Side note - our gov’t didn’t just suspend Parliament in Canada, but dissolved it today.
Apparently it takes a lot of hot water.
Everything but your last sentence seems plausible. I’ll bet the voting in the Scottish independence referendum would go differently today. Speaking as an outsider observing the whole thing, Brexit is clearly a mess. (Why would you do something that seems guaranteed to tank the economy?)
There are some people that were convinced electing President Trump was “guaranteed to tank the economy” too. I think, thus far at least, they’ve been shown to be clearly wrong. Perhaps they are wrong about Brexit too.
How can you be so silly? Severing a massive trade agreement with your biggest market has direct financial implications. It’s not remotely like Trump getting elected and worrying he’ll be bad.
Maybe so, though I think that those are two extremely different situations.
In the case of Trump, what I remember is that the fear was that his impulsiveness and unpredictability would hurt the economy. You’re right, that hasn’t happened so far, though there are signs pointing to a possible slowdown (if not recession), in part because of the uncertainty he’s driving on trade, particularly with China.
With Brexit, particularly if it’s a no-deal Brexit, most economists (hardline Brexiteers aside) do seem to feel that it’ll harm the British economy – the debate is around how hard, and for how long.
I probably wouldn’t quibble with the statement “most economists (hardline Brexiteers aside) do seem to feel that it’ll harm the British economy”. The statement I did quibble with (“seems guaranteed to tank the economy”) is obviously a good bit more extremist / alarmist / hyperbolic than yours was.
Here’s one example of how it seems guaranteed to tank the economy. As a result of Brexit, London is no longer going to be the center of Eurozone banking, so thousands of very highly compensated bankers are moving to other cities in other countries. Surely that’s not a good thing?
I can concede “not a good thing” (at least for London) without conceding “seems guaranteed to tank the economy”, can’t I? You get that there’s a big swath of middle ground between those two outcomes, right?
I give up. You win.
I think the jury is still out on Trump; the effects of his economic policy may not be felt for a year or two yet. But Brexit has already tanked the UK economy. The pound has lost something like 30% of its value since the referendum.
Is there any chance this message board can have a discussion of UK government such as “Boris Johnson asks the Queen to suspend Parliament” without the argument descending into a rehash of Brexit? The last nine posts were completely off topic; a few contained argumentative ideas presented as facts but without providing cites to back up their premise, and none discussed current events or UK constitutional issues.
My opinion is that there’s a very interesting discussion to be had on the subject of the OP. “Is the prorogation itself “the biggest constitutional crisis since the Abdication”?” is a great question related to the OP. The effect of “Russian bot farms” on the 2016 referendum isn’t.
I apologize and ask Mods to delete my post if it is off-topic, by Mr. Finn did pose a question.
The bulk of Brits will suffer if/when the economy falters but average Brits may have voted with poor information. The Brexit was/is sponsored by rich individuals and corporations. These rich may actually prosper under a faltering economy! They already have large dollar-based assets; can buy up English property on the cheap; while their English businesses, freed of EU regulation and competition, make increased profit.
You’re probably right. A lot is said about the UK’s unwritten constitution and how it is based on history, tradition, and precedence, rather than explicitly defined duties and limitations of government. There’s an underlying belief that, even though Parliament is sovereign, Parliament will seek to do the will of the people, and Parliament is sovereign to Government. Johnson seems to be engineering a conflict of people versus Parliament, and imputing that the Government is on the people’s side.
That’s definitely a step towards sidelining Parliament and towards a populist strongman led government. A political system that relies on established procedures, when faced with an executive determined not to follow those procedures, certainly has a problem when those procedures are unwritten.
The good news is it isn’t working. Johnson’s mild rebellion against the established procedures has faced widespread condemnation, rejection within his own party, and judicial, parliamentary, and party review. The only thing saving Johnson from a vote of no confidence is lack of agreement from the opposition parties on how to go forwards afterwards. The UK political system may be vulnerable to a popular strongman like Putin who’s able to command his country based on strong popular backing. Is there any political system that isn’t? Johnson however is not that strongman.
I concede no such thing.
Brexit will throw Britain into a depression. There’s no way it won’t. The economy is too integrated now not to contract on Leaving.
It will also hit Europe hard and indeed the world. Remember how some dubious mortgages wrecked the world economy in 2008? This is bigger.
edit to add:
Sorry.
[Sidebar on]I haven’t posted in this thread much, if at all, but I do check it regularly. This was the first post I saw on checking this evening:
All I had to do was read this far and I already knew which poster was guaranteed to be multi-posting when I went back and looked at the posts in question. I wasn’t disappointed.[/Sidebar off]
I don’t think it is logically or reasonably possible to leave Brexit out of such a discussion.
Indeed- since the whole controversy about the suspension is whether its timing and its length are aspect of a plan to enable Johnson to deliver Brexit with minimal parliamentary supervision or constraint. Which in turn opens up the question of why it would be needful or desirable to deliver Brexit in that way.
A bit late now, but I was indeed referring to the prorogation appeals.
People have a range of opinions about the merits of Brexit vs Remain, the legitimacy of the referendum, and even on the many different types of possible Brexit available once the decision to leave the EU has been taken. There are also a range of opinions available on how to even measure whether a particular option is the best for the UK or not. These are big and divisive issues in their own right.
But in pursuit of their vision of Brexit, the government have taken matters to a new level. By proroguing Parliament for five weeks, the government made a fairly transparent attempt to exempt itself from oversight. It claimed it was doing no such thing. The process they followed meant involving a supposedly non-political Head of State in a conflict between Government and Parliament. The courts of the different constituent nations of the UK have been brought in to rule on this. The Scottish court has explicitly said that as a matter of fact the government was trying to evade Parliamentary scrutiny and oversight, in effect saying they have been lying to the courts, the people and the Head of State. The government has responded by suggesting, then retracting, then re-asserting in the most weaselly way imaginable* that the courts are acting out of political bias. Because the Scottish courts are in disagreement with the English courts, the Supreme Court ruling risks being interpreted as either dismissive of Scottish law or of privileging a smaller member of the Union over the largest partner, either of which will be seized on by hotheads. In any event, the Supreme Court now has to address an open question about the limits of executive power.
All of this in the context of Brexit, which by involving the representative democracy of Parliament in implementing a decision reached by the direct democracy of a referendum has already raised some emotive questions about how the country should be run, which emotion the government is not shy, and indeed is positively enthusiastic, about harnessing against anyone who stands in their way.
*A minister on national TV using the Trumpian formula of “I’m not saying this, but many people are saying that the courts are biased and politicised.” Without going on to explain why those “many” people were wrong.
Supreme Court: Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful
Brian
Well, it’s nice to see the Scottish position supported, if I understand that correctly.