British Politics Guide

[Linguoboy]

where you get a Lancastrian, a Scot, a Kiwi and a Welshman...

A Lancastrian, a Scot, and a Welshman walk into the House of Commons...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jHfY0dDZxA

[Linguoboy]

Good gods! Is American politics so dull that you have to resort to watching clips of British speakership candidates!?

God, I wish! It's interesting in the worst way. (One of the big US political stories yesterday was how Republican state representatives in North Carolina waited until their Democratic counterparts were at a 9/11 observance to hold a surprise vote in order to force through a state budget that the Governor had previously vetoed.) By contrast, yours seems like a wonderland of twee civility.

It should be trivial what accent someone has, but it's so inflammatory for some people here, and I think people would be at least 50% less pissed off by a "no-nonsense northerner" enforcing rules than they would be by a "pretentious toff".

Accents are pretty much Exhibit A for "Things That Shouldn't Matter Much But Utterly Do".

[I am, admittedly, biased. I used to have some relatives with Lancastrian accents, and I find it just wonderful. Yorkshire's beautiful, of course, but Lancashire is like Yorkshire that's a little less highly strung and doesn't take itself so seriously...]

I loove t' sand o' Lancashire.

I'd be curious what most Americans would make of it. IME, they can barely identify Yorkshire with any accuracy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to discover many of them think Jane Horrocks' character on AbFab just has a highly idiosyncratic comic way of speaking invented just for her and would be surprised to hear anyone else spontaneously talk in a similar way.

(Not to speak of the ample opportunity it would provide for "according to Hoyle" quips.)

Is that still a phrase for you? In my experience, it was a phrase for my Irish family, but the English side, while understanding the reference, attached nothing to it, and these days I doubt many people under 50 would recognise it.

Doesn't that still include most of your political class?

It's barely a phrase here. We always had a copy of Hoyle in the house but--as you say--card games are the province of the elderly anymore (except for photogenic betting games like Texas hold 'em) and, if anyone did want to know the rules, they'd look them up on Wikipedia.

[zompist]

I'd be curious what most Americans would make of it. IME, they can barely identify Yorkshire with any accuracy.

I'm terrible at non-US accents. I was recently surprised to learn that a Youtube channel I sometimes watch is Australian rather than British.

A few years ago I re-watched some Monty Python and suddenly realized that different accents were a major part of their shtick. I had completely not noticed when I watched them as a teenager.

We always had a copy of Hoyle in the house but--as you say--card games are the province of the elderly anymore (except for photogenic betting games like Texas hold 'em) and, if anyone did want to know the rules, they'd look them up on Wikipedia.

*swish of butterfly net* Don't mind me, just grabbing the nice example of positive "anymore".

Though, the board game crowd does like card games, only they're ones with specially printed cards, not the standard deck. You can't make a bunch of money selling standard decks.

[Linguoboy]

A few years ago I re-watched some Monty Python and suddenly realized that different accents were a major part of their shtick. I had completely not noticed when I watched them as a teenager.

I definitely clued into that at the time. In fact, for years their "Four Yorkshiremen" was my reference point for what "Yorkshire" (and Northern accents generally) sounded like. And their Australian philosophers (alongside Paul Hogan) were among my models when I first began attempting to imitate an Aussie accent.

On the other hand, it took me ages to figure out that Craig Charles was speaking with a particular regional accent (and indeed one that I 'd already been exposed to in slightly different form from the Beatles) on Red Dwarf and not just affecting a very peculiar way of speaking in order to heighten the contrast with Chris Barrie's SSE.

[Richard W]

We always had a copy of Hoyle in the house but--as you say--card games are the province of the elderly anymore (except for photogenic betting games like Texas hold 'em) and, if anyone did want to know the rules, they'd look them up on Wikipedia.

*swish of butterfly net* Don't mind me, just grabbing the nice example of positive "anymore".

You can add my incomprehension to the collection notes. I had to treat the word as totally garbled to make sense of the sentence.

[Moose-tache]

And their Australian philosophers (alongside Paul Hogan) were among my models when I first began attempting to imitate an Aussie accent.

linguoboy, landing in Sydney:
"'Ello, mate! Rule one: no pufters!"

[Frislander]

and I can definitely see the appeal of his avuncular Northern charm.

And it would give a great chance for us to show off our regional linguistic diversities. Bercow had his positives, but I fear he did rather reinforce American stereotypes of us a tad, and a Lancastrian might help redress that...

