It get's murkier

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49225906

I just can't imagine this happening but if boris tried it then it might be where parliament has to consider asking the queen to ask for an extension until after the GE.

It's a bit more complicated. Barring a Commons vote with two-thirds majority for an early general election, there would have to be a no-confidence vote followed by 14 days without a confidence vote (that is, without a new leader of whatever party able to command a majority). In theory, Johnson could sit it out and then name to the Queen a general election date after Brexit. In practice, it's likely the House would vote for anything that would prevent this.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...tion/2/enacted

And, as Catherine Haddon herself says, persisting with a policy that does not command the confidence of the House would be unconstitutional.



Which might mean that the Queen could not accept the advice of the supposed but dubious (on account confidence-vote-losing) Prime Minister.

So there's that.

Also, the Queen won't want to be put in that position, so Johnson might be told that he had better not try it on.

I think we agree it's never going to happen. It's a technical conversation about where 'against the constiution' and 'illegal' are not the same thing. In principle boris couuld do some of these things but he aint going to.

The only way we end up with 'no deal' is if boris pursues it and parliament fails to get it's act together to vote to stop it, or possibly if we lose a GE/2nd ref, or if the EU refuses an extension (which is highly unlikely).

Chezlaw, 57 on Red, et al:

Wow!! American politics is Dullsville compared to what's going on in the UK.

If something remotely comparable to this were occurring here in the U.S., we would call it a constitutional crisis. I get the impression that although the Queen gives her permission for a new Government to be formed, (usually after the results of a GE), it's more a formality than an exercise of power. It seems that the royal family, and especially the Queen, are particularly reticent about getting "too involved" in politics. Is this a correct interpretation of British politics and the Queen's role in all this?

It's too bad William Shakespeare is not alive today. Observing these shenanigans, he might write another comedy/farce - or maybe another tragedy? The title might be: "Brexit Hexit" or "MacBoris" if Conservative Party MPs shaft their own PM. (Does this mean Theresa May assumes the role of Lady MacBeth?)

She's more the 3 Witches than Lady Macbeth at this point

Well, the UK does not have a constitution so that helps. The UK's form of government is largely shaped by convention. Even the office of Prime Minister exists because of convention, not law.

To be clear, in all modern democracies large parts of how they are governed is due to convention and not law. The UK simply relies more on convention than the norm. It should also be said that in many ways conventions are also better than law, they are flexible, far less susceptible to abuse of loopholes and you rarely get hung up on near irrelevant details. Ultimately however they are far less protected by checks and balances than law.

The UK monarchy does on paper retain substantial power, but your assessment is correct. It is not used out of respect / tradition. However the UK "backbone" in codified law, the Magna Carta, established already in the early 1200s that the monarch is not above the law.

One of the weird things pointed out to me years ago was that there was no legal requirement to have general elections. A government in power could simply continue ad infinitum without having one - thy just didn't because the convention was 5 years max. I assume it's not true anymore as we have a fixed parliament act but that's very recent.

There's a lot to be said for conventions rather than law. The trouble being that the idea that there is a good set of consistent laws that include governing the law is a fallacy. Obviously downsides as well - nothing is perfect

I would be very surprised if the this becomes a constitutional crises. We have the capacity to **** things up very badly without one of those.

Well, when MPs try and block the result of a legitimate referendum where they've already voted to invoke article 50 by 80%, you get this kind of mess. MPs have been a total failure on their promises - so who can trust them?

Also, pretty much any MP who says we must block no deal, but isn't willing to revoke and isn't in some way working towards a realistic deal, is a waste of both time and space and should get the boot from their local party.

Lots of sources of this mess. I'd say it was having a referendum on such a huge thing when we a) had no idea what to do if leave won and b) there was no leave group empowered to enact a leave result (like the SNP would have been if Scotland had voted for independence). This was stupid on an epic scale.

History may judge very harshly those who wouldn't vote for the deal despite being against a hard brexit. Many regret its and it raised the stakes so high now. But it's a gamble I support, not least because I don't think a deal will stop most of the problems that will follow from leaving.

so you think a deal is pretty much the same as no deal compared to remaining? Hmm.

