British Politics Thread

If you're starting to think that the whole referendum was badly mismanaged from beginning to end...you're right.

As mentioned, I brought up my point about the Brexit referendum in this topic before so I replied in PM.

starting to think? Only just starting now?

Ok I already stated this but tldr: I thought it was mismanaged from pretty much the start and definitely from when I saw the margin.

The Queen is bound by the advice of her government. If her government advises her to support it, she's technically obliged to follow that advice. So, she wouldn't stop a proroguing from happening.

If the government opposes Boris Johnson and says she shouldn't support what Johnson is doing, she's technically obliged to follow that advice. So, she would stop a proroguing from happening.

However, in the second scenario, it's not the really the Queen who has stopped it — it's the prime minister's own government turning on the prime minister.

Either way, any scenario that involves the Queen would be a constitutional crisis. And note my use of 'technically' in the above scenarios: that's technically how the situation should unfold, but in an untested situation where constitutional norms are breaking down, what would really happen is rather up the air.

Plus, the Queen and her advisory staff are both cany and experienced. They might well find a third option that is designed to protect the monarchy's political neutrality, but which won't solve the political crisis in Westminster.

My guess would be that, whatever happened, the decision would end up in the courts with its legality being challenged.

Yeah I think the main question for all parties would be whether proroguing parliament or letting it get so far the monarch has to tell parliament what to do would be a bigger threat to the constitutional norms.

When you word it that way, they're one and the same thing.

Apologies if someone has already reported this, it's from a couple of days ago:

UK yields voting rights to Finland, officials to skip meetings

On suspending parliament, I do wonder if it could end up coming down to a pretty basic logistical question.

Is the chamber kept locked?

Say Boris does try and suspend parliament, is there anything from a logistical perspective to stop M Ps going into the chamber and holding a meeting between them? If enough of them do it and decide they want Boris out then we’ve quite possibly got an effective vote of no-confidence.

Once parliament has been suspended through the proroguing process, a new session can only be opened by the Queen (or an official acting on her behalf, which is the same thing).

Ignoring that, however, and addressing the 'locked chamber' question only: it's not the chamber that matters, it's the mace. It's only legally viable for legislative processes to be carried out in the House of Commons if the mace is present.

Preventing the House of Commons from functioning is as easy as locking the mace away somewhere and throwing away the key.

The mace would have to be 'stolen' from wherever it's being kept for the purpose of taking it into the chamber for legislative business to begin in protest of Johnson's actions.

Welcome to the British Parliament.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 25th 2019 at 7:58:55 PM

... also, is the cupboard where the Mace is kept locked at night?

Obviously I don't know the answer to those questions but does give me an extreme idea for the opposite approach.

Get some flour bombs and set them off in the chamber whilst it is sitting - similar to what happened to Blair (think to do with Iraq war). Because the official response for a suspected chemical / biological attack is to seal the chamber - it'd force a lock in. Can't prorogate Parliament if everyone has been locked in...

(Naturally though it wouldn't work because if memory serves when Blair was attacked from the gallery everyone legged it.)

So then the question becomes what happens if a majority of M Ps directly petition the palace for a new session of parliament to be opened?

I see a lot of Twitter users with a yellow diamond next to their name (i.e. Lib Dem) blaming Corbyn for No Deal because he didn't back an indicative vote about setting it up so that the law would automatically revoke article 50 if we reached the deadline with no deal. Do we know why Labour chose to abstain on that particular vote? I suspect it's because revoking article 50 without a mandate wasn't on the cards for Labour at the time?

I suspect it’s because that vote had no hope in hell of getting close to passing, it would have been a giant waste of political capital and could have caused Corbyn to face another leadership challenge with how much it would have split the parliamentary party.

Question: Can the speaker do something? And would he?

Nothing. The Queen is only bound to follow the advice of the government (not the prime minister).

Partially.

• Labour's position was that it shouldn't be necessary for things to reach a point where an automatic revocation of A50 is needed.
• There was no hope the House would ever back it by a majority.
• The vote was only indicative. That means it had no legal power and the government was free to ignore it if they felt like it.

