British Politics Thread

Boris is dictating to the Queen, saying she is not allowed to remove him even if he loses a VONC.

Can he do that?

He can try. I'm sure the Supreme Court will love telling him how stupidly wrong he is. Again.

If he keeps it up, he may well trigger something that is unprecedented: a Supreme Court ruling that the Queen should dissolve parliament to put in place an emergency government until either a workable deal with the EU is reached or Article 50 is withdrawn on the grounds that governmental tyranny that ignores the sovereign powers of both Parliament and the Crown has been out of style since the Protectorate really mucked things up.

Boris thinks he's being Walpole levels of twistedly brilliant with his machinations: nope. He can't even do blatant patronage and blackmail with the requisite amount of style, and that's the bare minimum. Now, Walpole knew how to kinda-but-not-quite-but-sure block parliament and make it look good — for decades (he did, eventually, get rapped over the knuckles).

Edited by Euodiachloris on Oct 10th 2019 at 5:07:09 PM

Not that any of this matters as long as Swinson continues being an idiot.

It's actually a little more interesting than that. The ruling isn't 'We trust Boris Johnson' or 'Nobile officium can't be used in this situation', it's 'We've bound the PM to a court ruling, so we're going to wait and see if he upholds the law'. They've even set aside a time and date to return to the case if Boris Johnson fails to keep that court promise.

The court case therefore achieved two things:

1. It successfully extracted a court promise from the PM to both obey the Benn Act and not seek to frustrate it in any way (deadline: 19th October). This is important because there's now a 'contempt of court' aspect to the PM upholding the Benn Act, which means that contempt proceedings could be possible if Boris either refuses to send the letter or attempts to frustrate the extension in any way.
2. It has set aside a time and date on the 21st October (the next working day after the 19th) to determine whether Boris has upheld his court promise and the legal terms of the Benn Act. If he hasn't, the question of whether nobile officium can and should be used will be decided at that point.

The question at that point is whether there's enough time remaining for both the UK courts and EU27 to act to arrange an extension before the 31st October occurs. Bearing in mind, of course, the obvious factor that the EU27 doesn't really have much incentive at this point to grant that extension.

Oh, and as a piece of trivia: the lawyers have said that the nickname for nobile officium is 'to nob off'. Lawyer humour, I guess.

There were leaks about two weeks ago that indicate the Queen's advisors may have been seeking legal advice on whether the Queen can sack a prime minister. If true, that would be unprecedented, but the official position of the Palace is to never comment on rumours. What that means is that there's no way to know if it's true, or what the advice would likely be even if it was true.

There have been leaks from Downing Street for weeks that the 'strategy' of squatting in Downing Street would be employed if Boris lost a VONC. It's therefore not a surprise to see that threat ramping up. In fact, it's in light of the rumours of that threat that the rumour of the Palace seeking legal advice on sacking a PM occurred.

Regardless of what rumours are true, half-true or false, we're definitely in a very unusual situation regarding leaks. It's not considered business as usual for Westminster to be leaking like this, or for the Palace to get dragged into the rumour mill on top of it. For example, take this article: it appears to be the PM's team response to the leaked rumours of the Palace taking legal advice on sacking a prime minister, which itself was a said to be a response to the rumours of the PM refusing to give up power in the event of losing a VONC. All carried out in the media. There have also been rumours of the Opposition taking legal advice on what they can do in event of a PM who refuses to give up power after losing a VONC.

While there have been occasions where party warfare and government warfare have been conducted through leaks to the media, I don't recall anything within my memory happening on quite this scale, or dragging the Palace into the rumour mill to this degree.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 10th 2019 at 5:21:27 PM

I think the thing about this is that legally speaking the buck stops at the throne in many cases. That its occupant defers to the government/parliament is often convention rather than law.

And that means that if a government is busy throwing conventions out of the window, at some point a situation will arise where the Palace has to make a decision.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Oct 10th 2019 at 6:26:59 PM

It's more accurate to say that technically the buck stops with her, but no-one is a hundred percent sure if it's legal any more. That's why everyone's rumoured to be getting legal advice on the matter. It's almost certain that if it reaches a point where the scenario becomes likely or inevitable, it will end up going to the Supreme Court, for them to determine what the current legal status actually is, and in what circumstances it can be used.

I didn't know we'd had the NO ruling yet. Just that they weren't going to send Boris to jail if he violates the Benn Act.

See my point number 2. They'll decide on the 21st October if he's obeyed the law. If he hasn't, the nobile officium will be debated.

More like none of this matters as long as Corbyn can't command a majority in Parliament and refuses to consider any other name for a caretaker PM despite it not making a difference for him, while it would hurt the Lib Dems to ally with him.

And you know he can't how? Because the LDs say so?

It requires shooting tradition in the foot just so the Lib Dems can basically gloat about how "impossible" it is to work with Corbyn. The Opposition is the first party asked to form a new government, because it's a government in waiting AND most of the rest of the Commons (and the tradition that is all we have for a constitution).

