BREXIT

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Bluff and bluster!

[KB1]

4 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Good post.

I would appreciate it if someone could riddle me how on one hand the Cons say the prorogation of Parliament was nothing to do with Brexit and then on the other state the supreme court hearing and outcome is a flagrant attempt by Remainers to thwart Brexit.

Could riddle you how and why, but you already know 🤪

[Gordon R]

When the Opposition or the Speaker try to pull a stroke, the snowflakes think they are being clever,. When Boris does it, they are outraged. Says it all.

[Blackstone]

6 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Good post.

I would appreciate it if someone could riddle me how on one hand the Cons say the prorogation of Parliament was nothing to do with Brexit and then on the other state the supreme court hearing and outcome is a flagrant attempt by Remainers to thwart Brexit.

It's Schrodinger's Brexiteer

[Raja Clavata]

14 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Bluff and bluster!

 

10 minutes ago, KB1 said:

Could riddle you how and why, but you already know 🤪

It used to be called plain old simple lying.

14 minutes ago, Blackstone said:

It's Schrodinger's Brexiteer

That'll be it 👍

[Dave-G]

40 minutes ago, Blackstone said:

Are you suggesting that the will of the Executive is unable to be challenged? That sounds very dangerous.

The Prorogation was carried out by an Order in Council at a meeting of the Privy Council. In effect, the Executive goes to the Queen and informs her they want to prorogue Parliament. And Parliament has no say in this matter, it is purely a decision by the Executive. The Executive, Judiciary and Legislature form the system of checks and balances fundamental to the healthy functioning of any democracy as it prevents any one entity from becoming too powerful. The Executive, by proroguing Parliament, prevented the Legislature from exercising its right to scrutinise and hold the Executive to account. Therefore, the Judiciary stepped in and ruled this unlawful under Constitutional law.

Many (in this thread) are making bogus claims that the Supreme Court made up a new law, or are interfering with Parliamentary business. For one, the Judiciary cannot make laws, only Parliament can do that. Also, note that they found that the PM acted unlawfully, not illegally. There is a subtle difference between the two. If something is illegal, it is explicitly prohibited by law. If something is unlawful, that just means it is not authorised by law. The charge of interfering with Parliamentary business is not true either, as the process of prorogation was not conducted in Parliament. It was not a motion or a bill that was passed in Parliament. It was solely an action of the Executive and so the Court could rule on it.

Another false claim that I've seen in this thread is that the Court ruled on the PM's motive for proroguing Parliament.  This is untrue. His motive for doing so was irrelevant to the court, they were only concerned with the effect of the prorogation.

Thank you for that - its all well above my pay grade lol.

[Capt Christopher Jones]

5 hours ago, Scully said:

Ah.....I see where you’re coming from now; the old upper class resentment chip on the shoulder. You’d fit right in with Jeremy and his bitter chums. 👍

No, certainly not, i am comfortably off & will never ever vote tory ( or labour for that matter )

[Yellow Bear]

17 minutes ago, Capt Christopher Jones said:

No, certainly not, i am comfortably off & will never ever vote tory ( or labour for that matter )

Brexit party it is then - because any of the others, limp dums included, will have all your cash

[B725]

Just now, Yellow Bear said:

Brexit party it is then - because any of the others, limp dums included, will have all your cash

And your pants down. 

[Rewulf]

2 hours ago, Blackstone said:

Are you suggesting that the will of the Executive is unable to be challenged? That sounds very dangerous.

What a ridiculous assertion , nobody has suggested that.
The will of the executive has been challenged on a daily basis since BJ took over.
They have made moves to remove no deal as an option, again against the executives strategy, among many other moves that weaken any negotiating stance with the EU.
Ironically , the only way they wont challenge it , is via a vote of no confidence, because they know where that ends up, with the people decided the course, exactly what they DONT want.

