Britain Archives | Page 11 of 46 | MelaniePhillips.com

Jeremy Blair and the gathering Brexit revolt

September 13, 2019September 13, 2019 Melaniebrexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour party, Tony Blair

The Commons Speaker, John Bercow, is now issuing threats against the British prime minister. Making the premature assumption that Johnson intends to break the law by refusing to follow parliament’s instruction to ask the EU to extend the Brexit date from October 31, Speaker Bercow has threatened to use “procedural creativity” to stop him doing so. That means tearing up parliament’s own rules — which this most outrageously partisan of Speakers has already done to enable MPs to seize control of government business, calling into question the constitutionality of the…

Britain Culture wars

The need for a new Enlightenment

September 12, 2019 MelanieBible, Enlightenment, gender, reason

A BBC film to be shown in schools to pupils aged between nine and 12 claims there are “more than 100 gender identities”. How have we arrived at a situation in which, under the rubric of spreading tolerance, freedom and reason, people who challenge this kind of thinking are told they are bigots and bullied off public platforms and out of their jobs? The introduction of such ideas can be traced to the seismic impact of the Holocaust and the Second World War. The fact that genocidal Nazism had arisen…

Britain

The staggering hypocrisy of the Remainers’ legality gambit

September 9, 2019September 9, 2019 MelanieBoris Johnson, brexit, British constitution, parliament

The hue and cry about Boris Johnson breaking the law if he refuses to request an extension to Article 50, as demanded by the law that parliament has now passed, is beyond staggering. Yes, the prime minister should obey laws based by parliament. But what if those laws are themselves the product of an abuse of process? Don’t any Remainers care about that? (please don’t all answer at once.) Parliament’s new power to dictate government business was reportedly achieved through Speaker Bercow repeatedly breaking parliamentary rules – and the advice…

Britain Culture wars

Tearing up the sexual contract

September 5, 2019September 5, 2019 Melaniedivorce, marriage, single parents, The Sex-Change Society

I am publishing on this blog a series of excerpts from three of my books in which I have tried over the years to explain why western society seems to be tearing itself up by the roots. You can read the first one, about our secular inquisition, here. Today I’m reproducing excerpts from The Sex-Change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male which was published by the Social Market Foundation in 1999 and is now sadly out of print. These excerpts deal with how we have torn up the bargain…

Britain

Prime Minister taken hostage in Britain’s Brexit civil war

September 4, 2019September 4, 2019 MelanieBoris Johnson, brexit, constitutional crisis, parliament

Astoundingly, Britain no longer seems to have a functioning government because the prime minister has effectively been taken hostage by the House of Commons. Last night, Boris Johnson was heavily defeated when the Commons voted by a majority of 27 to seize control of the legislative agenda, in order to debate a bill today introduced by Hillary Benn and backed by Remainer MPs. This bill states that unless a deal is reached with the EU or Parliament approves a no-deal Brexit by October 19th (no chance), the government would be…

Britain USA

Don’t turn this whistleblower into a saint

September 3, 2019 MelanieKatharine Gun, Official Secrets, whistleblowers

A new heroine of the people has burst into celluloid existence as a fresh focus for cosily predictable outrage. Katharine Gun was a GCHQ translator who, in 2003, leaked classified information about the build-up to the Iraq war which was published by The Observer. At the weekend Official Secrets, a film about this episode, opened in the US. Already, Gun is being canonised in American media circles which ignored the story when it was published. A writer in Esquire gushes that she is “one of the most important political whistleblowers that most…

Britain

Why Brexiteers need Remainers to keep Boris Johnson honest

August 29, 2019August 29, 2019 MelanieBoris Johnson, brexit, No Deal

Yesterday’s government announcement that Parliament is to be prorogued for much of the next few weeks until the Queen’s Speech, plus the reaction this has detonated by greatly reducing the time available for Remainer MPs to block Brexit, has created the general impression that Prime Minister Boris Johnson intends the UK to leave the EU with no deal. Remainer-world has gone into scarcely believable meltdown as a result. Brexiteers are thrilled. They shouldn’t be. The danger of a faux-Brexit is now in some ways even more acute than it ever…

Britain

Brexit signals now pointing all ways at once

August 28, 2019August 28, 2019 Melaniebrexit, Irish backstop, No Deal

Boris Johnson is causing otherwise sensible commentators to throw necessary caution to the winds. In the Telegraph a few days ago, Charles Moore wrote that Johnson has brought a “miraculous” change to the political weather. “Until Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, the governing classes saw Brexit as a nightmare from which they would quite soon awake… Now they watch it happening before their eyes, and they fear they cannot stop it.” A few days previously in the same paper, Allistair Heath wrote: “It is therefore absurd in the extreme to…

Britain

The real target of Remainer plotters’ outrage? Their own legislative decision

August 27, 2019August 27, 2019 Melaniebrexit, No Deal, people's parliament

MPs on both sides in the Brexit battle are gearing for next week’s anticipated showdown as Remainers try to block a no-deal Brexit. Their justification in doing so is a master-class in constitutional illiteracy and self-contradiction. To counter what they consider to be the anti-democratic outrage of by-passing Parliament, they are planning to…bypass Parliament. As the Mail reports: “Remainer MPs from five different parties have promised to join forces with Jeremy Corbyn to seize control of the House of Commons and pass a law to stop Boris Johnson pursuing a…

Britain Global conflict

We’d rather champion dead Jews than live ones

August 27, 2019 Melanieantisemitism, holocaust, jews, memorial

Back in 2016 the prime minister, David Cameron, decided that a Holocaust memorial and learning centre should be built near the Houses of Parliament. Three years on, the scheme is mired in an increasingly bitter row. Objectors say that the memorial’s brutalist design is inappropriate for the gardens and that its thousands of anticipated visitors would destroy one of London’s green oases. Many have cited security concerns. The Victoria Tower Gardens site, however, was chosen because it was next to parliament, thus making a highly visible and pointed statement about…