Zompist Bboard Again

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 5:17 pm The obvious, but insanely, thrillingly risky, ballsy thing to do would be call a Vote of No Confidence... in himself.

Fun fact: because of the strict rules the German constitution has for when early elections are allowed, this is basically the standard procedure German Chancellors use when they want to call early elections. OK, strictly speaking, they introduce a motion of confidence and then intentionally lose it.

- The Prime Minister's own brother has resigned from Cabinet, and said he'll leave politics. He said he could no longer deal with the conflict he faced between family loyalty and the national interest. To be honest I think people were more surprised he was ever willing to be in Boris' cabinet in the first place, but still, your own brother saying that he can't trust you and believes you're acting against the national interest is not great for PR.

I saw someone on Twitter asking if this is the first time a politician has resigned to spend less time with his family.

chris_notts wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:45 pm

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:29 pm In this case, you can call it a 'wheeze', but it's just a way to ensure that nobody gets screwed over by being unable to communicate a plan quickly enough to their supporters.

[The government were going to oppose an amendment. So its supporters headed to the lobby where their votes would be counted. The government then realised it actually wanted to accept the amendment, but its MPs were already in the lobby (this is an artifact of the opposition jamming a weeks-long process through the House in half a day!), so it simply effectively surrendered, by not offering anyone to count the votes on its side.]

Sorry, but MPs should be MPs first, and members of their party second.

People vote for them to be members of their parties. Of course, they can defy their party, but they're usually unpopular when they do so. Inevitably, MPs of like mind co-ordinate with one another. Politics without parties is not a pretty sight!

The fact is, there were MPs who wanted to vote against, but they were prevented from doing so by the games of a government that clearly didn't command the confidence of all of those MPs.

Those MPs were the ones who chose to support the government. They could always have volunteered to be tellers themselves, if they'd been so desparate to rebel against their party! But they weren't, because the people rebeling were on the other side.

MPs should not be prevented from choosing how to vote because the government decides it doesn't want to contest the vote, regardless of whether the MPs are a member of the governing party or not. If the assumption is that those MPs should always vote with the government, what is the point of them even being there? Why doesn't Boris Johnson just exercise all of their votes by proxy? And if they are allowed to vote against the government, as they are, then the government should not be able to concede on their behalf.

People of similar opinions tend to vote together. As the current events show, nothing stops MPs from rebelling if they want to rebel.

In this case, all that's required is some remote controls / buttons with two options, issued to each MP. The speaker calls for the vote to be held, everyone present presses the right button, the vote is counted by computer. Job done, and on the plus side you don't need tellers or MPs to be constantly entering or leaving the room. A much simpler solution than the incredibly stupid system we have right now. And, if the government does change its mind, all it has to do is get someone on the front bench to stand up pre-button-push and shout "we've changed our minds, guys!".

First: dear gods, that's a terrible idea. You think the way to have more democracy is to have LESS direct accountability and MORE reliance on computers? I disagree.
The current system requires MPs to visibly move to another place to register their vote. It is clear to everybody - other MPs, observers in the hall, even TV if they pay attention - which side they have voted for. It is almost impossible to vote the wrong way by mistake, it is almost impossible for votes to be corruptly or incompetently miscounted, and if that does happen it is very easy to discover what really happened. The system is completely accountable and transparent, as well as being simple and straightforward (and giving MPs a chance to stretch their legs between long debates, which I'm sure their doctors appreciate).

Changing to a system that relied on MPs correctly pressing the correct button, and then the button press being correctly recorded, and then everyone just having to hope that it WAS all correct because there's no way to check if it was all correct or not, would be a terrible step backward.

The bigger problem is: sure, you want this to change. Other people don't. Other people do, but want to change it in a different way. There is no democratic way to ensure that you, chris, always get your way. Changing the constitution is not a matter of you pressing a "like" button and it going straight from your brain to Erskine May. Changing the constitution requires a process. And that process can be and would be hijacked, because the process would have to take place in the real world.

