Writing About Brexit: Tory MPs Vilify Their Own Withdrawal Agreement

This was first posted on Facebook on 17th September 2020, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

Just as a squib to start with:

Chris Grayling has been quietly replaced on the Security Committee, chaired by formerly-Tory MP Julian Lewis, and has taken on a part-time job, 7 hours a week “advising” Hutchison Ports Europe, for which he is to be paid £100,000 a year. Given Grayling’s track record it is just as well it’s only 7 hours a week, or it could cost Hutchison Ports Europe a lot more than a hundred grand.

And Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, has chosen to inform the nation of a regional lockdown via the Peston show on ITV, not via the House of Commons or even the daily coronacvirus briefing. (And Chris Whitty says it needs to be a national full lockdown for at least two weeks, but that of course that wouldn’t suit Johnson’s donors.) Lindsay Hoyle scolded the government for that breach last time it’s happened: now it’s happened again.

But this is politics as usual: it’s deadly, during a global pandemic, but it’s normal Tory stuff.

Vote Leave Wants No Deal Brexit

The Internal Market Bill passed Second Reading last night by 77 votes.

I couldn’t listen to all of the debate – I was working yesterday, having decided to take off Wednesday and Thursday as usual – for PMQs (Keir Starmer will be absent: he is self-isolating as one of his household has shown symptoms of coronavirus) and because Wednesday is the second day of the committee of the whole House examining the bill.

But I listened to enough of the debate, including Boris Johnson’s opening statement presenting the bill (and Ed Miliband’s strong rebuttal – Starmer picked him to sub in, and I have to say, he was terrific) to see very definitely two things.

About the Julian Lewis fiasco: for the love of Boris Johnson

This was first posted on Facebook on 19th July 2020, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

I’ve seen several people sharing an article by Nick Cohen on Boris Johnson. Nick Cohen is someone whose politics I pretty much entirely disagree with, except on Brexit.

Let me pull out this paragraph:

“Conservative politicians talk about Johnson with a venom few socialists can match. It’s not that he’s a criminal like Putin, they say. He doesn’t have the balls to be truly evil. Rather, he is a pathetically insecure narcissist who turns on you if you don’t feed his craving for applause. “He’s an abject, hectoring, incompetent show-off,” said one. “If you don’t love him or can’t fake a love for him, he will go for you.””

Julian Lewis and the Russian Report

This was first posted on Facebook on 17th July 2020, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

I am on the Conservative Party’s mailing list to supporters. I’ve been on this list for years, as I find it occasionally useful to know what the Tories are telling their supporters.

Today, the news is that the party is asking its supporters to donate to support the re-election of a Conservative MP who was elected in December 2019 to a previously always-Labour constitutency, because “As a Party we are committed to ensuring every one of our new MPs can successfully defend their seats. That work must start now.”

Writing About Brexit: The Russia Report

This was first posted on Facebook on 15th September 2020, with support from my Ko-Fi network.

As of about 8 this evening, Boris Johnson has a 79-seat majority in the House of Commons.

This is not because a Tory MP has died or voted against the government.

This is, ultimately, because of the Russia Report.

To recap: the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament was responsible for researching and publishing a report on Russian interference into the UK’s EU referendum in 2016. The report took years. It was completed – all security checks and clearances done, ready for the Prime Minister’s sign-off – in October 2019.