Poor Cohen, he’s very close to disappearing up his own fundament.
See a subject matter expert coming to a wildly different conclusion from Nick of New Labour.
Nick Cohen will use any skulduggery to avoid a result he doesn’t like while claiming to be upholding the constitution he wants to shred. Fatuous doesn’t begin to describe his frothing.
“But if the representatives of the people decide, who apart from judges can stop Johnson shutting them out of Westminster? If arguments should be won at the ballot box, by what right does Johnson seek to silence the representatives who won the ballots?”
Johnson offered them a general election and they had the capacity to VONC the government. Nick is just plain wrong here.
“If Johnson was right, everything we thought we knew about the British constitution would have to be torn up, he said. The executive was no longer answerable to Parliament or subservient to Parliament. It had the power to suspend Parliament to avoid scrutiny during a national crisis and the courts had no right to intervene.”
The parliament has scrutiny power. They have attempted to buck that responsibility with no consequence. The executive is returning power.
“The judges kept asking Pannick for precedents to guide them. Tellingly there were none because no prime minister has attempted to pull off Johnson’s stunt.”
Horsedung. Major prorogued for a more obviously self-serving reason during the “cash for questions” scandal. No one has engaged in lawfare over an executive power that dates back to 1689. The unprecedented actions are on behalf of his tribe. This escapes him because he is deranged.
“The mass deselection of Tory MPs and the Prime Minister’s refusal to provide a witness statement to the court speaks of a governing clique that despises accountability. The old rules bind its opponents but not them. They are the masters now and they are no more answerable to judges than MPs.”
Christ alive. The old rules have not bound their opponents one iota. The speaker literally seized the order paper from the government. THAT IS NOT THE OLD RULES. Letwinism is a constitutional abomination, one that fair-weather constitutionalists like Cohen are fine with because it benefits their desired result. There have been myriad cases brought by Gina Miller attempting to engage the judiciary in executive functioning. This is NOT NORMAL. A simultaneous 3 pronged legal case due to a Queen’s speech is utterly abnormal.
Moreover, de-selection is a party matter, and one that has been used by every major party for centuries. The virtuous Nick doesn’t know this because he’s historically illiterate.
“As Conservatives are no longer conservative I suppose it is pointless telling them that one day the same tactics could be used against them by a radical left government.”
They did. It was called New Labour, and Nick Cohen was enamoured with it. Atlee and Heath both engaged in revolutionary politics. None of this would bother Nick, because they align with his desires.
He can do one.