The Prorogation was carried out by an Order in Council at a meeting of the Privy Council. In effect, the Executive goes to the Queen and informs her they want to prorogue Parliament. And Parliament has no say in this matter, it is purely a decision by the Executive. The Executive, Judiciary and Legislature form the system of checks and balances fundamental to the healthy functioning of any democracy as it prevents any one entity from becoming too powerful. The Executive, by proroguing Parliament, prevented the Legislature from exercising its right to scrutinise and hold the Executive to account. Therefore, the Judiciary stepped in and ruled this unlawful under Constitutional law.

This is where your argument is found most wanting.
The legislature is holding the executive, and democracy to ransom, tell me again how this prevents any one entity from becoming too powerful ?
The legislature (parliamentary majority) seeing its ransoming  powers threatened , then used the courts to neutralise this  'threat' 
The problem now, is that precedent has been set, could the court (under instruction) now use its powers to force Brexit through ?
Like I said Pandoras box.

Many (in this thread) are making bogus claims that the Supreme Court made up a new law, or are interfering with Parliamentary business. For one, the Judiciary cannot make laws, only Parliament can do that. Also, note that they found that the PM acted unlawfully, not illegally. There is a subtle difference between the two. If something is illegal, it is explicitly prohibited by law. If something is unlawful, that just means it is not authorised by law. The charge of interfering with Parliamentary business is not true either, as the process of prorogation was not conducted in Parliament. It was not a motion or a bill that was passed in Parliament. It was solely an action of the Executive and so the Court could rule on it.

Another false claim that I've seen in this thread is that the Court ruled on the PM's motive for proroguing Parliament.  This is untrue. His motive for doing so was irrelevant to the court, they were only concerned with the effect of the prorogation.

Swings and roundabouts.
 The lefty papers carry headlines shouting 'GUILTY' next to a picture of Boris.
The man on the street will believe that Boris broke the law, and the opposition will use this ignorance to strengthen their own weak position.

If the PM has acted under advice, and broke no laws, then why is that terrorist sympathising idiot asking for him to resign ?

Are you trying to say that a precedent has NOT been set , when it comes to matters like this ?
What happens next time ?

You are a remainer, and you are trying to make out that nothing of any significance has happened here.
This is delusional, and I guarantee this ruling will come back to bite its instigators on the ****.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

 

An interesting viewpoint from Paul Goodman;

 

‘Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows’.

Those are the words of the Enacting Formula – the standard pattern of words which, with certain variations, precede the clauses of Bills at Westminster.  In a single sentence, they capture the meaning of Parliamentary sovereignty.

 

They clearly don’t say that the legislature is the only source of this sovereignty – in other words, of law-making power.  Rather, they tell a story.  It is one of that power being shared by the Queen, through the executive branch of government, with the legislature.

That’s why it’s said that we’re governed by the Queen-in-Parliament: it is the place where the monarch, her Government, and the legislature come together.  Parliament should work with harmony of a stately dance (come to think of it, “stately” is le mot juste), in which each dancer has his or her part to play.  Some of the most riveting steps in their movements came about because of the English Civil War. The dance continues to this day.

The best way of understanding the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday is to grasp that it reads the dance very differently – and, frankly, wrongly. “As long ago as 1611,” its ruling declared, the court held that “the King [who was then the government] hath no prerogative but that which the law of the land allows him”.  The Court clearly has that civil war, and long-run up to it, very much in mind.

But the King (or, in this case, the Queen) is no longer “the government” – a truth that the learned judges seem to have forgotten as soon as they uttered it.  Government is now a shared exercise between “the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty” and those “Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons”.  Or, to put it another way, Boris Johnson in no way resembles a Stuart Monarch.  Quite apart from anything else, Charles I did not offer the Roundheads the chance to vote him out of office.

Neither is Dominic Grieve John Hampden; nor Lady Hale, Sir Edward Coke; nor Dominic Cummings “Black Tom Tyrant” – the Earl of Stafford, Charles I’s formidable adviser, who was eventually sacrificed as a scapegoat.  If anyone thought they were.  Above all, this Gollum of a Speaker is not, repeat not, John Lenthall.

