Gina Miller now tells us that Boris isn’t going to prorogue Parliament in order to sneak Brexit through. He’s going to dissolve Parliament by making sure an election happens. And this is profoundly undemocratic apparently. You know, to have an election?
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Unsaid in the letter, but streaming through it like shafts of light through a broken roof, Johnson’s plan of action – doubtless guided by the arch-Brexiter svengali Dominic Cummings – is clearly to call an election and dissolve parliament as soon as the beginning of next month, with polling at some point after the existing Brexit day of 31 October.[/perfectpullquote] [perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] He is gambling everything on Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity and a public which, at that point, will have yet to experience the full force of no-deal economic headwinds. He may even hold a pre-Brexit budget to lull the public into a false sense of security, bribing them with their own money, through a splurge of new spending promises and tax cuts funded by an increase in the national debt. All of this amounts to a neat, if profoundly cynical and undemocratic, trick. [/perfectpullquote]No, that is her argument.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]A general election on their terms and timetable would guarantee their sacred no-deal Brexit, and assure him five years in office in which to turn the UK into a laboratory for experimenting with the most extreme rightwing ideology we have ever seen.[/perfectpullquote]Having an election and then winning it is undemocratic.
At which point you have to wonder what it is that Miller thinks is a democratic manner of doing things. Perhaps if we just asked all the voters in the country what we should do on this particular issue? Anyone who had strong enough feelings about it could turn up and register their vote, one way or the other. Actually, that would work. Which is why we did have a referendum on the issue.
That referendum result being exactly the thing that Miller is complaining about.
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Ms. Miller has vocally supported Castro, which reveals her position on democracy.
In practical terms it is unlikely that Boris can cause an election himself. He would need the support of 2/3 MPs for that.
There is the possibility of his being forced into one by the opposition however. I suspect he is pleading not to be thrown into that briar patch.
Amazing how for so many of the Meeja the Fixed Term Parliament Act doesn't exist. It's the same as their blind spot with private hire taxis. 20 years after they were introduced to That London and almost FIFTY YEARS since the rest of the country had them, they still don't realise they are a thing.
Only two ways Boris can get Parliament dissolved. The first is to propose a motion and get the required 2/3 majority; the second is to propose a vote of confidence and lose it.
These folk are so certain the sky will fall if no deal. Like the climate loonies were so certain of no more snow in the UK by 2010, ice free Summers in the Arctic Sea by 2013, ski industry destroyed for lack of snow, millions of climate refugees fleeing Africa and Asia for Europe, increasing rate of warming (now negative), increase in number and severity of hurricanes, droughts, rainfall, (no change), and malaria plagues in Europe.
They just don’t give up, no matter how often and wide of the mark they get it wrong.
And some who at least appear sane and intelligent, still believe it.
It's perfectly clear what Gina Miller regards as democracy - it's that everyone does what she wants. End of.