The slippery slope - dictatorship anyone?

You might just consider you choice of words UG if you do not believe (or intend) to attack.

MY choice of words? Please enlighten me wherever you think I’ve been rude. I do always try to put my point forward in a respectful way.

Don’t worry - if he is a dictator, he is a benevolent one! We have to get out of the E.U.

Whether a remainer or a leaver, the dictator all along has been the unelected Mr Bercow, who has singlehandedly manipulated the voting. I thought Boris Johnson was trying to engineer a free vote without Berco derailing it.

The unelected Mr Bercow?

You mean Mr Bercow, MP, elected by voters in his constituency and by MPs in the House of Commons to be the Speaker? Perhaps you'd like to explain what you mean.

And also, what is this 'free vote' that Johnson is supposed to be 'engineering'? Was part of his 'engineering' this 'free vote' the attempted unlawful shutting down of Parliament for 5 weeks?

Or is he going for another referendum?

Mr Bercow has stated that he will stay as long as necessary to prevent Brexit.
As far as the shutdown was concerned, parliament has always been only partially functional for the three weeks during the party conferences so it was only an extra two weeks.
Boris Johnson took legal advice about closing parliament and it is to his credit that he is taking the blame.
There have been closures in the past which meet the same criteria but it did not suit anyone to claim they were illegal.

Having said that I regret having got involved in this post and am bowing out. I usually avoid part politics as most people are more concerned to find fault with the opposition rather than work unitedly for what is best for the country - in this case it is democracy at stake - the people’s choice. We should have another referendum but if we did there would still be lots of false and misleading claims about the effect of leaving.
In my view the only fair solution is to postpone for say, two years, meanwhile present a cross party statement on the full effects and consequences of leaving as far as can be determined, and offer N Ireland the choice of an independent vote to go it alone if they wish.

Now it is odd that you say that, starbird Where did you hear it? I was watching the live broadcast from the House of Commons on 9th September, and I distinctly heard and saw the Speaker say that he could stand down as early as Monday night if MPs vote for a snap general election. But if they do not, he told the Commons he will stand down from the post
If you missed it, you can watch it yourself at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD2Vp5Wsryw (it only takes 3 minutes 44 seconds)

Mr Bercow has stated that he will stay as long as necessary to prevent Brexit.

Could you reference this, please? Otherwise, you have, at the very least been mislead. You do seem extremely uninformed re the Speaker, how he is chosen and his role and yet you throw these untruths in as if they are facts starbird

I don't understand why Leavers can be such strangers to the truth and then expect others to believe what they say.

I've just seen that a date has been missed out of my post just above - it was posted as I was hurrying to get ready to go out. Sorry if it confused anyone. It should say "I heard and saw the Speaker say that he could stand down as early as Monday night if MPs vote for a snap general election. But if they do not, he told the Commons he will stand down from the post on 31st October" His actual words were "I have concluded that the least disruptive and most democratic action would be for me to stand down at the close of business on Thursday October 31st"

How did the Speaker manipulate the vote? How could the Speaker manipulate the vote, everyone goes through the door for "Ayes" or "Nos" according to how they are voting, the Speaker would have to stand at one door and bar the way to stop anyone voting as they wished. And I don't recall there being any free vote either - quite the opposite, anyone who threatened not to vote as Johnson wanted them to was punished.

WOODHOUSE says Leavers are being 'harangued' - but I am afraid when people come up with 'Bercow not elected' and that 'he has manipulated the vote' - even if some of us are really trying to remain polite and respectful- there is only one answer, and that is that it is just pure nonsense.

I don't think I've ever read a post with quite as many mistakes/misstatements/ untruths/misunderstandings as starbird's.

Did she read or was she told these 'facts'? Did she put them together herself in an attempt to bolster her argument? Is she really naive enough to believe such tosh?

Putting forward these spurious comments is irresponsible and dangerous whether it's on social media, contributing to phone-ins or in a social context!





'facts'

I must say that starbird's concluding suggestion (13.04) is surprisingly pragmatic but also encouraging... Not all Leavers are frothing at the mouth for no deal...

Yes, "In my view the only fair solution is to postpone for say, two years, meanwhile present a cross party statement on the full effects and consequences of leaving as far as can be determined, and offer N Ireland the choice of an independent vote to go it alone if they wish."

