Re: Can farmers sue Leave?

Amen to that last thought.

Here's that article in full:

QUOTE:

NOW will they stop wailing? They were the insufferable refuseniks horrified by a democratic referendum (because they lost) who battled to thwart it. Now, before we sail into a brave new tomorrow, a fond salute to Brexit's bitter losers

By RICHARD KAY FOR THE DAILY MAIL; 22:12, 30 December 2020 | UPDATED:

Tonight Britain will leave the European Union for good, as the demands of the 2016 referendum are finally met. Ever since that historic result, there have been four and a half years of relentlessly bitter rancour between opposing sides, and in the process reputations were made and lost. So, more than 1,600 days after the vote, who are the real winners and, significantly, biggest losers of the Brexit deal?

TONY BLAIR, PETER MANDELSON & ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: Labour's three unwise men and Remainer Ultras who thought they could take support for their beloved Europe for granted without realising how much they were hated by both Tory and Labour voters.

KATYA ADLER: The Beeb's multi-lingual Europe Editor whose doom-laden reports for the BBC, that's the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation, will not be missed.

EMMANUEL MACRON: France's pint-sized president never missed an opportunity to mock Britain's post-Brexit hopes.

SIR KEIR STARMER: Flip-flopping and endless U-turns have seen the Labour leader jeered for having more positions on Brexit than the Kama Sutra.

THERESA MAY: Forever haunted by her 'Brexit means Brexit' soundbite, the former PM was graceful enough to vote for her successor's deal — but not without lambasting it as inferior to her (rejected) one.

DAVID CAMERON: Might have gone down in history for agreeing to the EU referendum but then petulantly walked away when his 'side' lost and is now reduced to little more than a footnote.

JAMES O'BRIEN: The shrill LBC presenter with a serious case of Brexit derangement syndrome who did as much as anyone to paint EU Leavers as ignorant and thick.

NICOLA STURGEON: Scotland's First Minister would have shrieked betrayal whatever happened. But her case for independence gets harder: why demand an end to rule from London only to replace it by subservience to Brussels?

IAN BLACKFORD: The SNP's gloomster-in-chief who single-handedly lives up to PG Wodehouse's biting aphorism that 'it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine'.

TWITTER: Its Remainiac user base has finally come to terms with the fact that their social media feed is not the same thing as the real world.

RESTAURATEURS of Strasbourg & Brussels: They are mourning the loss of some of the hungriest — and thirstiest — Eurocrats on their gravy train.

FINANCIAL TIMES, THE ECONOMIST & GUARDIAN: House publications of the metropolitan chattering classes all predicted doom and destruction if we voted Brexit and all showed how far removed and insulated they are from everyday life.

HUGH GRANT, STEVE COOGAN, BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: The luvvies came out for Remain but couldn't win over a population sick to death of being told how to vote by rich actors who think they're as clever as the lines they recite.

JOHN HANNAH: The Four Weddings And A Funeral actor deserves special mention for his insults to 'peasants and pensioners' and other 'idiots and racists' who backed Brexit. Adding for good measure: 'I hope you choke on your crap cheaps**t meat and extortionate U.S. drugs.'

LADY HALE: Spider brooch-wearing Supreme Court judge who ruled the Government acted unlawfully by proroguing Parliament last year only to pave the way for Boris's thumping election victory in December 2019.

GINA MILLER: Anti-Brexit activist who twice took the Government to court (see above) and whose tactical voting websites during last year's election failed to persuade supporters to defeat the Tories and stop Brexit.

DOMINIC GRIEVE & ANNA SOUBRY: Tory turncoats who thought they were entitled to overturn the democratic wish of the British people.

JOHN BERCOW: Unlamented ex-Speaker, who used his high office to try to derail Brexit, and who remains the first Speaker in living memory not to receive a peerage.

JOHN MAJOR & LORD HESELTINE: EU has-beens from whom a prolonged period of silence is overdue. Analogue figures in a digital age.

LORD ADONIS: Diehard Remainer who, despite losing the argument, never concedes. Now says the best policy for the UK is to 'rejoin' the EU. Oh, please!

LORD KERSLAKE: The former head of the Civil Service, a cross-bench peer who took up an advisory role to former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, stoked the anti-Brexit rhetoric with claims that officials were planning for 'riots in the street' in the event of no deal. It earned him a rebuke for exaggeration from Radio 4's John Humphrys.

JO SWINSON: Who she? The former Lib Dem leader who promised her party would overturn Brexit only for her to be turned out of Parliament by contemptuous voters.

SIR ED DAVEY: Who he? Current Lib Dem leader (keep up) who followed narrow political point-scoring by voting against the EU trade bill yesterday.

BOB GELDOF: The self-obsessed former pop star who took to the Thames with metropolitan chums in a pleasure boat to sneer and give an expletive-loaded salute to fishermen at a Brexit protest outside Parliament. A low moment in a very dirty war.

DAME HILARY MANTEL: Historical novelist who labelled Brexit a 'unique national folly' and described Britain's retreat into insularity as 'really ugly'.

