Hi Keith
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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