The UK Supreme Court has just ruled that Boris Johnson gave unlawful advice to the Queen when he advised her to suspend Parliament for 6 weeks. This means that Parliament has not been prorogued and can meet as soon as reasonably possible, without any input from Johnson.
John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has announced that Commons will sit tomorrow at 11:30.
It remains to see what Johnson and his crew will do. I’m guessing they have another trick up their collective sleeves.
Snarki, child of Loki
“I’m guessing they have another trick up their collective sleeves.”
Play bagpipes (badly) in Commons, until everyone flees, screaming?
Hawes
Yes, Boris Johnson has been renowned for his (checks notes) subtlety and craft.
LAO
Hello people! I haven’t been around much but, even I can’t resist the internets today. It’s shaping up to be a truly crazy day. I’m going to enjoy this.
Gin & Tonic
@LAO: Welcome back.
daveNYC
They could prorogue again. This puts the Queen in a tough spot since she’s supposed to agree to whatever the government wants, but a second prorogue request after the first was ruled improper means that she can’t remain neutral by just rubber stamping the request.
The other options are Boris simply ignoring the requirement that he ask for an extension or refusing to accept one if offered.
Currently, the Tories are gunning for Dominic Cummings, an adviser, strategist, and all around garbage person. I’m not sure what happens if the UK gets another extension though. There’ll be a GE, but the numbers are not good. Labour is still fence straddling, the Lib-Dems are full Remain, and the Tories are going even further right to stop the Brexit Party from eating their lunch. A GE could easily end up with a Conservative majority comprised almost entirely of hard-Brexit nutters since Boris has started purging the sane ones.
Betty Cracker
Isn’t Johnson in the US for the UN meeting? No matter. He should get his ass on a plane right now, fly home, apologize to the Queen and the people of the UK, and resign. He almost certainly won’t since he’s nearly as shameless as Trump. But that would be the right thing to do.
LAO
@Betty Cracker: Johnson is in NYC, scheduled to give a speech as we type.
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks
Baud
@LAO:
Good to see you.
SFAW
@LAO:
Great to see you back!
rikyrah
As Kevin Hart’s famous bit says:
It’s about to go down
SFAW
It would not surprise me if BoJo Horsez-Ass called up Moscow Mitch to ask “That things with your Supreme Court that you did — how can I get me some of that?”
JPL
@LAO: So glad you are around. Apparently we are going to need legal eagles to explain to the rest of us what is going on.
JPL
This is a link to CNN International
https://livenewschat.eu/international/?ref=fv
Anonymous At Work
@Snarki, child of Loki: Hopefully. I was thinking, “Nuke the planet from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
Baud
@JPL:
The technical legal term is res ipsa fuckery.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: I suspect there are people in and around DC who may need her criminal-defense expertise more than we do.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: Hope so.
JPL
haha Johnson sounds like trump.. He disagrees with the ruling, but will deliver Brexit Oct. 31. .
A British reported said the government always follows the rule of law. Sure wish that my government did the same.
TS (the original)
@JPL:
Johnson is sounding exactly like trump.
Boris Johnson signals he wants fresh prorogation ahead of Queen’s speech
Brexit is Johnson’s wall
chopper
@daveNYC:
proroguing again would be a dumb move when he no longer has a majority.
Baud
@TS (the original):
Prorogation II: Electric Bugaloo.
MattF
I think the UK constitutional system is in uncharted territory. A Supreme Court having the final word on a government’s actions is simply not the way the system works over there. I have no idea what Johnson will do. We shall see.
SFAW
@JPL:
You are SUCH a child.
PenAndKey
And when has that ever stopped Johnson before?
Cheryl Rofer
Welp.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer:
Oh, he’s going to have to walk that back.
MattF
@Cheryl Rofer: Uh, whoa. Steve Doocy entertains the possibility that Trump did something wrong. I’m astonish.
Betty Cracker
@Cheryl Rofer: God Bless Bobby Lewis. Imagine listening to those nitwits every day for a living. Whatever they’re paying him, it isn’t enough.
Mike J
It’s a pity the opposition are so fucking useless. Who would have thought putting an old socialist man with a cult in charge would be a bad thing?
sdhays
@Baud: Or else, “Steve Doocy is away on (previously scheduled) extended leave, spending time with his beloved house plants.”
JPL
According to the Washington Post we have a president who apparently mocked Greta Thunberg on twitter and that won’t even make the news today.
Rob
I found this quite amusing:
PROROGUE OVERRULED
GAME OVER
https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1176433247284129793
[as an old-style video game]
Baud
@JPL:
The wages of Hating Hillary must be paid.
Aleta
@Rob: Really funny. Thanks for the laugh.
