((opinion)) Boris Johnson's electoral gamble risks wrecking the Tory party

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/04/boris-johnson-electoral-gamble-wreck-tory-party

Boris Johnson’s electoral gamble risks wrecking the Tory party

Jonathan Freedland

Wed 4 Sep 2019 11.28 BST Last modified on Wed 4 Sep 2019 11.29 BST

When some of the best-known Conservative figures of the last half-century are booted out of their party, when a new prime minister loses his first parliamentary vote and his governing majority on the same day, when historians are referring to this as a “revolutionary moment”, you know something of great significance is going on. But what exactly is it?

What we are witnessing is another round in the same historic struggle that powered the English civil war of the 17th century: the contest between the executive and the legislature. At its simplest, the House of Commons has voted – once again – to take control of the Brexit process, in order to prevent the UK crashing out of the European Union with no deal on 31 October. That’s the substance of the bill that MPs will vote on, and are likely to pass, today, having cleared the procedural hurdle in dramatic fashion last night. The comparisons with the 17th century are not hyperbolic, because what this move represents is a bid by the legislature – parliament – to grab powers that have traditionally been the preserve of the executive.

That contest is not over. If MPs succeed today, they will have decided – against the wishes of Boris Johnson – to seek an extension of Britain’s EU membership until 31 January 2020, if no exit agreement has been secured before then.

Johnson has said he will refuse to act on MPs’ wishes, that he will simply not request such an extension from Brussels. To avoid the MPs’ instruction, he would rather empty out the current House of Commons and have a general election to fill a new one, one more sympathetic to his aims. But that can only happen if MPs allow it, by voting for it. Under the current rules, he needs two thirds of the Commons to agree to an early election and Labour has said it won’t do it – fearing a ruse that would allow Johnson to crash out of the EU during an election campaign.

In other words, parliament is asserting itself and its rights, refusing to be pushed around by an overmighty executive (in the form of Johnson this time, rather than King Charles I). Indeed, I’m told that MPs are pondering a means to ensure their will is done over the head of the prime minister: one senior opposition figure has a bill ready that would mandate the Speaker, John Bercow, to apply to Brussels himself for that extension on behalf of the British parliament.
(snip)

This is not the only revolutionary upheaval under way. Something of that order is currently convulsing the Tory party. A purge that expels two former chancellors and a man who a matter of weeks ago was a candidate for the leadership is an epochal event for the Conservative party. It is changing shape, refashioned by Johnson into the Brexit party by another name – a nationalist, populist party of the hard right.

There is some debate over whether all this – the prorogation, the expulsions – is a series of improvised moves born of panic or, on the contrary, a cunning plan. Within that question is a related one: is the PM’s chief aide, Dominic Cummings, an evil genius or what Marina Hyde calls a “crap svengali”? One of the victims of the Tory purge – Tory grandee and Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames – told BBC Newsnight he believes this is all very deliberate. The assumption is that Cummings is intentionally baiting MPs so that he can trigger an election that Johnson will then cast as a populist battle of “people vs parliament”.
(snip)

[Loki Liesmith]

1. Good

[empedocles]

2. Hope so

[bigbrother05]

3. Will be much harder to spin the exit benefits in a new referendum

The first Brexit vote campaign didn't address the impacts of leaving the EU, only that they could thumb their noses at the Continentals and the UK would again be a powerhouse on a world stage. The vote was very close with N Ireland, Scotland, and Wales voting to stay and the slim majority generated from an anti-immigrant vote ginned up with Russian backing (Cambridge Analytical, et al).

A new vote will be a bloody battle that is likely to swing on another appeal to populist fear mongering.