Supreme Court to give historic Parliament suspension ruling

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So the Remainers have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Back to my original prognosis that the Remainer elite would continue to frustrate the citizenry on Brexit though it has to be said Johnson certainly did himself no favors.

Have to remember nearly 2/3’s of MP precincts voted Leave and if it wasn’t for that sentiment that is still present, the MPs would have voted long ago to revoke Article 50. But most of them couldn’t do that and still face their constituents. But they can and have frustrated Brexit time and time again.

So I continue to hold the opinion that there will be no second referendum ever as the people still cannot be trusted to vote “correctly” and that the general elections will only be permitted when the outcome is mostly already decided and the people’s vote won’t have that much effect on the final outcome which will be the eventual revocation. This is why they don’t do the vote of no confidence now; they can’t risk the people voting “incorrectly”. They want to first force Johnson into the extension and then they will have the general elections when they’ve stacked their cards accordingly.
 
The court cited precedents going back to 1611. If Johnson couldn’t be bothered to even bother to review case law, well that demonstrates the incompetence of his cabinet and his advisers all the more.

Here’s the fact straight out. Parliamentary supremacy had existed since 1689. That’s the beginning and the end of it. Not the executive and certainly not an advisory referendum trumps that.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
So I continue to hold the opinion that there will be no second referendum
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I have always disagreed with referendums in our parliamentary system .

I am one with Clement Attlee , the greatest Prime Minister in my lifetime , when he said “I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum which has only too often been the instrument of Nazism and fascism”. Yes , he went a little over the top at the end of his quote .

There have been three UK-wide referendums and I have voted in each one .

All three have been for the party political benefit of one of the parties . To claim they were in the national interest is hogwash .

There were deep divides on Europe in the Labour Party led by Harold Wison , so , hoping that a referendum would settle this divide , he called the 5 June 1975: UK – Membership of the European Community referendum on whether the UK should stay in the European Community .

I voted to come out of the European Community but two thirds of those who voted voted to remain . And it succeeded for Harold Wilson . The European issue ceased to be such a caustic issue for the Labour Party , but the Conservative Party took over on that one .

Then we had the 5 May 2011: UK – referendum on whether to change the voting system for electing MPs to the House of Commons from first past the post to the alternative vote . That one was introduced by David Cameron to get the Lib-Dems on board his coalition . It succeeded for him .

The third one was the 2016 EU referendum . Again this one was called because of the constant disarray within the Conservative Party on the EU issue . David Cameron thought it would settled things in the Conservative Party , but we all know how wrong he was , and how wrong in a mighty way .

I voted to leave in this last referendum . It was a decision contrary to all I had said previously . I had said that I would only vote to leave if we were presented with a viable alternative . We weren’t , but silly me voted to leave the EU . It was a decision based mostly on my disillusionment with the politics of the UK . It was a two-fingered gesture at the political establishment .

I don’t hold with referendums , so I can’t go along with the view that we should have a second one .

We are in this Tory-created shambles for a long while to come , and I see no decent way out . Our politicians do not possess the nous to come up with a solution .
 
I don’t think Atlee was over the top at all. Thatcher mirrored his views as well.
 
In which case I don’t know why you are making this a Remain vs. Leave issue. It was an issue about constitutional law, not about Britain’s membership of the EU. If it is the case that all those submitting evidence against the government were pro-Remain then you perhaps have to wonder why it is that Leavers have so little regard for our constitution. Many Leavers claimed that their main concern was the sovereignty of Parliament. Well, they are getting a taste of the sovereignty of Parliament now, despite their own best efforts to subordinate Parliament to the executive.
 
