Two things have been key pillars of parliamentary government’s ability to function for the past 330 years.
One is the government’s power of dissolution. Bagehot (‘The English Constitution’) explained that parliamentary supervision combined effectively with government functioning because:
“Though appointed by one parliament, it can appeal if it chooses to the next.”
The ridiculous fixed-term parliament act (passed to provide reassurance to the libdems during their 2010-2015 coalition with the conservatives) removed that pillar.
Another is its direction of the parliamentary agenda.
I am guided by and must operate within the Standing Orders of the House. (Speaker Bercow, 26 September 2014)
The Standing Orders are of course our rules, and by those rules we must all abide. (Speaker Bercow, 29 June 2017)
Those conventions and precedents are important to the collegiate operation of this House. (Speaker Bercow, 26 March 2018)
I am clear in my mind that I have taken the right course of action. (Speaker Bercow, ditching 330 years of precedent against the unanimous instruction of his law clerks on 9 January 2019 – and on several occasions thereafter, h/t the Spectator)
If parliamentary government could have functioned, it could have delivered Brexit, so, egged on by a cross-party coalition of MPs, most of whom were breaking highly-specific election pledges, and led (appropriately) by a speaker whose job exempted him from facing a contested election at all, they wrecked parliament’s ability to function rather than submit to the humiliation of obeying their promise to voters instead of their own opinions.
The result is: parliament has been non-functional for most of this year – and everyone sees it. People who think ‘parliamentary standing orders’ are how it pays the electricity company for lighting in late-night sittings see it. People who think ‘parliamentary standing orders’ are MPs’ drink preferences at the House of Commons’ subsidised bars see it. People who haven’t a clue what happened in 1689 see it. Every day in every way, this parliament is getting itself more and more despised – not the way I’d have chosen to show I belonged to an elite.
CCA to set aside Benn’s turd. No need to accept the extn then. CCA to set aside FTPA and set a GE asap after Brexit on 31st .
CCA 7 days overview by House and Courts? They are the emerg–so tell them they will get oversight–after GE. New House by then and Courts will say nothing.
Close courts until GE date.
Anybody here think the British people will vote him out and Corbyn in?
Boris may have more guts than most recent politicians, but he doesn’t have the guts to use the Civil Contingencies Act. He doesn’t even want No Deal (nor does Cummings), as I’ve been saying for months.
Well then he is fucked and likely Brexit with him. He should not have shot his gob off about what he can’t do. Breitbart says he won’t win a GE unless he lives up to his 31/10 promise –even could he get a GE. If he accepts EU extensions he is doubly fucked. So unless he somehow obliges the scum of the EU to play his game and NOT extend–unlikely knowing what vermin they are–he has nowhere much to go.Nor Cummings either.
So he might grow the balls –because he otherwise will be both a laughing stock and a hated pariah the rest of his days.
“Breitbart says he won’t win a GE unless he lives up to his 31/10 promise”
Not convinced by this, tbh. I think TBP will get more votes than otherwise, but not that many. Ordinary Voter thinks Boris tried his best and the mess is because of Parliament.
But I don’t really see how we’ll even get an election. The trouble with CCA is it will look dodgy to a lot of people.
I think now that Johnson would win an election regardless of what happens on Oct 31, because the compliant media have lied about how bad Johnson’s terrible deal is, and have made the Brexit Party look bad for opposing it.
Boris (and Cummings and a very few others, I assume) knows what he is and is not prepared to do, how far he is or is not prepared to go. He also knows he only benefits by delaying doing it for absolutely as long as possible, because he needs his enemies to be as on record as he can get them about discarding all their excuses. For example, that Bercow cheated to avoid a simple vote on the deal is evidence. Corbyn’s whining about ‘workers rights, the environment and everything else he can think of as excuses against leaving on the 31st with the deal is evidence.
(If, for example – not my most preferred, one was to use the CCA, then it is highly desirable that there be as much of a civil contingency, and as much of a case for saying there is, as possible. It is also highly desirable there be evidence of exhausting all other routes.)
My preferred outcome is of course to leave on the 31st with no deal and a mountain of evidence that remoaners are responsible for there being no deal. I don’t know, just as remoaners in parliament don’t know, what will happen, but I see how immensely it is in Boris’ interest to drive them to extremes as far as he can before doing anything himself that they will call extreme.
