Lord Keen QC, the Scottish advocate general, put forward an extraordinary argument to the Article 50 hearing before the Supreme Court this morning, He claimed that no legislative consent motion on Brexit is needed from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland because no legislation is needed to trigger Brexit. To put it another way, he argued that our membership of the EU is maintained at the whim of the Prime Minister.
Three thoughts follow. First, I sincerely hope he is wrong, and that the court finds that he is. It is wholly unacceptable that any person have such power in the UK.
Second, if he is right I think that parliament will have a bigger issue than Brexit to deal with now: we need to change these powers as a matter of urgency in that case.
Third, the case for the UK to have a constitution is growing by the day if the people of this country are to have any protection in the future from the random acts of an individual, Prime Minister or not.
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This is truly appalling. So much for a United Kingdom. It is completely contemptuous of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Not to mind that it looks as if we have had a bloodless UKIP like take over of the Tory party. The UK is looking to much like a Fascist Right Wing Dictatorship for my liking. I’m stunned!
Staggering, isn’t it?
There is also a very strong case for politicians actually reading our existing legal framework as members of the European Union. The regulations covering Freedom of Movement are so much stronger than we are led to believe. Had they been implemented at all by the Home Secretary (Teresa May in case anyone forgot) between 2010 and the present then it is unlikely the pressure would have been strong enough to hold a referendum. So, even ahead of creating a written constitution we need instructions to politicians to read what there is already and not to rely on a Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph. There is a summary piece here that looks at the actual regulations as they stand: http://outsidethebubble.net/2016/12/06/massive-negligence-by-theresa-may-when-home-secretary/.
Would it actually have made much difference? I do not know, but find it difficult to believe that the vast majority of EU imigrants were not economically active, the families of economically active persons, or people with sufficient means to support themselves.
It might not. But it would have made a real difference to the immigration debate in the referendum if it had been understood that proper border controls were possible for all EU citizens and they simply hadn’t been implemented because of the lack of desire to do so by the UK government. That would have been an entirely different story!
There are a number of post-truth memes that seem to be taking hold or indeed have already done so. It is something the right wing press and politicians are good at; trotting out some vastly oversimplified and wrong solution/analysis to a vastly complicated problem.
1) The household budget analogy: Running a country is just like running a household. This is completely wrong on so many levels, but is a very easy sell.
2) Zero sum game analysis. This was extremely prevalent in NI for many years “What’s good for the Prods is bad for the Taigs.”
I’ve no doubt immigration has been immensely good economically for the country but Governments have consistently underestimated the feeling of despair of the left behind in society and the seduction of easy solutions. Immigration and race have been correctly in my view been out of the mainstream political discourse since Enoch Powell’s infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech. It’s sadly a bit like a pressure cooker and resentment has blown over. The odious Nigel Farage has capatalised on this. Even talk of him getting a peerage.
The left needs come up with some answers on Immigration. I struggle with this and the EU framework likes like a good solution. Like one of the more recent anti NHS tourism crusades it will likely cost considerably more in terms of policing than any benefit.
I would like to stick up two fingers to the right-wing press but far worse is coming down the line with biased and down-rightly untrue fake news being propagated over the WWW by immensely well funded by alt-right groups in the US, the Russians who delight in causing mayhem and even Macedonian teenagers who play the system to get advertising revenue.
These are not normal times. We need a unity left wing (progressive) alliance more than ever.
Agreed
I’d put the chances of a written constitution at close to zero. The current fudge suits the constitutional “food chain” & keeps the natives nicely confused.
A written constitution would have to define land ownership. Cahill in the book “Who Owns the World” notes on page 44 (& 238) that legal ownership of all land in the UK is vested in one person – Mrs Queen. Two types of land tenure: leasehold & freehold. Freehold is defined in the Land Registration Act of 2002 as “an interest in an estate in land, in fee simple”. (Fee simple: the sum paid to respresent the fact that the freehold is a tennacy – & the ultimate landowner is… Mrs Queen). Cahill goes on to note (page 45) that there is no written constitution becuase it avoids the need to address the fact that Mrs Queen owns all land (& not just in the UK). Most of the Uk pop’ love their Queen & the relationship (monarch – subjects) is not dissimilar to that between Mrs Queen & her corgies.
The operation of the Duchy of Cornwall (see http://www.duchyofcornwall.eu/latest/?page_id=130) is perhaps the most extreme example of hidden power in this “state”.
In that case, according to the referenced article, “people hold their land not from the Queen as sovereign, but from the Duke as sovereign”. In addition, “laws passed by the Westminster Parliament today always extend to England and Wales, they do not extend to the Duchy of Cornwall unless the text expressly states that they do, and then only with the prior express approval of the Duke in his capacity as the de jure sovereign of Cornwall”.
So Mr Duke, who is perhaps not quite so loved by the population, seems to have quite a hold over at least some of them.
