British Politics Guide

[alice]

Watching parts of the debate, I've got the impression that whenever Johnson stands up, about half the Tory MPs behind him stand up with him, and the other half remain seated. Does that have any relevance?

They're using unity of movement to express unity of purpose and thought.

[Salmoneus]

I guess at almost any given time, in almost any given country with a multiparty system, you could point to some things as evidence that the country is currently undergoing a realignment.

Sure, and it would be more accurate to talk of a continuum of system stability, rather than a simple binary of 'realignment/no realignment'.

But I do think it's fair to say that Britain has been going through an unusually protracted period of party instability, which has now come to a head.

I mean, right now, the current PM and leader of the conservative party is preparing to exile from the party the man (Oliver Letwin) seen as the mastermind behind the Tory government of only five years ago, AND is being sued by the Tory PM from the 1990s, AND has already exiled the Tory Deputy PM from the 1980s. EDIT: and the Tory Chancellor from a couple of months ago has accused the current Tory PM of not being "genuine" in his promises. At the same time, the current leader of the Labour Party has been loudly repudiated by the Labour PM from the 1990s and 2000s. That's not normal. That's a party system in extreme instability! For another sign, look at UKIP: 3% of the vote in 2010, 13% in 2015, 2% in 2017...

[sure, in the US, the Bushes don't like Trump, but that's more a personal vendetta than a policy disagreement, and even then, Dubya isn't actually suing Trump...]


In terms of the Liberals...

- they lost top-two status in the big realignment that saw the rise of Labour in the 1920s. They were probably saved from extinction by a period of chaos followed by WWII. After that, they almost went extinct as a national party, surviving only due to regional issues.

- the prosperity of the post-war era and the rise of the boomer generation threatened a realignment in the 1960s and 1970s: neither aristocratic tories nor mine-dust-coated Labour could really strongly appeal to the rising middle class. The Liberals rose again as a third option, and looked like they might be able to overtake Labour.

- the two main parties fended off that challenge in the short term, but the question didn't go away, and was only exacerbated as Thatcher drove the Tories right, and Foot drove Labour left in reaction. So the Liberals grew even stronger, and became a serious threat to replace Labour (out of touch and Marxist) in particular. The threat of realignment became critical when a large faction of Labour broke away, the SDP, and entered into alliance with the Liberals. The Alliance was actually ahead in the polls at one point! Only the electoral system and the Falklands saved the two main parties. So the Alliance (then the Lib Dems) gradually faded. The crisis was finally averted in the early 1990s, when Labour decisively moved to the centre.

- at that point, the Lib Dems could easily have gone extinct again... but then Labour invaded Iraq. The Iraq War saw a huge chunk of Labour's support in the liberal middle class, and particularly the young, ideologically split form the party, and the Lib Dems surged as a result. In the short term, as that specific issue faded, the Lib Dems faded briefly, but by the end of the decade Labour were in serious trouble - not just because they'd been in power too long, but because that liberal middle class no longer instinctively voted for them. Meanwhile, they also couldn't vote for the Tories, because they'd been driven far too far into being "the nasty party".

- but Cameron's government brought the Tories back to the liberal middle ground, and the Lib Dems, trapped in coalition, were almost annihilated, and could easily have been extinguished.

- fortunately, then Brexit happened, an issue that, like Iraq, splits straight through the traditional parties, and now the Lib Dems are surging. Once Brexit is over, they will probably fade again, perhaps for good... though it depends what Labour do.



So, because Labour never quite managed to kill the Liberals off, they're always around to turn any major wedge issue into a systemic crisis, and have repeatedly looked in a position to overtake Labour as the second party, but have never quite been able to do it. I suspect even this dynamic can't last forever, though - the Liberal foundation is its strong local support in various areas, and that support seems to be continually eroding due to the gymnastic policy shifts it's had to attempt to exploit the opportunities that have arisen. So I think one of these times, when a Liberal wave fades, there won't be that foundation left, and it'll be wiped out like a normal third party.

