Johnson’s Not Budging, Roe v Wade Reversal, Macron’s Eclipse

Party Crashed?

Johnson is the house-guest that won’t take the hint. The Sue Gray Report would have been devastating enough for any leader with a sense of decency. When four in ten at his ‘party’ say they don’t want him there anymore, you’d think that might be enough. But, having survived a leadership vote of confidence on more shaky ground than Thatcher when she went in 1990, he stays on. Then he loses two by-elections, one in spectacular fashion to the Liberal Democrats in the safest of safe Tory seats, and the other in a Red Wall seat that Starmer needs to rack up to get into Downing Street; he also won’t be moved. Then, when his otherwise stalwart party chairman resigns, and there’s barely a shrug of the shoulders from the Haircut-in-Chief, then there’s a problem. The issue is this. He’ll soon be at the stage where the writing’s on the wall. But until that’s called out to him, and he’s dragged out from his desk, and booted out the Number 10 door, he’ll stubbornly remain. There are no men-in-grey suits to have a quiet word, there is no Cabinet with the strength to speak will to power as was done in 1990. The Tories are in their ‘Downfall’ moment, except there’s a whole cadre of senior officers who refuse to recognise that Berlin has fallen. Still, they’ve brought all this on themselves. Their lies about Brexit, their pumped -up sense of self-importance, and their willingness to break international norms and laws has brought them to this point. If Johnson goes, he’s taking most of the Cabinet with him, and they know it. The party is over for Johnson, he needs to be told to go home, and not come back.

Divide and Rule

The US Supreme Court decision reversing Roe v Wade was leaked in advance, but was no less devastating when it was delivered yesterday. This is the culmination of slow-coup, from the post-Watergate period, where the Right has mobilized, infiltrated, and been ruthless in their determination to wage ‘lawfare’ on freedom of choice. The decision, in a nutshell, is summed up by this line in the SCOTUS ruling;  ‘’The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” Several Red States have already passed ready-to-go severely restrictive bills disallowing access to medical abortions in nearly all circumstances. It’s reported that access to abortion-pills will be curtailed in these states too. The Trump Supreme Court has delivered; through sleight-of-hand, they’ve engineered an unrepresentative conservative voting majority that could be there for years to come, particularly taking into account the relative youth of the nominations from the previous administration. It is hard to see a good way out from this. The actions of the Right and the cracks in US democracy mean that this is another harbinger of dark times to come. This commentator warned of what was coming after 2016, and feared the increasing Balkanisation of the United States. Trump was the genie out of the bottle. Perhaps things have gone too far. The system is so broken that an essentially hard right agenda can be implemented despite the will of the majority of voters in the US. There’s a spectre haunting the USA now, and time is running out. The country is taking on an increasingly dystopian vibe, one of a state that’s failing, and is at risk of being a failed polity. That country will scarcely survive another Trump presidency.

Jupiter Eclipsed

Emmanuel Macron’s failure to win a majority in the recent French Parliamentary elections shouldn’t be that surprising. While a momentum after winning the Presidency is achievable under usual circumstances, and his party performed respectably, there’s almost an inevitability to the end of the ‘Jupiter’ period of ruling for France’s young president. The united Left outcome isn’t a surprise either. The country has structural, economic, and social concerns just as any nation that size does. There will be a Cabinet, the state will be governed, and the defence of the country will be maintained. But the perceived arrogance of Macron – many held their nose to vote for him instead of a neo-fascist (which should be an easy choice, you would think) – meant that he’s amenable to political gravity just like any normal politician. He is still a crucial democratic bulwark in the new Cold War against Putin’, and yet he’s been inconsistent on Ukraine, stating that it could take 15 or 20 years for Kyiv to be accepted as a member of the European Union. Similar inconsistency has been evidenced by a German government still finding their feet in the new dispensation. It will be a nervous few months ahead as Macron finds out what divided governing is like, and the limits it imposes.