3rd November 2021
There is an extraordinary situation today in the house of commons.
Yes, yet another extraordinary situation – and although such situations are becoming commonplace, they should never be regarded as normal.
The government is instructing its backbenchers to vote down a suspension of a member of parliament who seriously breached lobbying rules.
The government is also seeking to re-write those rules.
As the deputy leader of the opposition rightly said at prime minister’s questions: “when they break the rules they just remake the rules”.
And this, of course, is part of a trend.
Here is one colleague at the Financial Times:
don’t like election rules? weaken the Electoral Commission
don’t like impartial news reporting? weaken the BBC
don’t like your mates being punished for breaking lobbying rules? propose a ridiculous replacement system on the same day a Tory MP is due to be suspended
— Henry Mance (@henrymance) November 3, 2021
And another:
NEW. 🚨🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨🚨
UK seeks new legal advice to back possible change to N Ireland protocol – my latest for @ft with @GeorgeWParker and inputs from @jamesrwebber @GeorgePeretzQC @SirJJQC https://t.co/s2UcqZHTNK
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) November 2, 2021
The overall trend is that if this government does not like a rule which (supposedly) binds it, the government will do whatever it can to circumvent, frustrate, remove or simply disregard that rule.
It is not so much ‘one rule for them, and another rule for us‘ but no rules for them.
And this at a time where the authoritarians in government seek to impose more and more rules on the public – especially those who its political and media supporters do not like.
At base this is not even about ideology.
There is nothing here so grand that can be articulated as any broad principle or general theory.
This is just akin to gangsterism.
Those under the protection of the centre – and those at the centre – should face no constraints on their autonomy.
While those on the outside of this protection, are under what ever obligations that centre believe should be imposed.
The problem for this being a driver of government in a democratic society is twofold.
First: not all governments exist forever, and there will be one point – eventually – where those on the inside will be on the outside.
And second: governments in a democracy ultimately require legitimacy – and doing ‘what works’ cynically can eventually have a counter reaction when the government needs broader support than whatever it can get away with.
So these antics may be clever, but they are not wise.
The public may not care now – and it may not ‘cut through’ – but sensible heads should steer the government away from this illiberal and misconceived approach.
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It goes on and on with the current government. We’ve seen this behaviour repeating itself across the board, whether it be the Brexit deal it signed, or the appointment of the Chair of Ofcom. Don’t like it? – Tear it up, start again, until you get the result that suits your ends.
I’m no historian, so don’t claim to know everything about pre-war German politics, but this behaviour smells very similar to that of the Third Reich – and I know I’m not alone in feeling this. So, my words to the present Government would be this: If you don’t want to be compared to a fascist regime, stop behaving like one. And to the public I’d say: Open your eyes. See where this is heading.
But do anyone of them remotely care whether this Govt is compared to a fascist regime?
Of the many things this government has done that have disgusted me, this is the worst (at least until tomorrow). We seem to be lapsing into a quasi-democratic autocracy, rather like Poland and Hungary. I always hesitate to use words like neo-fascist but am being sorely tested.
When will the opposition parties wake up and accept that only a united electoral pact is likely to defeat this government and stop further sliding downhill? Or is it already too late?
Hardly a week goes by without the Tories displaying their utter contempt for both parliament and the electorate. Rayner gave a good response at today’s PMQs but for the country’s sake, regardless of any party affiliation, Labour must object and make itself heard. It will haemorrhage even more support if this deeply offensive behaviour from Johnson and his cronies continues. As for the Speaker……. What could he be thinking?
These are very worrying trends. A further example of government bullying too in relation to the Standards Commissioner. I have read the Committee report on Mr Patterson and it is well argued cogent report. Mr P was given every opportunity to put his case. The government’s approach undermines one faith in democracy. It is depressing.
Ian Dunt’s Twitter thread on this is very illuminating.
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1455825157713444868?t=eINfo8GzPbdxkasd44LBNA&s=19
The whole thing stinks of corruption. Both the original lobbying by Paterson and the Government’s attempt to have his suspension nullified.
Now that the vote has been cast, it will be interesting to see how the Government’s interference is perceived by the electorate. It is encouraging that there are still Conservative MPs who defied the whip to stand up for independent scrutiny.
The case of Owen Paterson MP is egregious. What did the companies that paid him think they were doing? His attempt to seek sympathy from his late wife’s suicide would be contemptible in an honourable man. But this is all of a pattern: proroguing Parliament, breaking international treaties, changing the law when it doesn’t suit, attempts to muzzle the judiciary… We are heading to a very dark place. I try not to be a sensationalist, but this route and the consequences of this Administration’s policies, may lead to civil unrest and even worse – or perhaps ultimately better. The current corrupt system is not fit for purpose in a 21st century modern democracy – and we are very far from that. Maybe we actually need a revolution.
I think that we do need a revolution in the U.K. The current Government will not willingly cede power.
I’m guessing you’re familiar with Charles Tilly’s work .. e.g. the 1985 paper ‘War-Making and State-Making as Organised Crime’ .. lot of mileage in that as an analysis of how states actually work. Once you drop all the assumptions about how they *should* work and focus on what they do, things become much more clear. Like Skegness, it’s bracing.
This government is at Stage 3 on Paxton’s 5 Stages of Fascism. Furthermore, the current assaults on democracy (voter suppression, making protest illegal, eliminating independent monitoring of standards in Parliament) and the rule of law (take your pick!) shows they are seeking to move towards Stage 4.
Stage 1 in Paxton’s model is Proto-fascism.
In effect this is disillusionment with democracy by a significant section of society.
Stage 2 is Rooting.
This is when disillusionment becomes embodied in a political party that can act decisively on the political stage. In the UK this was initially Mosley and his black shirts, which segued into the National Front, BNP etc after WWII and culminated in UKIP/Brexit Party.
