Shropshire Star

Don’t wish ill on Boris, your MP could be next

Don’t get too excited at the prospect of Boris Johnson being banged up for life for “lying.”

Published
Boris Johnson

And any politicians who are looking forward to it on the basis that they don’t like Boris anyway should be careful what they wish for. Because they could be next.

Take the merits or demerits of Mr Johnson out of the equation, and consider on general principles the private prosecution of a politician for what he or she said during a political campaign, and this case sets a ludicrous and terrifying precedent.

What next – a Government-appointed Truth Commission to determine what can be said during election campaigns?

The prisons are simply not going to be big enough to house all the offenders, especially if past offenders are also brought to “justice.”

Welcome to Wormwood Scrubs, David Cameron, Prime Minister, retired. There was that “no ifs, no buts” pledge to bring immigration down to the “tens of thousands.” It was total tosh.

Throw away the key for dozens of Remain-supporting MPs who in 2016 repeatedly said: “I accept the referendum result” but now want another referendum because they say the public did not know what they were voting for.

If this case gains traction it is yet another assault on free speech and every subsequent election will be followed by a host of politically-motivated private prosecutions to bring to book campaigners for what they have said on the stump.

These prosecutions will all be brought by the election losers, because they will be the ones who have the motivation to do so.

It will be the advent of “losers’ democracy” in Britain, in which defeat at the ballot box is never accepted and is only the first stage of a long battle in the courts.

Politics is an arena for debate and argument, and the exposure of falsehoods and woolly thinking through debate and argument.

In the wake of the European election results the leader of Plaid Cymru raised eyebrows when he asserted that “Wales is a Remain nation again.”

Votes

His justification was that if you added up the votes of the Lib Dems, Greens, Change UK, and Plaid, it came to 42.4 per cent of the vote, which was a lot more than the Brexit Party vote.

But if you look at it another way, the overtly Remain vote in Wales was a minority of those cast. Quite apart from anything else, you’d like to think that a substantial part of the motivation of those voting Green was not anything to do with Brexit, but to demonstrate their concern for what that party has described as a climate change emergency.

Assertion, argument, analysis – all part of free speech, and long may it continue.

The voting public are not fools, and have their own bullshine detectors. They already form the jury and punish those they deem guilty or untrustworthy at the ballot box.

Unless you think they are too stupid.

My guess is that the Director of Public Prosecutions will step in to stop this nonsense.

There is a local precedent, of sorts.

In 1987 Ron Brown, a maverick Labour MP dubbed “Red Ron,” caused over £1,000 damage to the ceremonial mace in the House of Commons when he picked it up and threw or dropped it down during a poll tax debate.

He refused to apologise for his behaviour, and was suspended.

Chatting about the case down at the Malt Shovel in Leegomery, Shropshire solicitor John McMillan thought that if one of his clients caused such criminal damage they, unlike Mr Brown, would not be given a paid holiday.

Why should the influential and powerful get away with it?

So Mr McMillan, a Glaswegian as it happens, launched a private prosecution against the Edinburgh MP.

From the very start, the mood music from officialdom was that it was not going to get very far, but nevertheless the case proceeded through the legal hurdles and in June 1988 Telford magistrates issued a summons for Red Ron to appear.

He didn’t, and Mr McMillan successfully applied for him to be arrested.

It was at this point that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Allan Green QC, decided enough was enough. He stepped in and stopped the private prosecution.

He said it was “not in the public interest” to proceed.

Brown did not get off altogether. He was ordered to pay the £1,175 repair bill for the mace.

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While Boris faces being hauled into the dock for "lying," Alastair Campbell has been summarily kicked out of the Labour Party for daring to tell the truth.

Oh, the irony.

Alastair Campbell was the principal mechanic in charge of the Tony Blair spin machine. This apparatus had justified the invasion of Iraq on the basis of a falsehood and misled the public.

When he was asked how he voted in the European elections the other day, he said honestly: "I voted Liberal Democrat."

Result – instant dismissal!

He could have blustered, invoked privacy, or simply lied and nobody would have known any better.

Looking at the voting figures, it is reasonable to suppose that quite a lot of Labour members didn't vote Labour because they are not happy with party policy on Brexit, and in particular its failure to support a second referendum.

So, based on the Campbell precedent, they should all be kicked out of the party too. That is a dilemma which can be circumvented by not asking how they voted in the first place, or if they are asked, and they did not vote Labour, they can simply fib and say they did.

That would mean that Labour would be full of Lib Dem-voting liars.

.........

They say that the Americans love John Bercow.

He dresses up in a funny costume and puts on quite a show in the House of Commons. For those across the pond, it must seem like very British theatre.

His intimation that he is planning to stay on beyond this summer has not been universally welcomed by Tory MPs. It is fair to say that he is not their favourite Speaker of all time.

A few years ago there was that well-publicised clash with Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard when Bercow pointed at him in a corridor and demanded he move so the Speaker's procession could pass.

“Mr Speaker, don’t point at me. I am not here to be abused by you,” Pritchard was reported as saying.

The Speaker: “You will obey the courtesies of the House.”

The Wrekin MP: “You are not ****ing royalty, Mr Speaker.”

Thinking about it, isn't it time for another female Speaker?

Do you think Gina Miller would agree to do it?