It is baffling that the highest court in the land so misunderstands our constitution – with more errors spawning from its first.  “[Parliamentary sovereignty] would be undermined if the executive could, through the use of the prerogative, prevent Parliament from exercising its power to make laws for as long as it pleased,” it ruled.

Once again, it conflates the legislature with Parliament.  Yes, MPs and peers are part of Parliament.  But so is the Queen – hence the Enacting Formula with which this article opened.  So, for that matter, are her Ministers.  They sit and speak and vote in the same chamber as backbenchers, because they are also MPs.  Do we really need to make the point that there is no separation of powers in our constitution?  If a lowly blog can understand this, why on earth can’t the Supreme Court?

Perhaps the answer lies in its title.  Ponder it again for a moment.  The.  Supreme.  Court.  Where does your mind travel to when you hear those words?  If you’re at all like us, the answer is “America”.  And there, of course, one does find the separation of powers.  Once judges have them, in the sense that they do in the United States, they become political.  Which explains why those nominated to America’s Supreme Court must face confirmation hearings.  And helps to demonstrate what is happening here.

Not so long ago, our judges were part of that ceremonious Parliamentary dance.  It was Tony Blair, with his characteristic tin ear for our constitutional music, who turfed out Law Lords out of Parliament and set up the Supreme Court.  Once you establish such a body, and look towards United States, American-type controversy is likely to follow.

In a curious way, then, the Court was acting explicably by making a judgement about the lawfulness of the Government’s prorogation with only a single reference to a particular statute.  By basing most of its case on principles rather than statute (contrary to usual practice), its judgement had a flavour of America – or, more precisely, of continental law, in which judgements are induced from abstractions, rather than Common Law, in which they are deducted from practice and precedent.  There, judges make the law.  Here, they discover the law.

Or did – until EU law, the ECHR, and concepts from continental law, such as proportionality, slowly coloured parts of our own system: for evidence, consider the growth of judicial review.  The Supreme Court is part of a bigger picture.  Perhaps these changes are desirable.  Maybe they aren’t.  But, either way, politicians since the Blair era have tended to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend that these changes aren’t really happening.  While Policy Exchange has pointed to the problem, by means of its Judicial Power Project, Ministers have looked the other way.

No wonder the Government’s collective response to Tuesday’s judgement has been a shambles.  Some Ministers want to leap forward – or at least sideways – and have America-style confirmatory hearings for judges.  Others want to go back to the future, scrap the Court and revive the Law Lords.  The Johnson Government is paying a price for the thoughtlessness of its predecessors.

In a nutshell, the Supreme Court’s ruling begins by misreading Parliamentary Sovereignty and thus ends by exalting one part of Parliament at the expense of the others.  So prorogation is something that is somehow done to MPs and peers “from outside” and “is not a proceeding in Parliament”.

However, as we have seen, the Queen and her Ministers are inside: they are part of Parliament.  Where does the Supreme Court’s logic take us?  Should Royal Assent end, because it is also “from outside”?  If so, what about the Queen’s Speech?  Why not send the Speaker up from the Commons, and let him deliver it instead?

It is tempting to mull the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling, allow one’s imagination to soar, and picture a future in which the legislature alone “takes back control”.  Over six hundred MPs could have a go at negotiating treaties at once, or mastermind detailed battle plans from the green benches. And if some of them had no right to, because their party didn’t command a majority in the Commons, too bad.

If you find the prospect fanciful, ponder real life.  MPs actually are seeking to direct a treaty negotiation: that’s the point of the Benn Act.  Oliver Letwin has been like a shadow Prime Minister to their shadow Government, exercising control of the Chamber’s proceedings and timetabling.

But unlike a real Prime Minister, he can’t be held to account at the despatch box or before Select Committees. And unlike a real monarch, Bercow is unrestrained by convention – and apparently untouchable by the courts, too.

‘Be it enacted by the Speaker’s most Excellent Person, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows’. If this is the Supreme Court’s vision of the future, perhaps it ought to tell us.