In the end, the vote was 293 to 184 against. That means more MPs than expected did vote in favour of it. However, that doesn't change the fact there was no chance of it passing, and it doesn't change the fact it was only an indicative vote.

In other words, even if Corbyn had supported it, it wouldn't have passed. And, even if a majority voted for it so that it did pass, the government was free to completely ignore the result.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 25th 2019 at 1:25:13 PM

Sure but a government exists because it has the confidence of the Commons, a government artificially extending its own life by denying the Commons the ability to revoke confidence opens up a huge can of worms, as it means any future prime minister could just suspend parliament if they felt they’d loose confidence and rule without the Commons for years.

I mean, the King proroguing Parliament unilaterally to get around them is literally the cause of the Civil War.

Yes. Bercow has already made it absolutely clear that he will do his best to fight it.

Okay, I've double-checked the amendments. The night in question was the 27th March 2019. Parliament had gained control of business and scheduled a series of exploratory (non-binding) votes to see if it could find a majority in favour of anything. The 'revoke A50' amendment was Amendment L (see bold below). Notes:

• The amendments were all indicative (non-binding), meaning the government could just ignore any results it didn't like.
• The Conservatives were allowed a free vote to vote however they pleased. This was to stave off the threat of MP resignations.
• Labour whipped to support Amendments J, K, and M. They were strongly encouraged to support D, but not whipped on it.
• Every amendment failed to obtain majority support.
• Even when Labour whipped, the amendments didn't have enough support to pass.
• The Article 50 vote (Amendment L):
  • The vote failed by 109.
  • That means it was only the fifth 'most popular' vote. There were four other amendments that came closer to passing than this one.
  • 110 Labour MPs abstained.
  • On paper, Labour forcing all 110 to vote Aye would pass the amendment. In practice, a number of abstaining Labour MPs are Brexiteers and would not have voted Aye even if whipped.
  • If we consider a hypothetical scenario where the vote passed and the government was somehow forced to adhere to it, the following would occur:
    • If the penultimate day before Brexit is reached and it'll be a No Deal Brexit, the House must table a vote.
    • The vote will be for whether Parliament supports or rejects No Deal Brexit.
    • If the House supports it, No Deal Brexit will happen the following day.
    • If the House rejects it, A50 must be revoked.
    • In other words, even if the 'revoke A50' amendment had passed, No Deal Brexit could still happen!

Side Note:

• In non-binding votes, Parliament has voted a couple of times to reject No Deal. This is symbolic only because non-binding votes can be ignored.
• In legally-binding votes, Parliament has always failed to reject No Deal. In other words, some MPs will make a symbolic protest, but won't genuinely oppose it when the vote matters.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 25th 2019 at 3:18:01 PM

I may be clutching at straws here but I am wondering if the back and forth between Labour and the Liberal Democrats is actually a necessary bit of political choreography.

The only way to stop no-deal is a VONC and then GNU that gets an extension and calls an election which at a minimum must make a Conservative-DUP-Brexit majority impossible.

Which means this election is to be fought on two fronts - Labour Tory marginals and Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

The former needs Corbyn to rally the remain vote around him, energise the Labour base and hope that leave supporters will be so turned off by Johnson that they will preferably stay home but failing that will split their vote into the Brexit Party.

The latter needs a win for Remain to suggest that there is still hope, but also need to be convinced that voting for Liberal Democrats is not a vote for Corbyn OR that the Liberal Democrats will wield outsize influence in the next Parliament.

This can all be achieved if Corbyn does step aside and not lead the GNU. The Parliamentary arithmetic does not lie - to stop Johnson he needs all the Tory rebels, the Labour refuseniks, SNP and Lib Dems. I don't think he can do it.

But, if he just shrugged his shoulders and said "OK, I won't be PM" then that would cast him as a person who never really wanted to be PM - which sort of implies he shouldn't be the leader of the opposition as that is literally the first line of the job description - you are the PM in waiting.

