Parliament to be prorogued by 12th September

[Observer II]

Con, I thought an act of Parliament required Royal ascent before it becomes law ?   In which case,  if that is not sought by the PM prior to 31st Oct, it's merely hot air and it seems the Courts don't want to get involved anyway, as they've already given Gina Miller the boot !

[asperity]

Boris can ask the Queen to withhold Royal Assent (note the correct spelling) if he wants to force a vote of no confidence and trigger the General Election the opposition don't want. Could be a dangerous move though.

[Confused52]

The PM does not seek Royal Assent, I believe it is sought and relayed to the Lords by the Lords Commissioners. Royal Assent and Queen's Consent are different things. As Asp says the PM can ask her to withhold Royal Assent but that does not make it the Labour Party that are in for blame!

Correction: Under the Royal Assent Act 1967 The Queen is given a list of Acts to be assented by the Clerk of the Parliaments, She assents by letters patent sent to the speakers of both Houses of Parliament. Royal Assent is effective when the last of the two houses receives the announcement. The PM is not involved in the creation of the list for the Queen.

You cannot discount the Gina Miller or Joanna Cherry actions until they have both been disposed of by the Supreme Court.  We have not yet found why the High Court found against Miller. They agreed the application for review meaning that they thought it to be justiciable which is the opposite of the Outer House of the Scottish Court of Sessions, so confusing.

[Observer II]

Perhaps the EU will put and end to this sorry saga, by refusing a further extension; it's clear that Macron want's to get rid of our disruptive presence and move on with the U.S.E. project.

[Confused52]

I have been reading Dominic Cummings blogs. His overarching message is that the SW1 bubble gets everything wrong. The next key message is to Observe, Orient, Decide then Act. That has a consequence that there is no great Masterplan, just Goal Oriented tactics in place of strategy. When the opposition claim they know the strategy they are wrong every time. There is no disagreement from him for leaving with a deal, that is what he wanted through the campaign. His disagreement was with how the negotiation was conducted. I will repeat that bit for the hard of thinking: Vote Leave was not about a no-deal, it was about leaving with a deal. Some of the ERG are regarded by him with as much disgust as Grieve .

An interesting fellow who is not really the Machiavellian figure the left are making him out to be. Machiavelli did not care for the public good but Cummings seems to!.

Given that all the opinions are filtered through the Westminster (SW1) bubble of journalists the consequence is that almost nothing is as it seems.

[Observer II]

I think the idea that we could get a reasonable "deal" from the EU, was wishful thinking from the beginning.  They operate on a rules based system and the idea that we could cherry pick, as May tried to do, was a non starter.  Clearly, as in any other example in life; the EU simply had to impose a humiliating "deal" on the UK, in order to ensure that the other EU States didn't break ranks. Therefore the only option was "no deal" and a clean break on WTO terms,  a stance which may have concentrated the minds of the EU, in securing a deal, as they stand to suffer (especially Ireland) as much as the UK, in the no deal scenario.  At the end of the day, this sorry and embarrassing saga needs to be concluded, preferably by 31st Oct.

[asperity]

 

 

 

This anonymous commentator puts it better than I can:

 

 

[Evil Sid]

Seems the Scots have managed to get the high court to declare it unlawful. This means that is now to be heard in the English high courts.

They are calling for parliament to be recalled immediately. I have no problem with this on the understanding that the mps will not be paid for any time spent at parliament during this time and that they cannot claim any expenses for that same period. They should also be told that they cannot enact any laws or bills and must only discuss means of leaving the EU by the end of October.

After which they will have to muck out the flying pig's sty.🤭

[Confused52]

23 minutes ago, Evil Sid said:

Seems the Scots have managed to get the high court to declare it unlawful. This means that is now to be heard in the English high courts.

They are calling for parliament to be recalled immediately. I have no problem with this on the understanding that the mps will not be paid for any time spent at parliament during this time and that they cannot claim any expenses for that same period. They should also be told that they cannot enact any laws or bills and must only discuss means of leaving the EU by the end of October.

After which they will have to muck out the flying pig's sty.🤭

It was already handled by the English Court in the Gina Miller/John Major case, which found the question was a matter of Politics not law. It had in the full judgement published today and an interesting precedent was given that prorogation was used in the case of 1949 Parliament Act to shut up the House of Lords whilst taking its ability away to kibosh money bills. That is a rather similar argument which I suspect will hold up at the appeal in the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday of next week. The Supreme Court hearing will rule of the Scottish and English cases at the same time.The summary of the judgement in Scotland takes similar positions to those lost in the English Courts. The full Scottish judgement is not available to look at until Friday. There is also another case going on in Northern Ireland but I haven't heard much about that. The problem with so many lawyers in Parliament is that their first thought is to resort to Lawfare.

I worry that the court of session has ruled for the complainers to show that Scots law is being trodden down by the evil English, which is what I expect to happen in the Supreme Court.

[Observer II]

Isn't it the Conference season, when MPs retreat to their factions, to decide on policy - so perfectly normal, except for a few extra days.  

[Davy51]

So prorogation is hardly unprecedented ? If it has been used before how can it now be illegal ,just a bit of gamesmanship  ? I think they are talking now about postponing conferences to get stuck into Boris with fervour. The anti democrats certainly are a rabid bunch.

[Confused52]

16 minutes ago, Observer II said:

Isn't it the Conference season, when MPs retreat to their factions, to decide on policy - so perfectly normal, except for a few extra days.  

I think you will find that the Conference season is normally a recess, so the MPs can come back when and if they want whilst prorogation means the lights are off and they cant get in.

