The Eleventh Hour - Rwanda Deportations Blocked

What a knife edge drama. First the government was going to forcibly remove a hundred asylum seekers to Rwanda. Then they realised that a few might be real victims. Ninety-three of them, as it happens. In the face of national and international outrage, including from the Archbishops of York and Canterbury and all 26 bishops in the House of Lords, the plan stayed on course. Come hell or high water, Ms. Patel and Mr. Johnson insisted that these deportations – all seven of them now – would magically stop other asylum seekers from trying to get here and better still, put a stop to people smuggling. An innovative plan, bragged Johnson. 

One that was tried by Israel and Australia and ditched for being ineffective and wildly expensive. Innovative indeed. Unbelievably, the whole plan hasn't been deemed legal yet. So this deportation was either a cynical distraction or a gamble – with taxpayers’ money and the lives and well-being of asylum seekers who have turned to this country for help – or both. I let that sink in for a minute. 

 

Patel and Johnson thought they could get away with it. They had luck on their side for a while. First a UK high court judge Mr. Justice Swift ruled that the deportation could go ahead, even though the legality hadn’t been decided, because it was in the public interest. That's eye-opening. Which part of the public was he referring to? Aren’t judges supposed to be apolitical? Sure, some people hate asylum seekers if their skin isn’t white. Others think they could be given jobs and contribute to the economy and to cultural diversity. Guess which side Ms. Patel is on. The judge added that the potential harm to the deportees was “in the realm of speculation”. I suppose that’s true, if you don’t bother to check your facts. Something I would have thought a high court judge might want to do. 

The appeals to the Supreme Court were also dismissed. This is even harder to understand. Admitting that a ruling hadn’t been made yet on the legality of the scheme, they said go ahead send the deportees off and just bring them back if the courts decide the scheme is illegal.  Tra la la. No harm done. Except of course to the deportees, already massively traumatised.

 

People’s lives spaffed up the wall, along with tax-payers’ money. The Appeals Court judges’ rationale? The UK government gave assurances that the deportees would be brought back. Well, that makes sense! We all know how truthful the UK government is. Of course they wouldn’t lie. Again, thank God for freedom of information and what a shame that Supreme Court judges didn’t bother to avail themselves of it and check whether Rwanda had a policy and infrastructure in place to return the refugees. Which it doesn’t. So the government’s assurances were empty. 

 

Which, of course, Ms. Patel knew and Johnson didn’t care either way, and which the judges could have and should have figured out for themselves.

 

Yesterday, by 10 pm, frantic, last-minute applications to the ECHR had succeeded in whittling the number of the fated down to four. More chest-beating from the government. They were going to do this! Purely out of compassion. They were desperate to stop people drowning in the English Channel, heroically determined to eliminate the gangsterism that exploits asylum seekers. And yes, of course it would be value for money, paying £500,000 to charter a 200-passenger-capacity jet to send four traumatised people on a ten-hour trip to a country with a shocking human rights record. Staff were on board, the runway lights were blazing, the plane’s engines warming up.  

 

Literally at the eleventh hour the ECHR judge overruled the UK judges' decisions and blocked all the removals. Because he checked to see if Rwanda would send the deportees back to the UK if the scheme was deemed illegal. It wasn’t difficult for him to determine the truth. Predictably a furious Johnson said maybe he would withdraw the UK from the ECHR. Patel bragged that the government will appeal, but since any appeal is unlikely to be able to get past the ECHR, the next flight can probably only take place on conclusion of the judicial review of the scheme – at about the end of July.  

 

If all goes well. Which isn’t likely for Boris Johnson, whose own new cost of living tsar David Buttress said not too long ago, “Never confuse an expensive education with intelligence or integrity. I don’t think Boris is particularly blessed with either.” And breaking news! His ethics adviser Lord Geidt has just resigned in protest at Partygate, saying there was a “legitimate question” about whether Johnson broke the ministerial code. No kidding.

 

If Johnson hoped to leave all of that behind and cause a whole lot of fun distraction so people forget what a liar and cheat he is, here’s the rub. This deportee scheme has fooled nobody, but it has further alienated his rebellious backbenchers and Tory grandees who like to hold onto the idea that Tories have integrity. They don’t like being dragged into the gutter or slammed by a bevy of bishops. Plus, the Honiton/Tiverton and Wakefield by-elections happen on 23 June. If the Lib Dems and Labour win respectively, by the end of July Boris Johnson could be out on his ear and with him, probably, possibly, hopefully, Priti Patel. 

