happens in Parliament but is not a proceeding there is, ahem, creative.

It’s the law now and confidence in the judiciary is important (though Lord Sumption seems determined to destroy it as a retirement project, alas) so let’s move on. We have a lot of defective laws and yet the Earth revolves.

A new Parliament can always rectify this. Unless Boris is cleverer than I think, nothing good is now likely until we have a General Election. The Remain ultras’ open disdain for most of their fellow citizens should create a climate for a striking result. Anna Soubry’s sneering face outside the court was worth a few seats I think.

Dr Evil

That judgement yesterday was utterly ridiculous. Judges and courts have no place in politics. They should have upheld the high Court decision. They did not. They gave Boris and his government a metaphorical kick in the bollox. Becuase they could. All 11 of these geriatric remainers. I just hope GCHQ was listening in and recoding the doings of 11 phones over the weekend.

Tom

Thank you.

CherryPie

An excellent analysis of the situation as it stands today.

Tom

Thank you. This whole business is making me feel as stupid as I am frustrated so an encouraging word (even if it’s a little OTT) is welcome.

Tom

Agreed. I hope that you’re reading the situation re a deal with the BP correctly. The Tories would be insane not to do it but maybe they are right to delay the announcement so their opponents can’t layer on the propaganda?

Matt

that is a brilliant post Mr Paine.

isp001

When your opponents call for your key advisor to resign it is a sign you should probably keep him.

In response to another comment. Why would boris do a deal with farage now? That gets him very little, will give some unhelpful headlines, and he can strike a deal later when it is actually relevant.

Tom

They are not united at all. In Churchill's words about the Appeasement Governments of the 30s, they are

"... decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years — precious, perhaps vital to the greatness of Britain..."

Tom

Yes I follow the Great Realignment page with interest. I await the PM's next move. Only he and Farage have the charisma to lead the people in a fight against an Establishment set on preventing Brexit. They need to cooperate and I still hope they will. The Conservatives are dead otherwise.

Tom

I'm puzzled by all the calls for Dominic Cummings to resign. He's just a political advisor. Surely the Government's lawyer, the Attorney General, is the one who should be resigning? I sympathise with him as I would have given the same advice and am very surprised that the SC ruled prorogation was not a proceeding in Parliament in which the courts could not interfere under the Bill of Rights, but still his advice was wrong as it turns out. His position is untenable. In his place I would have quit by now.

David Bishop

Mr Johnson seems to have accepted the judgement, at least on the face of it. I would rather he had gone down the road advocated by Andrew Roberts: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7489913/ANDREW-ROBERTS-PM-defy-Benn-Act-leave-EU-without-deal.html

By having today yet again rejected a pact with the Brexit Party at any general election, he has in my view condemned to annihilation the nowadays far from conservative Conservative Party. Your point above on it and Labour being anachronisms is pithily made.

So here comes the realignment that you mention. As you may well be aware, the bods at Samizdata have recently set up a site with the same thought in mind: https://greatrealignment.org/

Mark

It is the sheer graceless arrogance of these people. This is what screams their actual motivation. Their words and their ostensible motivation are irrelevant.

So parliament will be recalled. To do what (we all know perfectly well) and by what means? (now that will be a bit more interesting).

Not sure the quislings are as united as Gestapo Miller assumes.

Tom

That would be hilarious! I think it would be politically ill-advised though. The Conservative and Brexit Parties need to offer themselves humbly as democratic weapons to the British people to defeat the Establishment, the Deep State and the EU Empire that has urinated all over them for the past three years.

Labour's betrayal of its Brexit voters and of the Northern working class that founded it has been so total under its Wykehamist Molotov that it can make no useful contribution now. It's out of the game for the time being.

Playing the same expensive litigious game as Gina Miller would not come over well. The only advantage would be to bring "two mills" Jolyon more into the public eye. The more that entitled arse appears in public, the bigger the Leave vote will be.

Tom

I am sure that last sentence is true but I can't take any pleasure in it. It's bad enough that the Establishment has undermined belief in our democracy; chaos awaits if it undermines faith in our courts – institutions that the British people trusted long before we had democracy.

I am not much concerned about the decision. In fact I think the obvious machinations of the Remain ultras for the extra days of Parliamentary debate it allows will help the Leave vote in the General Election. No-one now believes the hypocrisy about avoiding "no deal" now. It's so blindingly obvious that they are acting in concert with the EU to thwart the decision of the British people that even voters who pay very little attention can see it. We are going to see a big shift in British politics and that's long overdue. The Conservatives are a poor solution to 19th Century problems and Labour are a poor solution to 20th Century ones. It's time for a fundamental realignment to deal with 21st Century issues.

Lord T

I wonder if as we are still members of the EU Boris could appeal to the ECJ. That would take some time.

isp001

Well said.

I have had one interaction with the supreme court. The EU has a framework for resolution of banks. The UK implementation said that it would recognise acts by other EU states if they matched the EU framework.

The high court said that the relevant parts of the foreign country implementation were not consistent with the EU level, and thus their acts had no affect in the UK (or on UK law governed debt). The supreme court had far less mastery of the facts of the case and decided that it should be for the foreign government to decide if their implementation was consistent and should be recognised by the UK, rather than for the UK courts to see if it met the UK law tests for recognition. The UK implementation struck a sensible balance, the supreme court completely gutted that in favour of more-EU.

Am saddened that the judges did not rule otherwise, or at least in a minimal fashion. Not entirely surprised though.

Twitter reaction shows that many people don't see this as a loss for Boris, they see it as another attack by the establishment.

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