There is a lot of commentary around today on the cancellation of the budget that was scheduled on 6 November.
Some discuss how this undermines Sajid Javid, not that he needed much undermining as far as I can see.
Other comments note that this will be an extraordinary year without a budget.
Although it is appropriate to note that this might have saved the government publishing massively embarrassing forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility showing just how bad the impact of Brexit is now thought to be.
But the issue is bigger than that. This is about the collapse of functioning government. Governments that cannot go about the routine business of government are not governing at all.
In this case the lack of a budget is most especially bizarre. That is because it is possible for this government to function. It passed its Brexit proposal at second reading. It got its Queen's Speech through, quite surprisingly. A sensible budget might well have progressed, as could other measures. The Commons is surprisingly consensual, quite often.
In other words, this lack of government is by choice, and not by necessity. Bois Johnson is denying his ministers and parliament the right to do their jobs. No one else is but him.
And as is now also obvious, he can have an election whenever he wants. He simply has to recognise he has to cooperate with others to achieve that goal. Again, then, any paralysis is self-chosen.
And the question has to be asked as to why that is? What makes Johnson not want to govern when this was, apparently, the thing he most wanted in life? I have three suggestions.
First, like Cameron but more so, he has no clue what to do with power. Now he is PM his lack of idea as to why he wanted the post, other than for its own sake, is painfully clear.
Second, Johnson has something he wants more than to govern, which is to Brexit, although he has never given any clear indication as to why that is. No wonder conspiracy theories abound.
And third, precisely because he does not know what the benefit of Brexit is, and fears he may be accountable for it, he'd rather create any range of distractions he can to prevent attention being given to his own failures. Like all persistent liars, he'll accept anything that delivers short term survival without considering the consequences.
But the result is that effective government has ended in the UK. And that is profoundly worrying.
I have no great concern for Javid. I do for the impact that the failure of government has on the UK. And we now appear to be suffering that fate.
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“he can have an election whenever he wants. He simply has to recognise he has to cooperate with others to achieve that goal. ”
Amplify. What means the phrase “to cooperate with others “? What would Johnson have to do in your opinion to guarantee a 2/3 rds Parliamentary majority required by the fixed term parliament act?
Note the Lib Dem Bill
But he could also agree a timetable with Labour and call Corbyn’s bluff
How about restore the whip to former conservatives MPs and carry on the confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP? It would not have taken much effort to cooperate with them in the last 3 months. Instead he wilfully disregards his allies and is now reliant on his “enemies”. Does that show good judgement?
He could get agreement from almost everyone, if he took no-deal off the table.
I feel more and more these days that there has been a coup undertaken by a bunch of high class, monied gangsters who just can’t be bothered with democracy at all in order to bend the world to their will.
The good news about this is that for once, there is no cover up or pretence of decency – you really can see what their objectives are. They have revealed themselves in all their glory. We are still in for a rough time but I cling to the hope that many will realise what has actually cracked off and will not want to see this happen again.
The Tories and the Leavers may well get what they want – fair enough.
But the manner by which they have achieved their aims will leave a thick stench behind for a long time and the refrain ‘Won’t get fooled again’ may well take on a new and more interesting perspective next time around, especially when the BREXIT chickens come home to roost – which they will.
I have faith in the Remain ‘movement’ and faith to in those too who want to Leave and may well realise in time that they have been had – hook, line and sinker.
Pilgrim
I thoroughly agree. I was convinced of that when I went on Daniel Hannan’s Initiative for Free Trade and saw some of the associates to the website-Tax payers Alliance and the Heritage Foundation for example. The Heritage Foundation claimed to have written two thirds of Trump’s legislative program. When I read it and their website, it would seem to be true.
This is what the Brexiteers have in mind for Britain I am sure. It is so sad that many of the people who would most affected by Brexit, can’t accept it.
The only positive light is that it may destroy the credibility of the Right for a generation. It should do but we can’t take it for granted.
Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon cast long shadows.
@ PSR – “I feel more and more these days that there has been a coup undertaken by a bunch of high class, monied gangsters who just can’t be bothered with democracy at all in order to bend the world to their will.”
You are not wrong. At this late hour and quite randomly I happened upon this website, which is probably already known to you and others. I see it’s paid for and produced by Molly Scott-Cato, my local Green Party MEP – https://badboysofbrexit.com.
“…lack of idea as to why he wanted the post…” Britain’s answer to Ted Kennedy. And like Kennedy, I get the sense that Johnson somehow feels entitled to be a national leader. He has a right to it more than most, he believes. He only wants Brexit as he saw himself as a more respectable version of Farage and could win the Premiership by supporting Brexit and stealing Farage’s clothes.