[come to think of it, watching the House of Commons would be great training for anyone learning English, who wanted exposure to accents. You get most of the UK's accents there (although I assume there's no Teessiders, or that they adopt some other accent...).

Well Steph McGovern seems to be doing fine on the BBC without dropping her Teesside accent, so I assume the local-born MPs in Parliament would be fine (the fact that I don't know for certain is kind of a shame on me, since a home I'm less than 10 miles from the outer bounds of "Teesside" so...)

To be (a bit more) serious though, it probably would be good to have a northerner. Pedantry for the rules comes better from a northerner, and it would help defuse a little of the resentment from what you might call the proto-Trumpista crowd (not the ones like Trump (Farage etc) but the ones like Trump voters - hard Leavers from postindustrial areas particularly outside the south). It should be trivial what accent someone has, but it's so inflammatory for some people here, and I think people would be at least 50% less pissed off by a "no-nonsense northerner" enforcing rules than they would be by a "pretentious toff".

It would also help diffuse the notion that the north was universally hard Brexit, which unfortunately does seem to have taken hold since the referendum.

[I am, admittedly, biased. I used to have some relatives with Lancastrian accents, and I find it just wonderful. Yorkshire's beautiful, of course, but Lancashire is like Yorkshire that's a little less highly strung and doesn't take itself so seriously...]

I find northeastern accents more to my taste, though I too have a bias from the County Durham side of the family. Yorkshire to me is alright, but it also reminds me of how much Yorkshire people have such an inflated sense of their own importance and in so doing end up lording it over the rest of the north.

Card games, unfortunately, have almost vanished except among the elderly (I mean, beyond top trumps or snap). It's strange, really, given that boardgames are finally starting to be accepted again, that there's no interest in card games, (other than the collectable sort).

(I grew up with old maid and beggar my neighbour, before graduating to rummy and fives.)

I don't think that's entirely true - my student bell-ringer friends all love different kinds of obscure card games like Chiquito. Though I will confess that bell-ringers aren't your typical student...

On the other hand, it took me ages to figure out that Craig Charles was speaking with a particular regional accent (and indeed one that I 'd already been exposed to in slightly different form from the Beatles) on Red Dwarf and not just affecting a very peculiar way of speaking in order to heighten the contrast with Chris Barrie's SSE.

I have to admit Craig Charles' accent is also a little on the odd side, in that it sounds quite like a Merseyside accent despite him actually coming from Greater Manchester (I wouldn't call him a representative Mancunian that's for sure - Mancunian proper sounds like a kind of a generic Yorkshire/Lancashire hybrid tempered by bits of southern influence).

[evmdbm]

[

God, I wish! It's interesting in the worst way. (One of the big US political stories yesterday was how Republican state representatives in North Carolina waited until their Democratic counterparts were at a 9/11 observance to hold a surprise vote in order to force through a state budget that the Governor had previously vetoed.) By contrast, yours seems like a wonderland of twee civility.

How does that work? Was the Governor not proposing the budget? (S)he's the head of the state government. Why veto your own budget?

[Pabappa]

Obama's shock victory in North Carolina back in 2008 has kept the GOP on its toes since then, and they have done a lot of ... interesting.... things before. There was a gubernatorial election a few years back where the Democratic candidate won, so the GOP passed a new law that made the office of governor much weaker, intending to revoke the law whenever the next GOP candidate won. The result is that NC's office of ogvernor is weaker than most other states'. (Unless the changoever has already happened .... i am not paying attention to politics as much lately.) That said, i think in all states, the so-called power of the purse is with the legislature, not the governor, so the governor being forced to accept a budget that he doesnt like is just normal for America.

[Raphael]

[

God, I wish! It's interesting in the worst way. (One of the big US political stories yesterday was how Republican state representatives in North Carolina waited until their Democratic counterparts were at a 9/11 observance to hold a surprise vote in order to force through a state budget that the Governor had previously vetoed.) By contrast, yours seems like a wonderland of twee civility.

How does that work? Was the Governor not proposing the budget? (S)he's the head of the state government. Why veto your own budget?

Umh, no. There may or may not have been an initial budget proposal by the Governor (I don't know NC procedures that well), but when, as is the case there, the Governor is from one party and most of the legislature is from the other party, the budget that the legislature eventually tries to pass is unlikely to have much in common with what the Governor wants.

[Raphael]

I can tell a posh British accent from a non-posh British accent, but I can't really tell the different regional non-posh accents from each other.