Mr K–He has lined them up as scum. But that is no good unless he has an actual countermove he can successfully make.
“but I see how immensely it is in Boris’ interest to drive them to extremes as far as he can before doing anything himself that they will call extreme”
Not only that, the longer he leaves it, the more frustrated and angry the population gets with Parliament, and the more popular Boris gets. Remember, it’s not about Brexit, it’s about saving the Conservative Party from the political oblivion that the result at the European elections promised. Then, the failure to deliver was blamed on the Tories and their weakness, and Tory voters defected in droves the the Brexit Party. Now they’re back. Now they’re angry. And the angrier they get, the higher the turnout.
Remember, it’s not about passing Brexit. It’s about maximising the Boris Wave at the next election. At the moment, every event is playing into Boris’s hands, increasing his vote. It doesn’t matter if he’s forced to break promises if doing so doesn’t hurt his popularity, and it doesn’t. Because everyone can see that he’s not the one responsible. He’s not about to interupt his enemies when they’re making a mistake. He’s going to keep the agony and the drama and the frustration going, and going, and going, because he’s winning. He’s winning the only war that matters, which is the next election.
If he tries to get the bill passed now, the amendments and compromises forced by the remainer Parliament would wreck it. Worse, he would then have to start negotiating the Free Trade agreements with the EU and the rest of the world with Parliament breathing down his neck, screaming about “workers rights” and “environmental standards” and “jobs” and the “chlorinated chicken Trump deal for the NHS”. So it suits Boris not to have it passed. He needs an election first. It probably doesn’t even matter if they force a bill through on a second referendum (after the election it can be repealed) or if Corbyn gets to be caretaker (that’s only going to propel his majority upwards like a rocket). But it is absolutely essential that he’s seen to have been forced into it, kicking and screaming every step, fighting to the last breath, so the voters know who’s to blame.
Got to agree with Niv, Boris has a puss weak hand in parliament an a stronger hand withered the population.
I am happy with the Tories dying out, but at the moment, it don’t look like they will. Nigel just needs to keep nipping at Bojo.
I notice no tax cuts in the budget.
Because the next election won’t be won on tax cuts, the economy (directly) or any of that other mumbo-jumbo that we go through at election time. Like the February 1974 election, it might as well be a one-line manifesto “Leave the EU with or without a deal.”.
Even if we left the EU the day after the election (which we wouldn’t), it would still take at least an entire parliamentary session of 5 years to deal with the after-effects of BRExit disruption.
If Boris can secure a majority in a “People vs Parliament” election (which looks likely given the way he has played it so far), then he might need the Fixed Term Parliaments Act to stay the course.
Slightly off topic, but today I had an idea about a gambit that Boris could have used. In his personal letter to Tusk, which says that he (Boris) personally does not want an extension, he could have written:
Be aware that, if an extension is granted, I shall use it to renegotiate the deal that we have agreed. I shall demand more concessions, and concede nothing. Unless a general election is called, as I hope; in which case the new parliament might demand that we leave the EU first, negotiate a deal later.
I had a similar suggestion on my blog to Snorri — threaten to derail the EU’s business if an extension was granted.
Personally I think Boris *should* renegotiate a whole new deal should an extension happen and he wins a new election. A new Parliament changes everything. If the EU won’t renegotiate a new deal, then pull out of all talks and prepare for no deal.
Although if the current Parliament gets wind of the idea of a new negotiation under a healthy Conservative majority they’ll never agree a new election.
(That’s why they’re trying to lock in as many Remain aims as they can before agreeing a new election.)
A question to those familiar with the UK constitution. (If that is not a contradiction of terms…)
How strong a hand does Boris have?
Suppose that an extension is granted.
Suppose that Boris withdraws the deal and insists on negotiating a new deal.
Suppose that Parliament tries to dictate the terms of the new deal, or insists on a vote on the current deal.
At this point, can Boris call a vote of confidence and, if he loses, call a general election? Is this a loophole in the fixed-term parliament act?
