When A Government Is Not A Government

Last night we were treated to some of the worst scenes ever inflicted on the House of Commons, with government MPs browbeaten and allegedly manhandled and reduced to tears — by their own party’s officials. 

And the reason? Because they didn’t want to break their party’s manifesto pledge to ban fracking by, at the Prime Minister’s inexcusable insistence, voting for fracking. 

There couldn’t be a more stark and shocking reminder that this government was not elected. The Prime Minister, who replaced one who broke the law and is currently under Parliamentary investigation for alleged sleaze, has never faced a General Election as the party’s leader. Under her “leadership”, it has taken a sharp lurch to the right, with policies such as closing legal immigration routes and sending refugees to Rwanda, a country with a poor record on human rights, demanding photo ID for voters, which will disproportionately affect those on low incomes who have no car or opportunity to travel abroad and therefore do not have a driving licence or a passport, criminalizing protest that actually makes a sound, and banning people who have never committed any crime from attending peaceful protests. 

None of this has ever been voted for by the public, because none of it has ever been submitted to the public for a vote. 

This is not a legally-constituted government. It is a right-wing coup. And it cannot be allowed to stand. As I’m writing this, Graham Brady of the 1922 Committee is meeting with Liz Truss. He needs to understand that yet another Prime Minister the country hasn’t voted for, with the opportunity to take the country in who-knows-what direction that has likewise never been submitted to the judgement of the electorate, won’t cut it. 

We need a General Election. And we need it now. 

General Election NOW!

Exciting news - the petition for an immediate General Election has reached well over half a million signatures, and will be debated in the House of Commons on Monday! 

That’s not a reason to stop circulating it, though. We need to send the strongest possible signal to this government that we want the right to vote on its continued existence. The party’s lurch even further to the right under Liz Truss has not been sanctioned by the people, and the massive demonstrations that Enough Is Enough have proved beyond all doubt that the people don’t support it. 

And let’s not be fooled by Tory claims that no-one voted for Gordon Brown to replace Tony Blair, either. The Tories were outraged, and claimed they never would do such a thing. Well, what’s another broken promise to a Tory government? 

But here’s the thing. Gordon Brown didn’t take the Labour Party and the country on a wild ride to an extreme position that the country hadn’t voted for, as Liz Truss has. And at least he knew something about finance. 

The more signatures we get, the more pressure it’ll put on Tory MPs to support it. We need 36 of them to vote for it (or twice that number to abstain, or just find somewhere else to be that day). 

Hopefully there are still some with a conscience, or at least the sense of self-preservation to gamble on earning enough respect for their actions to win their own seats back, but a lot may well depend on what they think the feeling in the country really is. 

So, let’s show them. Let’s go for a million signatures! 

If you haven’t signed already, please do. And, either way, please share the link on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere you can. Let’s make our feelings clear, and call on MPs (they work for us, remember!) to give us what we want - a General Election now! 

Never In The Field Of UK Governance

They promised we’d regain the sovereignty we’d never lost: they gave us empty shelves and rising prices. 

They promised Brexit wouldn’t affect our ability to export goods to the EU: they turned the county known as the Garden of England into a lorry park, and drowned firms in the red tape that we’d originally joined the EU to avoid.

They promised we would still be able to travel freely in the EU: they gave us queues for passport checks while EU nationals sailed through. 

They promised we could still study in the EU: they pulled out of the Erasmus agreement that permitted it. 

They promised us prosperity: they trashed the pound. 

They promised they would keep us safe from Covid: they delayed their border checks so long, they let it in. 

They promised us new hospitals: they tried to claim that old ones that had had work done on them were new. 

They promised “sunlit uplands”: they gave us threats of power cuts this winter. 

They promised us no border checks with Northern Ireland: now they want to give us “freeports” with customs barriers within the British mainland.

They promised us a lucrative trade deal with the USA: we got the snub that their attempts to tear up the Good Friday Agreement, of which the USA is guarantor, deserved. 

And these are just a few examples of the misery the Tory government has put us through. 

The majority of the country didn’t vote for them. The Tories under Boris Johnson got just 43.6% of the vote. Liz Truss’s administration (I’d hesitate to describe it as a government), way to the right of even his, has never faced the country in a General Election, and therefore has precisely none. 

As so many people came out on the streets last week to make quite clear - Enough Is Enough. 

In football terms, Liz Truss, you’ve lost the dressing-room. You need to go, and take your unelected right-wing cabal with you. 

We need a General Election, and we need it now. 

Because never in the field of UK governance has so much needless suffering been inflicted on so many by so few.