I’m a little envious that, in the UK, you have an opposition that’s willing to stand up and tell Boris Johnson to resign. We had a president who was just as bad and our opposition party just whined about the difficulty of scraping up support for an impeachment, while the Republicans lined up in lockstep behind the buffoon.
Here is Boris Johnson acting like a child at #PMQs while Ian Blackford replies with “what a look, the Prime Minister laughing once again at the British public.” pic.twitter.com/rPDwO6ZmNM
— Mike H (@mikoh123) January 19, 2022
This could be really interesting. Will BoJo’s ego even allow him to resign? I suspect not. He’s going to have to be pried out of his chair with a no confidence vote.
It will take only 54 slimeballs,er sorry tory mps to send a letter saying they have no confidence in johnson
to the 1922 committee to trigger a vote of no confidence.
So our opposition actually took action to unseat the President, and got 100% of the party behind that action, but the British opposition is more effective because they made a couple of speeches? Your feud with the Democratic party is reaching ridiculous levels.
That’s overselling the opposition a bit. Starmer is very much doing what the Democrats did under Trump: endless grumbling which is specific about things which aren’t more tone than policy (the Christmas parties) but nonspecific and unconvincing about things which are more policy than tone (implementation of Brexit), while refusing to mount even a symbolic attempt to oppose the right-wing majority or move the party even slightly to the left (Starmer has said he won’t form any coalitions, meaning that for the Tories to lose control of the government either Labour has to actually hold a majority of seats or else third parties have to gain a combined majority of seats, which is not realistically happening). In terms of policy, he pulled underhanded tricks to undermine the left (including some Cambridge Analytica-style sh*t involving targeted ad buys), refuses to make any statement about what Labour actually stands for, and the policies and votes his faction outline are basically the same as those of the Tories but without the obnoxious wrapping (for example, he has signed on to privatization of the NHS).
What are you talking about? They did impeach him, twice, and much else. There were speeches like this every day. They won back the House in 2018, and the Senate and presidency in 2020. The difference here is that they have PMQs and we don’t have any equivalent. Pelosi tearing up Trump’s SOTU speech was the closest we could get. I’ve seen many British people over the past few years say they wish they had some of the measures we do, but this is one advantage they have.
The real difference is that several Tories are turning on Johnson while Republicans are still in with Trump’s fascist cult. A few minutes before this started today, a Conservative MP defected to Labour. At the end,
From the BBC:
The Tory party is ruthless when it comes to defenestrating leaders who have become an electoral liability. At the beginning of the week it was said that Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, already had at least 20 letters from Tory MPs calling for a vote of no confidence and subsequent leadership contest (in which the current leader is not allowed to take part) in his possession. It’s difficult to imagine that another 20 haven’t been written this week, and the polls due at the weekend will likely trigger more to be written. As davidc1 says, the critical number is 54.
Given that almost all MPs will be in their constituencies for meetings on Saturday morning, I expect many of the Tories will get their ears bent by constituents and party members and return to Westminster on Monday ready to vote Johnson out. The recent policy announcements bashing the BBC will have appealed to some of the Neanderthals in the party, as will getting the Royal Navy to interdict refugee dinghies in the Channel, but those are so obviously distraction tactics that more people will feel insulted than propitiated.
Christian Wakeford, the MP who switched parties, to the media (quoted in the Guardian):
It’s not the Tory MPs that are the big difference here. They’re hearing it from their constituents who are appalled by Johnson’s double standard and mendacity.
Johnson has lost the trust and support of the Tory base over this, and the MPs don’t want to go down with the ship.
On the other hand Trump can still do no wrong according to his base, and Republican politicians are too craven to oppose them.
In both cases the politicians are simply responding to the will of their political base, so it’s basically down to the fact that the British Tory rank and file haven’t gone of the deep end yet.
So Starmer is happy to welcome a turncoat “centrist” Tory as a Labour MP but not Corbyn? Good to know where he stands. I’m sick of British politics.
Not really. If Labour was the largest party but lacked a majority (or even if the Tories were still the largest party but lacked a majority and could not persuade other parties to support them), Starmer could form a minority government, and either negotiate arrangements short of a coalition with other parties (one is known as “confidence and supply”, meaning another party promises to support the ruling party on votes of confidence and on passing the budget, in return for policy concessions – the “Democratic” Unionists did not form a coalition with May’s Tories after the 2017 election, but agreed to support her in key votes in return for
a bribeextra funding for northern Ireland), or just dare them to vote his government down. Or he could resign as leader and let someone else form a coalition. Or stay as party leader, but let someone else in the party become PM – there’s no rule that the PM has to be leader of their party. Or of course he could go back on his word, something at which he has had considerable practice since being elected leader on a promise to unite the party and stick with most of Corbyn’s policies.SC@4,6,
Christian Wakeford is, unfortunately, an odious racist, who has denigrated asylum seekers and supported criminalisation of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people; and in addition supported austerity, voted against measures to combat climate catastrophe, supported draconian restrictions on protest… His defection is probably just a career move, based on a belief that he’s more likely to retain his seat (which is one of the so-called “Red Wall” seats that went Tory in 2019 after decades as a Labour stronghold) running for Labour at the next election. Many in the Labour Party (which is not my party) will be dismayed, although not surprised, that Starmer has welcomed him as a Labour MP.
tacitus @ #7 and KG @ #9, thanks for the information!