[Linguoboy]

God, I wish! It's interesting in the worst way. (One of the big US political stories yesterday was how Republican state representatives in North Carolina waited until their Democratic counterparts were at a 9/11 observance to hold a surprise vote in order to force through a state budget that the Governor had previously vetoed.) By contrast, yours seems like a wonderland of twee civility.

How does that work? Was the Governor not proposing the budget? (S)he's the head of the state government. Why veto your own budget?

As Pabappa says, power of the purse ultimately rests with the legislative branch in the US system. So the executive proposes a budget and then presents it to the legislature for funding. The legislature then passes a funding bill which provides money for the parts of the budget they agree with and withholds it from the parts they don't. The executive then has the option of signing the bill into law or vetoing it in the hopes that the legislature will pass another one more to its liking. To streamline this process, many jurisdictions give the executive a line item veto, which allows the bill to be passed with certain provisions excluded.

[Follow-ups to the US Politics thread.]

[Ryusenshi]

Anyone psyched for UK: the Final Season?

https://twitter.com/BBCTwo/status/1173891966876160000

[Salmoneus]

I thought a note was worthwhile on.... The Court Case.

So, we have a court case. You know about it. It's boring: did the Prime Minister unlawfully advise the Queen to prorogue Parliament? The thing is, it's actually much bigger than that. In a way, this has the potential to be our Madison-Marbury.


Well, not exactly. But big, anyway.

Let's step back a bit.


The US has a system of the separation of powers. The UK has traditionally had the opposite: Parliamentary sovereignty. This has meant not only that the courts cannot challenge Parliament, but that the courts were intimately connected to Parliament: the highest court of law in the land was the House of Lords (although in almost all cases legal cases were heard only by the 'Law Lords').

Recently, however, the courts have become more independent. Judicial appointment is a little more hands-off now, and we have an independent Supreme Court. And the introduction of EU law lead, for the first time, to British laws being struck down in courts. [or, more precisely, laws being declared incompatible with one another.]

We do have a system of judicial review, which can reach the supreme court - unlike other systems in the world, it goes through regular courts, rather than a dedicated administrative court system, but doesn't go through ordinary prosecutions (making it much faster than the US system). Unlike in the US, our Supreme Court cannot normally challenge an act of parliament - instead, we challenge the actions of the executive. The court therefore acts as, as it were, the enforcement wing of Parliament. However, direct conflict with the government is relatively rare, and usually occurs when the government has misinterpreted a specific act of parliament.

---------------------


So, in this case, the Remainer case is much more abstract, based on a broader notion of constitutionality. Essentially, they argue that the executive is subordinate to parliament, and is only a junior partner that gets its powers from parliament. Therefore, the junior partner attempting to remove power from Parliament, the senior partner, is unconstitutional.

There are four big questions here, and it seems that experts genuinely do not know what answer the court will give to any of them. They are:

Is this matter justiciable in principle?
- the campaigners say it is, because the courts must defend the constitution and parliament and democracy. In particular, if the courts don't have the power to stop parliament from being suspended, who does? Someone must do, because we all agree that the PM can't just become a dictator!
- the government says it is not, because this is a political matter. There is no specific law that the PM is breaking, so how can it be unlawful? The campaigners, the government say, are asking the judges to take over a political process on their own initiative, not interpreting the law but making it.

Is this particular case justiciable in practice?
- government says it isn't. Parliament had the chance to block this itself, either with a new law or by expressing no confidence in the government, but it chose not to, thus giving tacit consent to the PM's declared intentions. Even if the courts could step in to prevent tyranny, this is not an example of that.
- the campaigners say that Parliament's lack of explicit condemnation cannot be taken as consent - Parliament shouldn't have to pass an act of parliament every time it wants the government to obey the law! Since the PM is effectively trying to take powers from Parliament and give them to himself, they say, that must require an active approval from Parliament, not a simple inability to organise dissent in time.

If this case is justiciable, were the PM's actions unlawful?
- the campaigners say they were. They say he lied about his intentions to Parliament and the Queen, and that while proroguing parliament is not unlawful, doing it to seize power is. They say that the timing is too calculated to be coincidental, and that the extraordinary length of the prorogation makes clear that it is the silencing of parliament, not the queen's speech, which is clearly the purpose here.
- the government say they were not. They say that the PM did not lie, and that the timing and length of the prorogation are only an unfortunate coincidence, and that therefore nothing unusual is happening. And that the courts should not be second-guessing the PM's motivations in the absence of clear evidence (rather than speculation) that he is not being honest.

