Friends, we can only hope old Boris has some tricks up his sleeve, because the political establishment is uniting to stop him from delivering Brexit for the British people. Can it still be done? Will Boris and his merry band of Brexiteers have the last laugh? Stay tuned! In the meantime, check out my latest article, in which I proffer some advice to the P.M.
https://townhall.com/columnists/nicholaswaddy/2019/09/09/think-outside-the-box-boris-n2552773
Dr. Waddy: A stirring article; I hope the PM sees it.I'm not gainsaying, because I know nowhere near enough about Parliament to do so credibly but I do not fully understand your assertion that if Parliament refuses to pass selected portions of PM May's EU endorsed deal it implicates itself in a full no deal Brexit. Going back to your initial two possibilities:would not the PM still have to cause one of these to happen? If so, why submit the selected portions? I know you can support your argument so please correct me.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem that during the period Parliament is suspended, the antiBrexiteers mean to work all manner of Hob. Could the PM yet work an election before Oct. 31 and could the new Parliament convene in time to repeal the law requiring him to seek an extension should a new deal not be realized? If not: if the PM simply refuses to comply with the law, could not any UK citizen sue to the Queen for the immediate dismissal of the PM and his replacement with one "more representative of the will of the majority". How could she deny this plea, which would of course come in a dramatic moment? Too, what criminal charges would Johnson then face? Treason? The Queen approved the law and treason originally at least was to disturb the monarch's peace. This is historic stuff.
I agree with Jack for the most part. I am just afraid, the peoples will not be allowed and I wonder how much more the people are going to allow this behavior? The Queen is in a sticky wicket, if I dare say.
ReplyDeleteJack, believe me, I don't understand all the permutations either!
ReplyDeleteMy point was that, if Parliament is offered the chance to pass legislation to avoid no-deal Brexit, or at least portions of no-deal, and it refuses, it will be inviting that which it professes to disdain: no-deal Brexit. I could be wrong and Parliament might do it anyway, though. Parliament could say it was all Boris trickery, and to a point they'd be right.
The main benefit of passing portions of Theresa May's deal would be that Boris would be robbing the Remainers of their main talking point: the horrors of no-deal. A partial deal is clearly better than no-deal. The waters would be muddied, and the Remainer crowd would be befuddled.
As for the other options I cited, can the P.M. refuse to obey the bill recently passed? Sure. He is getting legal advice as we speak. There are many ways for him to avoid compliance -- the most obvious being resignation. But assuming he stays in office and doesn't comply, and Parliament won't vote no confidence and bounce him out of office, someone would have to come to Downing Street with cuffs and frogmarch him off to the Tower. That would take guts! To your point, it's highly unlikely that the Queen would fire him. That's Parliament's job, in a constitutional monarchy. One assumes the Queen will stay in her lane, but you never know.
As for an up or down vote on a specific election date, my understanding is that he can do that anytime he likes...but ultimately he needs Parliament to vote for it. I assume at some point MPs' stonewalling on the matter of an election will become unsustainable. Since Parliament is prorogued until mid-October, though, that makes it impossible to have an election before Oct. 31st, unless Parliament is recalled early. There's a lag of 25 days between calling an election and holding it.
Mid-October will be riveting. That's when much of this maneuvering will come to a head, including the critical EU meeting that would decide on an extension.
And of course we can't assume that all 27 EU countries will agree to an extension, which would be necessary to grant one. There's another "out" for old Boris.
Linda, how much more can the people take? Good question. Sooner or later, there will be an election...and the voters may well be hopping mad, especially the Brexiteers, if they've been put off once again. I believe that Labour and the Lib Dems FEAR an election -- and with good reason!
Dr. Waddy: Thanx for making all of that more understandable. I misinterpreted Parliament's (specifically the outgoing PM) "suggestion" to the Monarch of a suitable successor. If the Monarch chose not to exercise the theoretical prerogative he/she might have in May, 1940, when Churchill's highly controversial ascendancy was proposed, its unlikely she would now.
ReplyDeleteJack, you've put your finger on the one question on which the Queen still has potentially decisive say: if the P.M. resigns, she has real discretion in offering a chance to form a new government to someone else. One assumes, though, that she would follow the lead of Parliament itself. I think we can also assume that the ragtag bunch of Remainers who dominate Parliament right now haven't reached any kind of consensus about who they want to lead them in place of Boris. If they knew that, they would have pitched him out of office by now.
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