Parliamentary Sovereignty’s best sell by date

Parliamentary Sovereignty’s best sell by date

I went to the Labour Campaign for Human Rights meeting in the Commons yesterday, the keynote speaker was Kier Starmer, the Labour Brexit spokesman. He opened his speech stating he had voetd “Remain” based on jobs and rights and woke up on 27th June asking what world we live in. He argued that now we needed to accept democracy and that UK’s politics is about the new relationship with the EU. He argues we need to re-root our rights in UK law! (What like the Human Rights Act?) Labour is proposing a new Law to transcribe the EU’s rights and protections into UK law, but under the Tories this will be weak since the Tories are not planning to bring the “Fundamental Charter of Rights” across into UK law. …

Power

The neighbouring constituency of Lewisham West & Penge’s MP stood down and this created an unseemly rush to replace him. It was won by Ellie Reeves, an ex member of the NEC, a sub-committee of which appointed her  but a local resident it would seem.

At least one friend of mine applied, and unsurprisingly wasn’t short listed.  …

And out of the traps

And out of the traps

Labour has selected Vicky Foxcroft, the sitting MP to stand as Labour’s Candidate for MP in Lewisham Deptford. I am pleased to support her and already have my “Vote Labour” poster up. Anyone who thinks that this election is about anything other than Brexit is fooling themselves. She was one of the rebels who broke the whip to oppose the bill authorising the UK’s Article 50 notice, an action I supported. Corbyn has a problem in presenting Labour’s policy as he needs/wants to say one thing about winning and being in Government, and another should we lose. …

Promises

While catching up on my news this morning, I am struck by the cleft stick Tim Farron has put himself in, with his preference to go into coalition with the Tories and his promise to have a second referendum … while I admit that working with Labour is difficult for him, there are potential “Remainer” LibDem voters that will ask how that is a coherent “remain” promise. …

HRMS

I was writing about the need for new systems in the CRM & HR domains to support the new requirements coming our of the GDPR , particularly for mid-range companies. I had found this article that talked about the nature of the HRMS market and snidely commented on the foolishness of focusing on recruitment to the exclusion of other HR functions. I had not considered the big ERP providers because their price tag, both of licence and implementation and operational cost is such that they tend to be inappropriate for SMEs. Despite this I came across this puff piece talking about an HRMS selection exercise between Oracle, SAP and Workday. The last of these offers the product as SAAS , although given it competes with the big two, it comes with a high price tag. …

And we’re off

Theresa May pretending that the Fixed Term Parliament Act  has never existed announced a ‘snap’ general election yesterday. She claims it’s because of the effectiveness of the “remain” campaign in parliament is jeopardising the Government’s ability to execute the “will of the people”. It’s certainly a very sudden change of heart.

While it’s massive fun to assume that she’s done it because Inspector Knacker has found evidence to prosecute 30 Tories, some of whom will be MPs, it would seem that as she pursues her negotiations with the EU, she’s finding it harder and harder to win any deal. She’s frightened of her loony Brexiteers who wont let her make the necessary compromises and frightened of her Remainers who may reject whatever she gets in two years time.

While Labour in Parliament look beatable, there’s ½ million of us in the country and the example of Jean-Luc Mélenchon shows that one can come from no-where to a position of contention. …