Government watch

Well prorogation didn’t last long did it? We are now into illegality territory.


Starmer
@Keir_Starmer
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I welcome the Court's judgement.

No one in their right mind believed Boris Johnson's reason for shutting down Parliament.

I urge the Prime Minister to immediately recall Parliament so we can debate this judgement and decide what happens next.

I find it appalling and totally hypocritical that those Leavers who misled the country by bleating on about the sovereignty of Parliament are now defending closing it down so an unelected elite can force through an unwanted damaging Brexit. This is totalitarianism. If the left had done this, the squeals from the right would be heard in space.

I disagree Monica that the independence of the judiciary is any less in England than in Scotland.
Saying that they have a psychological separation from the seat of government, so will see things differently ( i.e.*correctly*) is just as bad as anyone saying ‘ they are Scottish, so what should we expect!’ Both views are wrong.
Judges look at things differently..... the Supreme Court will have the final say, and I do hope we won’t have any ‘ the judges are in the governments pockets’ comments if they do find no legal wrongdoing.
Interpretation of ‘intent’ is a very difficult matter.

I agree with you on that NotSpaghetti.

Thanks humptydumpty for that fact check.

What is happening in Parliament, or rather what is not happening is far more important than any petty bickering about Brexit.

As in Venezuela, we are seeing democracy being manipulated by a legally elected leader to make it close to a dictatorship: withdrawing the whip from party members, many of them longstanding members who have a history of party loyalty, then closing the Parliament for prolonged periods.

More worrying in our case because it is clear that the Prime Minister is following the instructions of an unelected eminence gris, who is the real power behind the throne.

We have always prided ourselves on the independence of our judiciary and in a case as we have now they are our one protection from an elected dictatorship and while I can well understand the unwillingness of the English judiciary to act on this matter, they can be seen as too (physically) close to government, the Scottish judiciary have both a physical and psychological speration from the seat of government and can look at thins differently.

The best argument against Scottish independence yet!?!

A great deal of business could have proceded!
Important legislation - dealing with abortion law in NI or the domestic violence bill - could have continued.
Committees could have met and working parties could have continued.
There's a lot of business that would have been carried out behind the scenes and away from the cameras.

Parliament isn't just about Brexit; other important things have been sidelined or dropped altogether; this is why Jess Phillips is furious that the Domestic Violence Bill has now got to go back to square one.

You are right of course GracesGranMK3 - there were suggestions in the house about sitting through the conferences - but to take the extra days in order to firmly shut people up and stop difficult questions is particularly Machiavellian.

We only know that prorogation is illegal with one court, we still have to wait for The Supreme Court to make up their minds.
Personally I don't think that a lot can be gained by Parliament sitting until we have a deal that can be voted on. However, I probably wouldn't have prorogued Parliament nor would MP's have had a holiday. We really have to get this sorted out one way or another.

Very many thanks Whitewavemark2. You are doing a fantastic job in keeping us all aware of the abuse of power and undermining of democracy. I cannot understand why so many people think that calling Johnson and Cummings out is a Leave v. Remain issue. No decent person should find acceptable the flagrant abuse of power and the silencing of opposition (with a small o) in unprecedented ways which we are currently witnessing. It is absolutely not simply a Remain v. Leave issue.

Maremia I agree, what is going on? I seem to recall from watching the docu-drama that his inspired idea was to get contact details of people who were not on the electoral register, and therefore were outside the radar of the remain campaign; so not Leave inclined voters per se, but people who were probably feeling ignored/disenfrachised etc. and who heard only one argument, which doubtless played into the idea that voting Leave was the way to get their grievance out...

Thanks Whitewavemark 2. A lot to take in there. Interesting about the big data. Wasn't there some scandal about Cummings and Cambridge Analytica, where the information was used illegally to target and influence 'Leave' inclined voters? Was Cummings not found to be in contempt of Parliament? Why is he allowed to have so much power now? Keeping us in the dark at this vital time.

You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick UG. Parliament was prorogued for five weeks not four days. It would have been perfectly possible for the conference's would go ahead without a suspension. Hard work but very possible and what all parliament, except the Great Johnson party, were prepared to do.

[sigh] but I have no doubt you will keep repeating it.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/11/scottish-judges-rule-boris-johnsons-prorogation-unlawful Breaking news.

And now we know that prorogation is illegal!
Queen misled as the only purpose of suspension was to 'stymie Parliament'.

Thank you Whitewave.

Don’t think it’s the 4 days per se Urmsongran that would ordinarily be the issue. It’s the timing that’s concerning and the way important info is being shut down.

Thank you Whitewave. Strange & troubling times we live in.

Brilliant idea Whitewave and thank you for all the starter posts. I have never got to grips with twitter so it's good to have the feedback from it.

Gosh WWmk2

It’s certainly got you wound up.

Strange how 4 days short in Parliament (taken overall in the situation) is suddenly so important to the Remainers. They’ve had more than 3 years to discuss Brexit!!

It’s time to move to the next base.

This time was always coming. Let’s get it done. And I’m not stupid - I know it’s the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.

I feel for those involved after all their hard work in trying to get important bills passed before Parliament was prorogued. But surely the same thing will have happened (to some bills) previously, at the end of every Parliament session? In fact, apparently this has been the longest sitting in a very long time and I expect those bills got further along than would ordinarily be the norm.

What time do you get up WW? You have been busy.

They take us for fools

norman smith
@BBCNormanS
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Don't panic. Govt signals won't publish Yellow Hammer No deal documents cos they might "serve to concern people" says
@andrealeadsom

Stop Cummings harvesting your data. This is how. I’ve done it really easy

Jo Maugham QC
@JolyonMaugham
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If you want to make it more difficult for Dominic Cummings and The Charlatan to scrape data from Government sources to help them turn our democracy into a Turkey-on-the-Thames can I suggest you turn off cookies here? gov.uk/help/cookies

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