Brexit.

[eighthdwarf Checchinato]

[...] in a parlamentarian system the elected representatives of the people are supposed to use their own judgement [...]

That's why I'm strictly in favor of Imperative Mandates on all political levels.

 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

Let's say we have a second referendum next year and most want to Leave again. Will that actually happen then ?

If the second referendum is as much of a dogs breakfast as the first one, legally only "advisory" and with only one of the choices properly defined - that one only defined because it was status quo ante - it will change nothing and resolve nothing.

A referendum that offered a choice between "do nothing" and "do something undefined" was always going to lead to this mess unless its outcome was "do nothing" and I suspect that was part of Cameron's strategy in wording it that way, underestimating the ability of voters on the leave side to convince themselves that "leave means leave the way I want us to leave" and vote for "who the hell knows what"

To make an informed choice one must know what both choices are - so a second referendum with choices between a defined exit deal and remain would work, since both choices are defined. If "no deal" weren't so crashingly unpopular outside the lunatic fringe even a referendum between "leave with this deal " and "leave with no deal" would work. WHAT the choices are is less important than that they are clearly defined if a plebiscite is to resolve any question. If the questions are not that rigidly defined, no parliament will approve a referendum that isn't "just advisory" because aside from the current collective brain-fart they do usually know how their career works, that they can't take political cover behind "my constituents voted for this" when the vote was defined in such woolly terms that many of them were actually voting for something else. As the current bunch of MPs is currently discovering, the hard way!

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well one thing is clear - with the current House of Commons there will be no progress and solution whatsoever. The HoC is not part of the solution, but of the problem, just like Boris Johnson is.

What the UK really needs now is a general election, and then look at the outcome of it and move on according to that.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Well one thing is clear - with the current House of Commons there will be no progress and solution whatsoever. The HoC is not part of the solution, but of the problem, just like Boris Johnson is.

What the UK really needs now is a general election, and then look at the outcome of it and move on according to that.

And that's what's going to happen.

Johnson wanted to hold one immediately, before the October 31 deadline, but the opposition parties are blocking this until after he's asked for an extension to the deadline,.

They want to delay that partly because they want to humiliate him by forcing him to ask the EU-27 for the extension he promised he'd never seek.

That's partly because they think it will be to their political advantage thus to humiliate him, since they think it will split the Leave vote by driving some hard-line Conservative voters to support the Brexit Party, thus making it easier for the Remain supporting candidates to win in our first-past-the-post system, and partly because it will further demonstrate how the Conservative Party has turned into precisely the kind of "coalition of chaos" they said back in 2015 would result from a Labour victory.

The other reason is that they don't trust him one bit and they fear that, if they agree to a general election, then he'll find a way to use the period during which Parliament is dissolved to engineer a no-deal Brexit by shifting the date of the unscheduled election to after October 31.

But, one way or another, we'll have an election very soon.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

ETA It has been pointed out on Twitter that, of course, gavels are used in auction houses, but not in English courts (and never have been), so the image carries perhaps unwelcome connotations of auctioning off the NHS as part of trade deal with the USA, thus placing NHS procurement policy under the authority of US courts, where gavels are used.

 

[Daniel Voyager]

"This Parliament is a dead Parliament, it has no right to sit on these green benches.”

"Twice they have been asked to let the electorate decide upon whether they should continue to sit in their seats, while they block 17.4 million people's votes. This Parliament is a disgrace."

"This Parliament should have the courage to face the Electorate. But it won't. Because so many of them are really all about preventing us leaving the EU. But the time is coming when even these turkeys won't be able to prevent Christmas"

Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox

 

[Innula Zenovka]

"This Parliament should have the courage to face the Electorate. But it won't. Because so many of them are really all about preventing us leaving the EU. But the time is coming when even these turkeys won't be able to prevent Christmas"

Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox

And there will be one, but not before the House of Commons has approved a Withdrawal Agreement or the Government has asked the EU-27 for an extension.

 

[Daniel Voyager]

And there will be one, but not before the House of Commons has approved a Withdrawal Agreement or the Government has asked the EU-27 for an extension.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I just don't see how he arrives at those figures.

Currently, the Conservatives hold 288 seats in the Commons (after expelling the 21 rebels).

The Lib Dems currently have 18 seats, and the SNP 35, so the first projection involves the Lib Dems winning 14 seats and the SNP 6.

Both those projections look on the low side to me, particularly the ones for Scotland, but almost all, if not all, of the projected Lib Dem and SNP gains will be at the expense of the Conservative Party, thus implying a net loss to the Conservatives of 20-odd seats they currently hold.

So somehow the Conservatives are going to end up with 35 more seats than they have at present, which means they'll somehow have to take more than 50 seats off Labour, which doesn't sound right to me -- where does he say these 50-odd constituencies are?

The problem with using national opinion poll figures to predict General Election results is that it's not a national poll -- it's constituency by constituency.

