--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hello Products is a new kind of naturally friendly oral care created by a small independent crew using thoughtful ingredients so delicious you will rush to brush. They've got a website, helloproducts.com, and you score 10% off your first order when you use the promo code HELLO TODAY. One word, HELLO TODAY. Shop now at helloproducts.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The last time we talked about Boris Johnson on the show, we mostly focused on Boris Johnson. But since then, he's had a real opportunity to prove himself to the British people as Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of Great Britain. And as you may have heard, it's been something to behold.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This country still stands then as now. For democracy, for the rule of law. It is Jeremy Corbyn's surrender bill. That's what it is. It means running up the white flag. The bill is shameful. He isn't winning friends in Europe. He's losing friends at home. His is a government with no mandate, no morals, and as of today, no majority.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's turning out that he's not as clever or savvy in navigating this as he wanted, and it's a lot harder than perhaps even he had thought to deliver Brexit by this October 31st deadline. Jen Kirby has been covering Brexit and Bojo for Vox. He came into office basically on one key promise, which is that he would take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, Brexit, on October 31st with or without a deal in place. Do or die. Do or die.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what's the first big move he makes towards that do or die? Probably the biggest move or the splashiest move is at the end of August when Boris Johnson decides that he's going to suspend parliament for five weeks. Boris Johnson likes to position himself as the people's prime minister there to deliver Brexit. But this crowd furious about the Brexit bombshell dropped today.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The PM trying to shut down Parliament for five weeks to stop MPs blocking his no-deal Brexit. And how exactly does he do that? Is that part of his power as prime minister to single-handedly suspend Parliament? It's called a proroguing Parliament. And usually it's a pretty typical thing that happens at the, basically it marks the end of one legislative session and the start of another.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But usually the suspension is only for a week or two. And Johnson decided to do it for five weeks. And it's only probably some of the five most critical weeks, considering that the suspension would have resumed on October 14th and the Brexit deadlines the 31st of October, which leaves Parliament with very, very little time to do anything that might foil Johnson's Brexit plans.
--:-- Speaker (Mr. Speaker): Mr. Speaker, the Lords who are authorized by Her Majesty's Commission to declare her royal assent to acts passed by both houses and to also declare the prorogation of Parliament, desire the presence of this Honorable House.
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--:-- Speaker (Mr. Speaker): Yeah, how did it go over with Parliament? They definitely created a stir. They were protesting the move. criticizing Boris Johnson.
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--:-- Speaker (Mr. Speaker): This is not a standard or normal prorogation. It is not difficult. It is not standard. It's one of the longest for decades. And it represents, not just in the minds of many colleagues, but huge numbers of people outside, an active executive fiat.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Stop the coup! Stop the coup! Stop the coup!
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Even, you know, members of his own party were a little bit queasy about his tactics. But ultimately, what it really helped to do was kind of focus the opposition and kind of got them all together to figure out how they were going to stop Boris Johnson.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And what did they do? They basically seized control. And the reason they wanted to do this was so that they could pass legislation that would attempt to prevent Boris Johnson from taking the U.K. out of the European Union without a deal on October 31st. So kind of a way to force him to ask the European Union for an extension.
--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): So kind of a way to force him to ask the European Union for an extension. And this happened on a day when Johnson ended up actually losing his majority in parliament. He already had a working majority of just one member.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And while he was talking, one MP who was a conservative walked over during his speech to the Liberal Democrats, which is a pro-Remain party, and joined them. It's kind of an incredible moment, right?
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): I mean that a prime minister can lose his majority in probably the most humiliating of fashions and somehow still be the prime minister of the country
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): How did he take that move? He basically was not happy. And he told pretty much all of parliament that if you defy me and vote for this no deal block, which essentially forces Johnson to seek an extension from the European Union, which is what he said he would not do as his campaign promise.
--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): He tries to force Parliament to give him elections so he can essentially get a new Parliament to give him what he wants. But Parliament defies him again, refusing to vote for his elections, handing Johnson about three defeats in as many days.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Has this been like a hit to the Boris Johnson ego that we're all sort of familiar with? I can't speak to Johnson's state of mind or his ego, but obviously he's tried to forge ahead and all he's gotten is resistance. and that includes from his own family members.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Right, his brother. There's been another dramatic twist in Britain's Brexit saga and a major blow for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. His brother Joe has stepped down as a Conservative MP and government minister.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Mr Johnson tweeted that he was torn between family loyalty and the national interest. And although other MPs and ministers have quit, nothing gets worse than your own brother being like, man, I can't stand by and watch you.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And I think that sort of sums up or is very symbolic of the omni-shambles that's going on in British politics right now. And I believe on the same day he had a press conference where he was a little bit wild.
--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Can you make a promise today to the British public that you will not go back to Brussels and ask for another delay to Brexit? Yes. And would you rather... I'd rather be dead in a ditch.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): So at the very least, he doesn't seem to be cowed by his own brother's defection. So where does that leave Boris Johnson's Brexit plan and this parliamentary suspension that's got some people up in arms?