Given the choice between making some tiny improvement for the greater comfort of TV viewers at home, but in the process allowing the government to rewrite the constitution in ways great and small to its own advantage, or putting up with a few suboptimal things to protect everything good, I think the choice is clear.

We did, incidentally, recently have a major constitutional change, designed to simplify things in a logical and 'non-stupid' way. It was called the Fixed Term Parliament Act, and the weekly encounters we're having with something the FTPA accidentally screwed up are great reminders that building complicated constitutional systems that work is not fucking easy.

It's worth remembering that most constitutions have failed, and most democracies have failed. Let's not screw up the one we've got, because it's the only one we've got.

In any case, even you have to admit that the whole show is ridiculous and childish, with magic maces somehow controlling when and if things can happen, people denting very old doors, etc. It's not impressive, it's childish tradition hoarding where people copy something just because some idiot did it 500 years ago, regardless of how much sense it makes. And some people become fascinated by these childish games and write huge tomes on the silliness, but that doesn't change the fact that the mess detracts from the functioning of our democracy rather than enhancing it.

No, I don't admit that. And having a temper-tantrum about how stupid and idiotic everyone else is for not just automatically agreeing with your bizarre opinions does not impress anybody.

First, ritual and ceremony are what a constitution is. A constitution is nothing more than a set of rituals, and we should absolutely reject this Trumpish obsession with just doing away with all the rules and obstacles because they're "stupid" for getting in our way.

Second, most rituals are there for a reason. Take the mace. There has to be some system of indicating when different things can happen - yesterday, for instance, we saw the Commons transition from a committee of the whole (no mace) to a sitting of the house (mace). The system doesn't HAVE to be a big paperweight, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be. Sure, you could have, say, a big disco ball or something, or an endless loop of Rick Astley songs playing over the debate or whatever else you wanted. But there's nothing less inherently "childish" than a big paperweight. The paperweight is very easy to notice - it's shiny! - and it's fairly unambiguous whether it's there or not. It's hard to place or remove by accident, and it cannot easily be sneakily removed or introduced while people aren't looking. In this way, it does its practical job - as a clear and unambiguous visual indicator of being in session, in a way that discourages opportunistic rules-lawyering - very well. So it's not worth getting rid of the paperweight simply because it doesn't match your personal taste in decour. It costs nothing to maintain the tradition, and we get the benefit of a ritual - which adds authority to parliament, and ultimately makes dictatorship less likely.

Similarly, it is not NECESSARY to ceremonially slam the doors of parliament in the face of queen once a year... but it also doesn't hurt. It has no effect on the operation of parliament. All it does it provide a potent reminder of the necessity of independence and the sovereignty of the people over any individual potentate, and a solemn remembrance of the sacrifice of those who have given their lives defending democracy. And removing it would also be a symbol, and a more dangerous one than keeping it.

Erskine May and other "huge tomes" on parliamentary procedure are not written because people were obsessed with childish games; they were written because of the life-and-death necessity of good parliamentary procedure. Parliamentary procedures are followed because having procedures works. This is why parliamentary procedures and derivatives and alternatives are used widely in decision-making contexts - because having one guy just yelling that everyone else is childish and infantile doesn't actually present a practical way to arrive at decisions that all can abide by in a context of a diversity of views.

I didn't think I was having a temper tantrum, but I guess we'll have to disagree on that as well as the rest of it. I'm simply someone frustrated that an already dysfunctional political situation has clearly over the last few months and years been make worse by our defective, half unwritten (or if written then as long-winded "conventions" which may or may not be binding) and repeatedly unclear processes and procedure, and repeatedly it seems like what should be clear rules are foggy and mired in meaningless symbolism. Every single day at the moment we get a new argument on arcane procedures, like which of the 20 different ways the PM is going to try to call an election. I'm pretty sure that most countries make do with exactly one main way to decide when and if an election is called.