I think the Lib Dems are probably a good example of path dependency: if they hadn't survived the 1950s, they wouldn't have been in a position to keep surging when opportunities arise. But somehow, by happenstance, we got locked into this semi-stable equilibrium..

[Pabappa]

My understanding was that Ukip disappeared because once the Brexit vote passed, they no longer had anything to push for. That may change, though, as I am skeptical that the proposal of yet another three-month delay will be the absolutely last one.

[Salmoneus]

Anyway, 15 Tories voted to hold this 'emergency debate'. It's possible some of them will back down in the end and abstain, but given how much pressure has been put on them you'd have to think that that's at least 13 or 14 votes against the government. Some Labour MPs will vote for the Tories, but it's hard to see how the government can win this.

[Raphael]

My understanding was that Ukip disappeared because once the Brexit vote passed, they no longer had anything to push for. That may change, though, as I am skeptical that the proposal of yet another three-month delay will be the absolutely last one.

Among the people who used to vote UKIP, the role of UKIP, and UKIP's best-known politician, have been taken over by the Brexit Party.

[Raphael]

Anyway, 15 Tories voted to hold this 'emergency debate'. It's possible some of them will back down in the end and abstain, but given how much pressure has been put on them you'd have to think that that's at least 13 or 14 votes against the government. Some Labour MPs will vote for the Tories, but it's hard to see how the government can win this.

Could Johnson, err, "advice" the Queen to refuse Royal Assent?

Ok, from the Guardian's liveblog:

The SNP’s David Linden asks for an assurance that, if the bill passes the Commons and the Lords, the government will not try to stop it getting royal assent.

Rees-Mogg says the government will follow the law.

Whatever that means.

[Salmoneus]

My understanding was that Ukip disappeared because once the Brexit vote passed, they no longer had anything to push for. That may change, though, as I am skeptical that the proposal of yet another three-month delay will be the absolutely last one.

The delay is unlikely to happen whatever MPs vote for.

And yes, UKIP were decimated by their own success; but that's still party system instability! The fact that a party can grow that big and powerful, yet have its support so completely founded upon a single issue that is then 'resolved' overnight is not the way a party system normally works.
And UKIP are now gone. If Brexit has further problems, the beneficiaries will be the Brexit Party. And again, having almost total vote transferance from one single-issue party to another in such a short period of time is very unusual, and very unstable!

[what it means is that UKIP itself had almost zero loyalty from its voters]

[Raphael]

Jacob Rees-Mogg is now listening to the debate while lying on a front bench.

[Salmoneus]

Anyway, 15 Tories voted to hold this 'emergency debate'. It's possible some of them will back down in the end and abstain, but given how much pressure has been put on them you'd have to think that that's at least 13 or 14 votes against the government. Some Labour MPs will vote for the Tories, but it's hard to see how the government can win this.

Could Johnson, err, "advice" the Queen to refuse Royal Assent?

Well, he can advise her to do anything he wants. But it would be brazenly unconstitutional. I suspect the Queen would refuse. And if she didn't, the PM would undoubtedly be sued.

What exactly Parliament would do with him is unclear - its powers range from doing nothing through to literally throwing him in a dungeon, but because this has never happened, it's unclear how far they'd feel they had to, or could, go.

Some people have raised concerns about the police - it's one reason hackles were raised by Cummings having Javid's advisor removed by armed police, because in theory the police do not answer to Cummings, but in practice there are worries that the police might be too strongly tied to the PM. On the other hand, it's usually assumed that, in a crunch, the armed forces would side with the Queen.



EDIT: looking it up, apparently there's disagreement whether the PM can advice the Queen to withhold assent. This question has literally not arisen in practice since 1708 - in 1708, the government adviced the Queen to withhold her assent to a bill Parliament had passed, and she did so, but quite a few things have changed since 1708! [although the British government did advise the Queen to refuse to assent to an Australian bill in 1980, and the Australians backed down rather than testing her loyalties] After all, this cannot ever happen without Parliament first overturning the convention that the government controls the business of the house, which until Brexit had stood for over a century...

