Andrew Haslam-Jones

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

(You’ll notice that the rows in the Menin Gate are quite well integrated.)

Well said, Gary Neville! 👏

If you first accept that even in that system all the candidates would be preselected by small, unrepresentative groups of party members, maybe. Alternatively, you’re just setting up a more equal bun fight.

Just a slight shame that they had to rip the UK apart in order to do it.

That Brexit referendum to end the Tory melodrama is going so well, isn’t it?

Bet Cameron is pleased with himself.

He leads the country like a barrister striving not to offend a judge whose opinion he cannot quite fathom.

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I think someone already had a go. In any event, it’s illogical to believe that going it alone in splendid isolation is more beneficial than cooperation which has been painstakingly agreed over decades (unless the advantage is sating xenophobia): bsky.app/profile/pome...

Neither was this gully-foyle-debunked.co.uk/1-10

Now, imagine what this inexperienced and ignorant party would do in the speeding headlights of national government:

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social re Any Questions and our political system, 24 skimmable pages on what’s wrong with what we have and, from p 13, a utopian alternative: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/edvlv...

Isn’t that just a factor of how a party political, first past the post electoral system works?

Farage, Trump, Musk: your boy Javier Milei just took one hell of a beating. Why so quiet? | Aditya Chakrabortty The wild politics and chainsaw made Argentina’s president an economic hero for the right. And now, with his nation’s finances in chaos: silence, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

Farage, Trump, Musk: your boy Javier Milei just took one hell of a beating. Why so quiet? | Aditya Chakrabortty

🤔

On what grounds do either of you think the ECHR has any jurisdiction here?

No.

24 June 2016. David Cameron :
“The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected.”

No. If you ask for advice, you don’t need to take it. Parliament is sovereign, unless it binds itself with a mandatory referendum (which this wasn’t). And the argument in court for the referendum not being void for irregularities was that Parliament had the power to ignore the result.

You’re relying on a pronouncement of David Davis rather than logic or law.
So:
There was an advisory referendum.
D Cameron said it would “be respected”.
T May tried to leave.
The SC in Miller said Parliament had to decide that.
So, effectively, the EU NoW Act was Parliament’s decision.

Parliament, by the EU NoW Act.

That argument arguably helped the judge conclude that the referendum was not void for irregularities because Parliament could still have decided differently. Parliament still had to make a decision. 2/2

No. Parliamentarians decided they were bound by the referendum. That was a political decision. That is different from changing the binding or not binding nature of referendums. Eadie QC, government counsel admitted, subsequently argued that the referendum was non-binding. 1/2

Instead of arguing among ourselves, we really need to be boosting anyone willing to say loud and clear that Brexit is damaging the UK and it’s in all our interests to rejoin the EU as soon as possible.

My point is not to do with the judgement but that rather than instructing May to deliver the Art 50 notice, Parliament said she could (weaker), and May referred in the notice to the referendum as the decision (it wasn’t; it was Parliament’s decision). All a bit “not my decision”.

No. The SC said Parliament had to authorise her. She couldn’t do it without Parliament’s instruction. That was what Miller was about.

What that tells us is that the politicians knew it was a bad decision even though they went ahead with it. The hope that gives is that the truth might set us free. The fear is that the politicians will keep playing “blame foreigners” until we get a disastrous Reform government. 2/2

I understand the frustration. But it gave her the authority to notify and she did. She then muddied the pitch by referring to the referendum as the decision that was being complied with rather than Parliament’s vote. Parliament and the PM did the deed but were squeamish about fessing up to it. 1/2

Which lies? The bill after the SC judgement asked Parliament to vote for PM May to deliver the withdrawal letter and it did.

It wasn’t binding. It was admitted in court by the government’s counsel that had the referendum been binding, it would have been void for irregularities. Cameron’s “once in a lifetime” statement and the pretence of it being binding was not itself binding. PMs can’t make law unilaterally.