Johnson has shown contempt for the Scottish people in the past….
The Scottish people will vote for independence from the United Kingdom if Boris Johnson becomes prime minister, according to a new poll.
The current majority against independence in Scotland would be reversed were the former foreign secretary to enter Downing Street, the new Panelbase poll of Scottish voters suggests.
Asked whether they supported leaving the UK, a narrow majority of 51% said they opposed independence.
However, when asked how they would vote if Johnson became PM, independence gained a six point lead of 53% over 47%….
…
Business Insider revealed earlier this month that when Johnson was editor of the Spectator magazine he published a poem joking about the “extermination” of the “verminous” Scottish people.
Johnson also wrote a column suggesting that Scottish people should be prevented from becoming prime minister.
The last comment was probably just a humorous comment on the fact that since 1902 the UK out of 22 UK Prime Ministers, no fewer than 9 came from Scotland or were of Scottish descent — even though modern Scotland’s population has been about one-eighth to one-twelfth that of the UK as a whole.
1. Arthur James Balfour (Cons. 1902-05)
2. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Lib. 1905-08)
3. Andrew Bonar Law (Cons. 1922-23)
4. J. Ramsay MacDonald (Lab. 1924 & 1929-31; Nat’l 1931-35)
5. Harold Macmillan (Cons. 1957-63)
6. Sir Alec Douglas-Home (Cons. 1963-64)
7. Tony Blair (Lab. 1997-2005)
8. Gordon Brown (Lab. 2007-2010)
9. David Cameron (Cons. 2010-2016)
After digging out the original piece in The Spectator, I see that Johnson was using heavy irony to make a genuinely worthwhile point the the “West Lothian” question, first posed by the left-Labour MP for West Lothian (in Scotland), and endorsed by the far-right Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell. Apparently the worst contradiction (allowing MPs from non-English constituencies to vote on purely-English matters, but not the reverse) was lessened after (but not because) Johnson wrote this piece in 2005,
[To demonstrate the problem in an American context, suppose that the 6 Delegates and Resident Commissioners to Congress from U.S. possessions (inc. DC) were allowed to vote on matters that affected only the 50 States, while the 435 Representatives from the 50 States were not allowed to vote on matters that are now decided by the territorial legislatures or the Washington City Council.]
“ …We are asked to vote for one man, Blair, when he has explicitly said that he will not serve a full five years, and the chances must therefore be that the Labour machine will try, at some point in the next few years, to insert Gordon Brown. That would be utterly outrageous, not just because he is a gloomadon-popping, interfering, high-taxing complicator of life, but mainly because he is a Scot, and government by a Scot is just not conceivable in the current constitutional context. Not only is Scotland full of rotten boroughs, where Labour MPs are returned by relatively tiny electorates but, as I never tire of saying, we English MPs can be overruled by Scottish MPs on very controversial questions, affecting our constituents, when we have no corresponding say over those questions in Scotland, and those Scottish MPs themselves have no say over those questions, so that John Reid, Scottish Health Secretary for the so-called UK, has no say over health questions in so far as they affect his own constituents. Some say this is just inside-beltway stuff. They are wrong. It makes English audiences roar with anger, and it explains why Gordon Brown makes so many speeches about ‘Britishness’ and ‘British values’. He’s not really interested in British values. He’s worried about his personal political disability as a Scottish MP, and so he should be…. ”
Two things I omitted from my comment above:
(1) The Member for West Lothian who posed the question was the left-wing Labour gadfly Tam Dalyell. He also framed his question as why should he, the member for West Lothian (in Scotland), be allowed to vote on many matters affecting West Bromwich (in England) while the Member for West Bromwich could not vote on many matters affecting West Lothian ?
(2) The link to Boris Johnson’s original Diary is https://www.spectator.co.uk/2005/04/diary-479/
Johnson may have a problem on his hand in NOT wanting to talk about his recent domestic incident….
Sky News has said it will be forced to cancel a debate between the two men vying to be the next Tory leader unless Boris Johnson agrees to take part.
The broadcaster hoped to be the first to stage a head-to-head debate between Mr Johnson and his rival Jeremy Hunt.
But it said Mr Johnson had “so far declined” its invitation and the event would not go ahead without him.
Mr Johnson has faced three days of questions over his private life after a row with his partner Carrie Symonds.
The former foreign secretary has declined to comment on the nature of the argument in Ms Symonds’ London home, which led to the police being called early on Friday morning.
He has also been accused of avoiding media scrutiny more generally, particularly on his Brexit policy….
…. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48744724
It’s not nice to fool Rupert Murdoch….
Hmmmmm?
Boris having a Donald Trump moment ?
Could this cost him a sure win?
“A dozen or so” Conservative MPs could support a vote of no confidence to stop a no-deal Brexit, defence minister Tobias Ellwood has told the BBC.
He told Panorama that many backbenchers and ministers would rebel if the UK faced leaving the EU on the 31 October deadline without a legal agreement.
Boris Johnson, the favourite to succeed Theresa May as Tory leader, says the UK must leave by that date, come what may.
If the government lost a confidence vote, it could trigger an election.
A vote of no confidence lets MPs decide whether they want a government to continue.
A 14-day countdown is started if a majority of MPs vote for the motion – and a general election will be called if, during that period, the government or any other alternative government cannot win a new vote of confidence.
The current government has a working Commons majority – its effective numerical advantage over all the other parties – of just four and depends on the backing of the Democratic Unionists.
This makes it highly vulnerable to defeat if a small number of its MPs side with Labour and other opposition parties….
…. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48742881
Things get MORE sideways every day across the pond, eh?