If only that had been done three years ago, everyone would know exactly where they stand and we wouldn't now be all at cross purposes with each other, hurling insults back and forth.

Democracy is the right to have and state opinions and to vote accordingly, but it also includes the duty of policy-makers and law-makers to keep the electorate fully and neutrally informed so that they can vote knowledgeably.

It also includes the duty of the electorate to read/listen to that information and use it to form decisions.

Every right carries an equal and opposite responsibility. Claiming the right means also taking on the responsibility that goes with it.

Elegran - that sounds like an ideal world, where everyone does what they should.

Postpone for two years? Don't you think the electorate would have all gone stark staring mad by then? We have all been driven crazy for three years already and most people just want it done so we can move on (which is what Boris advocates and he's right there).

Most people want us to Remain in the EU, as demonstrated by opinion polls for the last two and a half years.

Two years from now would strain everyone's nerves,*Chestnut*, but it would have neen better if more than three years ago the referendum itself had been delayed for a couple of years while data was gathered on exactly what people believed was our relationship with the EU, what were the actual terms of that relationship and were they the same as was popularly believed, what the change would entail and what would be the predicted (by neutral experts) short-term and long-term effects. The information could have been widely disseminated BEFORE asking people to vote to step blindfold into the dark without a map or a torch. By now we would be settled into either a planned exit, voted for by a massive majority, or else a definite rejection of the idea, voted against by a massive majority. As it is, we have a very narrow majority, with vociferous argumenstil going on both for and against.

Speaking of Mr Bercow, here is an interesting twist, but then I like the man.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-fiasco-twist-secret-plan-20325827

Hardly secret now it's all over the internet

Oh, what howls of rage that would provoke...

Would he be re elected at the next general election after having been seen to tbwart a no deal Brexit?

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/09/john-bercow-speaker-became-thorn-side-party/

Watch BOTH videos ....

The point of a Government of National Unity at this time is that the PM should be temporary. Get an extension to A50 to avoid crashing out with no deal, then have a General Election or a new referendum, or both...

There's also consideration of people like Kenneth Clark and Margaret Beckett. MPs with no future careers to worry about.

I'm afraid that I wouldn't watch any video produced by the Telegraph; it's the Sun for the middle classes.

Chestnut We can't just walk away from the EU and set sail in our beautiful boats to find trading partners across the globe. It just doesn't work like that.

For a start, we have to find some agreement over Ireland and Gibraltar and the rights of EU citizens already in the UK and UK citizens in the EU. We can't just expect them all to play a huge game of musical chairs on 1st November and suddenly lose the rights they've had in the past.

Before there is some deal on those issues, we can't even begin to discuss trade agreements with the EU. It's pie in the sky to think we can just ignore trade with the EU. EU countries are our nearest geographical neighbours and it's totally bonkers to think it would be better to import/export to countries on the other side of the globe, even if they want to trade with us.

Even after a "deal" is agreed there are going to be years of negotiating ahead of us. Johnson's bumpy road is going to be more like a rollercoaster, so don't for one minute think it will all be over on 1st November.

If you're sick to death of the last three years and are totally against revoking Article50, the next best alternative is for our politicians to start acting like grown ups and accept a compromise. Meanwhile, the UK government needs to give some serious thought about how it's going to mitigate the hardship which many groups in society are going to suffer in at least the short term as a result of Brexit. It's not good enough for Johnson to shrug his shoulders and dismiss it all as humbug.

My biggest concern for a long time has been the effect this has had on our legal and parliamentary systems. I fear we haven't seen nothing yet!

They were all so eager to return to the H of C’s!!!

GrannyGravy13, the reason the House of Commons chamber is so deserted is for the reason the government has put forward no legislation program for the weeks it thought that Parliament would be illegally prorogued. Simple as that.

However, all the MPs are within the bounds of the parliamentary estate to ensure that liar Johnson and his sidekick Cummings do not attempt to anything else that may be outside the law in regard to our democracy.

Who runs this country?

Dominic Grieve rips into Dominic Cummings.

How is the government allowing special advisers.... to tell outright lies? Mercifully this country is not yet run as a police state by Mr Cummings.