Hello David,
The Brexit situation is indeed extraordinary, and it has thrown
up deep deficiencies in the UK's constitutional arrangements,
electoral security and, more widely, in its national identity.
For what it's worth, my money, should I care to bet on it, would
be that the UK will end up in a Norway-like situation, in which
something EEA/EFTA-ish will be re-branded by British politicians
in an attempt to give the impression that it was all their
brainchild.
Whichever way that Brexit manifests (or doesn't manifest), I'm
starting to think that it will mark, finally, the end of empire.
AT LAST the UK is starting to get to grips with the fact that it
is not a global superpower, but rather a high-ranking,
medium-sized country that used to have a great reputation for good
governance.
And David, 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.
On the other hand, it (Parliament) has been packed with a
significant number of unimpressive, staggeringly ignorant,
ambitious, opinionated and biddable members, who can argue
passionately for causes that they abandon when instructed. This is
the real threat to its sovereignty. We really do need better
politicians, and, critically, better methods for selecting them.
That the executive is trying to bamboozle Parliament also
confirms to us that the Prime Minister does indeed know what we
already know. Brexit is an extraordinarily bad idea. She's pretty
desperate to find ways to diffuse responsibility for what would
be, should it go ahead, a course of action which will continue to
cause incalculable damage for decades to come.
Best Regards,
James
=====
On 13/03/2019 12:49, David Garcia
wrote:
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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