Stephen Barlow Profile picture
Feb 1 27 tweets 7 min read
This is very important to understand.

It's all very well to have a principle which forbids an MP from accusing another of lying. It is quite another thing to demand an MP say that false statement was inadvertent.
1/🧵
To insist as happened yesterday, when Sir Lindsay Hoyle insisted that Ian Blackford MP, say Boris Johnson "inadvertently misled the House", was in effect a demand that Ian Blackford lie to the House of Commons and mislead the public who were watching.
2/
To say that an MP's false statement was "inadvertent" i.e. accidental, is a positive statement of fact. It would be highly misleading if that statement were not true, a knowing lie - if the MP making the original the false statement, was knowingly lying.
3/
Remember, the public is now watching these proceedings (live feed), so if the speaker insists on an MP saying another MP's false statement, was inadvertent, when it wasn't, but calculating designed to mislead - it is itself a falsehood and so will seriously mislead the public.
4/
This is not a game. If the Prime Minister is actively lying in the House of Commons, to deliberately mislead the public, and the Speaker is demanding that other MPs say these deliberately lies are accidental, "inadvertent", this is seriously misleading the public.
5/
Essentially, the House rules and the Speaker, are in fact facilitating a dictatorial PM into being allowed to gaslight the public into believing that something utterly untrue, is actually untrue - without this being challenged.
6/
The reason in another tweet I said we cannot be living in a free country and democracy, if the country's leader, our PM, is allowed to lie again and again, with impunity is as follows in the next tweet.
7/
In all authoritarian dictatorships in the whole of history, the central feature of them is the ability of the dictator to be able to lie and lie again to the people, and for it to be impossible for those lies to be challenged.
8/
I realise this might not be how so called authorities on the subject explain it, but what matters is the reality, not the ideas about that reality.

I would demand that anyone who refutes what I say, give one example of a dictator who was not allowed to lie with impunity?
9/
I would actually go much further and demand anyone who disputes this, give an example of a dictatorship, in the whole of history, where the dictator did not persistently lie to their people.
10/
Lying is central to all dictatorships, which is why all dictatorships try to carefully control what their people know. That is most certainly the central feature, which all authoritarian dictatorships have in common.
11/
You see, no peoples, would allow themselves to be ruled by a leader not acting in their best interests. However, all dictatorships are run primarily for the benefit of the leadership, and not for the people themselves.
12/
Yes, all dictators claim to be selflessly doing everything they are doing for the benefit of their people. Which is why all dictators are liars, because this is self-evidently not true, as it is all about themselves, their ego.
13/
This is why Hitler was left in his bunker in Berlin, ranting about how the people had betrayed him. Yes, Hitler gaslighted the German people into believing everything he did was for them, but he was lying. He didn't cry about what he'd done to his people.
14/
This is why lying is central to all dictatorships. They could hardly say, actually I'm doing this for my narcissistic ego, and actually I despise you all, and simply see you as a bunch of livestock. Which is the self-evident truth.
15/
What I am getting at, is how incredibly dangerous it is that the Speaker is allowing the PM to lie and lie to the House of Commons, therefore seriously misleading the public, and not allowing that wannabe dictator, to be challenged about his lies by the opposition.
16/
No less than Ken Clarke, former Conservative Chancellor, Home Secretary etc, who served under Thatcher, says we are dangerously close to an elected dictatorship, under Boris Johnson. It is not my idiosyncratic opinion.
17/
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
This is why it is so dangerous that the Speaker demands that opposition leaders must say if Boris Johnson has seriously misled the House of Commons, that this MUST be inadvertent, because Boris Johnson would be incapable of lying.
18/
This is seriously gaslighting the public. Where about 2/3s of the public believe Boris Johnson is lying to them and he must resign. This is why it is dictatorial and serious gaslighting, trying to browbeat the public into believing a would be dictator, is incapable of lying.
19/
Again, I say remember, Boris Johnson has clearly breached the ministerial code's insistence that a minister should resign if they deliberately lie to parliament - so many times I've lost count.
20/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleadin…
This means that Boris Johnson has got no legitimate grounds to remain as Prime Minister. He is holding onto this position by force of his parliamentary party/majority, who are deliberately turning a blind eye to Johnson repeatedly lying to parliament.
21/
Holding onto power, long after you should have resigned for repeatedly breaching the ministerial code, is a dictatorial act. It is ironic that Boris Johnson is being protected by a stupid parliamentary rule, whilst he himself has a total disregard for rules and laws.
22/
Yes, I'm well away "Sir" Lindsay Hoyle will and is saying, but these are the rules. He should know very well that if a PM is repeatedly lying to parliament, and he is facilitating this and not allowing this to be challenged, this is immoral and his position is untenable.
23/
Trying to claim you were only following orders isn't a defence, when your conscience should tell you that this is wrong, immoral and unethical.
24/
If you are forced to facilitate egregious crimes against democracy, because stupid rules tie your hands, means that if you have a conscience, you should either rail against such injustice or resign to stop facilitating this travesty.
25/
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More from @SteB777