[Capt Christopher Jones]

38 minutes ago, Yellow Bear said:

Brexit party it is then - because any of the others, limp dums included, will have all your cash

A POX on Farage

[Rewulf]

Excellent, and explains what Ive been trying to say far more eloquently .

[Raja Clavata]

58 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Are you trying to say that a precedent has NOT been set , when it comes to matters like this ?
What happens next time ?

The precedent was set when Boris prorogued Parliament under false pretence - even William Hague cited that this was the opening of pandoras box.

[JRDS]

2 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

The precedent was set when Boris prorogued Parliament under false pretence - even William Hague cited that this was the opening of pandoras box.

Oh yes arch Remoaner Hague, what a suprise.  Every article he writes in the Telegraph is utter drivel.

[Raja Clavata]

1 minute ago, JRDS said:

Oh yes arch Remoaner Hague, what a suprise.  Every article he writes in the Telegraph is utter drivel.

Maybe but he was right on this one, no?

[JRDS]

No the courts should not rule on Political matters, as other courts found yet 11/11 on the SC decided differently.  A SC set up by Blair, what a surprise. 

Some text from the BBC below.

Stephen Tierney, professor of Constitutional Theory at Edinburgh University, believed the significance of this judgement would be felt not only in the short term but in the longer term also.

He explained: "The normal view of the courts is that it would not be appropriate to rule on the exercise of prerogative power.

"So the long-term significance of this ruling is very important."

"The lower court had said the actions of the executive were 'non-justiciable' - meaning they were not to be examined by judges.

"But this decision indicates the courts are more prepared than many people had expected to intervene in government actions."

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

The precedent was set when Boris prorogued Parliament under false pretence - even William Hague cited that this was the opening of pandoras box.

In relatively recent times;

• Clement Atlee (Labour) prorogued Parliament to prevent the Lords delaying his bill to nationalise the steel industry in 1948 and used prorogation to assist in reducing the Lords powers by ammending the Parliament Act of 1911
• John Major (Conservative) prorogued Parliament to prevent discussion of the 'cash for questions affair' (1997)

The difference between these cases (both of which were done for political reasons) and the Johnson case recently was that they were not challenged in the Supreme Court (which did not exist until Blair introduced it in October 2009).

[Retsdon]

1 minute ago, JRDS said:

Oh yes arch Remoaner Hague, what a suprise.

I've no time for the Mekon. But this business of dismissing people completely based solely on their opinion on a single and actually quite nuanced issue is both nonsensical and dangerous. This is the way that countries slide into outright anarchy.

[Raja Clavata]

5 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

In relatively recent times;

• Clement Atlee (Labour) prorogued Parliament to prevent the Lords delaying his bill to nationalise the steel industry in 1948 and used prorogation to assist in reducing the Lords powers by ammending the Parliament Act of 1911
• John Major (Conservative) prorogued Parliament to prevent discussion of the 'cash for questions affair' (1997)

The difference between these cases (both of which were done for political reasons) and the Johnson case recently was that they were not challenged in the Supreme Court (which did not exist until Blair introduced it in October 2009).

Were either of these previous prorogations challenged in any court?

[JohnfromUK]

2 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Were either of these previous prorogations challenged in any court?

Not that I am aware of from where I read about them

[Raja Clavata]

2 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

Not that I am aware of from where I read about them

So the more significant difference is they were not challenged in any court.

[ditchman]

its the BNP then yew ole' dawg...

[JohnfromUK]

1 minute ago, Raja Clavata said:

So the more significant difference is they were not challenged in any court.

Before the Supreme Court existed, I do not know where the challenge might have been made.  However, despite in both cases causing some 'harrumphing', the action doesn't seem to have been challenged in any court.

[JRDS]

1 minute ago, Raja Clavata said:

So the more significant difference is they were not challenged in any court.

Because it wasn't a matter for the courts no doubt!

But GM and her backers are now making the rules up as they go along ably assisted in this instance by Blair's SC.