Boris Johnson’s British Conservative police state?

This 5 September 2019 parody musical video from Britain is called Whaff! – Wake Me Up Before You Go, Jo.

It is a parody of the song Wake Me Up Before You Go Go by Wham!

It is about Jo Johnson, the brother of British Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, quitting from Boris’ minority government and as Conservative MP.

It says about itself:

“Wake Me Up Before You Go, Jo” is the new single from Boris Johnson‘s ’80s boy band, Whaff!

LYRICS:

Shit or bust
Shit or bust

You left me 22 short of majority (hoo, hoo)
You spaffed away my already-flimsy authority
Flouncing like a big girl’s blouse (yeah, yeah)
Just upped and left me like you were some kind of spouse
Something’s bugging you, something’s not right
I know you’d like another plebiscite
You left me looking somewhat stricken
When I should have spent all day calling Corbyn a chicken

Wake me up before you go, Jo
How could you do this to good old Bojo?
Wake me up before you go, Jo
Let’s just agree to let sleeping Moggs lie
Wake me up before you go, Jo
I was already running out of mojo
Wake me up before you go, Jo
Let’s give No Deal a try
And let sleeping Moggs lie

By Robert Stevens in Britain:

UK: Johnson hails police as “bedrock of society” as Brexit crisis intensifies

7 September 2019

Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared that tens of thousands of extra police would be the “absolute bedrock” of his government. He announced the measure Thursday in a speech in which a wall of police cadets were mobilised to provide a backdrop.

The move was modelled on the tactic of US president Donald Trump, whose inauguration ceremony saw military personnel appear behind him. Two years ago, Trump made a speech phalanxed by police officers as he warned “every gang member and criminal alien. We will find you. We will arrest you. We will jail you. And we will deport you.” Johnson’s speech was made just hours after he hosted Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, at Downing Street.

The College of Policing in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, at which Johnson spoke, has official guidance that all officers must display political impartiality.

Johnson began his speech by telling the police that his ministers had announced extra spending for the National Health Service and public education (which nowhere near compensates for the massive austerity cuts made to both over the last decade), before stating that neither would be a main focus for his government.

“But in my view policing, safe streets, is the absolute bedrock of society,” he said. “It’s what drives a successful and productive economy. It gives people the confidence to invest … to improve their neighbourhoods, safe streets are absolutely vital for our country.”

Declaring that as mayor of London, “I was effectively police and crime commissioner,” he insisted, “The most important thing politicians can do is back the police, give you the top cover for what you do. Where that is ensuring you have the proper legal protections for important things like stop and search and above all making sure you have the funding for what you need.”

His government would recruit 6,000 police and this “was just the beginning” of “a programme to recruit 20,000 more police officers.” This “first push” would cost £750 million and there would be more to come. …

Johnson’s paean to the police must be understood in the context of the plans by the government, under Operation Yellowhammer, to deploy the full might of the state to contain social unrest post-Brexit. As far back as last January, Theresa May’s government ministers at a no-deal Brexit planning meeting were told by Junior Defence Minister Tobias Elwood that 30,000 regular troops and 20,000 reserves must be on standby for deployment as the UK departs the EU. In April, it was revealed that soldiers will be backed up by more than 10,000 riot police officers, who will be readied for mobilisation in whatever 24-hour period they are required. The first wave of 1,000 riot police will be made available for mobilisation anywhere in just one hour.

Labour responded to Johnson’s provocation … Louise Haigh, shadow policing minister and a former volunteer police constable, described the staging of Johnson’s speech as “contemptible”, with police officers “used as props for naked electioneering after voting to cut thousands of their colleagues.” Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, part of Corbyn’s inner circle, declared, “When the Tories have cut the number of police to the bone, is it really a good idea for the PM to then use a large number of them as props?” …

During his speech, Johnson said that he would rather “die in a ditch” than agree to a Brexit extension beyond October 31—as demanded by Labour and the other main opposition parties, the Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru-Party of Wales. This came as the House of Lords agreed to send back unamended to the Commons the Bill, … ruling out MPs support for a no-deal Brexit threatened by Johnson.

The government knew it would be unable to stop the bill progressing and put a stop to Tory peers’ plans to filibuster it. The Bill compels Johnson to request that the EU agree to delay Brexit until January 31, 2020, unless MPs have approved a new deal or voted in favour of a no-deal exit, by October 19. It will now become an Act of parliament on Monday.

…

Johnson’s government staggers on in power under conditions in which he has lost his already wafer-thin majority and has also expelled 21 Tory rebel MPs after they refused to back a no-deal Brexit this week.

Last week, the Financial Times editorialised that the Blairites and Liberal Democrats may have to consider the proposal for “a caretaker government under Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn” as the most likely means of preventing a no-deal Brexit. …

…

On Thursday it warned that a Corbyn government would threaten “to undo much of the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s…” Thatcher’s policies, it declared, “while often brutal, led to a necessary shift in the balance of power between labour and capital…”

… the concern in ruling circles is still to ensure that nothing is done that encourages workers, under conditions of a growth in the class struggle internationally, to demand Corbyn makes good on his pledges to end austerity and militarism. … while the right-wing factions grouped around Remain and Leave fight over how best to assert the interests of British imperialism against its rivals internationally and the working class at home.

NUJ condemns Downing Street for limiting press freedom by boycotting journalists: here.

Boris Johnson’s government is moving to clamp down on any independent scrutiny by the media, in moves that deliberately ape the administration of US President Donald Trump: here.

Sunday, September 8, 2019. Anti-war campaigners vow to oppose Johnson’s ‘intervention ideology’. CEREN SAGIR reports from Stop the War‘s annual conference.

Proposed new laws to criminalise travelling people could also be used against people staging protests: here.

UK government to target “far left” in revised Counter Extremism Strategy: here.