Brexit is a means to an end. That the end has no meaning is irrelevant.
I think the Teddy Kennedy comparison most apt
The one positive thing that has come out of this debacle in recent months is that Parliament has proved to be functional in containing the excesses of a disorderly executive. Hat off to John Bercow for being neither berk nor cowed, and fighting Parliament’s corner against a bullying executive with no mandate.
Tory speakers, perhaps most notably Geoffrey Cox would have us believe Parliament is in disarray, and preventing good governance. I don’t think so, Geoffrey, et al. I think the boot is very definitely on the other foot.
It is not clear to me that we really need the annual circus of a budget announcement. But announcing it and then cancelling it in a fit of pique is hardly a sign of strength.
I’m hoping the government carries on for a few months until my 17 year children (soon to be 18) get to vote.
Which brings to mind two question about demography – on Brexit, has the balance tipped in the last 3.5 years, as older more Leave tending people have died and younger more Remain tending ones have passed 18?
And w(h)ither the Conservative Party? Membership is tiny compared to the million or more in the 1980s and earlier. Are they getting enough people in at the bottom? Where are the people in their teens or twenties who support the Conservatives?
This is a budget
Not a tax issue….
Indeed, but cancelling the Budget does disrupt again the “more predictable, stable and simple” system for amending our tax laws, established in 2010. The idea when we moved to an autumn budget in 2017 was to allow Parliament more time to consider the Finance Bill before it was enacted, but for most of the last century we’ve had the budget in the spring. We did get Hammond’s last spring statement on 13 March 2019 (seems like half a lifetime ago) and we will need budget resolutions before 5 April 2020. So we will get at least one “fiscal event” in this tax year, even if 2019 is the calendar year without a budget.
I seem to recall from somewhere that the Chancellor is required to make two financial statements each year – or have I mis-remembered that? Will we need something before the end of the year, perhaps after the election? When will Parliament be recalled after the election?
Looks like my 17 year olds are going to be a few weeks too young to vote. Bizarre to have a State Opening, and then an election called within two or three weeks. If I were the Queen, I’d be might miffed at being messed around.
The the last, I think she knows she was used
The budget hasn’t been cancelled just the ‘ Budget ‘ the annual pantomime with the Chancellor holding the ancient case outside No.11 . Seriously ! No one cares , or takes any notice . Sad old git that I am I remember as a teenager ( what are they ? ) in the sixties and having my first car would car tax be raised ( 1967 ) it was ……..but since then it’s just, so what, move on, pay up.
You do know the budget is a budget, don’t you? It’s not primarily a tax event?
I do indeed. That was exactly my point. It’s not a tax event. It doesn’t need this theatricality of pretending it is a tax event which has been the charade played out by all governments in my lifetime.
Hmm. That is curious come to think about it – that a UK govt can function without having a budget approved by Parliament.
It’s the sort of thing that you might not notice is possible until it actually happens and even then you may not notice it.
But from which we must conclude that parliament has no effective control of the UK govt’s spending (Buget or no Budget), as long as that govt has no need to change the law in respect of its spending. (For which it would need to pass laws evidently).
Control of the purse strings must therefore lie with mainly prerogative powers (Lords Commissioner of the Treasury – Crown appointments, despite the positions normally being held by parliamentarians) and/or statutory instruments. And can they change tax rates and charges via the prerogative and/or SIs? Quite a bit you’d have to suspect.
That’s entirely unsatisfactory to my mind and would not be acceptable in too many developed countries.
Or am I wrong about that? Does parliament actually have financial sovereignty? Or does the executive, which as we can now see need not hold a majority, hold nearly all of the financial cards?
It’s a struggle to think anything good of Brexit, but one thing it perhaps is doing is showing up what an unsatisfactory system of Govt the UK has been labouring under for all too long.
In fairness, a budget is not needed before next March….
But it’s now convention to hold it the previous autumn to assist planning
[…] also suspect that’s what he wants. Unlike the Britannia Unchained crowd he does not know why he wants power. A hung parliament might let him off the hook he made for himself in 2016 when he opted for Leave. […]
It seems that “fiscal responsibility” has been thrown to the winds by Johnson & Javid. Lack of an Autumn Statement to precede the March budget furthers the complete financial irresponsibility of the government. Johnson/Javid/(Cummings?) can now glibly make wild statements of increasing the police by 20,000 more officers, “solving” the care crisis, more money for the NHS(?!) , Heathrow expansion, HS2, Hinkley Point, Northern “Power House” (?) et al.. Everything seems possible for these Tory cloud-cuckoo-landers . Money is no object for these formerly austerity obsessed buffoons.
Will Labour now be tempted to drop their fiscal responsibility rules as well?
Re the latter – I hope so