Nor do I think my complaints are "Trumpian": the objectionable thing about Trump is not that he's trying to simplify processes to improve decision making, but that he's an authoritarian who's trying to remove obstacles to himself ruling by arbitrary decree, and that he has no respect for the law. I did explicitly say that rules should be there to support good decision making (maybe I should have added the word "democratic", just to be clear that I'm not proposing to turn the UK into even more of an elective dictatorship than it already is?).

As for electronic voting: this is already in use in a number of legislatures, including the Scottish and European Parliaments I believe, and they seem to function perfectly well. If you don't trust fairly simple, isolated computer networking solutions, then really you can't trust anything in the 21st century.

Serious question: What time on October 31 does Brexit happen? Every source just says "midnight," but is that midnight at the beginning of the 31st, or the end?

EDIT: Holy shit, this information is impossible to find. Does anyone even know what time the deadline happens?

The currently agreed exit time is 23:00 GMT 31 October 2019.

is Halloween trick-or-treating catching on in Britain? going to be a lot of kids going around in costumes of Corbyn or whoever it's going to be if Brexit doesnt go through.

Pabappa wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:07 pm is Halloween trick-or-treating catching on in Britain? going to be a lot of kids going around in costumes of Corbyn or whoever it's going to be if Brexit doesnt go through.

Some people do it, although I doubt anyone would go as Corbyn. He's not a very convincing boogeyman given that the majority of people seem to think he's incompetent.

Amber Rudd has thrown in the towel.

alice wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:54 pm Amber Rudd has thrown in the towel.

A slow motion split is clearly underway, one which dwarfs the Labour defections before. Some are quitting, but some clearly intend to contest seats either as Lib Dems or independents. I guess the question is how much this will split the Conservative vote? Interesting times.

chris_notts wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 6:09 pm I didn't think I was having a temper tantrum

Well, it's difficult to have a serious discussion against words like "childish", "idiotic" and "stupid", particularly when employed in such density, and without reasoning to back them up.

I'm simply someone frustrated that an already dysfunctional political situation has clearly over the last few months and years been make worse by our defective, half unwritten (or if written then as long-winded "conventions" which may or may not be binding) and repeatedly unclear processes and procedure

It's fair enough to be frustrated, but I don't see how the uncodified constitution has made things any worse. Indeed, the biggest constitutional issue has been the FTPA, which is precisely the most clearcut, 'simple' and recent part of the rules. Which is why I think making the rest of the constitution more like the FTPA doesn't seem a good idea to me. Meanwhile, the flexibility of the constitution has largely served us well in avoiding crisis.

[it's generally believed, I believe, in constitutional circles that vaguer constitutions are more robust, because there's more freedom in interpreting them to fit the circumstances. Strangely from a UK point of view (from where the US is the only other country in the world...), the US constitution is often held up as an example of this: a shockingly brief and ambiguous document. That's had its downsides, to be sure, but it's also helped the US survive as a democracy with only minimal constitutional amendment for hundreds of years, while most more 'modern', 'scientific' constitutions have led to rapid failure, in part due to their rigidity...]

, and repeatedly it seems like what should be clear rules are foggy and mired in meaningless symbolism.

Very few rules are actually 'mired in symbolism'. Stuff like black rod and the shape of the mace does not actually govern how Brexit happens. The rules that actually matter are those that evolved over rather painful trial and error over the centuries. I certainly wouldn't say that none of the should ever be amended, but I do have great reservations about the popular approach of just sweeping away all the rule - that is, all the safeguards - because they're too 'complicated' (i.e. thought-through).

But what exactly are the substantive confusions you see here? The politics is confused (i.e. what people will do), but the constitution (i.e. what they can do) has been pretty straightforward, barring the occasional never-come-up-before question or technicality.

Every single day at the moment we get a new argument on arcane procedures

It's politics. Every single day there's an argument about something.

