Clive Lewis vows that the ‘the police will have to remove us’ if Boris Johnson suspends parliament

Clive Lewis and Boris Johnson


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Labour MP Clive Lewis has thrown down the gauntlet to Boris Johnson over his plans to suspend parliament. Lewis vowed that “The police will have to remove us from the chamber”. He also called for people to “take to the streets”:

 

Everyone out!

Lewis’s tweet came as #StopThe Coup and #GeneralStrike started trending on Twitter. Johnson claims that the suspension is purely in order to start a new session of parliament. But critics, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, believe it’s an attempt to force through a no-deal Brexit. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell also described it as a “coup”:

And even Change UK (or whatever name the ‘party’ is now calling itself) made probably its first-ever valid point:

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle also said he’d join Lewis:

And Green MP Caroline Lucas echoed Lewis’s call too:

If not now, when?

Lewis is right. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions. Direct action is needed – whether it’s MPs refusing to leave the chambers or mass protests in the streets.

This isn’t about whether you voted Leave or Remain – this isn’t about Brexit. This is about an unelected prime minister riding roughshod over our supposed democracy.

The question every one of us has to ask ourselves is: ‘if we’re not prepared to take action now, when is the right time?’ And then we have to ensure the response to this is massive.

Featured image via Wikimedia – Rwendland / Flickr – Andrew Parsons

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  • Show Comments

    1. Despite claims otherwise, the police force is a body of overwhelmingly decent men and women. If called upon to eject MPs from the Commons they will prudently decline to intervene. They would be justified because the occupying group in parliament is not intent on wrecking the place or causing harm to any person. Perhaps, one constable assigned a watching brief?

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    3. It is so EASY to tell who the NeoLiberals are: Lucas “parliament is shut down & silenced on BIGGEST ISSUE of the day”
      Biggest ISSUE is People Starving and Dying because of Austerity! LUCAS!
      No DEAL Brexit WILL Make it MUCH WORSE and YES Johnson must be STOPPED! BUT You and your Neoliberal ‘Comfortable Life’ FBPE/2nd Ref, and your lack of Empathy and Compassion ARE THE PROBLEM! Especially if you can’t see, that as BIG as Brexit is it is NOT THE BIGGEST ISSUE of the Day!
      You LUCAS and co. are ALL in Kahoots with Johnson and the Tories ALL Neoliberals ARE TORIES why else would you have fucked up Brexit as much as you have at every given opportunity this could’ve been done and dusted this is on YOU, Blair, Campbell, Swinson, Umuna, Cooper, Benn, etc, etc, etc and ALL the OTHER NeoLiberal TORIES’ HEADS!
      THE BIGGEST ISSUE of the Day?
      AUSTERITY IS! PEOPLE FIRST!

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    4. The matter of austerity resolves itself into the essential question: who rules? There would have been no austerity if the answer were: the common folk. The people did not vote for austerity. They got it in spite of how they voted. The rich and the corporate elite wield far more power than the people. That’s how our democracy is traduced.
      We are constantly offered “social mobility” and “meritocracy” but R.H. Tawney was right: the ability to climb the greasy pole is no substitute for the dissemination of the benefits of civilisation. That is what democracy has to mean: common standards, impersonal values, the shrinking of the arena in which money matters and power genuinely in the hands of the common folk. That means putting an end to the nonsense that the market can make moral decisions. We make them. We choose to help those in the greatest distress first. We choose the long-promised fundamental shift of wealth and power to the common folk. Kipper Johnson’s coup is in defence of the interests of the rich and powerful. We must respond with a revolt so big never again will a PM dare such a move. There is no doubt that the monarchy has been politicised in this matter. Never has the case for an elected head of state been clearer. This is a revolutionary moment. We must seize it and make a revolution. Power to the people no longer a slogan but a reality. No more rough sleepers. No more homelessness. No more sanctioned benefits. We need a thoroughgoing transformation of our economic arrangements. This is not just about leaving the EU, it is about leaving injustice and lack of democracy behind.

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      1. I couldn’t agree more, The entire UK needs to revolt and overthrow its cowardly, traitorous, unelected, so-called leaders, and make such a scene of it that no-one will ever want to test the will of the British democratic people again.

        We need to lose the mantle of apathy that is historically bound to us, and turn it into a mantle of extraordinary patience pushed to its final limit, the passing of which will resound throughout our Nation and the World, in such a manner, that all those who desire power over the masses will be too scared to reach out for it.

        When we have finally woken up from our national slumber, we need to send a clear message that the likes of Thatcher, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, and Johnson (and so many more) will never again be tolerated.

        Democracy is rulership BY The People, FOR The People, not rulership by a select few power-mad, war-hungry arseholes and shitfurs.

        It is time to end the Oligarchy that is the Conservative wet-dream. Clearly Tories are anti-democratic, pro-fascist, pro-war, pro-money-over-humanity, in fact as I think up superlatives to describe these vile meat-sacks, it strikes me as insane that they haven’t already been arrested and jailed for the Terrorism they have systematically unleashed on this nation.

        The Conservative party belongs in the same column as ISIS, and should be labelled an anti-Democratic, Terrorist Organization….hmmmmmm…..Dear Jeremy Corbyn, please add to The Labour Party’s Manifesto a pledge to ban the Tory party, and jail its corrupt terror-making, nation-wrecking members as the criminals and dictators they are.

        Surely it is time to show these corrupt treasonous criminals that there is a severe price to pay for enslaving, punishing, and murdering democracy, and the democratic people that belong to it?

        They need to feel the pain and terror they have caused to the rest of us, and they MUST be held accountable. If they can’t, then I put it that NO LAW should be enforcible against us either. Civil disobedience and strikes on a national scale, with a clear message to rid our Nation once-and-for-all of despotic-minded/hearted arse-holes like Johnson etc, and the corrupt parties they represent.

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