Aleta
you can’t go on
thinking nothing’s wrong
Bryan Adams
TS (the original)
@Baud: Seems like he intends to try it
Aleta
@Baud: So, the thing that fucks up itself? : ) (Seems fitting for the US though.)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@LAO:
Welcome back!
The Moar You Know
Was listening to the BBC this morning. It was a very…disorienting experience. They’re usually so damn impartial about everything. Not this. They had the woman on who filed the lawsuit, were trying to get her to admit she’s pro-Remain, tried to get her to say the court didn’t find that Johnson lied to the Queen (which was, in point of fact, exactly what they found and why they made the unanimous ruling they did), was tying to get her to admit that any lies Johnson might have told were inadvertent…I mean, it was Fox News worthy. Really a shocking and appalling performance by the BBC.
And then they interviewed Johnson, who is in New York right now. And yeah, that slimy fucker has something up his sleeve. We’ll all find out what it is soon enough, but I am concerned. He was far too smooth and collected, given the news he’d just been handed.
NotMax
“I have a cunning plan.”
;)
schrodingers_cat
OT Music break, Adam Silverman’s post on Neerja Bhanot reminded me of this number.
From Neerja, Jeete Hai Chal (Loose translation, come let’s live)
The Sanskrit shloka at the beginning is called mritiyunjaya mantra (victory over death)
The only way to live forever, is to live in other’s memories, living for others not yourself (paraphrase, not a literal translation)
Roger Moore
@TS (the original):
This is so much bullshit. The hard part of getting a deal is convincing the EU to change their mind when they’ve said repeatedly that the deal on the table is final. There was never any real prospect of getting a better deal, no matter what definition of better you might use.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@The Moar You Know:
Really calls into question the Beeb’s independence.
He could just be a delusional sociopath. But he very well might
Wag
OT, but The Atlantic has an excellent piece by James Fallows about the resurgence of both-siderism around the Ukraine debacle.. Needless to say, Mr Faollows calls out the correct suspects and chastises them for their false equivalences. ADDED BJ BONUS POINTS!!! Our own Adam Silverman gets a positive mention for a BJ post!
Immanentize
@LAO:
HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO!
I hope you got through with your faculties intact.
(For Esme…. Both quotes)
I missed you LAO.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
Realistically, though, it’s not a complete surprise. He’s known the Court was considering the issue, so he’s had some time to plan for what to do if the ruling didn’t go his way. It shouldn’t be a shock that he was collected and appears to have a plan in place.
LAO
Thanks for the warm welcome back everyone.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
if THIS is the best that Fox can do???
well…..
rikyrah
@LAO:
Welcome back ???
Kay
I keep thinking about if it had worked. All the dopes in the public (including us) would be like “why is Joe Biden’s SON in the news all the time? There would be hundreds of angry rebuttals, but the big machine would just keep grinding out the narrative, like with the emails.
There’s an entire Facebook advertising campaign built up around this, allegedly out of Ukraine. Just appeared out of nowhere- millions of views. We narrowly dodged this one but will we dodge the next? Imagine the whistles that aren’t being blown.
chopper
@PenAndKey:
it’s odd, cause he’s not that stupid. he plays stupid, sure, but he’s not that stupid.
zhena gogolia
@Wag:
Cool! I love to see Adam get some credit.
chopper
@Mike J:
it almost seems like there’s an analogy here. i just can’t put my waggy finger on it.
Barbara
@daveNYC:
Maybe she can pull a Boris Johnson herself and just refuse to meet with him for unspecified reasons. “We’ll get back to you on that,” a prorogue of her own, so to speak. I totally understand what you are saying but this just highlights how so much depends on everyone observing customary norms in order to forestall crisis. BJ’s own abuse of authority depends on the queen not abusing her authority. Maybe a stand off is the best possible outcome, if he really won’t back down on his own overreach.
chopper
@NotMax:
yeah boris seems to come off more baldrick than blackadder these days.
chopper
@Barbara:
sorry, her majesty has decided to go on sudden holiday and won’t be able to see you, mr. prime minister. for how long? oh, i dunno, through october?
Felanius Kootea
I listened to a BBC clip of Lady Hale (the UK Supreme Court President) declaring that what Boris Johnson did was unlawful three times on loop this morning. Wonder how much longer he’ll be PM.
rikyrah
Meghan Markle wears headscarf in public for the first time then helps another woman with her head covering on Cape Town mosque visit with Prince Harry on royal couple’s Africa tour
Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited South Africa’s first and oldest mosque, Auwal Mosque in Bo-Kaap
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met a group of children on Monwabisi Beach near Cape Town this morning
They heard about the charity Waves for Change, which use the ocean as a therapeutic escape for youngsters
Royals also heard about the Lunchbox Fund, which benefits from public donations made after Archie’s birth
By REBECCA ENGLISH, ROYAL CORRESPONDENT IN CAPE TOWN FOR THE DAILY MAIL and AMIE GORDON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:43 EDT, 24 September 2019 | UPDATED: 10:20 EDT, 24 September 2019
Ruckus
@NotMax:
“I have a punning clan.”