, like which of the 20 different ways the PM is going to try to call an election. I'm pretty sure that most countries make do with exactly one main way to decide when and if an election is called.

Then you would be completely wrong!

At a quick look at the Basic Law (a 140 page book!), Germany seems to have at least four ways of calling a general election: it can be called by 1/3rd of the MPs, by the President, or by the Chancellor, or else occurs between 46 and 48 months after the last election (it doesn't seem to specify how that's decided). It can also of course be done by amending the constitution, as in the UK. Then, after the elections, the Bundestag has to start sitting within 30 days (it doesn't specify who decides that). Then the President nominates a Chancellor, who needs the votes of the majority of the Bundestag; if they don't the votes, then there's a span of up to 14 days for half the members to elect someone else; if noone is Chancellor yet, there's "a new election" (presumably within the Bundestag rather than OF it?), held "without delay" (who decides when?), and then the candidate who gets a plurality of votes for Chancellor has their name submitted to the President, but in a manner that depends on the size of their vote share - if they got a majority, the President must appoint them as Chancellor, but if they only got a submajority plurality, the President has the choice to either appoint them OR to dissolve the Bundestag within seven days, which presumably then results in more elections (but who decides when they're held? It's not specified).

The German constitution, it should be noted, is generally seen as one of the better ones. But any constitution will be underspecified and complex.

In France the President can call an election - but only after 'consulting' the PM and the presidents of both houses, which iirc was a matter of some debate early on - and only if there hasn't been a dissolution in the last 12 months. Or, the Prime Minister can declare their programme or a statement of such to be a vote of confidence. Or, there can be a vote of NO confidence, which requires the signatures of 10% of MPs, except that no member may sign more than three such resolutions in one ordinary session, nor more than one such resolution in an extraordinary session, and then the VONC requires an absolute majority. Or, the PM can designate a bill as a vote of confidence, but only if it's a finance bill, OR for up to one other bill in each session, and in that case the bill can only be stopped if a VONC is offered within 24 hours. In which case the government offers its resignation to the president and the president if necessary dissolves parliament and there are elections between 20 and 40 days later, except that parliament cannot be dissolved if the president is already exercising their emergency powers. OR, of course, the constitution can be amended - this can be done either by a bill being submitted for a referendum OR by a government bill being submitted to Parliament WHEN it is "convened in congress" (in which case the bureau of the congress is to be that of the assembly) in which case it needs three fifths of the votes actually cast by the congress. And so on.


The issues we're talking about might seem complicated - but if we were talking about brain surgery, that would sound complicated too. These things are complicated for a reason!


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

In the case of the UK, calling an early election under the current law is simple. There are two ways specified in the FTPA and a third implied:
- the PM can suggest an election, and 2/3rds of MPs can agree; OR
- a majority of MPs can say they no longer have confidence in the PM, and then refuse to name anyone else to replace him.
- the PM can unilaterally resign without a VONC, in which case, again, if parliament can't agree on a successor there is an election.

An early election date is, as in most countries set by the PM by default.

Alternatively, the constitution can be changed - that is, a new law can be passed to supercede the old ones, either by repealing the FTPA, or by permanently amending it, or by simply adding a one-off exception to it. This obviously costs more political capital, but only requires a majority. The downside is that because it's a law, rather than an executive action*, the PM cannot control its contents, only suggest them. Therefore, if this route were chosen, Parliament could set any date it wanted, which might not be a date the PM wants.


That's really not all that complicated!

And having multiple ways to do something is a feature, not a bug. The intention isn't to break the system, but to keep it viable, so the constitution attempts to account for the various scenarios that could arise, so that no scenario puts us into a dead end. The FTPA removed the right of the PM to unilaterally call elections, to prevent opportunistic snap elections, but in exchange it attempted to account for the scenarios in which an early election might actually be needed, and it came up with two: the PM no longer has the confidence of the house (or has already resigned); or the PM does have the confidence of the house but for some reason everyone agrees that an election would be a good idea.