Or, if he loses, he could simply resign as PM, close enough to the deadline so that, by the time a new PM is in place, the UK is out. Something wrong with that? (Other than Boris losing his job, possibly temporarily.)
Anyway, this story helps me to understand why John Adams wanted a strong executive branch.
“Slightly off topic, but today I had an idea about a gambit that Boris could have used. In his personal letter to Tusk, which says that he (Boris) personally does not want an extension, he could have written…”
There were several ways he could have got round it. The surrender bill had a number of loopholes. The simplest was to note that while the act requires Boris *sends* the letter by a certain date, it says nothing at all about when the president of the EU is to *receive* it. So he could have sent it by carrier pigeon relay, or as a message in a bottle dropped in the Thames off Westminster Bridge. He can use as slow a method as he likes. Perfectly within the letter of the law.
The Act also states that the PM “may” withdraw the letter if Parliament votes, it doesn’t actually forbid him doing so if it doesn’t vote. So so far as I can see, Boris could simply write and withdraw the request at any time.
There’s also the Orders in Council, which allows him to issue law directly, without Parliament. He would have to send the letter, but could use an Order in Council to declare it null and void.
And of course there are a huge number of ways he could promise to be obstructive and annoying to the EU, to block any future negotiations, to start breaking rules and then require the EU to go to court to force compliance, and generally be a headache. He doesn’t want to do that, because he’s about to go back and start negotiating the Free trade deal, but he could.
Boris could have got out of it, but chose not to. So long as Parliament is doing what he wants, he’s not going to get in the way, or help them out by offering an easy target.
>At this point, can Boris call a vote of confidence and, if he loses, call a general election? Is this a loophole in the fixed-term parliament act?
No loophole. He can call for a vote of confidence in the government (in fact he did so recently). The problem is the opposition is voting for him (to avoid the election), so he isn’t going to lose the confidence vote, and so there can’t be an election on that basis.
If he does lose a confidence vote then there are 14 days for a government (a new one, or the current one) to get a vote of confidence from Parliament and take over/carry on, otherwise a new election happens.
>he could simply resign as PM, close enough to the deadline so that, by the time a new PM is in place, the UK is out. Something wrong with that? (Other than Boris losing his job, possibly temporarily.)
Problem is that the Benn Act forces him to accept the extension offer well before Oct 31. So if he resigned before accepting it that may give time for a temporary government to form who would accept the extension… although it may be that no temporary government could be agreed upon. Although I expect it would be once No Deal loomed.
Andrew Lilico (Telegraph columnist) thinks Boris should resign, but there’s no sign he intends to do so.
Netflix has just brought out a new documentary and they emailed me about it. It is called “The King”, and the image they sent of the lead character, a dude in mail and armour, I immediately recognized as Henry V. I don’t know why, but I looked and it just seemed so obviously him. And of course it was.
How ironic on this, St. Crispins day that the latter day government of England would sit craven, pleading and begging favor from their French overlords.
One wonders what has happened to the brave and noble English people until you have the misfortune of looking at our parliament and recognize that Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson are apparently the best we can do.
It is the fulfillment of all that the EU represents: Britain, waiting on a bunch of EU bureaucrats to tell us what our fate is.
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
The problem here is that there is nothing stopping Jeremy Corbyn from doing an Atley, getting on his bike and going to Buckingham Palace and saying “Brenda! I can form a government”. Her Mag would be pretty much forced to give him the opportunity to try to do so and he might be able to cobble together a very shaky and temporary coalition of the unwilling just to frustrate BRExit.
They’d have to support him with a VOC measure (either explicitly or by having a VOC bill), but they might be able to do that once for a single “Bill to Frustrate BRExit”. The problem is that once that passes, he’s in until he looses another confidence vote.
The problem with Jezza (being a died in the wool Marxist), is that once he’s in 10 Downing Street, he’d be very difficult to get rid of, especially with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in place and the alternative of having a VONC to get rid of him would seem to place Boris back into number 10, which is something the Remoaners won’t want either.
Plus, as resident of Number 10 and head of the UK government, he would have all of the powers that Boris has (including the Civil Contingencies Act) and no obvious moral qualms about using them.
We could rapidly go from being a Banana Republic (sans Bananas) to being Venezuela on Thames.
All a bit shit really.
