Yes. And it was in a situation like this, it was the Government of the day that advised the Queen to refuse assent.
Parliament passes Act over BoJo’s wishes.
BoJo advises HM to refuse assent.
Interesting times.
Roundabout way of saying they’re opposed to Brexit without offending anyone. Very British. They can’t get a Brexit deal because they can’t force the EU to make said deal, they can’t get any deal they do make past a referendum unless the polls are completely delusional, and if they try to charge forwards half-a-league into a No-Deal Brexit they’ve just committed suicide and relegated themselves to the Outer Darkness.
Oh, they’ll have views if the Good Friday Agreement is breached. Loud views. All over Whitehall.
I wonder if there are some in the British estabalishment who wish they had never heard of Ireland.
*Everytime * the seem to have handled the damn question, it arises. Again.
1798, 1916, 1922, 1968…2019.
No doubt in 2250, the one world government will fall due to the Irish question.
If there is an election, I wonder what will happen in Northern Ireland given that NI has a remain majority. Are the DUP that popular? Or will they lose seats to the more moderate unionist parties? Will the nationalist parties make gains against Sinn Fein when people decide that, actually, they’d rather like their MPs to vote in Parliament?
I’ll admit to be commenting from a position of ignorance here, but I’m pretty sure the Sinn-Fein-not-voting thing has been baked in for decades, and this isn’t likely to change unless Sinn Fein themselves change it.
DUrP are the party of the religious troglodyte voters, of which NI has many. I don’t know what the relationship between the various Unionist parties is; if they’re in active contention the others could certainly lay the blame for the status quo at the DUrP’s feet but will only do so if they are sure that the voters won’t defect to nationalist parties instead (which is unlikely for DurP voters, admittedly).
Right. But there are other nationalist parties in NI. Alliance and SDLP had MPs not such a long time ago. Why aren’t they doing better now?
Boris called for an election.
Other MP’s told him to stuff it.
And the fun continues…
There was a similar situation in Ontario back in the 1890s. There was a back-bench revolt that passed a bill against the Government’s wishes. Premier Mowst advised the Lt Gov to refuse Assent. The Lt Gov followed that advice.
The DUP are not especially popular. In the UK General Election of 2017 they secured 36% of the NI vote, an all-time high for them. However in the Assembly elections the same year, they got 28%. More recently, in the European Parliament elections earlier this year they secured 22%. An opinion poll published last month put them on 25%.
As for the Nationalist vote,you talk about “when people decide that, actually, they’d rather like their MPs to vote in Parliament” as though people making that decision were a given. It is not. At the 2017 General Election (where they would not be taking their seats) Sinn Fein won 29% of the NI vote ; at the 2017 Assembly elections (where they would), 28%; at the 2019 European Parliament elections (where they would), 22%; in last month’s opinion poll (for a future General Election, where they would not be taking their seats), 26%.
They literally are combing the dungeons of Whitehall looking for a precedent…they doubtless are aware of every single letter on this subject.
But “The Piffle” Johnson can get his general election if and when the “No No-Deal and further extension” bill goes through, as it now appears it will - because Labour will vote for an election in those circumstances. So why try to obstruct the bill?
One assumes HM’s fountain pen is ready filled and primed for the weekend. Of course, if he were to go and advise her to refuse assent, she’d be in a position to say that the fact of his doing so, especially since his own choice to expel 20+ of his own MPs, rather suggests he’s lost the confidence of the Commons: how does he propose to demonstrate otherwise, or should he or the Speaker advise her to send for someone else to have a go?
Whether an election will actually resolve anything is another matter. Chances are it will still be a narrowly - and deeply - split electorate and no solid majority in the Commons. And what sort of Tory party will emerge from it - who knows?
Given the abandonment of the fillibuster maneouvres in the Lords, this does seem to be the tactic - let Labour pass the bill and move swiftly to a pre-Oct 31 election, running on a platform of: Labour “surrendered” to the EU iwth their anti-democratic shenanigans, only I, the mighty Boris, can beat the EU but you have to give me the power in Parliament.
On the other hand, if you’re committed to No Deal then running the risk of a Tory majority in mid-October seems unwise. Better to hang on until at least mid-Oct to ensure that No Deal is avoided and then have the election. The downsides to this is that it gives the Tories 6 weeks of pre-election campaigning about how you’re cowards afraid of the judgement of the British people; the upside is that you get a similar amount of time showing Boris as weak, ineffective and incompetent.
It’s a hard call, but I tend to think that once the election is happening a campaign based around “They wouldn’t let an election happen” isn’t going to be very effective, so I’d probably favour keeping Johnson twisting in the wind for as long as possible.
John McDonnell is now floating that royal assent might not be enough, and that Labour might want to “go long” on the date of the election.
