I hope Paul Spicker will forgive me seeking to amplify a point he made on his blog yesterday. He said:
The government of the United Kingdom has always had an unwritten constitution, and that position has been defended on the basis that it allows governments a degree of flexibility in dealing with complex situations. That position has been tested to breaking point in recent months. Here are a few concerns.
1. The Conservative Party is standing on a manifesto which commits them to change the basis on which laws are made and reviewed. The Manifesto states:
After Brexit we also need to look at the broader aspects of our constitution: the relationship between the Government, Parliament and the courts; the functioning of the Royal Prerogative; the role of the House of Lords …
2. At the same time as Britain withdraws from the governance safeguards imposed by the European Union, it is proposing to weaken other safeguards (such as human rights and judicial review) which derive from other sources. The Manifesto again:
We will update the Human Rights Act and administrative law to ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government. We will ensure that judicial review … is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays.
3. The present government is firmly committed to legislation on Europe that will give Ministers extensive ‘Henry VIII powers' — the power to change laws without scrutiny or the prior approval of parliament. The election was called, not because Parliament had failed to agree the EU Withdrawal agreement, but because it had demanded the rights to scrutinise the bill that enacted those powers.
Paul made further points in his blog. I have chosen only to highlight his top three concerns.
As I noted yesterday, we face epochal change. What Paul Spicker is making clear is that there are those who will seek to challenge them by undermining those rights that we have long enjoyed and by destroying the checks and balances in our system, a point I have made in different ways. He is right to do so.
Change does not usually happen without a struggle. The tiny minority in the Tory party who want to abuse this country as a result of their devotion to a dying economic system are a threat to all our futures. And they will persist in their goal of being so.
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It is very clear that the Tories under Bojo and Theresa May find the concept of civil liberties and the separation of powers between government, judiciary etc completely alien to their political objectives, especially now that people like Dominic Greive have left the party. Their prejudices and blatant disregard of humanitarian laws whether European or international is mind boggling. Their policy towards towards gipsies and travellers in their so called manifesto which advocates the confiscation of caravans and property and the abitary moving on of innocent people is despicable. Also their disregard of the of international laws regarding asylum seekers an refugees forcing them into destitution and the whole tragedy of the Windrush generation. It is very obvious that the European Court which has found innocence of many cases brought before them which the British have failed but in which the European courts have exonerated innocent people is anathma to the Tories let alone the almost complete suppression of legal aid.
It’s good to find you back on firmer ground here. This is the key battleground and is, and should be, more important than continuing comflicts over economic policy or Brexit. But it will require an informal alignment of concerned voters across all parties to win. And that includes voters who are minded to vote Tory. It would be wonderful if a sufficient number of them could be persuaded to switch to other candidates who, if elected, would deprive Boris Johnson of a majority. But, failing that, they need encouragement to ensure that if they contribute to the election of a Tory MP in their constituency that they will hold their MP to account on the criterion of his or her allegiance to the established constitutional order. One should not underestimate the ability of, at least, some voters to maintain discipline on their MP’s behaviour between elections, even if this discipline forces them to deviate from the party line. Any threat to their possible re-election tends to focus the minds of MPs wonderfully.
Nor should one underestimate the deep-seated commitment of the vast majority of voters to the democratic process and to the existing constitutional order. However, in that context, and despite the stark distinction between a plebiscitary democracy and a representative democracy, it should be clear by now that some form of Brexit will have to be delivered. Again, one should not understimate the impact of having one’s vote count, when for, possibly, a majority of voters, their votes do not impact on the result of most other elections. That’s what happened in 2016 for so many effectively permanently disenfranchised voters. It was a good feeling and was felt by multitudes of voters – for both leave and remain. I know this is a compelling argument for replacing FPTP, but that’s not on offer now.
On Brexit Labour came far too late to a vaguely sensible position and Jeremy Corbyn’s stance doesn’t cut the mustard. The Harold Wilson analogy is totally spurious. The Lib Dems shot themselves in the foot – indeed both feet with one on top of the other – with their revoke commitment. Even still there are more than enough seats in play to prevent a Tory majority. But this means reaching out to formerly Labour-supporting leave voters and, more importantly, reaching out to Tory supporters who are conflicted by their unease at a Boris-led government and their instinctive conservatism (in Oakeshottian terms). And I’m convinced there’s no shortage of these voters.
Thanks, Richard, for picking this up.
So the Conservatives are implicitly telling us that these constitutional changes are “reclaiming our sovereignty”, defined by the American Heritage dictionary as
” n.
Supremacy of authority or rule as exercised by a sovereign or sovereign state.
n.
Royal rank, authority, or power.
n.
Complete independence and self-government.”
As Tom Spicker indicates, they are using Brexit as a cover to take back shared sovereignty not only from the EU (of which the UK in a member) but from other non-UK courts and other bodies, with whom it has been shared over much of the Post WW2 period. Yet they are not giving the extra powers of sovereignty to The Queen, but to the Executive, which acts in the Queen’s name. And the Executive is essentially controlled by the Cabinet, with the so-called “Prime Minister” (constitutionally “primus inter pares”) with other Cabinet Ministers.
Wikipedia defines “Primus inter pares” as
“… a Latin phrase meaning first among equals. It is typically used as an honorary title for someone who is formally equal to other members of their group but is accorded unofficial respect, traditionally owing to their seniority in office. Historically, the princeps senatus of the Roman Senate was such a figure and initially bore only the distinction that he was allowed to speak first during debate.”
Clearly the Conservatives have no intention to follow this constitutional principle either.
In essence, they are attempting to take sovereignty away from Parliament, which gained it through much spilled blood in the 17th century, and to give it to a much strengthened Prime Minister, leaving the actual sovereign with ceremonial duties. This is contempt for Parliament writ large, and very disrespectful to The Queen. This intention is either sheer ignorance of British constitutional principles at best and treasonous at worst.
It looks like the work of Dominic Cummings, someone who is formally in contempt of Parliament, with Prime Minister Johnson as his stooge. If the Conservatives win this election outright, we face a constitutional crisis of historic proportions.
Not only that, but they want to hand these powers over to a Prime Minister clearly in need of diagnosis.
Has any of the MSM covered this? I haven’t noticed it if they have , or heard any coverage from the BBC. Obviously the Tories are hardly going to make an announcement of it, thus it seems the MSM ignores it instead of the journalists actually doing their job and bringing it to everyone’s attention.
‘Has any of the MSM covered this?’
I’m not sure if they are part of the MSM but the Independant has picked up quite a lot of it:
http://www.progressivepulse.org/politics/the-independant-reports-on-the-nasty-party-at-work
Thanks Peter