Thank you! I hadn’t thought of the possibility of a new government assembled in a hurry. But what about this:
>He can call for a vote of confidence in the government (in fact he did so recently). The problem is the opposition is voting for him (to avoid the election), so he isn’t going to lose the confidence vote, and so there can’t be an election on that basis.
Can’t Boris call a vote of confidence on a bill to repeal the Benn Act? (Or any other such act in the future.) If he loses, he calls an election; if he wins, he is a free man.
>Andrew Lilico (Telegraph columnist) thinks Boris should resign, but there’s no sign he intends to do so.
It is possible that he is waiting until he judges that there is not enough time to form a new government before the deadline. But i would not bet on it. Anyway, the deadline might be extended today.
The only votes of confidence that are relevant to calling an election are votes of confidence in the current government. No other votes of confidence count. And PMs can no longer just ‘call’ an election. That power was taken away from them by the disastrous 2011 Fixed Term Parliament Act.
Not would a vote of confidence in the Benn Act have any effect on the Benn Act itself. Johnson could try to formally repeal it, but that’s unlikely to work. Also, Speaker John Bercow controls what gets presented to the house and as an unscrupulous Remainer he’s sure to disallow that anyway.
You misspelt “deceitful, lying little toe rag”
Just a random thought: Suppose there is a General Election prior to Brexit, and suppose there is a healthy Brexit Party representation in the next Parliament, probably requiring TBP participation in a coalition government of some sort with the Conservatives — Not an entirely unreasonable scenario.
Brexit gets done tout d’suite. Then those TBP MPs are there for the next 5 long years, with no agreed plan about what to do next. It might make the last 3 years look like a time of Parliamentary comity and shared purpose!
The First-Past-The-Post electoral system works when the choice is simply Con vs Lab. When there could be 5 or more serious candidates running in many constituencies, the only sure thing about FPTP is that the winner will have the support of only a minority of the voters. Further complication is that TBP candidates are most likely to be successful in Labour-leaning areas, and might tend to be at serious odds with a purged We-Now-Love-Brexit Conservative Party.
Brexit is the beginning, not the end.
BRExit is just the start of the process. Lots for those BXP MP’s to do over a 5-year Parliament from securing the dividends of BRExit to ensure there is no backsliding with respect to the EU.
Thank you, Hector. But perhaps my understanding of the concept of vote of confidence is mistaken: i was under the impression that the PM could call a vote of confidence on any bill, and that that effectively means that he will be forced to resign if the Noes have it.
Although even that would be a gamble, because, as John Galt points out, if Boris loses the vote, Corbyn could become PM.
Due to my Machiavellian turn of mind, i keep devising schemes. For instance, Nullius wrote:
>so far as I can see, Boris could simply write and withdraw the request [of an extension] at any time.
Maybe Boris is planning to withdraw the request on October 30?
Just because something is possible, doesn’t mean it is likely. I still hope that even our traitorous MP’s would baulk at making the otherwise unelectable Corbyn our PM. It would take almost every non-Tory MP to make that happen (including some of the ex-Tories)
Boris has played a pretty open hand thus far and left political machinations to his enemies. That seems to me both a reasonable and probably the best approach given that an election must happen and being able to go into that claiming to have played a straight hand on behalf of the electorate (but being frustrated by the Remoaners in Parliament) is probably a winning formula.
Given all of the above I think he will keep his current strategy of giving his enemies enough rope to hang themselves.
Playing fast and lose with either the Civil Contingencies Act or measures in the Privy Council would be to play into his enemies hands. Far better to play it straight about wanting to deliver on the referendum and wait until the inevitable election.
John G: “BRExit is just the start of the process. Lots for those BXP MP’s to do over a 5-year Parliament …”
Absolutely agree! Brexit is the beginning, not the end — and UK governance obviously needs serious reforms. That is what is so surprising about the process so far — very little discussion about what the “Lots” for those TBP MPs to do over the next 5 years will entail.
Niall K has suggested before that that hot topic post-separation will be the NHS (although the NHS seems to have relatively little to do with membership in the EU). It seems likely that a Labour guy who stood as a Brexit Party candidate due to his disgust with the Labour Party over Brexit might have rather different views on what to do about the NHS than a Union Jack-waving Conservative MP who survived Boris’s purges. It may be that Brexit is the only thing on which those two could agree.