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): So at least for right now, Parliament is suspended. They're on pause. But there have been a few legal challenges, and one of them has gotten some traction. Last week in Scotland, the court said that what Johnson did was unlawful.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Each opinion expresses the view that the advice given by the government to Her Majesty the Queen to prorogue Parliament from 9th September to 14th October was unlawful and that therefore the prorogation itself is unlawful. That he was trying to block Parliament.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And that was a big deal. You know, MPs are protesting, saying, oh, we should be recalled back. The problem is courts in England and Northern Ireland said, look, this is a political question. We can't get involved.
--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): So you have Scotland on the side of MPs and the other two courts just saying we want to stay out of it. And now the U.K.'s highest court is going to have to make a decision. And there will be hearings this week starting on Tuesday to figure out where they stand.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And if they're going to go the Scotland direction and say, yeah, what Boris did was unlawful and illegal, and that would be huge. Or they're just going to say, you got to stay out of it, guys. You do you in the political realm.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): This decision from the Scottish court was just one big development last week, yeah? What's Operation Yellowhammer? What it really is, is the government's assessments about what could happen if the UK leaves the European Union on the 31st without a deal.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Fuel shortages, empty shelves, medicine shortages, widespread public unrest. Not a vision from a dystopian Hollywood film, but the British government's own assessment of what a no-deal Brexit may look like.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): The planning scenario, codenamed Operation Yellowhammer, has now been published by the government weeks after being leaked to a newspaper and after opposition MPs forced its publication.
--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And the government at the time, it has to be said, also it seems lied. They said that it was an old document before Boris Johnson came to power. We now know that that definitely wasn't true. It was drafted around 10 days after the prime minister came into power.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And as you mentioned there. And the reason why this will all be bad is because a no deal Brexit is very complicated. Overnight, the EU and the UK will end a 40-year trading relationship. And some people have likened this to trying to remove an egg from an omelet.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And there's absolutely no simple way to do it. And that's why you're having all of these effects. And the fact that the government is saying this in its own documentation, it just was another reminder of what a mess it could be if the UK doesn't have a plan at the end of October.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): Has this moved the needle at all in the UK? As far as how people feel about Brexit, this sort of disastrous few weeks for Boris Johnson? Boris Johnson is still pretty popular among conservatives and supporters of leaving the European Union.
--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And the UK is still almost evenly divided between people who want to remain in the European Union and people who want to leave the European Union. And there's always a little bit of squishiness at the margins.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): How that would play out in an election is harder to say, but at least from experts and polling sources that I've talked to, if an election were held today, Johnson looks like he would do pretty well.
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--:-- Speaker (Member of Parliament): And that's not necessarily because of his Brexit plan, but also because opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is extraordinarily unpopular.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you hear about all this anarchy in the UK and wonder who are these people who still want a Brexit I got great news for you You going to hear from one of them in 60 seconds or so I Sean Ramos from This is Today Explained hello products my old friend i come to talk about you again hello is a new kind of naturally friendly oral care that was created by a small independent crew using thoughtful ingredients so delicious that you will rush to brush.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, toothbrushes, and more for adults and kids at helloproducts.com. 10% off using the code HELLOTODAY. Again, helloproducts.com. 10% off with HELLOTODAY. Join the movement. You know? Movement? Shop now and brush happy. Hello Products. The movement.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When I picture people who favor Brexit, I mostly picture older white men. People like Prime Minister Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage, who's the leader of the newish Brexit party. I definitely don't picture Anaya Folarin Amman.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's a 22-year-old in Leeds, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who just graduated in Arabic and politics. And she's not just into Brexit. She's joined the newish Brexit party as a parliamentary candidate.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I asked her what inspired her to vote for Brexit in the first place back in 2016. Well, I think that a lot of the younger people haven't experienced life without the European Union. So it's kind of an endorsement of the politics of always in the politics of the status quo.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: For me, it was fundamentally a democratic vote. It was about democracy, having the ability to elect and remove the people that govern us. For me, it's fundamental. And I know how hard that people have fought so hard over generations to have that right and to see it eroded in this way over the past decades.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: For me, Brexit was the only way to really have power to make decisions over our lives in a meaningful way. For people who aren't familiar, how do you think democracy has been eroded in the UK because of the EU?
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: The structure of the European Union is quite complex, but where the power lies is in the European Commission and the European Council. And they have quite profound influence over foreign policy, economic policy, trade policy.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: And for example the situation in Greece a few years ago is quite a big demonstration of that how Greece was significantly struggling economically the European Central Bank and the IMF and the European Union basically took control over their economy and there was almost nothing that they can do about it.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: So a lot of people talk about oh yeah but what about free movement of people and like you know no roaming charges if you go to a European country that's all well and good but what happens when they do something that you fundamentally disagree with.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: There was like sort of this anti-immigration tenor to the original Brexit vote that it happened right in the midst of this wave of migration into Europe from the Middle East. Did that affect the way you voted at all? I mean, sort of the tenor of the conversation around Brexit, that there was sort of this nativist feel of it?