Stage 3 is Arrival into power.
Arrival as described by Paxton is preceded by several prerequisites: deadlock in constitutional government (in the UK context, the 2017-19 UK Parliament); conservatives afraid of losing power (UKIP/BP siphoning votes and allowing Labour or a coalition to form the government); and an advancing left (Corbyn’s relatively strong showing in the 2017 GE).
In Germany and Italy the conservatives were also unable to work with the advancing left and thus forced to seek cooperation with the fascists. In the UK, the unsuitability of FPTP led to the Tories becoming thoroughly UKIPpered after 2016 to maintain power. FPTP also so thoroughly corrupted Labour, the Lib Dems and SNP that they refused to form a government of national unity to put the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement to another referendum. They opted instead to go to the country under FPTP despite the UK having a thoroughly multi-party electorate (especially on the left of centre) that regularly has a solid “progressive” majority by number of votes cast (52% in 2019).
Stage 4 is The Exercise of Power.
Here we see the anti-democratic nature of the UKIPpered Tories in full flow through their: breaking international law (as with this latest effort by the AG); undermining of the rule of law at home; seeking to suppress votes by those more likely to vote against them; making protest and seeking asylum illegal etc, etc.
Paxton describes a four-way tension in fascist rule between the leader (Johnson in our case), the party (especially the more radical elements such as the ERG fired up by the contradictory and unachievable fantasies that drove the Brexit campaign), state functionaries (police and judiciary) and traditional elites. This tension “gives fascist rule its characteristic blend of febrile activism and shapelessness”, which I think everyone can agree is an apt description of the Vote Leave government!
A further effect of FPTP that fosters fascism is the need for the UKUPpered Tories to effectively set up a one-party state (through maintaining and expanding FPTP, boundary changes and voter suppression) due to the “progressive” majority in the country.
As we are so far down the pike, all those who support maintaining a civilised society must unite opposition parties together in an Alliance against the UKIPpered Tories at the next election. This will have to include the prerequisite of bringing in proportional representation to align politics with the multi-party nature of the electorate.
If Labour fails to join this Alliance, then it will add being handmaiden to the break up of the UK and England’s solidification into a fascist state to its infamy as the willing handmaiden of Brexit. For if Johnson and co win the next election it really will be game over (as the evisceration of the independent standards system today only further illustrates).
David’s catch phrase has to be extended to:
Brace, brace, lobby, lobby, organise, organise, protest, protest and get ready to fight, fight to defeat these “arrogant and offensive” fascist “truth twisters”.
http://w3.salemstate.edu/~cmauriello/pdfEuropean/Paxton_Five%20Stages%20of%20Fascism.pdf
Well, we’ve been here before haven’t we. Does anyone remember during the first lock-down the brouhaha over Dom’s trip to Specsaver’s and the column inches expended over the obvious lies and deflection, then…nothing. It wasn’t the Government that stopped it, they stopped it themselves (‘they’ being the legacy media)
This will be the same, a few days of pearl clutching with all the usual suspects telling us how shocked they all are and how this is a new low etc. They’ll be back onto the culture war by Monday next week.
If the media wanted to cut through with this it is well within their power to do so, it might take a bit of time, but the sort of relentless media assault we saw on the only viable opposition party post 2017 would absolutely nail this terrible government to the wall over this and the many other terrible things they’ve done (god knows there’s no shortage of actual evidence) but really, if accidentally getting 60,000 pensioners killed twice in 12 months isn’t going to do it what will?
As ever, it’s the Wilhoit Principle:
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Once this has been pointed out, it is impossible not to see it. His piece goes on to observe: “There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time. For millennia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.
So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.”
What next? – Health and Care Bill proposing HSSIB will operate in secret on the grounds of providing a ‘safe space’ with no requirement to answer Freedom of Information requests.
Restricting FOI requests from journalists and public alike on the agenda? New Information Commissioner at the helm so watch that space.
Government currently seeking to extend the term of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman contrary to governing legislation.
The vote today was a disgrace and the country is heading for a darker and more sinister place I fear.
The appropriate singalong for the Government is
“Rule Britannia – Britannia waives the rules!”
I looked up who voted for this. My conservative MP was not mentioned voting one way or the other. I suppose that indicates she might have some scruples, but she managed to turn out last year to vote against extending free school meals for the half term. Of course eventually the government did not want to take on Marcus Rashford over that.
Patterson was allowed to vote for his ‘get out of jail free’ card this afternoon which seemed inappropriate.
I suppose we have to hope that there are some high profile footballers who might be indignant. They seem to be the only people this government will back away from.
It is a very strange feeling week after week to see the Johnsonians find new ways to position their regime as institutionally corrupt, undermine oversight and weaken the rule of law in the UK. After Brexit one would have thought they would have worked hard to build a reputation for the new Global Britain. They have done the opposite as they race to the bottom. No way to position the UK as a desirable partner for any respectable country.
Cummings’ explanation for this is plausible in my opinion.
Johnson is removing all forms of scrutiny in order to save his own sorry backside. It wasn’t really about Owen Paterson at all.
‘Twas ever thus:
Let them, when they once get in,
Sell the nation for a pin;
While they sit apicking straws,
Let them rave at making laws;
While they never hold their tongue,
Let them dabble in their dung:
Let them form a grand committee,
How to plague and starve the city;
Let them stare, and storm, and frown
When they see a clergy-gown;
Let them, ere they crack a louse,
Call for th’ orders of the house;
Let them, with their gosling quills,
Scribble senseless heads of bills;
We may, while they strain their throats.
Wipe our a—s with their votes.
–Jonathan Swift – The Legion Club