 

It will be good riddance to an astonishingly incompetent, intellectually challenged and horrifically immoral, intolerant, cruel, opportunistic duo.  

Boris Johnson Beware! The Knives are out for Dominic Cummings

The Prime Minister has treated the British people with contempt.
One rule for Dominic Cummings, another for everybody else. pic.twitter.com/XIFCztZnbu

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 24, 2020

It's pretty much universal: Boris Johnson's support of Dominic Cummings is a suicide move. A petition calling for a public vote of no confidence in the PM has 107,000 signatures so far and cross-party calls for Cummings to go are burgeoning out of control. Nineteen Conservative MPs have gone on record.  International press is scathing of Johnson. So is the Church of England. Thirteen bishops have publicly expressed their outrage.

Johnson is trying to brazen it out, unwilling to accept that what worked for him over Brexit and in the GE has turned into a minefield. Even going back to post election, he has cynically tapped into the heroism of the second world war and the spirit of unity, playing at Churchill, to get voters to like him, forgive him his incompetence and faults, and do what he wants. He was successful enough to win a giant majority and then to get most to accept lockdown when Covid-19 hit us between the eyes. But he made the rookie mistake of thinking the loyalty is to him and his government.

It isn't. It's to the principle of honour. Not difficult to rouse in a country that prides itself on exceptionalism – even though it faded away long ago – and where nationalism has been heavily exploited for political purposes for four years.

Honour is a fierce animal, though and once roused, it's not easily hoodwinked. So the government's constant lies, incompetence, cover-ups, and the suffering and lives lost as a consequence, have registered; slowly at first but with increasing rapidity. Especially since Keir Starmer took over as leader of the opposition, because he is a man of honour and easily recognizable as such, even to Conservatives.

The UK is often compared to the US. Now, in backing Dominic Cummings' inexcusable lockdown flout, flying in the face of significant rebellion in his own party and even the right wing press, and following close on the heels of the latest opinion poll that showed Starmer surging ahead in popularity and respect, Johnson is playing Trump's game. It's an unwise move. This isn't America, where Republicans have allowed Trump to reduce them to a pack of zombies. Some Conservatives do have independence of mind, or at least enough to make them see the dangers of siding with Johnson, and they're more open to facing the reality that the power they gained with the last election is disintegrating at the speed of light.

He also wrote a very punchy letter to Kent Tory councillors urging them to do all they could to stop Johnson winning the leadership 11 months ago... https://t.co/bdq41MEKOK

— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 24, 2020

No matter how much power you think you have, you can't survive in politics without friends. Dominic Cummings has made a lot of enemies in the Cabinet, MPs nursing their grudges secretively, craving an opportune moment. That moment is now.

I’m told there are only three Tory MPs defending the Government on their backbench WhatsApp group tonight, out of 200+. They are IDS, Sheryll Murray and Andrew Mitchell.

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 24, 2020

And a petition calling for Cummings to be sacked has 419,000 signatures and counting fast. That damn hubris. It will take you down every time.

It's impossible yet to know why Boris Johnson is clinging onto his aide. Speculation is rife on social media that Cummings has something on him. Darker secrets and conspiracy theories aside, Cummings is a vindictive bully. It could be that Johnson doesn't want to get on the wrong side of him or that he's become so dependent he can't bear the idea of life without him. Hopefully his hand will be forced. To date nineteen Conservative MPs have gone on record calling for Cummings to be fired.

Dominic Cummings has a track record of believing that the rules don’t apply to him and treating the scrutiny that should come to anyone in a position of authority with contempt. The government would be better without him.

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) May 24, 2020

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer is being the leader the whole country is yearning for, so the longer Boris Johnson lets the wounds inflicted by Cummings fester, the better it is for Labour.

The question now is: do we accept being lied to, patronised and treated by a PM as mugs? The moral question is not for Cummings - it is for PM and ministers/MPs who find this behaviour acceptable. What are we to teach our children? (I ask as a responsible father.)

— Nick Baines (@nickbaines) May 24, 2020

UK Government Admits To No Tracking and Tracing as Lockdown Eases

We need enforced social distancing.

We need protective kit for our NHS staff.