I’m not sure which part doesn’t make sense, but I’ll try to re-state my case in clearer terms.
  1. Although some people have tried make the Supreme Court case over the prorogation of Parliament an issue of Remain vs. Leave, it’s not an issue of Remain vs. Leave. It’s a case about whether the government acted lawfully when it advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament.
  2. Those who brought the case against the government are people associated with the Remain position (although Gina Miller has tended to claim that she is more interested in constitutional law than politics). That is true. Some of those who gave evidence, e.g. John Major, are associated with the Remain position, while others appeared in an official capacity, e.g. the Lord Advocate and the Counsel General for Wales. They were there to argue about constitutional law, not the pros and cons and Brexit.
  3. It is reasonable to ask why it is that Leavers were so notably absent from Miller/Cherry. Why was it left to Remainers (broadly defined) to hold the government to account before the courts? Nigel Farage has subsequently criticised the government’s decision to ask for a prorogation, but he was not a party to the litigation.
  4. During the referendum campaign and in its aftermath and, indeed, throughout much of the history of Britain’s membership of the EU and its predecessor organisations, Leavers/Eurosceptics have consistently claimed that a principal reason for opposing British membership of the EU is the issue of parliamentary sovereignty. They have consistently argued that a major reason to be opposed to our membership of the EU is that it makes the British Parliament subordinate to European institutions. The argument has always been about the sovereignty of Parliament, not the sovereignty of the British government. We are now in a situation in which we are seeing what parliamentary sovereignty actually looks like in action. A lot of Leavers are angry with Parliament because Parliament is impeding the ability of the government to push through its objective of leaving the EU with or without a deal. A lot of Leavers are also angry with the judiciary for upholding the supremacy of Parliament over the government (just remember the Enemies of the People headline following the High Court ruling in Miller I). Therefore what a lot of Leavers actually seem to want is the supremacy of the executive as long as the executive is British. They have always claimed to believe in the sovereignty of Parliament and the supremacy of British law, but now that they have got what they have always claimed to want, they no longer seem to like it.
 
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I should note that Iain Dale, who is a prominent Brexiteer, has also defended the judgment of the Supreme Court (can’t believe I even have to write that line) on grounds of constitutional principle:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1176801495477563392

Please watch the video attached in the tweet.

@Londoner is completely correct: this was a purely legal matter concerned with the balance of power between the executive and the legislature, namely the former’s exercise of prerogative power outwith its normal constitutional usage (for the purpose of a Queen’s speech) to stymie parliamentary process for an extraordinarily long duration against the will of parliamentarians and absent any justifiable rationale for so doing.

Ironically, Boris Johnson claimed prior to the judgment that his exercise of prerogative had had nothing to do with Brexit, yet his government and supporters are now striving to ‘re-interpret’ this purely legal matter as a “Remainer plot” by the elites to subvert the will of the people.

One cannot have it both ways, as the two narratives are utterly inconsistent.

As Londoner notes (and I noted earlier in the thread), Nigel Farage has even condemned Johnson’s prorogation as the “worst ever political decision”. Nigel Farage!

Those individuals trying to cover up for the unlawful action of the government, are simply exploiting Brexit as a cloak for unconstitutional executive overreach.

And given that these ‘individuals’ are all Brexiteers, this is a shameful indictment of their ideological aims, which were supposed - once - to have been about restoring British parliamentary sovereignty - not Jacobinism!
 
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I didn’t make this case about Remain v. Leave, I said the effective result was Remain snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Two separate things. I have no problem with said court deciding the rule of law according to the UK. The system worked the way it was supposed to.

That said, the effective political result is still quite murky as the Remainers need to unite but find themselves unable to do so due to political divisions in their own ranks. To wit, there isn’t a single name to whom the Remainers are willing to entrust a caretaker government. Or Johnson would have been gone already once he lost his majority.

Further I have already explained why the pro-Remain MPs don’t simply vote to revoke. They could do that, they are certainly a majority if one looks deeply enough. But enough of them are too scared by the Leave vote in their own districts so they become the typical selfish politicians for whom staying seated in Parliament takes a higher priority than Remaining. They want to Remain, they just want someone else to do their dirty work for them then they can say to the voter it wasn’t their fault.