In many respect I do. No deal is worth avoiding because of the short term damage/risks but it's managing a political catastrophe rather than stopping it.

Very vaguely on a scale of 1-10

No deal - 1
Deal - 3
Remain - 10

on the other hand, if you're talking about proper self-determination and nation-state democracy

no deal - 10
deal - 6
remain - 1

so I think we can agree the only actual compromise is probably a deal were no one is happy, but no one is too badly ignored.

Of course, I expect remainers to keep pushing their non-democracy, and us ending up with Brexit party being a major player for years.... uggg

Two Questions

Keep in mind that these questions are coming from across the pond ...

First, my understanding is that some kind of exit - hard or otherwise - is set to occur by October 31st unless the EU agrees to another extension of the deadline or MPs vote for a deal on or before October 31st. (The latter doesn't appear very likely. The former is anybody's guess ...)

I'm curious as to how EU leadership views this debacle? Is the attitude in Brussels something along the lines of: "We're not giving an inch! British politicians stepped in it, so now they have to live with the mess. This was totally self inflicted. If the UK withdraws without an agreement, we're not going to cut them any slack. In fact, we're going to make withdrawal as painful and disruptive [to Britain] as possible!"

Is this is a correct interpretation as to how EU bureaucrats view Brexit? Would Jean Claude Juncker and his colleagues be espousing such a position as a deterrent to other EU members who might also be thinking about exiting? If Britain actually goes through with a withdrawal, especially without an agreement, do EU leaders fear a chain reaction of other member nations withdrawing? Putting it another way, does Brussels want to make an exit as painful as possible in order to discourage other members from withdrawing?

My second question ... Let's assume Brexit occurs and predicted/feared economic and political "chaos" ensues. Politically, who benefits (which party?) and who loses?

This looks like a standoff where the two sides - London and Brussels - are eyeball-to-eyeball and neither side wants to be the first to blink.

I don't think we fully agree on this. I don't think there was anything objectionable in may's deal (apart from the fact it was leaving), it took us out of the EU and left the future arrangements to be determined.

I think any MP who wanted brexit should have been very happy with May's deal and grabbed at it enthusiastically. Those who didn't have gambled brexit happening at all for nothing.

Those who want to stay but are resigned to leaving should also have been happy with May's deal.

Those who want to have a 2nd ref have taken a gamble with a large upside.

As for as remainers- there's some fair criticism of us but really you should be blaming the leavers who spurned the straightforward opportunity the referendum provided them with. Talk about leading a horse to water ..

Correct. there is one other option which is that we can just revoke - say we changed our minds and just remain - this is very unlikely.

There's a tiny bit of this but it's really bad for the EU as well. There's a lot of anti-Brussels sentiment in Europe and they don't want the blame for problems that follow. They're also by and large a decent bunch who want things to work
well for everyone - that's part of why some of us want to be in the EU.

But everyone has a point where they have to move on. That's growing.

It's talked about a lot but anyone who believes it is extremely complacent. If the UK leaves it will have set a destination. The pain will be forgotten and anyone else can simply say - we will go to the same destination. Te only way this isn't true is if it an ongoing catastrophe for the UK but that's a disaster for Europe as well.

Such a a hard question. I'm going with, dunno because that's the nature of chaos -but it's rarely good.

There is a real problem over the Irish border that the EU can't blink away. A solution would have to be found that will either be a fudge or some bilateral agreement between the UK and Ireland. There's no way the EU will abandon Ireland so Ireland has to be part of the solution - no-one seems to have one though.

Whether boris will blink? - I'm sure he would if he could get away with it but can he get it past the tories?

Broadly, yes. The Queen doesn't rule in person (a head has been shed over that issue, in 1649) but only through her ministers. The Prime Minister exercises the royal power, but this has to be tempered by Parliament. The supreme sovereign authority is not the Queen herself but an invisible thing called the Crown-in-Parliament, which is like a republic except that the head of state has royal title -- a 'crowned republic', as one American historian has called it.