FIXEDIT
Tony Jay
I really did not expect this ruling. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s pretty tectonic in its effect.
The Supreme Court stopped just short of saying outright that Johnson lied to the Queen, to Parliament and to the People about his reasons for proroguing Parliament, but that’s the only inference you can take from their ruling that the reasons given were not his true reasons. That’s British Establishment speak for “This person is a dishonest cad” and is more akin to the way they’d speak of a bolshie tradesman they’re about to have horsewhipped than a fellow Eton alumni. In all honesty I thought they were going to come out with a split-decision finding that the Courts didn’t have the authority to rule one way or another, and that even the most restrained legal opinions suggesting that they might just rule that possibly someone could potentially look into tightening up the rules on prerogative powers for future cases were hopelessly optimistic.
But I was wrong. Whoa-Nelly, was I wrong.
Let’s be blunt, this is a rock-solid resignation offense. The highest court in the land has found that the Prime Minister and his closest advisers decided to lie to the Queen in order to close Parliament down at a time of national crisis. If he wasn’t a Tory and the Media in this country wasn’t so devoted to protecting the Conservative Party the only questions on every front page and all over the BBC would be – When are you resigning? Who else is resigning? Have you apologised to the Queen? Have you decided on a successor? But he is a Tory, and a Tory who owes his entire career to the celebrity-making powers of the Media. They simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge how badly he’s fucked up and will do whatever they can to shield him and his minority Government from having to answer for the mess they’ve deposited on the national rug. Having a ramshackle walking insult of a Zombie Administration like this in power guarantees maximum outrage and maximum eyeballs on the product they’re selling, there’s no way any political editor is going to let that golden goose fly the coop while there’s a single glistening orb of ratings gold still to be pooped out.
What happens now? Well Speaker John the Bear-Cow will be opening the curtains on his wonderful new Parliamentary Review Show from 11.30 tomorrow morning and you can be sure that he’s been rehearsing some choice bon-mots and Shakespearean put-downs for the clowns on the Right who are keeping this shitshow going. Officially the Parliamentary session that was supposed to have been closed by prorogation is still alive and well and ongoing, so all that incomplete legislation we thought had been put in the shredder last month is still alive and needs to move through the sausage-making machine. You can be sure that Government back-benchers and Brextremist cranks (redundant duplication) will be under orders to gunge up the works and waste as much time as possible, but I can’t see the Speaker or the anti-No Deal majority letting them get away with it.
Will Flobalob and Co try to prorogue again? Claiming this time that it really is just for a Queen’s Speech, honest? Maybe. Probably. What else can they do if they want to shut down the Legislature? The question is would they dare to do it with this Court ruling hanging over everything and the likelihood that Parliament itself would probably move legislation putting strict limits on when the prerogative powers can be exercised, just like the Government’s lawyers argued they could have (if they wanted to) last week. That would chew up more time, yes, but it would also lead to yet another ringing defeat for the Worst Prime Minister in (very) recent history. Is he after double-figures in the defeat stakes? Because that could happen. I tell you, Theresa May must be pissing herself laughing so much that she’s on a permanent saline drip.
In the near future, there’s got to be a Vote of No Confidence. We went the legislative route and ruled out No Deal, but this Government has made it crystal clear with little flashing lights on top and flights of tiny, wee elves in biplanes towing signs reading “SUCKERS!!!!” that they don’t give a shit as long as they can keep the cricket-batshit crazy legions of Daily Mail/Telegraph/Express/Sun reading radicals onside. The only way to stop Flobalob from making his billionaire investors happy is to remove him as Prime Minister, and the only way to do that without putting the power to fuck with the Election date in his sweaty little paws is to pass a Vote of No Confidence. Do it now, this week, and send an interim PM to Europe in October to get an extension and time for an Election and a new Referendum.
This was true last month. It was true months before that. It’s been true since the results of the 2017 Election left the Tories unable to force through any kind of non-lunatic Brexit plan. Time for the Tory rebels and the partisan purists among the Lib-Dems to swallow their spite and work with Labour to get it done.
That said, I’m going to be spending tonight watching the Tories get filleted on TV and drinking through this cold. And if I also win the lottery that would be swell.
Ruckus
@chopper:
Sometimes when people play a role they get swallowed up by it.
IOW
The very act of this much stupidity might actually come true because he swallows his own story.
Amir Khalid
@Barbara:
Tony Jay thinks this is probably what the Queen will do.