Under normal circumstances, we can examine the national percentage votes cast in the previous general election (since the way people voted last time is generally the best predictor of how they'll vote in the next election) and see how that translated into seats, but these aren't anything like normal circumstances, since we've now got many seats in serious contention between 3 or more candidates, both because the Brexit Party (BXP, as it's being abbreviated to) are polling so much better than did UKIP and because one of the main election issues -- Brexit -- cuts right across normal party loyalties.

This means that it's at least highly likely that the raw national figures conceal huge local variations.

For example, I would put good money on much of the increased Lib Dem support in national polling and the fall in Labour support representing the collapse of the Labour vote in Lib Dem target seats, almost all of which are held by the Conservatives (at least in England), as Labour supporters, whose candidate stands no chance of winning in those seats, vote for the Remain candidate most likely to beat the Leave-supporting Tories, as will Remain-supporting Tory voters.

However, I think the Labour vote is likely to hold up much better in Labour-held seats, where Labour supporters are motivated to keep the Tories out, and most Labour defectors will either not vote at all or will switch to BXP rather than the Conservatives.

Under those circumstances, and particularly given the normal margin for error in polling and the effect that's going to have on predicting the outcome in constituencies where, for the first time, there are 3 or 4 serious contenders for the seat, I just don't see how those figures work out.

Plus, of course, there's so much still to happen before any general election that any prognostications -- even those based on the results of the various parties' private polling, which is much more granular -- are no more than speculation.

 

[Daniel Voyager]

A motion for a early general election will be put forward at some point today again.

 

[Ariane]

A motion for a early general election will be put forward at some point today again.

Of course it will, even though by rule you can't propose the same bill in the same session of Parliament, which thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, this is. It will also prevent Johnson from reintroducing May's plan as a way to circumvent the law forcing him to ask for an extension.

The only way a General Election is happening in October is if a vote of no confidence happens, Johnson loses, and two weeks pass with no consensus replacement -- which is very likely as Ex-Tories, Lib Dems, and SNP are unlikely to support Corbyn taking over.

 

[Tigger]

"This Parliament is a dead Parliament, it has no right to sit on these green benches.”

"Twice they have been asked to let the electorate decide upon whether they should continue to sit in their seats, while they block 17.4 million people's votes. This Parliament is a disgrace."

"This Parliament should have the courage to face the Electorate. But it won't. Because so many of them are really all about preventing us leaving the EU. But the time is coming when even these turkeys won't be able to prevent Christmas"

Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox

This is all empty grandstanding. Parliament is elected for 5 years unless it agrees to hold an early election. That means parliament has every right to sit until the next scheduled general election (2022 I think). That's just how it works. The fact that parliament wont give Johnson the early election he wants (even though he said he didnt want one) is utterly irrelevant.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Helpful article in the Financial Times by David Allen Green, explaining the Supreme Court's decision, including why it's an historic one.

The Supreme Court has returned power the government stole

The Supreme Court has returned power the government stole This judgment restoring parliament’s potency shows the executive cannot dodge scrutiny David Allen Green Brenda Hale, president of the Supreme...

www.evernote.com

 

[Tigger]

Johnson and his government apparently intend to comply with the Benn act and request an extension from the EU. However they believe themselves to be very clever and intend to send a second letter to the EU to try and convince them not to grant the extension they've asked for in the first letter.

Legal minds are not impressed.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's called the Padfield Principle, derived from the case Padfield v Minister of Agriculture (1968), in which the Law Lords, as then they were, held that Ministers may not use their statutory powers to frustrate the intention of an Act of Parliament.

Padfield (1968) established the principle that there are no unfettered discretions in public law, and that statutory powers must be used to promote the policy and objects of the statute, to be determined by the courts as a matter of law.

https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/speech-140414.pdf

 

[Daniel Voyager]

 

[Tigger]

How stupid does the think the opposition parties are?

 

[Kara Spengler]

Somewhat relevant and ironically youtube showed this to me again yesterday.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Very interesting and important article by Jolyon Maugham QC, whose Good Law Project was behind the Joanna Cherry's case in Scotland against prorogation, about a loophole in the Benn Act, which requires the PM to seek an extension to A50 if no withdrawal agreement has been agreed by October 19, which he suspects Johnson is considering exploiting.

Opinion: Boris can't get a Brexit deadline deal through – unless he breaks his most solemn oath

Timing is everything, and parliament is alert to any chain of events which leaves open the chance of a no-deal Brexit

www.independent.co.uk

He reassures us, though, that he's made Opposition MPs aware of this danger and of how it can best be averted.

 

[Tigger]

Its interesting but it depends on a couple of preconditions

Firstly, Johnson has to come back with a deal agreed by the EU. The only deal likely to be approved between now and 19th October would appear to be the one deal that has already been agreed: May's deal.

It then requires that Parliament approves that deal. Given the ERG have stated they will vote against ANY deal and no one else is really daft enough to vote for May's deal on what would effectively be it's 4th outing that seems pretty unlikely.

So the difference between approving the deal and actually going through all the legal hoops to make it happen is only relevant if Johnson can, on his first try, pull off what May failed to do three times. I just can't see him doing that.