Time for Tories to call for PM to quit
FOR weeks our Prime Minister has been obfuscating, deceiving, and downright lying, to us and to ‘our’ parliament.
His magic, his charisma is gone. We can now see him as he has always been, as his ‘friends’ knew him to be. We can begin to look at what he has done to our country in a different light. The situation is grim.
Dishonest deceitful egoism, carelessness, selfishness and authoritarianism – the hallmarks of Johnson’s government are anathema to decent voters of every political hue. Outrage at party-gate is deeply felt.
The double-speak, the double standards, the hypocrisy, are now exposed as Johnson’s tricks for getting what he wants, doing what he wants, and hiding truth from voters.
Party-gate is merely an exemplar of other reckless failures, over the economy, over the Covid pandemic, over unlawful contracts for PPE, over the undermining of the NHS, farmers and fishing communities and our regions. Meanwhile, it seems, the government gives favours, jobs, contracts to political allies or in return for financial donations.
They partied whilst we isolated, or grieved at a distance. He flies the flag, has portraits of the Queen, wants a pointless Royal Yacht but in reality insults even the Queen on the eve of her husband’s funeral – symbolic of the disdain with which he and his clique rule us. To them we are the ‘little people’ to exploit, not a community to serve.
Is our governance now irredeemably corrupt? Investigations into potential wrongdoing are regularly denied, kicked into the long grass or else proceed with hamstrung guidelines and run by carefully appointed investigators beholden to the Prime Minister.
The PM then, at leisure, accepts or declines recommendations. Behaviour which in any other modern democracy would bring disgrace and shame upon perpetrators, is normalised. Are the powerful so certain that they control the institutions of state, including the police, and media, as to be immune from consequences? It would seem so.
Johnson’s behaviour sullies the reputation of our country and our people in the eyes of the civilised world. Reports in our allies’ newspapers have changed from admiration of our democracy to pity at post Brexit chaos and shenanigans and now, to ridicule. Our enemies, especially those in the Kremlin, gloat as they laugh at what they see as our degradation. This is not a government of patriots.
It’s time for our local Conservative MPs, like those in Scotland, to detach themselves from Johnson, to endorse the views of their voters, and write to the chair of the 1922 committee to demand Mr Johnson’s resignation. It will not be enough to restore the government’s or our nation’s reputations though, unless honesty, integrity and probity are mainstreamed and real democracy is restored.
The Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill reaches a crucial stage in the House of Lords this month. This Bill represents an enormous and unprecedented extension of police powers, effectively giving the police and ministers the powers to ban, limit or impose truly undemocratic restrictions on what has been normal peaceful protests. 18 pages of amendments have been slipped in at the last minute, in order to avoid scrutiny and debate.
This kind of slippery conduct is typical for Johnson’s regime but has desperately serious consequences and is the antithesis of democracy.
Characters such as Mr Johnson are patently unsuited to hold such powers, which are unheard of in any exemplary democratic state. They enable this, or a future government, to turn the UK into a police state. Mr Putin would applaud them.
I wonder if any of our local Conservative MPs have enough belief in the principles of constitutional democracy to defend our rights, oppose this bill, remove the party-gate prime minister, and replace him with a person who would lead an honest government governing in compliance with real democratic norms?
David Powell