Implication is that a General Election prior to Brexit, with a likely strong showing by The Brexit Party thanks to First-Past-The-Post, could certainly help deliver Brexit — but it would also likely cause serious challenges for a Brexit Party/Conservative coalition in the first 5 years post-separation. It would be better for Boris to deliver Brexit first, and then have an election without any TBP participation. Which brings us right back to the start of the problem of achieving Brexit. Difficult situation!
NiV. Your first contribution is striking and may well be right in principle. Even if the tactic is simply to make the maximum political capital from the delays caused by remainers rather than actively provoke them your argument holds good. Not sure I would be quite as cynical about Boris’s motivation but that is secondary. To be frank, your second contribution has a whiff of the barrack room lawyer about it I’m afraid.
“To be frank, your second contribution has a whiff of the barrack room lawyer about it I’m afraid.”
How so?
Boris and others in his inner circle have all said numerous times that there were ways around the Bill. It was obvious from the first, after they called off their filibuster of it in the early hours of the morning, that they had spotted some flaw. And if you read the bill, it’s clear there are holes.
Of course, any such attempt would trigger immediate court cases and appeals, and Parliament would just leap back into action to pass new law to close off those holes. Had it come down to that (had the EU not done a deal) it would likely have come down to a race against the clock. The courts would no doubt have raised the issue of “frustrating the intention of Parliament”, and with the ability to pass more laws Parliament would have won eventually. But it’s plain that on a literal reading of the Bill’s text that such actions as I describe meet the letter of the law precisely, and on that basis he could very likely have got away with it.
But Boris got a deal before the deadline, and he would prefer to get his deal passed than go for no deal. (In particular, because the Tory Party are funded by big business, who are strongly Protectionist and hence pro-EU in their thinking, and as leader of the party he’s got obligations in that direction too.) More importantly, it is critical for him to make it clear that he delivered on *his* part in delivering his promises, and has done nothing himself to stand in its way. He promised to leave with a deal by the deadline, or leave without a deal if he couldn’t get one. He got a deal by the deadline. It was Parliament and the opposition parties within it that are wholely and solely responsible for making it impossible. And he can’t be blamed for not achieving what others clearly made impossible.
Like I said, it’s not about Brexit, it’s about the next election. If you try to figure out what Boris is doing on the basis of him either fanatically trying to deliver Brexit by the deadline or deliver a deal or keep his promise to do so, then you’ll miss the point. The opposition parties have invested a huge effort into making him break his promise, thinking that it would kill his popularity. It’s done the reverse. And that’s why Boris doesn’t mind a short delay. Brexit will happen eventually. The delay is making his opponents unpopular, not him. Since even with the deal passed the rules weren’t going to change overnight anyway, a few weeks or even a few months makes no practical difference. The deadline was only ever a negotiating stance because the EU never finally agree to anything until their backs are right up against the cliff edge. You have to be pragmatic with negotiations – it’s rare for either side to get everything they wanted, let alone everything they claimed to want while they were negotiating. Boris would not have got as far as he has in politics, especially against the opposition he has faced, if he was not flexible and pragmatic about deal-making. The only thing that would make Boris care is if his poll numbers started going down.
That said, I believe Boris genuinely wants and believes in a Free Trade Brexit, and has always done his best to deliver it. And that includes being flexible and able to compromise in order to deliver it when necessary. The precise date was never essential. I think the voters recognise that, and he’ll win a majority that will allow him to finish the rest of the job.
Let’s hope you are correct NiV. You are capable of decent reasoning when yr mind isn’t full of SJW tripe.
However –as the latest by-lection vote–safe Tory seat down to beating the Limp Dums by 3% because a 20% Brexit Party vote–it is a very high risk strategy.
Warnings are important Ecks.
The EU will take the piss till they think they can’t.
The Tories only went Thatcherite with their backs against the wall and the country facing collapse…..
Boris’ mob will only proper Brexit when they realise no seat is truly safe.