Feb 2
I'm alarmed at how most people don't understand the danger our democracy is and are focusing on the wrong part of the scandal.

Never before has a British PM being allowed to tell one barefaced lie after another to parliament, and to not be properly challenged about it.
1/🧵
This is not just another scandal. This is unprecedented in the history of British democracy. Yes, it has been alleged that other British PMs lied or misled parliament. But this is the thing, there has never been clear cut evidence to contradict them.
2/
Before I go on, I will make it crystal clear why this is so serious and dangerous. If a British PM is allowed to lie time and again to the House, without challenge, there is the very serious danger we could sleep walk into a dictatorship.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Read 23 tweets
Feb 1
It is my contention that the climate and ecological emergency, all injustice, dictatorial regimes etc, are all facilitated by one singular thing and that is LYING TO THE PUBLIC to seriously mislead them. That the system as it is facilitates this lying by the powerful.
For clarity, I am saying the system as it is, which was designed by the powerful for their own benefit, has built in mechanisms to protect powerful liars, and to stop anyone properly challenging them. That the media are complicit in this. That is must be changed.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 1
I want to very quickly explain why I was absolutely certain Boris Johnson was going to become very unpopular, very quickly, in about 2-3 years after the December 2019 General Election. I am not psychic.
People with ingrained personality disorders tend to behave in the same way throughout their life. They keep behaving in the same way over and over again, and just can't stop themselves. See this for proof.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Boris Johnson has 2 primary behavioural traits, which made this scandal entirely predictable.

1) He behaves recklessly as if rules don't apply to him, meaning he will get involved in one scandal after another. He ever learns from experience.
Read 9 tweets
Feb 1
This is my take on why the Metropolitan Police left it so long before suddenly mounting an investigation, just before Sue Gray's report was ready for publications. Up until this point, the police were quite happy to say, let's see Sue Gray's report first.
Then for whatever, reason, the police launched a sudden investigation, just before the publication of Sue Gray's report. As I explained, there was a very simple explanation for this. That a number of Downing St police officers, had been only too willing to speak Sue Gray.
It was widely reported 8 days ago, that Downing Street police were only too willing to speak to Sue Gray, even though they could not be compelled to speak to her. That they'd given Sue Gray damning evidence.
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Read 11 tweets
Jan 31
Our system is broken. The Prime Minster is a shameless liar abusing House of Commons rules to tell lie after lie, knowing very well, no MP can point this out, as it is against House rules, to say another member is lying, even when they self-evidently are.
1/
It is not my opinion that Boris Johnson has seriously misled the House and has made no attempt to correct the clear cut false statements he has made to the House, again and again. What's more this well precedes so called "partygate".
2/
Our system is broken, because self-evidently if the PM makes extremely false and misleading statements to the House of Commons, and makes not attempt to correct these false statements, nothing can be done.
3/
Read 21 tweets
Jan 31
Absurdly, the Speaker of the House, Lindsay Hoyle, is repeatedly demanding Ian Blackford, leader of the SNP withdraw his comments that Boris Johnson lied and misled the House of Commons, and to replace it with "inadvertently misled the House". Then ejecting him from the House.
This is everything wrong with politics in Britain. Every person, even Johnson, knows darn well that Johnson lied and lied and deliberately misled the House. Yet MPs are forced to say it was inadvertent, which itself is a huge and serious lie.
Therefore not only is the PM allowed to provably lie and lie to the House of Commons, but all MPs are demanded to go along with the lie that Johnson's lies weren't lies at all, but that they were inadvertent mistakes i.e. not lies.
Read 4 tweets

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