The Queen is the ultimate guarantor -- among other things, she keeps men and women of ambition out of the top job -- and she has the right and duty to advise and warn the Prime Minister, particularly if there's any question of abusing the royal power vis-a-vis Parliament. Nobody knows, but she might not want her powers used in the way that 'career psychopath' Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister's chief special adviser, is suggesting -- that is, ignoring a confidence vote, staying in office, dissolving Parliament to neuter it and holding a general election while Brexit takes place regardless.

He'd be sharpening his quill all right.

I would add that there are countries with constitutions based to some extent on the British constitutional monarchy -- the four I's, Ireland, Italy, Israel and India, plus Germany -- where a non-executive president, though elected, has a role not entirely unlike the Queen's.

worth remembering that Cummings loves the £350M Bus line because it got people to oppose it and in doing so keeping the focus on how much the EU contributions were rather than on why we wanted to be a member.

He is very capable of saying things just to get the reaction he wants. I reckon that is most likely that that is what he is doing with the GE thing.

The EU wants to protect the integrity of the Single Market. They don't want to allow a 'third country', as Britain will become, the benefits without the obligations, because the system just won't work that way. Common standards have to be in place. They also want to protect Ireland's interests as a member state. (And the US Congress won't allow a trade deal if Britain reneges on the Good Friday Agreement over the 'invisible border'.)

There's no sign at present that any other country wants to inflict on itself the needless harm that Britain is incurring, so that may not be much of an issue.

Nobody knows. If there's a breakdown in essential supplies, particularly medicines but also food and, for instance, water-purification chemicals (mostly imported), and if there are mass redundancies as businesses fail, and price hikes for basic goods, the Brexit Party and the Tories ought to take the hit, but a segment of popular opinion may choose to blame 'foreigners' anyway, because some people are like that. It's not a good outlook.

We do have a constitution, but it's not in the form of a single document. It resides in statutes, and precedents, and conventions, all over the place.

I think we're discovering, under Mr Trump, that even the apparently clear-as-gin American constitution does rely to some extent on convention, and on people doing the right thing. There are considerable openings for someone who doesn't much care for the conventions.

So, this, by the Professor of Law and Public Policy at Cambridge, on how Parliament could defeat the Cummings Plan, is quite interesting. Though complicated.

http://www.democraticaudit.com/2019/...o-deal-brexit/

57 On Red:

My goodness! After reading all that, it appears that Britain's pols have managed to engineer one massive cluster f**k with no good out. (In poker parlance this is called drawing dead.)

I wonder if there is another possibility the professor didn't mention. Since it appears that actually going through with Brexit, deal or no deal, will unleash a Pandora's box of problems; why not just have a second referendum and hope, this time, that "Remain" wins? (If "Leave" wins this second referendum, just throw your hands up, say "The people have spoken - twice!" and let the chips fall where they may.)

Could the Tory Party, Labour, Liberal Dems, Greens, et cetera all agree, before the second referendum, that there will be a General Election called after the second referendum regardless of which side wins the second referendum? I'm sure there is a new set of issues and obstacles with a second referendum, but can such problems and issues - whatever they are - be any worse than the present impasse?

This problem can't linger indefinitely without a resolution. This has been going on for over 3 years. If the dithering and paralysis continues, the odds increase that employers will lose patience, throw their hands up in resignation and leave the UK. I don't think anybody wants that ...

Yeah, it was a bit poorly worded. The UK does not have a specific codified constitution would be more precise. An important element of that is that it is typical practice to demand supermajority to change codified constitutions, a practice that is almost non-existent in the UK where simple majority is almost always the norm.

And for sure, the US, like any other modern democracy, relies heavily on convention. Like I wrote in another thread recently, such conventions can often be just as important as constitutional practices.

Law can be a wonderful thing. But it has its limits. If we made a law that demanded "people must be civil towards each-other", what would likely happen is that incivility would merely take a form that fulfilled the letter, but not spirit, of the law. At worst you might end up legitimizing extremely dysfunctional practices because "at least it is not illegal".

Good law really matters. As you say a law demanding civility would be awful. But the law against overstepping incivility works fine.


Which mostly proves it isn't important. But it's a bit more than 'a simple majority' as there's a lengthy process with many votes and opportunities to scrutinise/amend/revise. I doubt anyone here will defend the composition of the House of Lords but the role it performs is very important.