I never said there was anything specifically wrong with the link. You threw up the link because you were upset about my ”Corbyn coup”comment. Judicial reform is a tricky business in most countries. The polish courts system is very inefficient, it takes years for cases to be heard. Lifetime appointments etc. The guy promoting the reforms. Ziobro is a nasty piece of work, I’ll give you that. He is in a power struggle with the Prime Minister at the moment. President Duda won’t sign the draft in it’s current form anyway. He’s too smart for that. I don’t see anyone protesting on the streets about this one at the moment.
Every plot to stop no-deal Brexit rests on what Corbyn wants
This week’s half-hearted intervention by the Labour leader suggests he’s happy to watch Britain crash out of the EU
Share
Save
‘Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent,” wrote Edmund Burke in 1790, “pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.”
Enough, then, of chinking Remainer grasshoppers like this columnist — or chinking Leavers like the prime minister’s adviser Dominic Cummings. Enough of Tory rebel resistance to a no-deal Brexit, admirable as it is; or the remnants of the brave little Independent Group. Enough, even, of the wedge of Liberal Democrat MPs and their leader Jo Swinson’s importunate chink this week.
Think, instead, about the cattle. In the one great issue now facing the nation, the grasshoppers are marginal unless the cattle are with them. For a no-deal Brexit to be blocked by parliament, the cattle are Labour MPs. For all our chinking, the so-called “rebel alliance” sits on the shoulders of this confused, demoralised and lumbering giant, elevated only by Labour’s arithmetic.
Remember them, the principal opposition? A distant memory perhaps? But those 247-odd souls, nearly 40 per cent of the total of voting MPs whose party had the support of almost 13 million voters two years ago, constitute the great bulk of potential opposition to no-deal. All calculations must rest on their intentions. Unless the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs stay rock solid behind whatever parliamentary procedure is chosen to stop Boris Johnson crashing Britain out of the EU, all is lost. Their solidarity remains a likelihood but not a certainty — and I’m worried that Jeremy Corbyn has this week been trying to muddy the waters.
I cannot dispel a suspicion that in the coming struggle Mr Corbyn, or more importantly the tight-knit group who help steer his leadership, have cloudy intentions. On Brexit they have a history of triangulating and this week, by steering the question away from no-deal and towards who should be prime minister, they’re at it again. Here are two questions to which I fear we cannot be sure of the answer. Do the key little Corbyn gang really want a general election right away? And do they really want to stop Britain leaving the European Union?
On the first question — do they want an election before October 31? — there must be reason for doubt. This would favour Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party at the expense of both Labour and the Tories, and it’s hard to imagine the result being a working Labour majority. Were I Mr Corbyn my preferred election date would be this winter, after Britain had crashed out of the EU: a time of great national anxiety. Particularly if Mr Johnson had cheated constitutional convention by denying parliament a vote he might well be deeply unpopular by then. And Mr Farage’s Brexit fox would have been shot.
To my second inquiry — do the Corbyn gang want to impede Brexit? — I reply that if I believed what the most powerful of Mr Corbyn’s team, Seumas Milne, believes, I’d see the European Union as a capitalist club and an impediment to socialist goals. Nor should we forget Mr Corbyn’s spooky silence in the campaign for Remain before the 2016 referendum: it spoke louder than words.
Has this long-term opponent of British EU membership really changed his mind? Has he relegated Mr Milne? Imagine for a moment that as Labour leader, and for fierce ideological reasons, you wanted Britain out but were realistic enough to know that the short to middle-term consequences would prove unpopular with voters. What wish would you be asking your fairy godmother to grant? That a Tory did the irreversible deed, surely, leaving you to build socialism on the ruins of what the Tories leave behind. And Mr Johnson is about to oblige.
So I place the Corbyn gang where I think their interests should place them: keen for the hardest possible Brexit to happen, anxious that Mr Johnson does it for them, and tiptoeing sometimes awkwardly between wanting to appear opposed to Tory plans and secretly trying not to trip him. In which case what does such a Labour leader do? Call for a confidence vote and a general election. And hope thereby (and apparently accidentally) to queer the pitch of the rebel alliance’s bid to take control of government business. In short, triangulate away from Brexit.
This would solve for me the riddle of why Mr Corbyn launched his no-confidence project in a manner careless of support from other parties. There was no consultation beforehand. Had I, in his place, really wanted to topple Mr Johnson in time for a pre-October 31 general election, I’d have made private approaches to potential allies, sounding them out, discussing what conditions they’d want to place on my hoped-for “interim” premiership, and doing my best to turn it into a collegiate, cross-party idea. Instead, the Labour leader has fired off what was essentially an open letter, taking (for example) Ms Swinson so by surprise that she foolishly forgot to feign interest in the proposal and instead called it out for the nonsense that, in just a couple of weeks, it would be.