And we need testing to happen on a mass scale. pic.twitter.com/KO51XTcvX4

— Jonathan Ashworth (@JonAshworth) March 23, 2020

“The UK decision to abandon tracing on 12 March 2020 is widely viewed as one of the most serious mistakes of this crisis.” – Jonathan Ashworth, MP, Labour Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary

It's well known that if you don't learn by your mistakes or those of others you will repeat them and every time you do the consequences will be increasingly disastrous. It's been the modus operandi for the UK government since Covid-19 made its first appearance.

The government, led by Boris Johnson the Incompetent– or not, since he was nowhere to be seen - arrogantly sat back and watched as infection went viral in Europe. In the blink of an eye the UK was on track to repeat Italy and Spain's experience, and then we overtook them both to become the worst hit because the government stopped testing, tracking and tracing in March. At first they said they stopped in accordance with advice from "the science", pretending there was no difference between their "science" and that of the WHO.

Then recently they admitted without shame that they told a barefaced lie and the real reason they stopped testing was a lack of capacity. No attempt back then to get up to speed as quickly as possible. No hint of lockdown. Let's play a game of herd mentality shall we?

How surprising that disaster struck. The government has made empty promises and inaccurate assertions on a daily basis and showed no remorse for the incompetence, lies and cover-ups, or the blood on their hands. They kept comparing the UK to the rest of Europe until the day UK deaths were highest in Europe, 2nd highest in the world. Then overnight it was a useless comparison.

Why has the government suddenly stopped publishing the international comparison? #PMQs pic.twitter.com/wfUQrp4KOP

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 13, 2020

Now, in defiance of all good sense and without consulting Scotland and Wales the government has eased lockdown. There's debate over what the R figure actually is and even if consensus were reached that it's below 1, it isn't low enough to be safe; it's an average, meaning that in some areas it's still dangerously high and now people can drive around the country, carrying infection with them. Good planning, Boris Johnson. Or is that Dominic Cummings?

Schools have been ordered to open on June 1. Teachers and unions are refusing, for good reason. Scotland and Wales are refusing to end lockdown. For good reason.

Already in England vast numbers of people have ignored social distancing and swamped parks and beaches. As if that weren't bad enough, the government plans to ease lockdown further in one week without - you guessed it - adequate testing, tracking and tracing securely in place.

What could possibly go wrong.

Keir Starmer Approval Ratings Overtake Boris Johnson's

In the 2019 general election Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party had its most crushing defeat since 1935, handing Boris Johnson the gift of a lifetime – absolute control in Parliament. Corbyn resigned and the shattered Labour party held a leadership election. On 2 April Keir Starmer won by a landslide. Hope flickered that the next election could be a win for Labour. Then Covid-19 hit us between the eyes.

Despite the shambling incompetence and criminal negligence of Boris Johnson and his government that has landed us in the unenviable position of being the worst hit in Europe, opinion polls consistently showed the British public supporting the government. But Boris Johnson and his unskilled, bungling cabinet have been living on borrowed time. When Parliament opened again Keir Starmer took the government to task in PMQs with forensic clarity, persistence – and dignity – and he hasn't let up.

He's the leader that we long for, while Boris Johnson has only made a fool of himself, unable to back up his own assertions, or to answer Starmer coherently.

Not surprisingly, Starmer's net approval ratings have overtaken Johnson’s. In the latest Opinium poll 35% back Labour's opposition to the government, 20% disapprove, and 33% are neutral. Government approval ratings have plummeted from 65% when lockdown was announced to 39%. Disapproval rose by six points to 42%.

Calls for an inquiry into the government's failures are increasing in volume. Thought you could do anything you wanted, Boris Johnson. That breaching of the red wall in the election, your control of Parliament? Squandered. There's a revolt in the north, with many cities refusing to end lockdown. Now it looks like the blue wall is going to come crashing down as Keir Starmer proves that integrity in British politics is alive and kicking. That's leadership for you.

Being in opposition to a government with a large majority doesn't mean you don't have power. Truth is hugely powerful. Some people don't recognise how much they long for it until they hear it. They may not realise how much lies and cover-ups have left them feeling assaulted until they witness integrity.

Meanwhile, in the US, Barack Obama is weighing in again and Joe Biden is doing a brilliant job of uniting Democrats. All of this gives me hope that good will triumph over evil, that the upsurge of the far right, with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson and their respective parties, has been more of a death rattle than the start of anything sustainable.