Says here there won’t be a vote of No Confidence followed by general elections until the result is in hand, that is, Johnson has been forced to seek an extension. Expect the next set of legislative legerdemain are going to be all about cornering Johnson into obeying the full intent of the Benn Act.

More popcorn, please. 🍿
 
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Zzyzx_Road said:
Expect the next set of legislative legerdemain are going to be all about cornering Johnson into obeying the full intent of the Benn Act.
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Yep, that’s pretty much the road ahead for this week and the next.
 
Well, Johnson did kill his own Parliamentary majority, so at this point, he is the victim of his own sword. That his government is being turned into a Zombie is by and large due to the actions of himself, Cummings and Cox. And since the Fixed Term Parliament Act pretty much puts the timing of early elections in Parliament’s hands, the opposition can keep his government in that limbo for nearly three more years if they so desire.
 
I had not thought of it that way, but you have a good point.

However the three more years only works if the EU plays along and that is not a given although it has been posited elsewhere that the EU can use the time to continue looting the UK of its banking and manufacturing industries before letting the UK go as a shell of its former self. I thought that was a tad harsh but I can’t rule it out. Follow the money, that sort of thing.

But the three years play well with the scenario of frustrating Brexit and wearing down the Leavers into submission as I have said general elections will be put off until the result in terms of Leave v. Remain don’t matter so much. In other words, rigged before the people get to vote on anything.

If it is obvious that is the MP scenario, Johnson could throw a spanner into the works by resigning. At that point, early elections may have to be called anyway as no one will be able to get a coalition together at least as long as Corbyn insists on No. 10 as his price. Johnson is effectively governing as a minority party leader; could Corbyn do the same? Will fellow Remainers even let him near No. 10?
 
I think you discount the possibility of a coalition too easily. Some work was done towards that prior to the failed prorogation, and I think you’d find the coalition would coalesce pretty quickly around the principle that Corbyn would be a caretaker PM with a single mandate; to rule out a Hard Brexit, and then to call an election (possibly also pass some sort of second referendum legislation).

Johnson’s actions are highly constrained at this point. He could do something petulant like send two letters to the EU, one requesting the extension as the Benn Act requires, and another saying why the EU shouldn’t, but really the EU pretty much regards Johnson as a lame duck, so I think they’d more than likely be taking the temperature of Parliament, which an absolute terms, pretty much is running the show now.

Johnson started with a weak hand, and then threw out all his face cards. Some like to believe this is some sort of clever strategy, I just think he’s utterly incompetent, and for all the years he’s either been an MP or be a commentator for the Daily Telegraph, he apparently has very little idea how the British constitution works.
 
And just now Mr Johnson has responded to a request from a female MP to moderate his language of “traitors” and “surrender”, given the very real threats too many MPs face. She spoke of Jo Cox, who was killed a few days before the referendum. Johnson stood up and said that the request was “humbug”. And then he spoke of Jo Cox, and said the way to honour her was by getting Brexit done.

Utterly disgusting.
 
niceatheist said:
I think you discount the possibility of a coalition too easily. Some work was done towards that prior to the failed prorogation, and I think you’d find the coalition would coalesce pretty quickly around the principle that Corbyn would be a caretaker PM with a single mandate; to rule out a Hard Brexit, and then to call an election (possibly also pass some sort of second referendum legislation).
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Corbyn wants to stay at No. 10 once he gets there. Hence the deadlock and the big reason we haven’t seen a No Confidence vote yet; it’s because Corbyn has most definitely not signaled his willingness to be just a caretaker. In addition to that there is no one else capable at this point.

The Remainers need to sort Corbyn before they can make much more headway.
 
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Lou2U said:
Utterly disgusting.
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I’ve just arrived home from a peaceful prayer meeting in a convent .

I have just read Laura Kuennsberg’s comments on the Boris’ s behaviour in the Commons .

I won’t be watching his performance on the BBC iplayer . I want to retain my peace .
 
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