The superb BBC comedy series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister were essentially based around this premise. Even though they are satirical the concept is based on actual memoirs and reminisces of cabinet members about their struggles with the civil service.
Australia is another country with a similar parliamentary system, and is a country where the Queen’s representative (the Governor General) did indeed feel the need to become involved in a political impasse. In 1975 the government became deadlocked, with the senate refusing to allow passage of the Bill of Supply, essentially shutting down government function. (The US is seems has this happen with monotonous regularity, but has reach a different kind of fuse mechanism.) After a time of political crisis, the Governor General sacked the incumbent government, and called a general election. In the interim a caretaker government was appointed from the opposition party (the one that held the numbers in the senate to block supply.) The memory and political fallout from this still lingers. The political complexities of what happened, and how it happened are immense, and probably contribute more to the issue than the actual sacking itself.
What matters is the constitutional reality. The core problem, the one that besets every country, regardless of the nature of its constitution or precise makeup of government, is the problem of the root of power. A simple question for citizens of the USA. If I, as a foreigner, ask you - what is that that gives the guys in Washington DC the power to govern and make laws of the land mass constituting the USA? Why them and not some other bunch of guys? The answer is not the constitution. After all that is just a bit of paper written by the predecessor guys in Washington DC. What gave then the right to write the constitution in the first place?
For Great Britain, and the Commonwealth countries the answer is simple, and in some senses remarkable. Eventually it comes down to little more than the divine right of royalty, and the rights of succession. In some senses the reigning monarch is literally the country. Succession ensures that there is never no monarch, and thus the country is always ruled. (As Terry Pratchett joked in Pyramids - the monarch particle is the only particle that travels faster than light, as it transfers the monarchy to the successor on the death of the current monarch.) In a constitutional monarchy it really doesn’t matter who the monarch is. Their job is to be the monarch. If they don’t do it properly they lose their job (and in the past their head as a sort of bonus.) But as monarch they are the human embodiment of the land, and of the right to govern the land. The answer to how the government of the US acquires legitimacy is rooted in it subsuming the right of the British crown to govern the land. So in a strange sense the US constitution is rooted in divine right as well.
Australia and Canada (as well as some other Commonwealth nations) just happen to share the same monarch as the UK. That is why the laws of succession can only be changed with the assent of those Commonwealth countries. As a matter of process, the monarch delegates their power to the Governor General.
The relationship is wonderfully recursive. The Governor General is appointed by the monarch. However the current Prime Minister advises the Queen as to who the new Governor General should be once the term of office of the current GG finishes. However the GG appoints the Prime Minister and thus the governing party. The PM must be able to demonstrate that they have the confidence of the parliament. Technically this means that they can survive a vote of no-confidence. The GG also appoints the executive - which must be drawn from elected members (unlike the US.) The GG signs bills into law on behalf of the monarch. The GG also dissolves parliament and calls elections. All this in principle on the advice of the PM. Where things got odd in 1975 was that the GG decided (with advice from a supreme court judge) that the current government was not able to govern, and there was no apparent resolution to the impasse. So, without advice from the PM, the GG called a fresh election. The irony is that the GG had been selected by the government he sacked, and indeed he had once been a member of that government’s political party - which was a factor in his appointment in the first place. Right or wrong it is hard to deny he took the lack of partisanship of his position seriously.
In addition, the original UK series of House of Cards, a wonderfully black comedy, took the issue of royal abdication as a core plot component in the second story - To Play the King. Here the story involved a very strong willed right-wing PM in direct conflict with King Charles. In the end Charles’s position is made untenable and he is left no choice but to abdicate. A situation deliberately engineered by the PM.
Again, the point is that even the monarch is simply a job with a reasonably clearly defined duty statement. There is however enough wiggle room that in the case of something going really badly wrong it should be possible to get things back on the level. If the monarch believed that the incumbent government was taking a path that did not represent the will of the people to an extent that the country was being damaged - the monarch can take action. It may be limited to calling fresh elections, but they can act without the advice of the PM. Should the election return the same government the current monarch would probably see no option but to resign - but succession ensures there is always a monarch, and the root of power remains.
I don’t think anyone’s addressed this and although my history A-Level was rather long time ago, I don’t believe it is taught as a bad thing - school history classes in the UK (at least domestic history) are generally taught in a rather balanced way, about looking at the historical record, comparing sources and making arguments based upon particular hypotheses.
450 years later and Cromwell is still a rather divisive figure, but it shouldn’t be understated that it is from the period of the Protectorate that a lot of our modern political system has grown and Cromwell is held in high esteem by a certain, and maybe not even a minority, subset of modern parliamentarians.
There’s a famous (and sometimes still controversial) statue of him outside the Palace of Westminster even.
OB
That’s interesting. In Canada, cross your party leader and you are toast. Unless you can win as an independent.:dubious:
The answer to the first question is that governments are reluctant to include the notwithstanding clause in bills. For some years every bill passed by the Quebec assembly did include the clause. But then a new government stopped the practice and Parti Quebecois didn’t resume it when they took over. This recent charter of intolerance would reputedly have contained the clause, since it obviously violated the charter. Although (and excuse me for getting off-topic), may take is that its purpose was to be declared unconstitutional and become an argument for separation.
As for your second point, how often has it happened that a party has gone from a majority government to two seats.
If Harper loses in the court on the new voting law, look to him repassing it with the notwithstanding clause.
[QUOTE=Hari Seldon[
If Harper loses in the court on the new voting law, look to him repassing it with the notwithstanding clause.[/QUOTE]
That would be hard to do, since the notwithstanding clause doesn’t apply to voting rights and cannot be used for that purpose.
Or, if you have enough support in caucus to challenge the leader: see, ex-Premier Dunderdale of Newfoundland; ex-Premier Redford of Alberta. Or if you don’t succeed as well as expected; see ex-Premier Parizeau. Or, if there is simply a determined opponent in the caucus who wants your job and is willing to risk tearing the party apart to get it: see ex-party leader Joe Clark; ex-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
A parliamentary caucus is a fluid dynamic. The leader has to maintain the confidence of the caucus (and the party) to stay as leader.