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Yeah, I mean, I was definitely concerned about some of the rhetoric surrounding immigration as maybe like something that is inherently problematic. But one of the reasons why I decided to stand is because I wanted to be a physical representation of an opposition to that narrative.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: I actually think that leaving the European Union is quite positive for the immigration debate, because at the moment within the European Union, we have a two-tiered system, free movement of people from across Europe, but people from outside of the EU experience dehumanizing stringent measures.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: And so in the words of Diane Abbott, which is a prominent anti-racist campaigner, but also passionate Remainer in the UK, she said that our current immigration policy is effectively one rule for white people, one rule for black people.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: So I actually think the logical response to the kind of anti-immigrant further would be a universal, fair and just immigration policy that doesn't prioritize people because they're European.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Do you think someone like Boris Johnson in a post-EU Britain would create a sort of flatlined immigration system for people from Europe and, say, people from Africa, Asia, anywhere else?
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Personally, I'm not a defender of Boris Johnson. I actually think that he's a political opportunist and he dilly-dallied throughout the campaign. He just, you know, joined whatever movement he thought was going to win.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: So I think that he's never really been a committed Brexiteer in a meaningful sense. What about Nigel Farage the leader of the Brexit party He not a big fan of immigration either is he
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: The thing is I had conversation with him about this and conversation with many people in the leadership. And I do deeply believe that these people have been fundamentally mischaracterized.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: And I would not join a party that I think propagates racism in any way. And I think when we look at racism, I think people like to point to easy targets in terms of what people have said, but they fail to meaningfully address and examine how racism has been entrenched structurally with successive parties in government.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: So when we look at the Labour Party, they were massive proponents on the war on terror and the kind of dehumanising and criminalisation of Muslim communities. The Conservative Party have implemented policies such as something called the hostile environment, which literally means they want to make life for immigrant people here illegally hostile and uncomfortable.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: So when I look at racism, I look at what policies have actually been implemented when parties get in government and not necessarily just statements or provocative statements that people have made.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: But aligning yourself with someone like Farage doesn't feel uncomfortable for you, like the child of immigrants? Absolutely not. And I say that wholeheartedly.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: I I don't believe that he is racist and I fully back him. Absolutely.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Has all the turmoil in the past few weeks and months over achieving Brexit soured you at all on it or made your life more difficult as someone who defends Brexit in her day to day?
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: For me, I think it's been extremely exciting. I think that the Brexit vote has unleashed the division and toxicity that's been at the heart of our governing system.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: And I actually think, although right now it's all up in the air and in flux, I think that these divisions have been brought to the surface. And only when they've been brought to the surface, I think, can they be meaningfully dealt with.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: And that's what I'm hoping to do. It's created a kind of chaos, though, not just in the U.K., where, you know, your own Department of Health is stockpiling medicine, vaccine, radio, isotope products.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: I've read medical devices because they're freaking out over what might come of a no-deal Brexit. But all over Europe as well, countries are hiring more customs officials and preparing for all sorts of tariffs that no one really knows what they'll look like.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: is that an ecosystem that you think could be good for anyone? I think a lot of those things have been wholly exaggerated in order to whip up fear and suspicion and just complete disillusionment in politics.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Britain is the sixth largest economy in the world. If we are not able to make fundamental decisions and adapt and become versatile, then what hope do we have for any movement for meaningful democratic change?
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Are you considering the fact that the British government has said its own economy, the British economy could shrink as much as 9% in like a worst case scenario here?
--:-- [Music starts playing softly in the background]
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: There's a lot of these myths floating around, but the reality is it's not materialized in the fear-mongering way that has been proposed.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: I mean, I realize I don't live there. I'm an outsider. But I mean, this is just over a month away, this potential for a no-deal Brexit. Y'all don't look terribly prepared.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: Your government's in total flux. But the thing is, for us, despite all of the chaos that's gone on as a result of parliamentarians, the spirit of Brexit, which was taking back control of our sovereignty, our democracy and our economy, hasn't changed.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: What has only changed is that we've seen more clearly that we need a fundamental shift and change in our democratic system. I mean, I respect your dogged determination to make this thing happen in the face of every kind of adversity.
--:-- [Music starts playing softly in the background]
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: That's pretty incredible. I mean, most revolutions that happen are like violent and bloody and scary. This is a democratic revolution. And with something so significant, we can't expect it to all be, you know, honey and golden roses.
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--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: But in the meantime, there's going to be a short period of maybe confusion and difficulty. But the potentials after that for me is what really drives me. And that sense of freedom and ability to really have a meaningful democracy.
--:-- Anaya Folarin Amman: That's something I couldn't trade.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. Hey, good luck. Maybe we'll talk to you again once this thing goes through or doesn't or whatever happens in the next few weeks and months. I hope it goes through. I hope so. Yeah, I can tell.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks to Hello Products for supporting the show today. Their products are beautiful, delicious, and friendly, and as natural as they can make them. You can find their products at helloproducts.com, and you can get 10% off when you use the promo code HELLOTODAY over there at helloproducts.com.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When you get to the website, say hello for me.