If the PM's actions were unlawful, what should be done about it?
- here, there are three options
- they could rule that the unlawful advice rended the royal act null and void: Parliament has not been prorogued
- they could rule that Parliament WAS prorogued, but that the government must immediately reverse its unlawful act by un-proroguing it
- they could declare that the PM's action was unlawful, and wait for the PM to correct it as he sees fit

Campaigners argue for the first one - actions taken ultra vires are null. The government can't just do illegal things and then protest that, oh well, too late now. The government argues for the third one - they say that if the courts are going to interfere, they should do so in the least intrusive way possible, and that the appropriate thing would be to let the government decide which political solution is best to employ here (the courts could always review it again if the government's response were inadequate).

The third option is apparently likely to lead to parliament being immediately summoned back again anyway, but the government would rather do it itself, rather than be specifically ordered to do it by the courts. They may also then immediately prorogue parliament again...


Apparently, we could get a preview of the judgement as soon as tomorrow. More likely, it'll be early next week, but in light of the urgency it might still be a preview first, witth the full (potentially 11!) opinions released later.



-----------


One hilarious wrinkle that might sink the government: the PM is lying. How do we know this? Well, as the judges themselves have repeatedly and pointedly noted, although the government's lawyers have been clear in saying what the government's motivation was, everyone in government, including the prime minister, has refused point blank to submit a written document confirming this. That's because such a written submission would be considered a statement under oath, and when it is later revealed that the PM is lying, he could then be jailed for perjury.

What this means in practice is that the judges are not being asked to actually say that the PM is lying - which would indeed be a very difficult thing for judges to do. They're normally meant to defer to the government unless the evidence is clear that they shouldn't, so a direct "the government's motivations weren't what they say" would be extremely controversial. But since the PM won't officially give his reasoning, the courts are effectively free to speculate if they choose, which makes it much, much more likely that he'll lose the case.



Apparently even the government now think it likely that the court will at least find the issue justiciable in principle, which would by itself be a massive constitutional shift. However, apparently they are confident that the court either won't find against them in this specific case, or at least won't do anythign about it that would make the government actually change its plans. But it's all very unclear at the moment. It's worth pointing out that, unlike US judges, UK judges are politically impartial, and not public figures, which makes it very difficult to know what they might think about an issue they've not ruled on before. Certainly their questions in the case indicate that they are at least considering intervention, to an extent that surprised many experts, though whether they actually WILL intervene is another question altogether...

[Pabappa]

I keep meaning to ask ... when did Brexit become a lockstep partisan issue with Tories in favor and Labour opposed? I got the impression, at least, that in 2016 it cut across party lines and was more about economics than ideology. Farage was a conservative, yes, and Im sure there were more conservatives on the pro-Brexit side even then, but now it seems it has become almost synonymous with party identity. (Disclaimer: I dont know where the minor parties stand.)

[Richard W]

I keep meaning to ask ... when did Brexit become a lockstep partisan issue with Tories in favor and Labour opposed? I got the impression, at least, that in 2016 it cut across party lines and was more about economics than ideology. Farage was a conservative, yes, and Im sure there were more conservatives on the pro-Brexit side even then, but now it seems it has become almost synonymous with party identity. (Disclaimer: I dont know where the minor parties stand.)

The two big parties have been afraid to oppose the popular vote. The Conservative party promised withdrawal in the 2017 manifesto. Ken Clarke was the only Conservative MP to vote against invoking Article 50. Any who actively oppose Brexit must fear losing votes to the Brexit party. Note that most of the rebels this month were at the end of their careers; there are enough of them that it was not necessary for all those felt the same way to vote against the possibility of a hard Brexit.

Labour is still split; it now offers hope to remainers for fear of Labour remainers voting Liberal Democrat. What has happened is that Labour remainers have been recovering heart since Labour's abysmal showing in the European elections.

[Salmoneus]

I keep meaning to ask ... when did Brexit become a lockstep partisan issue with Tories in favor and Labour opposed? I got the impression, at least, that in 2016 it cut across party lines and was more about economics than ideology. Farage was a conservative, yes, and Im sure there were more conservatives on the pro-Brexit side even then, but now it seems it has become almost synonymous with party identity. (Disclaimer: I dont know where the minor parties stand.)

They're anti-Brexit.

