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Hi David,
Absolutely! But even with a slim majority, I don't believe that
this policy could be pushed through Parliament. On current voting
patterns, May would have lost the Meaningful Vote vote by around
50 even if she had 50 entirely biddable MPs at her disposal.
All the best,
James
On 13/03/2019 14:05, David Garcia
wrote:
Hi James,
I agree with all your points except:
I'm of almost exactly the opposite view to you, in that
I'd say that this shit-storm has demonstrated that
Parliament absolutely is sovereign.
The fact that the executive needs, deceptively, to
propose cunningly ambiguous forms of wording to
non-binding votes, and needs to try to game the
Parliamentary system, rather than confidently overruling
it (as would a genuinely unrestrained autocracy) suggests
that it still acknowledges Parliament's power
The explanation for the necessity of the maneuvers you are
describing is not the strength of parliament but the fact that
the goverment lost its majority in the last election.
Interestingly
even in this context it was still able to control the
timetable and the agenda right up until the yesterday’s vote.
In fact even now we are seeing the government STILL
contemplating bringing
back the same failed deal for a third time in the hope that
eventually parliament will be terroised into surrender.
Best
David
I think the article is interesting but misses out the
central challenge that the profound
political/constitutional crisis has thrown up which is:
at what point and how
does a theoretically sovereign parliament take
control when a government has lost control of events but
is unwilling to admit to the fact.
If this shit storm has done one thing it has
demonstrated that parliamentary sovereignty is a myth.
And the real power is with the Prime Minister. It has
revealed the comparative impotence of parliament to
do anythig but block an oppose. The PM sets the
time-table and the agenda as the cliche goes
"govenment proposes, parliament disposes".
What we will see in the coming days is whether there
is enough wriggle room for some of the legal brains in
the house (Letwin, Cooper, Reeve, Starmer) to come
up with statutory instruments that would enable them
to stop the car going over the cliff by reversing the
law which takes us out on the 29th (or at the end of
the
extension period). This is hard as usually it is only
the executive (government) that gets to make new laws.
This experiment in actualising parliamentary
sovereignty will not only require legal expertise but
also an ability to cooperate accross the tribal divieds
to forge a majority
for some course of action in parliament. This will
have to begin with a series of indicative (non-binding)
votes to see what there is a majority for. Maybe there
is no majority
for anything.. or maybe parliament can get its act
together and build a workable process… withing 2 weeks!!
Aaaaaaah
David
A true
Democracy: All United in Ignorance-
Total fucking insanity
When asked by what is actually happening my
reply has become “I know nothing!”
There are a few people who have not abandoned
thinking about Brexit, even if the prospects are
still gloomy. Take this lucid contribution today
from Patrick Maguire, political correspondent of
the New Statesman:
Good morning. MPs have voted
down Theresa May's Brexit deal for the
second time - by a thumping margin of 149
votes. What happens now?
Westminster's
favourite refrain is that nobody has a
clue where things will eventually end up,
but we at least can say with some
confidence what will happen today: MPs
will vote against leaving the EU without a
deal.
Or
will they? As of 7am, we know now a bit
more about how that scenario would look in
practice: a "smuggler's paradise" in
Northern Ireland, where the UK would
unilaterally waive checks on goods
crossing the border, and what the CBI
calls a "sledgehammer" to the economy in
the form of the temporary removal of
tariffs on 87 per cent of imports.
But
despite its attempt to put the screws on
MPs, today's government motion is a
curious thing. If passed, it would both
confirm Parliament's opposition to a
no-deal Brexit and note that it remained
the legal default on 29 March. That
slightly confused proposition reflects the
feeling among many Tories that retaining
the ability to jump over the cliff is a
vital negotiating tactic. But with just 16
days to go, that isn't the unequivocal
rejection that Tory Remainers and
opposition MPs want and we can expect
that coalition of the unwilling to approve
an amendment from Labour's Jack Dromey and
Tory Caroline Spelman, ruling out no-deal
in any circumstances.
That,
for some reason, has prompted a great deal
of excitement and gnashing of teeth. There
is talk of the amendment taking no-deal
“completely off the table” and
one Leave-supporting minister even told Newsnight that
it meant Brexit was dead. It doesn't, and
it isn't, for the simple reason that even
at this late stage, the Commons is
unwilling to incur the political pain of
deciding what it is for, rather than what
it opposes. If it really wants to stop
no-deal two Fridays from now, it will have
to actively vote for something else: an
Article 50 extension or a deal.
An
unlikely alliance of hard Brexiteers,
Conservative Remainers and the DUP believe
they have found the answer in an amendment
seeking approval for the latest iteration
of the so-called Malthouse Compromise. It
proposes an extension of Article 50 to May
23rd - the hard deadline before the
European Parliament elections - and a
sweetener of cash and assurances on
citizens' rights in exchange for a
two-year transition period. It all sounds
terribly sensible but for the fact the EU
has never been willing to entertain it.
But even at this late stage it is gaining
traction among Tory MPs, which serves to
illustrate the extent to which this
Parliament is only really willing to unite
around two things: vague statements of
opposition and solutions that don't exist.
As
the exasperation of the EU27 boils over,
that isn't a great signal to be sending to
Brussels, which is making increasingly
clear that any Article 50 extension the
Commons votes for on Thursday will need to
serve a constructive purpose - be it
hammering out some identifiable new deal,
a new election or a referendum - and not
simply give MPs more time to disagree.
The EU's willingness to make today's vote
against no-deal actually work on terms
that are acceptable to the UK, short of
ratifying a deal, can't be taken for
granted. The worrying thing is that in
Westminster, it is. Brexit isn't dead, but
it feels increasingly like a negotiated
one could be.
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