No, he needs to fight for it. He and the Labour party must resist the idea of him stepping aside so that if and when he does it can get portrayed as a noble act done in service to the country. What better contrast to Johnson - someone who is the personification of self-interest - than a man who willingly gives up personal triumph for the greater good?

By doing it this way it should ease the doubts some remainers have over Corbyn, whilst at the same time allowing the Liberal Democrats to demonstrate their "power" over Corbyn.

Because this is the important bit. The suggestion is that Corbyn should not lead the GNU. Not that he should step down as Labour leader. This isn't 2010 where the Liberal Democrats insisted on Brown's resignation. Corbyn will still be front and center in the election. And hopefully as a result of the election when the Parliamentary arithmetic swings decisively against Johnson and Vote Leave - at that point Corbyn can turn to Swinson and say "I'm PM" and there is nothing she can do other than get behind him.

According to parliamentary maths, Corbyn needs 8 Tory rebels, which is hard enough given how the Tories feel about Corbyn (but the media has had some indication that he's at least half way there). However, because Swinson is withholding Lib Dem co-operation, she's forcing Corbyn to find an extra Tory rebel for every Lib Dem — which does make it 'all the rebels' and everyone knows Corbyn can't do it. In other words, this isn't parliamentary maths, it's gaming the system.

Swinson listed options for alternative GNU leaders that she would work with, topped by Kenneth Clarke, an interesting choice since he supports almost nothing the Lib Dems want: he doesn't want a GE or a second referendum; and, while he said he'd lead a GNU if asked, he doesn't want one, he doesn't believe it'll achieve anything, and he thinks legislation is the only way to truly solve the problem. Meanwhile, Corbyn's given her practically everything: a second referendum, Remain on the question, and a GNU leader that is so stripped of power that he can do only two things (call a GE and request an A50 extension), and there will even be a deadline, after which his position expires.

Her list of alternative leaders do have one thing in common that Corbyn lacks: they support continuing Coalition austerity policies. Corbyn wants to undo austerity completely.

So, Swinson appears to me to be ransoming Brexit: she's telling parliament that they can stop Brexit or they can stop austerity, but she won't let them stop both.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 26th 2019 at 4:26:29 PM

So that's the heart of the matter — she's pro-austerity, and Corbyn is one of the most anti-austerity people in Parliament.

As I said, the Lib Dems don't seem to have any interest in actually stopping Brexit as opposed to making themselves look good. The options presented wouldn't even involve stopping austerity, let alone giving time to do so.

One of them. There are a lot of reasons why so many politicians won't work with Corbyn. But it is interesting that most of the opposition MPs have reached a point where they're considering a temporary truce with Corbyn because they prioritise stopping No Deal Brexit over party politics.

Only the Lib Dem leadership and Tory rebels are still playing games. The problem, from their perspective, is that even a heavily-restricted, time-limited GNU leader might legitimise Corbyn as a 'leader' if stopping No Deal Brexit is successful — and they can't afford to take that chance.

To be fair to the Lib Dems as a whole, the backbenchers have gone very quiet and there are some rumours circulating the party that a number of Lib Dem MPs are privately becoming quite unsettled.

Certainly Lib Dem voters seem to be increasingly unsettled — and increasingly vocal, too.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 26th 2019 at 4:38:14 PM

I do wonder what happens if Corbyn calls her bluff, does she really want to be the Lib Dem leader who voted to keep Boris in office? Are the Lib Dem M Ps willing to have that hang around their neck come the next election?

That's my thought - Corbyn should call the VONC and let the cards fall where they will. All this squabbling over who gets to lead the GNU is cart before the horse stuff. Jo Swinson may not be willing to back Corbyn but supporting Johnson would be political suicide - not least for the MP for East Dunbartonshire.

Though citation needed on calling the Liberal Democrats pro-austerity: last election they did call for the same relaxing of fiscal rules that Labour did to enable borrowing to invest in infrastructure to the tune of £100B. Yes, that's less than the £250B that Labour promised but I wouldn't exactly call it austere.

It's true that they are not disowning their time in the Coalition, but since no-one is going to forgive them for that anyway you might as well front up and own it.