Disagree. And it can all move to Brexit.

Brussels will never acknowledge their mistake, but will be worse for them than Britian.

Boris Johnson is way more entertaining than Trump. I can't stand watching Trump speak for more than 10 seconds; Johnson can at least articulate himself... most of the time. That bit reminded me of "The Thick of It":



"Anyway, you get the gist!" lol. God I loved that show.

I see Diane Abbott supports abolishing the school she sent her boy to.

For some clarity.....

Katie Frank....

Can you tell us a bit about your profession and your role?



I am currently the Head of Office for Ross Thomson, Member of Parliament for Aberdeen South. My role encompasses a wide variety of things – I can go from dealing with senior politicians or civil servants one minute to talking about potholes the next! However, I officially manage expenses, payroll, security, the Parliamentary diary, speak with constituents, liaise with ministerial offices, work with lobbyists and occasionally deal with the press.

No ****ing agenda here then and everything is above board.

You've got the posters you deserve here.

Abbott's position is fine.

British politics would be healthier for the next few years if "Lansman"'s move against Watson succeeded. Discuss.

How lucky is LOTO? Worst conference for a major political party ever, Watson due to give a speech today with the floor walking out/chanting him out explicitly because Watson has said racism is bad, Mr. Party Democracy First who is of course a Lifelong Anti-Racist abusing his position to ensure Labour doesn't support freedom of movement and voila, deus ex machina.

I want to ask about Prorogation, Independently from Brexit: What is this actually good for? I mean, if a PM thinks sending the MPs home for a while is a good idea, they could just use their majority to decide on it in the house. So isn't this just a way for a PM to stall a house where they don't have a majority? How is this a democratic instrument?

Also, why do you have to prepare a month for the Queen's speech, and how do you actually prepare for it?

Parliament operates in sessions that start with Queens speech setting out the legislative program. It's common to have one a year and each session ends with prorogation - that's just normal and no big deal at all.

It can take ages to prepare the queens speech because it contains the forthcoming legislative program which may require a lot of work. There's absolutely no reason for parliament to be closed while this preparation is done.

Prorogation for the Queen's Speech is normally for at most five days, one week's business, simply to prepare the House of Lords for the ceremony. Like installing the throne, for instance, and allotting space to ensure both Houses can pack in quickly and without fuss. I'm afraid the Prime Minister was lying about the supposed need to prorogue in order to prepare legislation. The Queen only outlines the purpose of future bills, and bills are normally drafted while Parliament is sitting anyway.

The prorogation was obviously meant to circumvent normal Parliamentary procedure and that's why the Supreme Court had no option but to strike it down.

Yeah but is it a good democratic instrument that the PM (essentially) decides on prorogation? Why don't the MPs decide on that themselves?

Because there's a certain balance between the legislature and the executive (and, as we've just seen, the judiciary). Prorogation is a royal prerogative, i.e. reserved for the executive. But it can only be exercised in certain very limited circumstances. Johnson failed to obey the rules, so he got swatted.

...but what are these circumstances? In how far would the UK be a worse place if prorogation didn't exist?

It makes very little difference in practice ~all of the time. If the government has an effective majority then it's going to control any parliamentary vote on when prorogation should be whereas if it has no majority it can't enact much of a legislative program anyway.

So it serves no particular purpose but it doesn't matter because usually everyone is cool about it? No one sees a problem? That about sums it up?

More or less. And the first time there was a major problem in living memory the courts have corrected it.

I suspect the rules will be changed to give parliament a vote but it's pretty meh in the scheme of things.

British politics has always relied on the honour system. Really.

Let's hope they stay honorable then!

Too late!

Excellent, brutal and funny by Tom Peck. The Trump style media demagoguery is scary in a country with as few constitutional checks as the U.K. Anyone thinking the Supreme Court should let the executive do whatever they want with the most explicitly authoritarian and democracy hating opposition in hundreds of years needs their head examined.

This stuff about Johnson's former "close (female) friend" getting government grants is suspicious. Impropriety priced in with Johnson and not an opportune time to ditch a Prime Minister but....

Voted against recess for tory conference.

You have to laugh

The British political system is largely comprised of hundreds of years of conventions. These conventions involve things like people in fancy costumes carrying big sticks and old lady story time. The problem is, we don't exactly know what happens if some of these conventions get violated and for the most part we all agree it's best not to find out. This is one of those times where we're finding out.

Basically, prorogation is permitted to allow for a Queen's Speech followed by a State Opening of the new Parliamentary session, or else for a General Election. Prorogation marks the end of a Parliamentary session, but not the end of that Parliament, which would be dissolution.

In the event of a General Election, Parliament is prorogued first and then dissolved at the statutory interval before the election. On dissolution, the Parliament then ceases to exist, which, between sessions, it doesn't. On dissolution, MPs cease to be MPs and can't put those letters after their names. On prorogation, that doesn't happen.

If it's just for a Queen's Speech, prorogation is only for a few days -- to prepare the Lords' chamber to receive both Houses and the Sovereign -- and there's no dissolution. When prorogued, Parliament can still be recalled. When dissolved, it can't be.

Prorogation is simply an order, short of outright dissolution, that 'Parliament doesn't need to sit for the time being.' (And a date of resumption must always be given in the prorogation order.) Since the Civil War, Parliament cannot be prorogued to prevent actions by the executive, but only for the purposes stated above.

The Supreme Court ruling in R (Miller) v Prime Minister and Cherry & Others v Advocate General of Scotland has lately clarified the matter.

https://www.supremecourt.uk/prorogation/index.html

Hope that clears that up.

Yep, that could indeed be criminal misfeasance in public office.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's own sister told The World At One on BBC R4 that he might be sweating a bit under pressure from his financial backers who have large bets on the country collapsing under Brexit.



Of course she was being polite for family reasons, because we know that that is in fact the case, and Johnson's paymaster, hedge-fund billionaire Crispin Odey, was quite upfront about it on C4's Tories At War.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/tories-at-war

(Although, rather stupidly, Odey, like Dominic Cummings, assumed when interviewed that Labour would grant Johnson the early election he wanted, which, of course, they have not done, because even they know when they've got someone where they want him.)