It’s very possible Mr Corbyn will postpone a confidence vote in early September. The office of “interim prime minister” is unknown to our constitution; who can say what policy issues or political emergencies might arise during Mr Corbyn’s hoped-for few weeks in Downing Street. Weeks could become months; could he be trusted to set aside his personal politics? Other parties will also be wary of any ambition in the Labour leader to detoxify his present, rebarbative image by appearing in the guise of a national unity figure, even if only for a while.
It may, nevertheless, come to a confidence vote, more likely in October; and that might be too late. It is vital that the parliamentary Labour Party sees the promise of a confidence vote — but not yet — as the trap it would be. It must not let Mr Corbyn’s whips fool it: the critical time will be the first weeks of September. These are when the Commons itself could take charge of our European fate.
This columnist’s suspicion is that the bandits in temporary control of the Labour Party want Mr Johnson to crash Britain out of the EU, then crash his own premiership into the buffers of a general election. Mr Johnson appears to want this too. Parliament should beware of getting crushed in an eccentric embrace between a crank and a rascal, both trying to procrastinate.
1 Like
its only a stunt from Corbyn, he knows he will not be accepted by any tory as an interim PM, everyone knows it, Jo Swinson knows what this bullshitter is all about
5 Likes
Corbyn is so toxic and divisive that his insistence on heading this unity government is stopping the last chance of preventing a no deal Brexit. He only cares about the keys to No.10. A horrible, little snivelling worm of a man.
5 Likes
So what, the current PMs even more toxic and devisive. Also there this guy Donald Trump you need to read up on. Welcome to 21st century politics
What’s Donald Trump got to do with Corbyn going in as PM? Yout point is whataboutary. Corbyn is not the man to lead this last ditch unity gov and it seem’s he can’t/won’t accept this.
Quite obvious an obvious reference after you mentioned Corbyn was toxic and devisive. It doesn’t seem to matter nowadays. Your weird personal hatred of Corbyn is indicative of the real obstacle here. You should breathe out and let it go if you truly want a resolution but you cant/wont accept this
The anti-Corbyn thing is basically a Scientologist-style cult
It’s utterly bizarre
None of them even know why they’re so against him, it’s merely an article of faith on their part that cannot be questioned
They literally think he’s the devil
These are the same people who have no problem with the DUP being in government in the UK
1 Like
It isn’t and they don’t. He is perceived by the middle of the road population here as an utterly untrustworthy coward, who is using a potential crisis likely to disproportionately affect the very people he purports to represent, though in truth he has as much in common with them as Jacob Rees mogg does, entirely for personal gain.
As a nasty, vicious, power crazed zealot slightly detached from reality, who has surrounded himself with like minded zealots. He and his acolytes seem to brutally suppress any and all dissent, and treat a symbolic democratic vote for a pro remain party with far greater counterforce than they do a publicly anti semitic statement.
He is widely reviled amongst the centre right, centre and centre left as he is perceived as a snide, anti-everything bully and coward.
11 Likes
a vile individual, very thick aswell, anyone with half a brain can see right through him, there’s a host of people who would be acceptable to all parties in the short term but this cretin is still pursuing his own agenda which of course is Brexit, the harder the better in his case
2 Likes
Its because they believe everything Rupert Murdoch tells them to. Boris by his own admission is infinitely a more snivelling untrustworthy piece of filth than Corbyn who is fundamentally a decent man. But they have been indoctrinated by corporate mass media and lost the faculty to think for themselves. Its quite sad
1 Like
You couldn’t have a better example than this comment if you tried.
It’s straight from page one on the Murdoch manual and is basic standard mind control. The fact that its true of just about every politician ever doesn’t seem to matter to the sheep
Of course mate. The cultists and the student union types are too far gone to see this. That’s all he really is, a student union blowhard who has somehow risen to Labour leader.
1 Like
Meanwhile your beloved Boris is hellbent on destroying the good friday agreement and UK and Irelands economy. Oh but it doesnt matter because corbyn is a student union blowhard so we cant have him. Mind control 101
Bad as he might be, Corbyn has been democratically elected as the leader of the opposition in the UK.
2 Likes
Where did I say I love Boris? Does mind control Murdoch control The Guardian, The Telegraph, the INTERNET et al? I sure as shit don’t read any Murdoch rags. The Corbyn cultists just come up with these conspiracy reasons when the truth is very simple. He’s a worm that most people do not want as PM and also an idiot to boot.
1 Like
Corbyn will get his answer in an election.
The people have answered, Corbyns Labour gained 30 seats in 17
You do. It’s quite obvious
Dislike for Corbyn does not imply the opposite for Boris. TM put a very sensible deal on the table, given the circumstances and was lambasted by all sides. It’s all a mess, with no easy answers and Corbyn certainly isn’t one of them.