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The big story in Parliament today really isn't which of three bad options the Opposition parties will choose. It is the absolute travesty of parliamentary democracy that is about to play out: a microcosm of the shattering effect Brexit has had on our constitution. [THREAD]

MPs are being asked to shovel through, in a single day, a bill that was published yesterday, implementing a treaty agreed six days ago, which comes into force tomorrow night. The European Communities Act 1972 was debated in Parliament for 300 hours. Today's bill will get about 5.

MPs will have at most four minutes to speak on a trade agreement covering more than 1,200 pages. Few will have had time to read it anyway, and their votes will mostly be cast by the Whips. The entire charade will be over shortly after lunch.

Today's legislation doesn't just transform our trade relations. As @jeff_a_king points out, it gives ministers the power to rewrite vast swathes of domestic law without further scrutiny. It is a massive transfer of power from Parliament to the Executive.


Parliament has to do this with the legislative equivalent of a gun to its head. The UK's current terms of trade with the EU cease to exist in 48 hrs. MPs cannot inflict a crash-out on their constituents, so all that's left for the Opposition parties to argue about is positioning.
This was exactly what I was about to write a thread warning about.

A change in leadership in the US at the executive level does not alter the Republican Senators and Congress representatives. A few of whom are implicated in January 6, 2020 insurrection.


There will be a strong urge to forget the danger and the corruption.

After a long period of extended fear, terror and daily assaults on political and social norms, many will want to forget and move forward.

But we cannot take our eyes off those out to dismantle democracy.

Those breathing a sigh of relief, tomorrow this all resumes again in the US. It’s only temporarily paused in the US and correspondingly in Canada.

The urge to move on is strong. Resist it. Celebrate victories and achievements, but DO NOT walk away and forget.

Canadian conservative politicians are tightly connected to many of the Republican traitors who attacked the Capitol Jan 6.

None of them are going to give up. They’ll regroup. They’ll reorganize.

In the mean time, we are all required to stay alert. There is much to do.

The far right has let their agenda be known. They want to end democracy in US and in Canada. That goal is not off the table.

They will continue to pursue this agenda.

Yesterday 12 National Guard members were removed from service.
The NRA is already trying to juice gun sales by creating fear around a new Biden administration. “Stay vigilant and engaged” sounds a lot like “shoot people who disagree with you” to their supporters - too many of whom have been radicalized by the gun lobby’s extremist agenda.


This NRA owns much of blame for the armed white supremacists trying to undermine American democracy: “The gun-rights movement cleared the path for insurrection. It blew a hole in the rule of law—and Donald Trump’s would-be soldiers clamored through it.”

Many members of the mob that rioted inside the Capitol lead or belong to so-called “gun-rights groups,” and were motivated by the warnings of tyranny issued by the @NRA.

Guns are an integral part of anti-government and white supremacist violence. In 2017, a joint report from the FBI and DHS said “firearms likely will continue to pose the greatest threat of lethal violence by [extremists] due to their availability and ease of use.”

Here’s an example. In October 2018, Donald Trump claimed a “caravan” of migrants was heading to the US from Mexico. NRATV, then the propaganda arm of the NRA, claimed Jewish billionaire George Soros was conspiring with Venezuela to send migrants here to influence the election.
This is what happens when the Trump cultists refuse to acknowledge anything outside their extremely insular bubble: they can’t grasp that the majority of the country thinks he sucks and voted him out.


Not once in 4 years of Gallup’s 3-day tracking of Trump’s approval rating was it ever higher than 49%.

He was the least popular incumbent since Carter to run for re-election. It’s not shocking that he got his ass kicked in the election. https://t.co/7BSCQR2vI2


But if you do nothing other than consume conservative media, you’d be under the false impression that he’s popular, that his ideas are popular, and that the people who oppose him are a small group of haters.

In Gallup’s last update before the election, Trump had a -6 net approval rating. The last time it was a net positive was in May when it was +1.


And here’s how you get numbers like that: you do absolutely nothing to try to win over people who aren’t already part of your base. Look at those numbers among independents.