So, a couple of things here...

- yes, it cut across the main parties, but not evenly. And crucially, the parties responded differently to the referendum.

- the Tory MPs originally had, effectively, two camps: leave and remain. Maybe a slight majority Leave? And their voters had a clear majority for Leave. After the referendum, it fairly quickly reconfigured - a big chunk of the Leavers joined with almost all the Remainers to become a "Soft Brexit" faction. Some of them wanted Brexit but not stupidly, and some of them wanted no Brexit but believed (or claimed to believe) it was important to respect the will of the referendum, but in the most sensible way possible. That left a large but clearly minority hard brexit or 'Brexiteer' faction, and only a very small number of outright Remain rebels.

- Theresa May's "Brexit means Brexit" coalition gradually adopted a broad-church Hard-ish Brexit approach: so, not all the soft brexit safety net, but also insisting on a deal of some sort, so not Lunatic Brexit. This was something both wings could more or less agree to. But her coalition was discredited by its failure to agree an acceptable deal. Hard Brexit sentiments rose, Soft Brexit sentiments retreated. On the other hand, a new division sprang up, between No Deal Brexit (NDB we'll say) and No No Deal Brexit (NNDB, let's call it). NNDB is not explicitly Remain, but it doesn't have to be - it can include all the Remainers, all the Soft Brexiteers, and a bunch of the more grounded Hard Brexiteers as well - they don't all agree in policy at all, but all they need to do at the moment is oppose No Deal. I think they're still the majority of the MPs. However, the new PM is from the NDB wing, and most NNDB MPs are mostly toeing the line. They don't have to stand up and be counted, because even if they vote with the NDB government, there's still no majority for NDB in the Commons.

- Genuinely Remain Tory voters, meanwhile, have gradually either gone over to the Lib Dems (or Greens), or else are just keeping quiet and hoping it's all over soon.

- it's worth repeating: British parties are much, much stronger than US parties. The general rule is, if the Leader says X is the party's policy, every member of the party will insist that they have always strongly believed in X and always will. The fact that we live in an era where sizeable numbers of party members and MPs, even senior MPs (as opposed to 'the usual suspects', a handful of cantakerous backbenchers with zero ambitions and a good local support network who regularly defy their party) are willing to oppose their Leader is exceptional, not the norm. Right now, Boris says his party is a Brexit party, and in effect a No Deal party, so that's what the party is now. [the continued existence of the Brexit Party itself, however, shows that not everybody believes them].

- the Lib Dems have always been anti-Brexit - their campaign slogan in the EU elections was "Bollocks to Brexit". Their only shift is that they've now progressed from "let's have a second referendum to reverse the first one" to "fuck the people, we know best, let's just cancel brexit and the majority can go swivel on it".

- Labour, however.... oh dear gods Labour. Labour have been trying to destroy themselves (because last time didn't work completely) by having no policy on Brexit. A lot of Labour MPs, even Shadow Cabinet members, have gradually become more stridently Remainer, but the party itself is basically neutral. It can't agree with the government, because Labour can NEVER agree with the Tories, on principle, so its factions range from "Brexit, but on better terms" through to "cancel Brexit". It is mostly committed to No No Deal.

- a lot of Leaver Labour voters have left to go to the Brexit Party. Apparently there's now something like an 85-15 Remain-Leave split in Labour. However, their leader is Leave, so it's complicated...

-------------

- Farage wasn't a Conservative. Well, he was apparently a member of the party from 1978 through to 1992, but was never a real party devotee - at one point he voted Green, back when the Greens were anti-EU. He was a banker by professional, and when he did enter politics himself, in 1999, it was in UKIP.

[Raphael]

Can the current situation as far as the House of Commons and the Government are concerned, with the current House of Commons and the current Government being what they are, really go on until 2022?

[Salmoneus]

Yes. The conservatives could continue to operate a minority government, failing to get much through but getting some things legislated on with the ad hoc cooperation of other parties. Although, to be honest, it's hard to see what they could get passed exactly, given how anti-Tory everyone other than the DUP has become.

However, it won't. It won't even last until Christmas, I would suspect. Labour will find it too damaging to refuse an election continually, one would surely think, and if they really do just adopt a "no democracy here" platform then Johnson will consider that to be a provocation that's just begging for a repeal of, or exemption from, the FTPA, and the other parties will oblige.

[Raphael]

and if they really do just adopt a "no democracy here" platform

What, exactly, do you mean by that?