Fair enough, but what it failed to foresee is the situation where the PM doesn't have the confidence of the house, but nobody is willing to say so!
[I think it's a pretty flawed law, as I've made clear, but complexity isn't its flaw]

The fact that it's also possible to change that law is just because our system prioritises democracy - it doesn't let a government pass a law that a future governmen can't amend. This can be a weakness, because it gives the government more power, but also a strength, because it makes it harder for any one government to fuck everything up for everyone from there on out.

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

the objectionable thing about Trump is not that he's trying to simplify processes to improve decision making, but that he's an authoritarian who's trying to remove obstacles to himself ruling by arbitrary decree

"simplifying processes to improve decision making"
and
"removing obstacles to [the government] ruling by decree"
...
...are synonyms. They're just what we call the same thing when (in the first case) our party does it and when (in the second) the other party does is. Simplifying a process is removing an obstacle, and removing an obstacle is simplifying a process. And people want to rule by decree BECAUSE they think their decision making is better; and conversely, when people say 'improved decision making', they mean decisions that they agree with. Trump absolutely wants to simplify processes to improve decision making! [he wants the process to be: "I make the best decision in the world (everyone says I make the best decisions) and then that's the law"]

I did explicitly say that rules should be there to support good decision making

But if you make it easier for people to impose good decisions, you make it easier for the same people to impose bad decisions.

As for electronic voting: this is already in use in a number of legislatures, including the Scottish and European Parliaments I believe, and they seem to function perfectly well. If you don't trust fairly simple, isolated computer networking solutions, then really you can't trust anything in the 21st century.

I'm not suggesting electronic voting will bring about armageddon. But it's a clearly inferior system to what we have already, so there's no reason to adopt it.

chris_notts wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:05 pm

alice wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:54 pm Amber Rudd has thrown in the towel.

A slow motion split is clearly underway, one which dwarfs the Labour defections before. Some are quitting, but some clearly intend to contest seats either as Lib Dems or independents. I guess the question is how much this will split the Conservative vote? Interesting times.

I don't really know what's going on with the Tories. I think we're seeing several things come together:

- personal disillusionment with politics
- absolute fury at the expulsions, which fly in the face of Conservative ideology and how the party traditionally sees itself
- the Brexit split, ideologically
- the Brexit split, practically - Remainer Tories in many cases know they can't get re-elected (either they're in Remainer seats that won't vote Tory anymore, or they're in Leave seats that won't accept them as Tory candidates anymore), so they may as well resign
- the upcoming election (people try to resign early enough to either let themselves find new seats or let their parties find new candidates for their old seats).

It's hard to know what the consequence will be. You could say that most of the vote these people represent has already left the Tories, and it's not clear that many actual voters are brought across with these politicians, particularly if they leave parliament - the exception is only really in the cases where MPs from marginal seats defect to the Lib Dems and might be able to bring enough local voters with them to swing the seat. On the other hand, the exodus of Remainers MPs from the Tories probably solidifies the voting shift, in that it makes it much harder for Remainers to go back to the Tories in the future.


It could also get interesting if the Independent Conservatives manage to form a coherent rump party of their own. They'll start out Tory on all issues other than Brexit, but are likely to evolve if they do so. Rudd says she hasn't decided whether to stand as an Independent Conservative or not. It probably doesn't matter - her majority is tiny - 346. About 5,000 of her voters previously voted UKIP, so even if she takes the rest of the local party with her it's hard to see her beating Labour (even as a Lib Dem, the Lib Dems wouldn't be able to provide enough extra votes... although admittedly, if she got the Lib Dems AND all the non-UKIP Tories, AND the people who were previously Green but switched to Labour tactically... MAYBE she'd have a chance? Unlikely, though.).

