TruePublica
A reporter with the U.S. press corps asked Johnson to respond to “critics” who say that he should resign following the unprecedented ruling. Interjecting as Johnson and Trump met for a bilateral meeting on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, the U.S. president said: “That was a very nasty question from a great American reporter. I’m shocked.”
Johnson chipped in: “I think he was asking a question, to be fair, that a lot of British reporters would’ve asked.”
What Boris Johnson failed to say was, in advance of the Supreme Court decision, that he had already refused to hold any type of press conference for UK journalists.
What Boris Johnson failed to say was, in advance of the Supreme Court decision, that he had already refused to hold any type of press conference for UK journalists.
“I’ll tell you, I know him well, he’s not going anywhere,” Trump said of Johnson, to which Johnson agreed in unison, as populists do: “No, no, no.”
Trump added that Johnson was “dealing very well” with the verdict of the Supreme Court judges. “I watch it very closely, He’s a friend of mine. I tend to watch friends closer than enemies,” the U.S. president said. And he listed a number of victories he had won over the U.S. courts in a bid to reassure the U.K. prime minister. Hours later, impeachment proceedings were announced that the US House of Representatives would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, setting the stage for an extraordinary constitutional clash over allegations that the president sought the help of a foreign country to harm a political rival.
In Britain, the constitution, the rule of law and therefore democracy was first and foremost in the minds of the 11 judges who unanimously made their decision that Boris Johnson must be accountable, while he was in New York.
Being accountable to the courts is the same for each and every one of us but Johnson is accountable to another court – the court of public opinion and it is here that his authoritarian streak can be seen for what it is.
By ensuring that there is no possibility for the British press to access the PM and ask legitimate questions about the very serious nature of his decisions that challenged democracy to its very boundaries is nothing more than state censorship.
On the 2nd August TruePublica reported that – “Blatant state censorship of the media is something we all understand to happen in non-democratic countries around the world. But one of the very last places on earth you would expect the state to fully manage the media, and by manage I mean – gagging, refusing questions and actually banning the filming of A UK Prime Minister – on a micromanaged publicity stunt, smacks of something straight out of China’s communist regime.”
In that article we showed how Boris Johnson was censoring the press, they even banned the press from asking questions or filming questions that had not been pre-authorised.
On August 28th we reported how Boris Johnson’s ‘advisors’ had gone as far as banning the Channel4 News team that had flown to Biarritz at the G7 summit knowing it would ask awkward questions. Channel 4’s head of news and current affairs quite rightly pointed out that this current state of misinformation, disinformation and outright lies being perpetuated by those in the highest office in the land.
It makes no difference what your political persuasion is. The hallmark of this Johnson government is outrageous. They do not want to be accountable to the rule of law, to the constitution, to the monarchy and obviously do not want a free press. Without them being fully functional, democracy itself would evaporate in the blink of an eye.
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