Seeing as they're the party all about stopping Brexit, you would think they'd be the first one to swallow their pride and stop trying to nominate former Tory ministers, hmm?

"This is impossible because the Lib Dems are the party of bottling everything that they supposedly stand for" may be true, though.

If not being literally the Tory party hurts them, then it's a price that a sane person should pay.

Edited by RainehDaze on Oct 10th 2019 at 10:02:52 AM

Sure, it's Labour's fault (but especially Corbyn's, natch!) that the Lib Dems have decided to screw parliamentary practice that goes back quite literally centuries explicitly to troll everybody instead of pulling their weight to fix things. <_<

Sure.

Seriously, the way shadow government works started getting hashed out alongside the concept of a loyal opposition post the Civil War and during the Jacobite Rebellions.

But, hey: tradition is stodgy, and an emergency is exactly when you throw spanners into the procedures meant to alleviate predicted constitutional crises!

In short: pull the other one, Lib Dems, it jingles.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Oct 10th 2019 at 10:14:25 AM

Though what does it tell us about a post-GE hung parliament if the Lib Dems are this unwilling to work with Labour for the purpose of HAVING an election?

That they'll throw away all principle again to the Tories for the sake of electoral reform that won't materialise? Or that we'll just be stuck in a literal Brexit limbo with Tory policy all the rest of the way?

Well, the SNP, Plaid, Greens, a number of Tory Rebels and a number of Independents have all said they'll get behind Corbyn in a restricted set of circumstances (which isn't a problem because Corbyn was offering a highly restricted set of circumstances from the beginning). Further more, the SNP has said (backed up by others) that, in the private meetings, Corbyn has made it clear that a GNU with someone other than him in charge is something he's willing to leave on the table as an option, and that Swinson is being a divisive figure in the meetings.

So, ask yourself this: why is Jo Swinson being so misleading about this, and why are the other opposition leaders becoming increasingly critical of her behaviour?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 10th 2019 at 3:22:50 PM

The Lib Dems aren't being awkward for no reason. 80% of their target seats are currently Tory held, so they have to appear tough on Corbyn so as not to spook the Tory-LD swing voters they need to take those seats. If we end up in the situation where a caretaker administration is required, they'll probably say something along the lines of "we're holding our noses here, but this is for one reason only", spend another x weeks slagging Corbyn off while not actually bringing the caretaker govt down and end up going into an election with a bunch of useable quotes about how they never trusted him etc.

Realpolitik is more complicated than a lot of people realise. The L Ds have got their eye on the next election and the voters they're aiming for. Don't lose sight of that.

So it's realpolitik to basically torpedo the thing you've set up as your USP going into that election?

The Lib Dem line last night on HIGNFY is that the Tory rebels won’t back Corbyn so he’s got no chance.

We also got Ian arguing that if we let the royals sue the press for racist lies than we will turn into Turkey/North Korea/Saudi Arabia. I get his fear of the state controlling the press, but the man doesn’t seem to realise that the press control the state and that that’s just as bad.

As a country we are an awful lot closer to the press killing politicians they don’t like than politicians killing journalists they don’t like.

Edited by Silasw on Oct 12th 2019 at 9:54:11 AM

A good thread by the editor of the Financial Times on Boris's new deal and why it sucks and probably won't get past Parliament.

x4 Oh, no, I'm fairly certain they have no interest in actually doing anything about Brexit in favour of looking like they're trying to do something and blaming Labour, just in the interest of trying to be the second largest party and giving us a political choice between "Tory government" and "Tory government with an orange rosette".

Since they're apparently more invested in never working with a Labour government than anything, a hung parliament can only mean they'd join with the Tories, never mind the EU.

Or they'll go the route of trying to make other parties change their entire leadership and political viewpoint again, because democracy and compromise means dictating terms.

Edited by RainehDaze on Oct 12th 2019 at 2:40:30 PM

The LDs are prioritising long term electoral success over stopping No Deal, they're just hoping that their newly found hardcore Remainer base don't notice. They don't want to cosy up to Corbyn because of the Tory marginals, they also probably wouldn't be too chuffed with a Labour that actually delivered a workable path to stopping Brexit, because they get no credit for that.

For reference, the text of Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech:

[1]

Translation: Privatisation of the NHS towards the US model of healthcare will increase and the law will be changed to make privatisation easier and also make it harder to reverse privatisation should Labour ever get into power on a promise of restoring the NHS.

Translation: Voter ID and making it harder to use postal ballots.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 14th 2019 at 8:49:24 PM

People born in NI are considered british until they renounce citizenship rules court.

Note that the right to decide if you are British or Irish in NI is a part of the Good Friday Agreement.

Mind the entire speech is pointless as it stands because none of that is getting passed.

I'm more concerned about the Labour backbenchers promising to go along with whatever deal Johnson brings back if he gets one. "Any deal must be accepted" is a stupid view.