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BBC News - Newspaper headlines: Minister Jo Johnson quits to spend less time with family
Most papers focus on departure of Boris Johnson’s brother over Brexit, a move that appeared to rattle the leader
Metro: BOJO BLOW AS BRO JO GOES
The Sun: BOJO BRO JOJO GOES
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The New York Times - Boris Johnson’s Do-or-Die Debacle
Sept. 6, 2019
In just six weeks as Britain’s leader, Johnson has purged, and prorogued, and pontificated, and postured, and pronounced plenty of do-or-die piffle (it looks like die right now).
He has lost his majority of one, his brother Jo, Winston Churchill’s grandson, the good will of many Tories and several votes in the House of Commons.
As for “the people,” whom he claims to represent, Johnson never had them, having been elected by 92,153 members of his own party, most of them at the far end of actuarial tables. ...
But the people voted for this in the 2016 referendum! No, they did not.
They voted for the smooth, orderly exit promised by Johnson and his ilk.
There is no evidence, none, that a majority of “the people” want Johnson’s no-deal Brexit. ...
Still, Johnson is right about one thing: Britain needs an election.
It cannot, at this point, decide its future for the coming decades - and that’s what Brexit will determine - without the balance of political forces being clarified.
An election would in effect be a form of referendum on the 2016 vote.
If the “Remainer” parties, principally the Liberal Democrats, do well, the election could be the forerunner of an actual second referendum, based this time on reality rather than fantasy. ...
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BBC News - Brexit - Opposition parties to reject PM election move
UK opposition parties have agreed not to back Boris Johnson's demand for a general election before the EU summit in mid-October.
Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and Plaid Cymru say they will vote against the government or abstain in Monday's vote on whether to hold a snap poll.
Meanwhile, a bill designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit has been approved by the House of Lords and will pass into law.
It will force the prime minister to ask the EU for the Brexit deadline to be extended beyond 31 October if no deal is agreed by the UK and Brussels by 19 October.
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The New York Times - The ‘Political Anarchist’ Behind Britain’s Chaos
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s Rasputin, is happy to watch the country blow up if he gets what he wants.
Sept. 7, 2019
He outwitted Britain’s establishment by combining a brilliantly simple slogan - “Take back control” - with shameless lies about the European Union, the National Health Service and the danger that Turks could soon emigrate to Britain en masse, all backed up by a huge and hidden microtargeted social media campaign.
Every element was designed to have a powerful, visceral appeal.
Mr. Cummings proved that stories and lies, allied to strategic cunning, conviction, secrecy, ruthlessness and upending convention, could be much more appealing than reason and fact.
Years of studying and writing obsessively about the art of strategy, the failings of most institutions and the success of revolutionary thinkers like Otto von Bismarck had paid off.
Now this single-minded insurgent is the most powerful individual in the British government, vaulted into Downing Street as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief strategic adviser.
His job is to deliver Brexit and win Mr. Johnson five years more in office, making up for the prime minister’s deficiencies as a lazy, inattentive bumbler.
Mr. Cummings is deploying all the techniques that have worked for him before: disruption, deception, intimidation and an implacable willingness to alienate people.
Those tactics have gone off in British politics this week like a series of grenades.
No prime minister has had a more calamitous start. ...
Mr. Cummings now faces a fight to keep Mr. Johnson on form and on track in the face of tremendous blowback from an outraged party.
But he’s still the master; he calculates that Mr. Johnson can’t afford to lose him now that he has cut so many of his old allies out.
Whether Mr. Johnson is heading for either triumph or disaster isn’t up to Mr. Johnson.
His course is being set by Dominic Cummings. ...
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