Mostly, that’s true, thought there are a very few chinks in the solid block of pro-Dumpster Republicans. In addition to the well-known one’s…Cheney, Kinzinger, and Romney (sometimes)…a couple more have made noises recently. I’m surprised Mitch hasn’t come out about it because he’s a target. Even Ron DeSantis is sparring with his lordship. Of course, that’s because DeSantis sees Dumpster as an obstacle to his own ambitions. And there’s the rub. Republicans won’t toss Don on the woodpile because it’s the right thing to do but because he’s in their way. Right now he’s pulling in lots of money and since that’s the name of the game they are in no hurry to do anything about him.
Meanwhile, in the Republican Party…
Doesn’t make much difference if he resigns.
He’s not a head of state, and the government still has the majority.
@ ^ ajbjasus : They need to force an election somehow -at leats inthe UK like inOz that can kinda be done.
Of course in recent years Australia saw alot of terrible Prime Minsiters replaced – unfortunately in our more recent cases with ever worse ones. (Abbott-Turnbull-Scummo) Scotty from Marketing will be hard to top as worst PM of all in mylifetime and can’t go soon enough.
I do think there needs to be a mechanism where truly awful leaders whether PMs or Presidents can be removed before they do more damage. The USA’s lack of this is another flaw in a system badly needing polirtical reform – as ours does too.
@12. SC (Salty Current) : If the Jan 6th attack on the capital and attempt at installing Trump as a dictator and ending Democracy inthe USA isn’t “completely off the edge over acliff” then what is?
Really love to see what answer Murkowski would give if she could be made to actually answer that.
@ 9. KG.
Aren’t those three terms all referring to the same group of peoples and isn’t the first one considered derogatory and not used these days or am i mistaken?
Hmm .. wiki has this :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
@4 SC
The GOP leaders are spineless, but we already knew that. As always, I blame the GOP voters for most of this (or at least the ones who answer polls). You could tell that after 1/6/21, the GOP congresscritters were salivating for the chance to jump off the Trump ship. But the voters stuck with him, and their duly elected officials never dare to show anything resembling leadership, so they were forced to about-face and stick with him as well. What seems to be different in the UK is that hopefully the Tory voters are fed up with Johnson as well.
Re 16: My understanding is that the Roma are a specific ethnic group, many of whom have historically followed a particular peripatetic lifestyle, that the Travellers are people of various ethnic groups who follow or followed such a lifestyle, and Gypsy is now considered a slur but has historically been used to refer variously to either or both groups.
We used to have a Republican party that was willing to tell the President to resign.
I’m a little envious that, in the UK, you have an opposition that’s willing to stand up and tell Boris Johnson to resign.
That is not the opposition. That is his own party. Even by UK Tory, this is a bit rough.
I’d say Boris may be trouble. Oh, dear.
StevoR–
No need to qualify it. Scomo is the worst PM in Australian history. It’s not even in doubt.
chrislawson, hm. You think Tony Abbott was better?
@20 jrkrideau
The clip above is of the SNP’s leader in Westminster. David Davis told him to resign too though.
#14
“I do think there needs to be a mechanism where truly awful leaders whether PMs or Presidents can be removed before they do more damage. The USA’s lack of this is another flaw in a system badly needing polirtical reform – as ours does too.”
I understand why you would say that, but fear that would be a step down the path of elevating the PM to a presidential type of role.
<
blockquote>Aren’t those three terms all referring to the same group of peoples and isn’t the first one considered derogatory and not used these days or am i mistaken? – StevoR@16,
also:
In the UK, there is an organization called the Gypsy Council, made up of, and defending the rights of, people who identify as Romani Gypsies, as well as other Travellers (who in the UK are mostly of Irish heritage) so here at least, “Gypsy” is not a slur. If and when the Gypsy Council changes its name to avoid the term, I’ll stop using it.
Apologies for the blockquote screw-up@25, but I think it’s clear that the first paragraph is quoting StevoR.
@ 23 kingoftown
Never even looked at the clip. I was thinking about what sounds like the backbencher revolt.
Heck, the Opposition telling a PM to resign is so common here in Canada it hardly merits a mention in the press.
These PMQs look like a bunch of junior high playground tell offs and tit-for-tat. Do they accomplish anything beyond MPs getting to prance and preen for their audience?
I must say, a dressing down from a Scotsman is always satisfying…
Today we learned the government has
threatened to withdraw government funds from districts of MPs who went against the government.
The last week the government also tried to blackmail the MPs that demand BoJos resignation by leaking incriminating stuff about them to servile newspapers.
This is something I expected of the scum but it is now in the open. And it is fellow tories making the accusations making them credible.
@28 They are playing up for the cameras,the House of Comedians is a perfect example of the joke
about politics being showbusiness for ugly people.