Hence the need for a written constitution
I am truly astonished that it should have been a Scots legal officer, the Scottish Advocate General, Lord Keen QC, who could have cone up with so pernicious a doctrine as you have described, given that almost all the upheavals in UK politics in the 17th century are attributable, at least in part, to the doeful fact that the ruling dynasty, the Stuarts, were Scottish, with, at least initially, and probably right to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a poor grasp of the realities of English (used advisedly) Parliamentary politics.
The Scots Parliament had none of the hard-won effectiveness that it had even under Henry Vlll, and certainly had under Elizabeth l, where it was recognised as a power to be reckoned with, where the Scottish Parliament under the Stuarts was more like the Bourbon Etats Générales, or the Tsar’s Duma – a sort of Royal echo chamber.
Each of the Stuart rulers of the UK, until Mary l, misunderstood the system: so James Vl & l attempted to sit as a judge, and was told in no uncertain terms by Lord Coke that the King’s justice must be carried out in the King’s name, but NOT by the King personally.
Charles l, of course, thought he could arrest MP’s with impunity, and effectively sparked of a Civil War by such actions, along with his practice of personal rule, without benefit of Parliament, exactly as if he were a Romanov!! That cost him more than his crown, as we all know.
Then cunning old Charles ll, who, after his experiences of wandering,and fully recognising that it was Parliament, or at least a “grand Committee of the great and the good who had invited him to retake his throne, should have known better – even he thought he could act like his father, and entered the Commons in person, sitting in Oxford, I think, and used his personal authority, his “Royal prerogative” to dissolve Parliament, which is why, even now, the Commons is, apart from the City of London, the ONLY place the monarch cannot enter as of right, but must send her “Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod”, to ask permission to enter the Commons as her representative.
This summary dissolution stored up hostility to the Crown, which James Vll & ll amply fuelled by compounding ALL the errors of his grandfather, father and brother – manipulation of Parliament, arrests and imprisonments – adding to them something even Charles l might have baulked at, namely, that the “Royal Prerogative” allowed him, Humpty Dumpty style, to decide what a law meant,irrespective of its plain meaning, and so allowed him to go ahead and appoint Catholics to posts the Test Act expressly forbade.
And so this sorry tale brings us to “the Glorious Revolution”, and ” the Bill of Rights”, and the truly CRUCIAL fact that William and Mary were NOT monarchs by either of the traditional routes open to them: Mary all was NOT Queen by right of succession, as her father, the “anointed monarch” was still alive, leading many (including Bishop Thomas Ken, whom James had imprisoned!), to be “non-jurors”, feeling they could not in conscience swear allegiance to Mary while James was alive.
Equally, William did NOT take the throne ” by right of conquest”, as had Henry Vll and William the Conqueror. No, the CRUCIAL fact is that both William and Mary – whatever the constitutional icing and decoration put on the cake – were ELECTED by Parliament!!!
The really KEY conclusion to draw from this is the following: after the Glorious Revolution Parliamentary sovereignty was NO LONGER an outgrowth of the Royal Prerogative, but rather the EXACT opposite was the case: the Royal Prerogative was an appendage upon Parliamentary sovereignty, and without the protection of such sovereignty, the Royal Prerogative is null and void, a mere artifice, lacking substance. Clearly, therefore, ANY attempt to invoke Article 50 without the sanction of Parliament would also be void for illegality.
That Theresa May – a Tory – should be seeking not only to implement what I have long argued was always Thatcher’s aim, namely the re-feudalization of society into Barons with all the rights, and serfs with none of the rights, but also to reverse the settlement arrived at in 1688, shows that the Tories do indeed have long memories, for the Glorious Revolution was always seen as a Whig achievement, to which the Tories only grudgingly assented, until they regained their ascendancy under the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne.
With that in mind, am I being hyper-sensitive in seeing the Tory manifesto pledge to have a new (English??) Bill of Rights, and to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (a Convention, incidentally, largely crafted by an earlier generation of Conservative politicians and lawyers of somewhat more liberal sensibilities, and deeper attachment to liberty, not to speak of profounder intellects and note humane instincts) as part of the same agenda?
Brilliant…
Masterly indeed, but I doubt if many present day Tory (or any) politicians have the wit to understand the agenda they are accused of here.
Should say “more humane” and not “note humane”.
Despite assurances to the contrary by the Queens’ consul to Scotland (David Mundell), we always knew that the constitution allows the UK government to ignore the Sewel convention – despite the fact that it is now “enshrined” in an Act of Parliament.
Hence it was no surprise that Lord Keen, the UK’s Advocate General for Scotland, should make that explicit in his submission at the Supreme Court. I imagine the point will be made to Mundell at the next Scottish Questions. It will be difficult for Mundell to respond, but the braying Tories will sneer and laugh as usual to provide some cover.
Assuming the Supreme Court finds that Keen is correct about Sewel, Mundell’s lies will be writ large and I find it difficult to see why he should not resign.