PIGL
@daveNYC: If the UK political system is truly incapable of any better outcome, than the EU should show them the door. At some point you have to accept that the public is responsible, and must be left to sort things out.
Betty Cracker
@Mike J & @chopper: I don’t follow UK politics closely enough to have a firm opinion about any of the players except the obviously corrupt and monstrous ones. But people who do, including valued commenter Tony Jay, say conflating Corbyn with Sanders is bullshit.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
I do (repeatedly) and it is (completely). I wouldn’t have thought that I’d have had to remind (some) Juicers over and over and over again that the Media does not exactly provide an unbiased frame through which to view political leaders ‘of the Left’, but it is what it is. As long as they don’t get to waste their vote over here, people can be misinformed about whatever they like.
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
Once again, dear FrontPagers, please think about posting Tony Jay’s comment :)
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
In the movie they’ll one day make of this saga Johnson (played by Gary Oldman in a bodysuit made of clotted milk) will send his loyal gofers up to Balmoral again to peddle his bullshit and the very next scene will be him waking up in bed with a blue-eyed ginger chap in camo-paint upending a sack containing their severed and corgi-nibbled heads onto his stained duvet.
“Granny says these belong to you, Prime Minister. Sorry about the mess.”
Cue music and titles.
rp
@Ruckus: Some British guy once said “he wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”
Amir Khalid
@Tony Jay:
All I can say to that is Bravo.
Fair Economist
@Barbara: A smoother out for the Queen would be to say she needed to consult with the judges on the legality of the proposed action.
Michael Cain
I think he believes he’s run out the clock. Either Parliament or the EC has to do something drastic, or no-deal Brexit is going to happen on Oct 31. The percentages seem to be on his side.
Tony Jay
@Michael Cain:
I’ll take that bet and raise you a zillion quatloons.
Whatever slides out of Parliament at the end of the day will include a confirmatory referendum.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you for linking
Robert Sneddon
@Tony Jay:
If the Opposition was silly enough to do that right away then Boris Johnson would be PM after the election with a solid majority of swivel-eyed Full Metal Brexit Conservative MPs backing him as leader. It’s what he’s aiming for, Brexit win or lose is a side-issue that gives him leverage to achieve his ambitions. Removing the Whip and deselecting a number of pro-Remain Tories is just the beginning of the process to ensure his future back benches will be compliant and supportive rather than the backstabbing snake-pit most Conservative Parliamentary majorities rapidly devolve into.
The referendum showed there were a large number of xenophobic Little Englanders out there and he’s just the jolly flag-waving chap to weaponise them, get them lined up and enthusiastically voting for him and his colleagues “to defend democracy”. Many of them are Tory voters to start with which helps. Sure there are lots of Remainers too but they’re split between non-Tories, the Lib Dems, Greens and Labour and they can’t get a majority of seats even in coalition, especially when a couple of million otherwise-reliable Labour voters will not turn up to support the Labour Party solely on this issue even with Corbyn’s attempts to not come down hard on Remain as Labour’s aim. Many of them might well vote for a Brexit Party candidate — they did so in 2015 after all.
The one thing that might stop PM Johnson in his tracks is that Parliament is sovereign and makes up its own rules. It’s entirely within their purview to decide that he has, through his actions as PM, brought the House into disrepute and thus they could vote to eject him from the House of Commons, basically remove him from his position as an MP. The common understanding is that only an MP can be Prime Minister as they have to lead a Parliamentary majority. If he’s barred from sitting as a member in Parliament he can’t command a majority as first among equals. What would happen after that is up in the air but it would deal with the Johnson factor.
Michael Cain
@Tony Jay:
The hard question on a second referendum has always been, “What will the choices be?” Rescind the Article 50 notice? May’s deal? Some different unspecified deal? No deal? Is it binding this time, or advisory again? I believe Parliament could pass a second referendum in principle this week, although they turned it down before. I’m less convinced that they can get a majority for any of the specific options to put on the referendum.
Emma
@rikyrah: The daily birdcage liner? The id of the monster? Did you notice that “for the first time”?
Origuy
Could we get John Bercow and Nancy Pelosi to swap for just a day or so?
sm*t cl*de
@Robert Sneddon:
You are confounding “vote of no confidence” with “general election”.
Steeplejack
@sm*t cl*de:
If a vote of no confidence succeeds, the government must either resign or call a general election. Which do you think Boris Johnson would pick?
Unknown known
@The Moar You Know:
No, this is how British media interviews are supposed to work. They are SUPPOSED to be adversarial. The journalists job is to play devil’s advocate, and to ask hard questions. The interviewees job is to defend, and show that they really know their stuff, and the theory is that this is supposed to be revealing. If you watch longer they will do this to people on all sides.