That’s the thing, though: the Queen doesn’t really have that power—in practice, it rests with the Prime Minster, who we can change, at least indirectly.
The Queen has to obey the Prime Minster’s official requests, precisely because she has no democratic legitimacy herself—to deny any such request would, in effect, be to cancel democracy.
Now, our current Prime Minister has never won an election as Prime Minister, only governs with a paper thin majority, and is currently in the process of attempting to bypass Parliament… But, in spite of all that, he still has more democratic legitimacy than the Queen.
To be clear, I despise Boris Johnson, think that this attempt to bypass Parliament should be stopped, and am firmly in favour of abolishing the monarchy and reforming our system of governance with firmer checks and balances against, well, an awful lot of what’s happened since 2016. I just want to make it clear that this wasn’t - and shouldn’t be - the Queen’s decision to make.
i got my problems with corbyn but honestly, can all the liberals who have moaned about him for three years now shut up seeing as he has let the tories rip themselves apart and put himself between the country and no deal, i.e. the only reasonable thing he could have done in the circumstances
Boris’s plan pretty much relying on Labour having tunnel vision about an election is kinda hilarious. Labour going “Well no election then I guess” must have really caught him off guard.
The completely vacuous media trying to gotcha Labour MPs by going “oh you’ve wanted an election for two years but you’re saying NO now???” when it’s apparent to literally everyone on planet earth that it’s a trap from the Tories to run the clock down and exit with no deal. How can anybody argue that the media is anything other than the propaganda wing of the Conservative Party?
everyone’s fuckin exhausted of the current stalemate and we’re going to an election regardless of whether anyone thinks it’s actually going to be a good outcome
Yeah, my constituency is a toss up between the Lib Dems and SNP. I dislike the Lib Dems but at least they’re pro Remain and SNP are mostly great (although their refusal to deal with the transphobic members suuuuucks.) Last election there was a bit of a surge in Tory votes, but they still weren’t even close to winning it.
Same. It’s unfortunately the only real option though. It’s this, pass Boris’s deal or just sit and wait for No Deal.
I might have to hit the bigass nuclear edject button and disengage from politics because i CANNOT deal with yet another multi-month electioneering cycle. Especially since i cant change shit living in a safe tory seat.
my labour mp sucks so fucking bad (her name rhymes with faroline clint) and its as close to a sure labour safe seat as they come really so whilst i will vote for her even though i desperately don’t want to, im going to spend my election energy on campaigning elsewhere where it might actually make a lick of difference
Living in Scotland rn feels weird because it does feel like up here is a bit of a sideshow to the main event. Biggest focuses up here should be punting those 13 Tory MPs (especially Ross Thomson who has faced fresh accusations of dodgy behaviour from my MP and should’ve been punted months ago when the initial ones surfaced) and forcing Jo Swinson to have a Clegg moment.
We’re sort of a sideshow, but also a significant one, in that we we punt all 13 Tory MPs, we make it trickier for them to get a majority (if we’re as close to a hung parliament as some predictions suggest).
Question from a confused American. Why doesn’t Labour take an anti-Brexit stance? It seems like an easy way to create a contrast with the Conservatives especially now that Johnson is their leader. The debate within Labour and the left has been very hard to follow as an outsider and I’ve never quite understood the eurosceptic left.