It appears there's a consensus that the government can tell the Queen to refuse assent. The theory basically is that as Parliament choose to have the government, that choice overrides their specific choices on particular issues - if they disagree, they're free to remove the government. However, scholars also suggest that if the ministers who tell her to do this are not in fact representing ("responsible to") Parliament, then she can and should tell them to stuff it. And if the reason for the disagreement is that the government has been defeated on a matter of the greatest importance, it would seem that the minister no longer enjoy the confidence of parliament on this issue!

It may be, if it comes to it, that Dr Lee's defection may actually be key, constitutionally. Because now the Government, not only in practice but even on paper, does not actually command the confidence of the House. The House has chosen not to say that in a vote, so far, but the government factually does not have the support of a majority of MPs. This would make their claim to be acting democratically on behalf of parliament in telling the Queen to defy parliament... rather weaker.

[Salmoneus]

Jacob Rees-Mogg is now listening to the debate while lying on a front bench.

The man has a great sense of style, but very little sense of public relations...

[chris_notts]

Not to mention the fact that tomorrow there may well be 20 ex-Conservatives by decree of Boris himself. He's said both that this is a matter of confidence and that anyone who votes against him is not a true Conservative....

[Travis B.]

Not to mention the fact that tomorrow there may well be 20 ex-Conservatives by decree of Boris himself. He's said both that this is a matter of confidence and that anyone who votes against him is not a true Conservative....

This whole matter is definitely paying into the Liberal Democrats' hands... I wonder how many of those soon-to-be former Conservatives are soon-to-be Liberal Democrats.

[Raphael]

Meanwhile, 17 Labour MPs have announced that they want to introduce an amendment under which Parliament would get to vote on the last version of Theresa May's deal once more.

[Salmoneus]

Not to mention the fact that tomorrow there may well be 20 ex-Conservatives by decree of Boris himself. He's said both that this is a matter of confidence and that anyone who votes against him is not a true Conservative....

This whole matter is definitely paying into the Liberal Democrats' hands... I wonder how many of those soon-to-be former Conservatives are soon-to-be Liberal Democrats.

I suspect that, because it's such a deep cut into the party, most of the exiles won't join another party, but will remain loyal and brand themselves as "independent conservatives" or, at least "independents".

[Salmoneus]

Meanwhile, 17 Labour MPs have announced that they want to introduce an amendment under which Parliament would get to vote on the last version of Theresa May's deal once more.

The insanity continues!

And here's a twist: they can't do that, because it would be voting on the same thing again, which is not permitted unless...

...Parliament is prorogued and a new session begins!

Ah, the circles continue to rotate...


-----


the vote is now happening.

[Raphael]

This is the vote on whether they'll have a vote on passing the bill tomorrow, right?

[chris_notts]

Paul Waugh asks on twitter:

Has any PM ever lost their FIRST vote before?

Surely if you can't carry your very first vote, that suggests the wrong person was picked to command the confidence of the commons?

[Salmoneus]

Yes. They had the vote on whether to have the vote on having a vote, and now they've had the vote to have the vote. They have now voted to have the vote.

EDIT: the PM has confirmed that the government has tabled (i.e. put forward) a motion to hold a general election.


I'll give it to Boris, he's actually pretty good at the shouting-out-speeches-over-a-baying-mob thing.

EDIT: and now the Speaker has yelled "Be a good boy!" repeatedly at the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I think he may have heard that the government intends (unprecedentedly?) to stand a candidate against him in the election.

[Raphael]

Not sure I can completely follow what Johnson is saying, but it sounds like he's running amok or something.

[Salmoneus]

I think this means Boris Johnson is the first ever Prime Minister to have a 100% losing record in parliamentary votes...


[BBC are saying they think 21 Tory rebels]