Labour’s avoidance of an election seems somewhat hollow. A bill put forward to override the FTP rule and hold the government to a specific date would hold just as much legal weight as the current bill to rule out a no deal Brexit but that option is not being put forward by anyone.
In any case there is no way of completely avoiding a no deal Brexit short of revoking article 50 (which this bill does not do) The E.U. will now simply call our bluff because they’ve seen our cards. They will indeed be hoping for a revocation, as they have wanted all along.
Labour, by not allowing a GE and seeking to rule out the threat of a no deal have ensured no possibility of any meaningful renegotiation by any future government and at the same time shielded themselves from the implications of that. I’m not sure where the deviousness and political positioning ends and the incompetence or cowardice begins.
Boris may be a clown but he is dead right on one thing, ruling out a no-deal ensures you have to put up with what the other side offers and if they offer you something they know is unpalatable to you then you are fucked.
But what could they possibly offer that would be worse than No Deal? There are no potential trading arrangements that are less favourable than basic WTO, no potential citizens rights agreements that are worse than “none”, no potential Irish border deals worse than “full hard border”, no potential data sharing agreements that are worse than “you can’t”; no potential nuclear material management agreements that are worse than “that’s your problem”, no potential joint counter-terrorism approaches worse than “we’re not telling you”.
This Institute of Government explainer makes interesting reading. On pretty much every issue involving shared standards, the UK government says it will recognise EU regulations unilaterally; the EU says it will institute a full inspection regime. This is a clear indication of which party is worried about failing to get a deal. No Deal isn’t the fall back option that stymies the EU, it’s the threat the EU uses to get a deal it wants.
If the UK’s position is “we’re going to stick with the status quo until we get a deal we can pass” that’s a much stronger position than “we’re going to put you in a position to shaft our trade, security and health”.
From that explainer, here are the points that directly compare UK and EU response to current deals evaporating in a No Deal scenario.
The border
Agriculture, fisheries and food
Health
Transport
Law and justice
The UK is looking for ways to get around the implications of No Deal; the EU is ready to enforce them. No Deal is not negotiating leverage for the UK.
From a point of negotiation it doesn’t really matter. The worst case scenario for both the UK and the E.U. may well be a no deal (that is very much open to question) but if either side takes it off the table they are fucked and the other side has them over a barrel and can offer a deal that maximises their own benefit.
I assume that you wouldn’t recommend the E.U. start their negotiations by saying a “no deal” is not an option?
I think it is true to say that the UK has potentially more to lose from a “no deal” than the E.U. does. That doesn’t mean that the E.U. loses *nothing * with a “no deal” and by the UK taking it off the table completely it means that the E.U. can now draft a deal that ensures they lose as little as possible, that is so obviously the case that it beggars belief that anyone can think otherwise.
I do wonder whether people failing to see this have ever actually negotiated before. Try walking into a car dealership and stating upfront that you will not accept walking back out without a vehicle no matter what. The other party has to believe that your commitment to walk away is credible otherwise you are walking out with shitty 1998 hyundai and paying 20k for the privilege.
All the things you mention involve additional administration and hassle for the E.U. as well, extra checks and administration don’t happen by magic. Not to mention that continuation of the frictionless movement into the UK suggested is not guaranteed if a no deal scenario occurs. It doesn’t just hurt one side.
Well no - as I said, I think No Deal works very well for the EU as a threat. Clearly, so do they.
But there’s a *massive *difference between this analogy and the EU/UK negotiations. In the car dealership analogy, my walk away position is the status quo. I get back in the car I drove to the dealership in and drive away, no worse off than I was before I came to the dealership. That isn’t what No Deal means. It is not a return to the status quo. It is, in the analogy, setting fire to my current car. Pointing to that burning wreck and saying “I’m quite prepared to drive off in that” isn’t credible. And credibility is what counts.
No Deal is such a catastrophe that it’s not credible for the UK to suggest they’ll accept it. We’ve seen this. The Withdrawal Agreement is widely believed to be bad for the UK; the EU have been given plenty of opportunities to renegotiate it since March and have declined them all. Clearly, they’re happy with it. And while this deal was being made, the consistent rhetoric of May’s government was that No Deal was better than a bad deal. If that were a credible threat, the EU would have given the UK more of what it wanted. It didn’t. It called the non-credible bluff and got the deal it wanted.
In the analogy the walk away position is to return to other modes of transport that other people use, some of which are the equivalent of a burning wreck and some are not. The E.U. currently don’t think we are willing to take the bus or cycle.
Which is exactly my point. They don’t believe we mean it and so are free to craft the deal very much in their favour.
Remember, “no deal” is not an existential threat to the UK. The evidence for that is the existence of countries that sit outside of the E.U. and still manage to come to alternative arrangements and not descend into anarchy and a mad-max wasteland.