Imagine you’re a Tory MP.
You know the party faces annihilation at the next GE: the only question is how bad it will be.
You know how popular Johnson was over Brexit, and how popular he continues to be. It’s a gamble, but under him you might save some red wall seats.
I can’t see how you’re not going to think he’s a good choice, and of course the party members (largely composed, perhaps, of Russian bots) will go for him.
To the horror of my OH, I think it will be. They will not vote for another woman. They’ve already had the chance to vote for Sunak and weren’t convinced - depressingly, I think it’s racism. So yes, it will be Boris.
I hope you’re wrong - turkeys & Christmas and all that.
My contempt for the Tories and the British public would reach new heights.
For why, do you really believe we want this debacle?
Not you personally but I know many who do.
“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.”
Joseph de Maistre
1753-1821
French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer and diplomat
But the British public have had no say in the election of a Prime Minister since 2019 - pre-Covid! It is down to the members of the Tory Party who represent an estimated 0.4% of the electorate - and many of whom are home counties, self-satisfied, tunnel-vision racists.
I fully appreciate that the British public cannot excercise any direct control in this matter but they could make their opposition known by taking to the streets as they would here or in many other countries.
It is supposed to be the mother country of democracy but as we all know that is just a joke.
'I’ve had a quick butchers at the two main local angophone groups on FB. Not a dickybird on this subject. Lots of photos of restaurant meals and kittens for adoption. Among many other things the citiens of the UK seem to believe that they live in a full blown democracy. Yet another delusion. What they have might have been OK in the mid nineteenth century but things have moved on since then. Just don’t tell Rees-Mogg and Co.
Gus Morris
Do you believe FB represents everyone? I seldom go near it, have looked at it maybe 3 times this year.
The Privileges Committee has yet to make a decision on whether he misled Parliament, and several reporters are hinting the evidence it’s still wading through is quite damning.
Would the majority of Tory MPs really want to risk further humiliation if Johnson is found in contempt?
Also, at least 5 MPs have said they’d resign the whip if Johnson came back, some even talking about crossing the floor.
Somehow I don’t think he’s as popular anymore as many think.
Just to be clear: 60% of those that voted in the last UK general election didn’t vote Tory - and that equates to about 75% of the whole population (because a lot don’t/can’t vote). In current opinion polls, 80% are saying they won’t vote Tory.
However, although most British people clearly don’t like the Tories, perhaps they can be blamed for not getting out and protesting vehemently enough? Or for a generally negative view of protest?
I think British people just don’t do protest.
Protest is for Latin countries, or at least for lesser nations.
What, like France?
Exactly that.
There are always some protesters, but they are seen as a lunatic fringe, not representing normal people. It’s not that some of the causes are bad or some of the protesters mad, but rather protest is an extreme last measure. Socially no-one takes French protesting seriously because it’s just a national characteristic - it’s a joke and a nuisance. The nearest thing in British culture is a pride march.
Just to clarify, this isn’t how I feel about France, but more what I think is the general perception.
If there were a popular march and protest against government it would require an extreme cause, and the country doesn’t seem to have reached that point yet.
Even the french government takes protests seriously, gilet jaunes, fuel tax protests for example
Held up this morning by a tractor protest against selling off local agricultural land (about 20 of them). Protests come in all sizes in France
This is the crux.
The 2019 election resulted in a landslide 80 seat victory for the Conservative Party. However, only 67.3% of the UK eligible voters managed to put their coats on and get themselves to a polling station. (No criticism towards voters in France. My husband and I received our ballot papers via La Poste only after the election.)
The UK Parliament House of Commons Library records, “In total there were 287 constituencies (44% of the UK’s 650 constituencies) in which turnout was less than two-thirds of the electorate.
Clearly, there is societal apathy. Even when it is clearly crucial. Why?
From the same HoC Library source,
“we examined whether there was any relationship between the two. Such a relationship, could suggest that turning out to vote in a constituency might be influenced by voters’ perceptions of how safe the seat is. However, the results of the 2017 Election showed next to no relationship between seat safeness and turnout – this remained the case at the 2019 Election.”
“ Polling research from Ipsos MORI] suggests that turnout in 2019 ranged from 47% among 18 to 24-year‑olds up to 74% among over-65s.”
(Clearly, a statistic that may protect the pensioners triple lock as long as the Tory party assumes pensioners continue to vote Tory. A Labour government would never be so callous to remove it, so looks like the future may be safe.)
Is it perhaps that society has been ‘groomed’ by the media in to the apathy of believing their one vote has no power? Or is it something else? Can democracy still work with a high level of apathy or are ‘we the people’ depriving it of life……
Of course they take them seriously, but it’s a proverbial joke in the UK, except when someone is caught up in one.