Debatable. The rest of your paragraph is right – Boris wants leaving with no-deal to be visibly his opponents’ fault, which they are giving him lost of help in. However this requires him to assert in public that he likes his deal (albeit only on his deadline). If he thinks he can negotiate a better deal after we’ve left – e.g. save £33 billion while still getting a goodly proportion of what matters to him – then he may not actually prefer to get his deal passed.
“Debatable.”
Indeed it is. I’m confident that he wants a deal. He’s leader of the Conservative Party, and they’re funded by arch-Protectionists, which is why they were wobbly on the EU in the first place. He who pays the piper…
However, there is an argument that if we leave with no deal, then all the pressure is moves on to the EU and the Irish to agree a deal more quickly, and for the UK to delay in hopes of a better deal. So there’s a possibility that we might get a better deal if we go back to the negotiating table with a stronger hand. I expect Boris wouldn’t have minded much if that had happened.
But then the EU’s fear of that scenario was precisely why he was threatening ‘no deal’ this time round, and why the EU renegotiated. So you could also argue that we’ve already got whatever there was to be obtained from that threat. The EU can’t leave a gaping hole in their border without effectively negating the entire Protectionist point of the EU. To give up on that point, they had might as well abandon the entire enterprise anyway. So they might indeed have given away almost everything they can. And in any case, it would just drag the drama and the distraction and delay out even longer, and everyone’s fed up of it. It’s debatable, certainly.
All I can say is he’s *acting* like he prefers his deal to no deal. But I’m not a mind-reader and I’m guessing, like everyone else is.
“If he [Boris] thinks he can negotiate a better deal after we’ve left …”
If Boris is thinking that, he may be letting his heart over-rule his brain. The obvious situation is that Brussels bureaucrats would prefer to keep the UK in their domain; but their second best option would be for the UK to leave and experience all kinds of problems, which would discourage other countries from leaving the EU.
Bottom line — realistically, chances of negotiating a better deal with the EU after separation are low. Even though the absence of a deal might hurt the EU, that would be acceptable to Brussels bureaucrats as long as it hurts the UK more.
Even if there were good will on both sides, it is worth recognizing how long trade deals typically take. Negotiations between Canada and the EU over CETA lasted from 2009 to 2017. President Trump has not yet been able to get the replacement trade deal for NAFTA approved despite 3 years of serious efforts.
None of this is an argument against Brexit. Rather it is a call for Brexiteers to become more realistic and start planning for the Day After Brexit.
Even though the absence of a deal might hurt the EU, that would be acceptable to Brussels bureaucrats as long as it hurts the UK more.
The question then becomes, would it hurt the UK more?
If I were PM, I might want to find out experimentally.
It would be a gamble, of course; but a calculated gamble.
The German economy remains vulnerable and Britons not buying or just delaying the purchase of BMW, Audi, VW et al will really hurt.
That could be because Brexit or because our own economic slowdown.
This remains an under used card.
One that Remainers are more likely to cause the use of than pro free trade Independence fans.
Either we keep delaying and the economy falters or we we no deal and an unintended trade war could follow. Or a citizen led boycott.
“The question then becomes, would it hurt the UK more?
If I were PM, I might want to find out experimentally.”
It has been my suspicion for a while that one of the reasons the Parliamentary remainers are so terrified of ‘no deal’ is the possibility that nothing bad happens! That would make them look very silly.
“Even if there were good will on both sides, it is worth recognizing how long trade deals typically take.”
That’s because they have to negotiate their way around through all the more subtle protectionism, doing deals on which bits they can keep. The Americans won’t touch our Haggis. We won’t touch their chlorinated chicken or genetically modified crops. There’s no scientific or medical reason for it – it’s about protecting local suppliers and about pandering to local politics.
The US are well known for their regulatory protectionism ( https://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/ebooks/files/374848963.pdf ). US industry spends millions lobbying corrupt or gullible Senators and Congressmen. ‘Pork Barrel Economics’ is a routine, and even accepted part of American politics. And the US is a loooong way from being the most corrupt polity on Earth! So whenever you start on a trade deal with anyone to get rid of tariffs, it’s never a simple matter of “We’ll drop ours if you drop yours.”
But the main reason for it is the widespread public acceptance and political support for Protectionism. If you want Free Trade, you’ve got to start educating people about economics.