Boris contra good taste
Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds have given their flat above 10 Downing Street a makeover, the finances of which can best be described as murky:
Boris Johnson's secret fund for Carrie Symonds' No.10 makeover: Prime Minister plans new charity backed by rich donors to help pay for lavish revamp of private Downing Street flat
Boris Johnson is secretly trying to set up a charity to help pay for a costly makeover of his official flat by his fiancée, it has been claimed.
Having the wallpaper the same as the sofa and lampshades is, in my opinion, an offence against good taste.
Stefanovic contra Boris
Peter Stefanovic notes that Boris Johnson lied at the dispatch box -- something which ordinarily would be grounds for his resignation.
Stefanovic further notes the BBC is ignoring this.
The new British undemocracy
Mike Small says we're Entering the New Territory of British Undemocracy, because the Conservative position on Scottish independence appears to be that no matter how many Scots want it, there will be no pathway to it:
Conservative positioning makes it clear that there is no legal pathway to political expression – that is the new reality.
As a consequence, Britain is moving from democracy to undemocracy:
The past week has seen the publication of extraordinary and savage accounts of the state of the Union by Professor Ciaran Martin and former Permanent Secretary Philip Rycroft. What Professor Martin describes is basically a century of union by consent coming to an end; the Union has become an entity sustained by law alone.
As the Irish Times reported: “… a refusal to accept the majority view would represent a constitutional Rubicon for the Union, former senior civil servant Prof Ciaran Martin argues in an important paper. The glue holding it together, he argues, since the resolution of the Irish question in 1921, has been consent, “the separate and collective consent of four constituent parts, each of which is free to withdraw’’. A scenario where Westminster ruled Scotland instead through “the force of law’’ only would profoundly change the relationship and undermine the legitimacy of its rule.”
Social justice is a crowdsourced religion
Handwaving Freakoutery says social justice is a croudsourced religion:
Defining religion is tough, because there’s no explicit quality that defines them, but they share a broad range of features which bind them conceptually. They are meaning making structures, which help us make sense of things we find chaotic or don’t understand. Religious communities are organized around adoption and promulgation of certain moral principles. They have scripture, which conveys doctrines and ideology. They focus on moral purity, they focus on the in-group, they demonize the out-group, and they demonize and excommunicate blasphemers. They impart a sense of control, if not actual control, over uncontrollable circumstances.
Social Justice has all this stuff.
Wokeness being a religion is a topic we have previously covered.
The death of the union
Gerry Hassan notes we might be seeing the death of the union as we know it:
In a clash between laws and votes, Martin stated that the UK has three options – to resist a referendum, reform the UK (and Scotland’s place within it), or re-run the referendum. The first of these would alter the basis of the union from “a union based on consent, to one based on the force of law.”
The UK Government is considering, in light of a pro-independence majority, the option of fighting the principle of self-determination in the Supreme Court. According to Martin, the UK authorities would then be saying that Scotland might be a nation but this did not confer any intrinsic right to self-determination – a position that even Margaret Thatcher rejected.
What happens if there is no indyref with an indyref majority in the Scottish Parliament? This raises numerous issues about how far Westminster is prepared to go, how desperate it is and how unsure – or sure – it is of its own case. One Tory minister commented last week: “I don’t see how we keep saying no for ever.”
If the Tories deny indyref2 when Scots have voted for it, then the union will plainly no longer be based on consent. The Tories will have no democratic mandate to rule Scotland from Westminster, and Westminster will have proven itself to be an illegitimate regime, without a democratic mandate outside England, that rules by naked force.
And Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross will be a collaborator with the occupying power.
Can Scotland rejoin EU?
TLDR News asks whether Scotland can leave Britain and rejoin the European Union:
This is something we've covered previously, here and here.
Boris contra Boris's Brexit deal
According to the Mirror, Boris Johnson vows to end the trade barriers his Brexit deal created:
Boris Johnson has pledged to end "ludicrous barriers" to internal trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland - despite creating them with his own Brexit deal. The Prime Minister said ministers were "sandpapering" the Northern Ireland Protocol into a shape, a key part of the Brexit agreement he signed with Brussels.
The protocol, which was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, has caused disruption for goods travelling to Northern Ireland as it effectively creates a trade border in the Irish Sea.
It has also been blamed for fuelling a surge in violence in recent weeks amid anger in loyalist communities over the perception that Northern Ireland is being treated differently to the rest of the UK.
I'm sure Boris's pledge to end the "ludicrous barriers" to trade will be every bit as reliable as his previous pledge to not create a border across the Irish Sea in the first place.
Boris contra Boris's briefing room
I've previously reported on Boris's briefing room. It's now been scrapped:
Downing Street scraps plans for White House-style press briefings
Downing Street has scrapped plans to launch new White House-style press conferences after spending £2.6m on a venue to host them.
So that's £2.6 million spaffed up against the wall.
Columbians convert to Judaism
Scott Alexander asks Why Are So Many Christians In Colombia Converting To Orthodox Judaism? and concludes that:
This isn’t a story about atomized individuals choosing how they identify. It’s a story about a new community forming and insulating itself from the rest of society. It’s part of the grander story of an incipient market for societies, where you’re no more obligated to stay in your parents’ culture than you are to follow your parents’ career. May everyone find the strange schismatic community that suits them best!
Insurgency in Mozambique
Political Geography Now has an up-to-date map of control for the insurgency in northern Mozambique:
insurgents in Cabo Delgado province have gradually increased their control, continuing to raid villages and towns in multiple districts, culminating most recently in their temporary takeover of most of Palma, a major town close to under-construction natural gas facilities operated by French company Total. The rebel group - locally known as "Al Shabaab" but thought to formally label itself Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamâ (ASWJ) - is increasingly believed to be cooperating, if only loosely, with the so-called "Islamic State" (IS; ISIS/ISIL).
And that’s it for this week’s links post.