[Confused52]

The Benn Act (surrender etc) was definitely passed unlawfully by misleading the Queen. It transpires that the Bill was written with the connivance of the speaker so he did know that it fettered the executive in what it could do under the Royal Prerogative to make Treaties, i.e. the Foreign Relations plane of Government. Erskine May is explicit what should happen including the Speaker getting the Government to approach the Sovereign for Queens consent to amend the prerogative, which is required for even one such event. The Order papers should contain a form of words that Queens Consent is required and confirmation that Queens Consent was obtained must be announced prior to Third Reading in the Commons and Lords. Hansard shows that none of this was done.

Therefore the government is unsure of what it needs to do because the power the act claims to have was not asked for because if it had been the government would have asked the Sovereign to withhold consent which she would then have done. No doubt that mess too will end up in the Supreme Court but this time it will be the Speaker and opposition that will have knowingly tried the deceive the Queen and succeeded. That explanation may explain why Boris thinks he can ignore the law, because it was not properly made. The courts apparently hate loopholes.

This should never have go this far, it is destroying the country.

[Observer II]

Unfortunately, the political class have never accepted the supremacy of the people; this saga merely confirms it.   There is now clearly a case for a root and branch modernisation of our constitution and political institutions, to ensure it truly reflects an electoral majority.

[Confused52]

17 minutes ago, Observer II said:

Unfortunately, the political class have never accepted the supremacy of the people; this saga merely confirms it.   There is now clearly a case for a root and branch modernisation of our constitution and political institutions, to ensure it truly reflects an electoral majority.

I would not agree with that. The only thing that must happen is getting rid of referendums except for where they are required by a treaty organisation such as a UN plebiscite!

[asperity]

While referenda aren't, for the most part, the best for democracy, however in this case it has brought to the fore the large disconnect between the wishes of the electorate and the ideals of the politicians. Unfortunately politicians don't, for the most part, truly understand the lives that their prospective voters lie, living themselves as they do in a political bubble. Very few MPs these days have lived or worked outside politics. Perhaps it should be a requirement (as I think others on here have suggested) that people cannot stand for election until they have had a certain number of years employment "in the real world".

[Observer II]

Whilst referenda may not be an ideal manner to conduct Governance, unless your Swiss!, and Cameron and Osbourne,  failed to require a two thirds majority; basically because they assumed they'd win comfortably - it happened and we go from here.   As I said at the time of the result (posted on here);  it provided an X-ray of our social anatomy, exposing decades of subsurface discontent with politics and politicians,  the socio-economic differences within the Nation and the fact that politicians weren't reaching the hearts and minds of what they arrogantly deem the peasants.  Whilst Brexit clearly needs to be concluded asap;  so too, these underlying fault lines.  In a democracy, people have the right to expect that their vote means something, that majority opinion wins, and should be complied with by politicians.   

[asperity]

Even if they had required a 2/3 majority we would still be in the same boat because with the vote as it was neither side got 2/3 majority!! It would have had to be a more nuanced question e.g. a 2/3 majority required for remain otherwise we leave, or a 2/3 majority for leave otherwise we remain!

[Observer II]

As we were (and still are, until 31st oct)  fully paid up members of the EU,  the status change was from in to out.  Now you can argue that we didn't have that either in the original referendum to enter the EU in the 70s; and we certainly didn't have a choice in the subsequent treaty changes that dug us deeper into a Union, when we'd initially joined a "common market".  But, as I've said, we are where we are, and we have to go from here.  There is no clear evidence, that Remain would win another referendum, especially if a two thirds majority requirement was included, and arguably Remain shouldn't even be included on the ballot, as that's already been rejected. The normal resolution to this impasse would be a G/Election, which Remain Parties a shying away from, simply because they know they'd lose it; which leads me to believe that Remoaners will try to secure their objective by stealth,  either by constructing a favourable referendum question or (as the Lib Un-Dems now prefer) by simply voting to Revoking article 50.   The people, as has ever been the case, are clearly up against an establishment; it's now finally become  clear for all to see.

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, asperity said:

Even if they had required a 2/3 majority we would still be in the same boat because with the vote as it was neither side got 2/3 majority!! It would have had to be a more nuanced question e.g. a 2/3 majority required for remain otherwise we leave, or a 2/3 majority for leave otherwise we remain!

Asp, you are correct that there is more needed. It needs one alternative to be the status quo and there are one or more thresholds that must be exceeded such as turnout and majority before change can be made. The Scottish Devolution referendum in 1979 needed 40% of the electorate to vote for change and a simple majority too (and they didn't!). That was the only referendum to have a threshold as well as a simple majority so we can see that they didn't have the history to consider Loser's Consent issues.

 

[Davy51]

The Liberal leader is chuffed to little mint balls with herself. Her party will be campaigning for Remain to be put in another referendum  containing remain & various versions of leaving deals which will split the leave vote & ensure Remain polls the most votes.

[Observer II]

While the courts are dealing with spurious Remoaner objections to the porogation of Parliament and failing; I wondered why no one has tested the law on the failure of Parliament to enact the will of the Referendum.  Apparently, Robin Tilson, a solicitor, is doing just that; but his case has been kept waiting since last April - wonder why ?

[Confused52]

The Law Society database doesn't seem to have a record of a Solicitor called Robin Tilson.

[Observer II]

Sorry Con, I got it off comments on Yahoo - so it may be fake !    But I do recall on the news that someone was attempting a court case of this type, presumably it will be deemed a matter of high politics rather than the law ?.

[Confused52]

Whoever he is he should try the Scottish Courts. Having read the latest judgement in the absence of evidence they just make it up then make up the law too so as to suit their predetermined expectation. We are told they cannot be biased, even though they were all appointed by the SNP and they completely ignored the fact that the Royal Prerogative is part of English Common Law and their Scottish Civil Law notions are inappropriate. I am disgusted.