PHILIP PULLMAN: The His Dark Materials author plumbed absurd depths with his claim that the Government 'should be arraigned on conspiracy to murder charges' if it found Brexit negotiations had hindered the procurement of PPE to fight the coronavirus.

DELIA SMITH: The cookery writer and Norwich FC owner who admitted that she had never accepted the referendum result and helped fund a fleet of coaches to transport 'people's vote' protesters to London.

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: From claims that a hard Brexit would be more damaging than World War II to dire warnings about the collapse of the Pound, the billionaire businessman kept up a never-ending stream of Project Fear scare stories about Britain's post EU future.

MICHEL BARNIER: For such an outwardly smooth and suave figure, Barnier was increasingly rattled as the talks dragged on. Convinced by the purity of the EU position, he was eventually sidelined by Ursula von der Leyen, the pragmatic president of the European Commission.

DONALD TUSK: Failed to change his tune even after standing down as European Council president, declaring that Brexit was 'one of the most spectacular mistakes' in the history of the EU.

JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER: Former EU Commissioner and arch-federalist, who had to deny claims he had a drink problem, may have unwittingly come up with the best description on the interminable Brexit wrangling: 'A waste of time and energy.'

GUY VERHOFSTADT: The one-time chairman of the Brexit steering group in the European Parliament could not resist sticking his three-penn'orth into the agreement by calling the end of Britain's involvement in the EU's Erasmus scheme for students 'tragic and spiteful'.

ENDQUOTE

And then proceeds to write some of the most rancorous copy I've seen in a long time. Is this supposed to be an example of how to patch things up and move on?

I think it's what they call an opinion piece.

It seems pretty well justified in the case of James O'Brien:

...and Janette & co:

And who could forget Gina?

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 13:28:29 on Thu, 31 Dec 2020, JNugent <jennings& snipped-for-privacy@fastmail.fm remarked:

If it's supposed to be a typical opinion of leavers, it's just as corrosive.

Unless it was allowed to be published by a remain-leading editor simply to blacken leavers.

Are we at cross purposes there?

I was under the opinion that the author was expressing his opinion of certain Remainers (or whatever the favoured term now is).

Unlikely, I'd have thought.

You loathe her for hoping that the MPs would change their minds. You didn't want MPs to have that opportunity.

What's not to dislike intensely about your skewed version of democracy? You were so sure that Brexit was a good decision, the right decision for the country, the wish of the majority. But you were scared that MPs would disagree with you. You were scared that they would do their job. I don't think you really want to live in a democracy. A dictatorship would suit you fine.

It seems the MPs themselves weren't overly fussed about it. They voted within days of the Miller decision by 498 to 114, a massive majority of

It's very Mary Whitehouse to intervene on behalf of those who don't want to be intervened on behalf of. And it's not an endearing characteristic.

She achieved nothing that anyone wanted, except her 15 minutes of fame.

Hardly likely, given the actual vote.

That misleading oversimplification is a Norman-ism regularly wheeled out but no more true for its repetition. The voting had been obviously skewed by tactical considerations and the motion was worded not to support leaving the EU but whether to delegate the decision to the PM.

It wasn't until a couple of years later MPs eventually managed to force the government to permit "meaningful" votes in which the government's pro-Brexit motions were defeated decisively in a series of votes including one by 432-202, the worst government defeat since the mid-1800s.

Gina Miller reminded Brexiteers how British democracy was designed to work. Seems it had escaped their minds for some strange reason.

Such a breach wasn't enough for Boris who later illegally prorogued Parliament, which was determined again in a case brought by Gina Miller. Her actions will go down in history.

The world watched on for years laughing at what "democracy" had descended to in Britain. It's not a reputation to be proud of.

Hardly surprising. That's what Ms Miller's case was about.

And it's what I said anyway.

Mrs Whitehouse has gone down in history too. Though only as an out-of-touch, irrelevant, busybodying, interfering figure of fun.

It's no good crying over spilt milk and living in the past, Pammy. These things are all just history now.

They are most certainly not just history! The next time a Prime Minister wants to make a decision irrevocably committing the country under an international treaty, or the next time he or she wants to carry out something like Krystallnacht with Parliament conveniently prorogued then these decisions will make it obviously ultra vires. That is a bigger contribution to the UK constitution than many other people have made. Certainly bigger than Farage's contribution whether or not you think Brexit a good thing.

Presumably Parliament would be free to change the law (or the effect of these judgements)?

Certainly. Parliament (as distinct from the Government or the Prime Minister) is always able to change the law. It is the supreme authority. And always should be.

Boris is currently unpopular with the public. Yet he has a huge majority in Parliament. The only way to reconcile these two facts is to have a leadership challenge soon, now that Brexit is "done".

Boris is a one-trick Brexit pony without any more tricks.

He may manage to evade responsibility for not delivering election promises, but post-Brexit chaos and mismanagement of Covid will be firmly put at his door.

It's hard to imagine how he can be re-elected. The Tory Party will appoint a replacement long before then.