The real nightmare scenario for Johnson comes from the fact that a group calling itself the "One Nation Caucus" sent him a furious letter about the expulsion. If the expellees can tempt this "One Nation Caucus" out of the party - or rather, can persuade them that together they'd be the 'real' Tory Party - then it's conceivable we could have some sort of One Nation Party and we'd be in a Tory 'SDP' situation. It's unlikely right now, but it is a possibility.

It's worth keeping an eye on the long-term here: it's looking increasingly possible that Scotland will leave. That means England will have permanent one-party Tory rule. That's usually an unsustainable situation in a democracy, and something like a Tory schism would indeed be one way it might be resolved...


But then again, maybe we shouldn't jump to any conclusions based on Brexit-influenced polling, because we've no idea how quickly the brexit debate scars will be undone after brexit...

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 5:08 pmIt's worth keeping an eye on the long-term here: it's looking increasingly possible that Scotland will leave. That means England will have permanent one-party Tory rule.

Might it just possibly be that this, lip-service to the Union notwithstanding, is the real point?

John Bercow has announced he'll stand down on October 31 or in the next election, whichever happens next.

That's a shame. I am fonder of his referreeing than of many of the star players.

He's certainly benefited greatly from Brexit. Before it, the impression was that his tenure would be remembered for the accusations of abusive and harassing behaviour against him, and his refusal to allow adequate investigation of allegations against others, and for his perceived pomposity and wastefulness. Instead, he gets to be a hero of democracy...

[what's the line? 'a terrible beauty is born'...]


Anyway, right now Parliament is enjoying its supremacy. The PM has been accused of lying to the Queen. Parliament has voted to demand the disclosure of all documents anywhere about the prorogation and about no deal planning. Now it's debating a motion to demand the Prime Minister obey the law - legally not that powerful, but politically either you end up with the government officially voting that it's above the law, or else the goverment officially agreeing that the PM mustn't break the law that he's planning to break...

Recently, various experts came out to remind the PM that if he does indeed refuse to ask for an extension, he could actually be sent to prison (although the new law doesn't specify jail time, the opposition could get a court order requiring the PM to follow the law, and if he then violated it he could be jailed for contempt of court). Which is itself constitutionally interesting - any custodial sentence over one year results in an MP being removed from office, while a sentence of less than a year automatically triggers a recall election in their constituency; however, as the PM doesn't legally have to be an MP, Boris could still serve as MP from a prison cell...

[normally that suggestion would be absurd. But in the specific case where a PM was jailed for what were seen as political reasons, as a way to prevent him acting in, as his supporters saw it, the best interests of the country, it's maybe no longer 100% insane...]

Who's likely to be the next Speaker?

Also: Eurosceptic Tory MP Peter Bone has said the general debate is "being held for political purposes".

And here I thought this ridiculous habit of using the word "political" to describe all political activities one doesn't like was limited to the USA...

I just had a completely absurd idea about something Boris Johnson might do to get around the no-hard-Brexit law. I am, however, worried about posting it here - I worry that if I post it here, some Leaver might read it and pass it on to someone else, and eventually it might reach Johnson's desk, and he might actually do it. So I won't post it for now. But if he should get the idea somewhere else and do it, or if someone better-known than me should bring it up and it should get publicly discussed, I might post here that it's the idea I meant when I wrote this post.

And the latest Government motion for an early election failed to get the necessary votes.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:09 pm I just had a completely absurd idea about something Boris Johnson might do to get around the no-hard-Brexit law. I am, however, worried about posting it here - I worry that if I post it here, some Leaver might read it and pass it on to someone else, and eventually it might reach Johnson's desk, and he might actually do it. So I won't post it for now. But if he should get the idea somewhere else and do it, or if someone better-known than me should bring it up and it should get publicly discussed, I might post here that it's the idea I meant when I wrote this post.

Is this the same idea I had? My idea offers no counter to the EU27 offering an unasked for extension.

Richard.