The current, increasingly autocratic and “fact free” government is taking a more and more extreme stance and is prepared (despite insubstantial protestations to the contrary) to walk away from membership of the EU with “No-Deal”. We have to take stock of the consequences of that, so that we can engage the legal teams required to challenge/fight the inevitable consequences for UK citizens.
Boris Johnson said that 31st October was a “do or die” moment, and Jeremy Hunt was prepared to explain to people and to businesses going bust as a result of Brexit why it’s actually all worthwhile – So Brexit is worth going bust for – nothing like betting with other people’s money, eh?
The government has managed to “bounce” the opposition parties into a hastily called General Election, an election that will be fought across a broad agenda of issues. That being the case, voter registration, How do you make sure your vote counts in this General Election? Make sure you Register and Vote, and tactical voting Making your vote count is not just about registering and voting. Your vote has to help ensure that we get, in THIS election, what is Best for the UK. Are crucial to making sure we get a pro-EU/pro-referendum government
The current EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, a bill that had started its Parliamentary trajectory when the Commons voted in favour of a 2nd Reading, is lost and the work done by MPs to ensure there was time to analyse and debate it fully has been wasted.
The hard-won 3-month Brexit “Flextension” will also be largely wasted.
We are now in the 5-week campaign period leading up to the General Election. The new Parliament will then be summoned by proclamation of the Queen in Council. Boris Johnson has promised that this will happen before 23rd December. So there’ll be no problem there, will there?
Not forgetting that successful candidates in the General Election do not become MPs until the new Parliament has been summoned and they are sworn in as MPs.
There will need to be another Queen’s Speech (with its associated debate), the election of a new Speaker and the reconstitution of the various select committees.
Normally, and admittedly you can hardly call these times ‘normal’, Parliament would be in recess from about 20th December until around 7th January.
So it is quite conceivable that under these circumstances, the 3-month extension would only provide 3 weeks of Parliamentary time before the UK is up against the next Brexit deadline.
So instead of focusing on the greatest crisis the UK has faced since 1939 (or even on all that urgent fix-the-country business which was the excuse for proroguing Parliament and for the farcical last Queen’s Speech that HM had to deliver), vast amounts of time is being taken up with an election campaign.
A classic example of tribal party politics versus the national unity the country needs at least as much as it did in 1940.
What our future work involves – challenging the UK government again over its aspirations to ignore Parliament, challenging the EU on the way it has treated UK citizens, or challenging the discriminatory way UK citizens in general have been treated – depends on collecting the evidence and being able to fund the challenges.
The work behind the Millions in The Margins will guide what needs to be done. That the UK and the EU have found it politically expedient to ignore UK citizens and their EU rights and interests is no reason to allow them to abrogate their responsibility to all 65 million UK citizens.
We have long fought for the principle that the UK’s Parliament must decide what is in the best interests of the UK. That’s why we joined with others to challenge the Government over its proposed use of archaic Royal Prerogative to trigger Art.50.
We do not all need to agree on every aspect of the way forward. We do need to find the greatest possible commonality of interests.
Building on shared objectives strengthens us – focusing on differences weakens us and strengthens those who do not share our democratic values.
It is only by building on the shared objectives that we stand a chance of salvaging a strong, forward-looking United Kingdom & Northern Ireland from the Boris Johnson-oriented course, focused on the greater glory of Boris, a course that will cause untold damage to us and our country over the coming decades.
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We greatly value your support. Many of you have been with us for a good while and have donated not just once but multiple times. We thank you all for it, and we do know that there are practical limits to what people can contribute.
Whether you can donate right now or not (if you can, please click on the image above to do so), please spread the word among your contacts and on social media. Have you got a fiver you could spare for us? Could you spare us a fiver next month, the month after…?
Our ability to continue this work teeters on a knife edge – limited, but of course very welcome, funding from our GoFundMe crowdfunder, barely enables us to continue and relies on the directors covering the shortfall.
This is how we are funded, we receive nothing from the big campaign groups, business, philanthropic bodies, political parties…
We follow matters as they develop. They’re always volatile, and in these times of Brexit extensions and now a General Election it means that days’ or weeks’ worth of work has to be set aside or even lost completely as the situation changes.
Our aim is to help people to see what’s going on, to understand what they are (or aren’t) being told, and to decide what’s best for our country: what’s really in the national interest, what protects fundamental citizenship rights and ensures that Parliament and not the executive (the government) is sovereign.
To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please support The People’s Challenge, so we can continue to help make your voice heard.
There’s still a long way to go (despite the repeated ”fixed” deadlines) and there are no guarantees about the outcome. The only thing that’s certain is that if we stop trying, we will fail.
As we all know, without organisers there can be no effective campaign, without a client there can be no legal/judicial challenge.
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Published by Grahame Pigney on behalf of The People’s Challenge Ltd.
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