British Politics Guide

[anteallach]

In theory, parliament can continue to apply punishments if the contempt continues. And don't discount the importance of a suspension, particularly right now - when the government's got a majority of under a dozen even with the help of other parties, it can't afford to have MPs on gardening leave. And does May really want to be the first PM in history* to be barred from the Palace of Westminster? Theoretically you don't have to be an MP to be PM, but...**


*almost certainly not really the first in history, but certainly the first in an extremely long time. I'm guessing centuries at least.
**hmm, there's an interesting philosophical question. All PMs have been members of either the Commons or the Lords, but is that legally required? Since 'Prime Minister' doesn't really exist as a constitutional title except in ceremonial functions, I guess it doesn't. I guess May could continue to call herself PM even if she were expelled...

Douglas-Home was PM and a member of neither the Commons nor the Lords for a couple of weeks in the autumn of 1963, between disclaiming his hereditary peerage and winning the by-election which gave him a Commons seat.

(For those who don't know about this: when Harold Macmillan retired as Tory leader and PM in 1963, the at the time rather opaque process of choosing a successor eventually settled on the Earl of Home /hjuːm/, who had previously been an MP but had continued his political career from the Lords after inheriting his peerage. By this time it was thought that the PM really had to be in the Commons, so he took advantage of legislation which had been recently passed for the benefit of Tony Benn to disclaim his hereditary peerage, becoming Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and stood in a by-election for a safe seat in Scotland to get into the Commons. Presumably because he couldn't be a candidate in the by-election as a member of the Lords, there had to be a period during the campaign when he was actually a member of neither House.)

[Salmoneus]

In theory, parliament can continue to apply punishments if the contempt continues. And don't discount the importance of a suspension, particularly right now - when the government's got a majority of under a dozen even with the help of other parties, it can't afford to have MPs on gardening leave. And does May really want to be the first PM in history* to be barred from the Palace of Westminster? Theoretically you don't have to be an MP to be PM, but...**


*almost certainly not really the first in history, but certainly the first in an extremely long time. I'm guessing centuries at least.
**hmm, there's an interesting philosophical question. All PMs have been members of either the Commons or the Lords, but is that legally required? Since 'Prime Minister' doesn't really exist as a constitutional title except in ceremonial functions, I guess it doesn't. I guess May could continue to call herself PM even if she were expelled...

Douglas-Home was PM and a member of neither the Commons nor the Lords for a couple of weeks in the autumn of 1963, between disclaiming his hereditary peerage and winning the by-election which gave him a Commons seat.

(For those who don't know about this: when Harold Macmillan retired as Tory leader and PM in 1963, the at the time rather opaque process of choosing a successor eventually settled on the Earl of Home /hjuːm/, who had previously been an MP but had continued his political career from the Lords after inheriting his peerage. By this time it was thought that the PM really had to be in the Commons, so he took advantage of legislation which had been recently passed for the benefit of Tony Benn to disclaim his hereditary peerage, becoming Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and stood in a by-election for a safe seat in Scotland to get into the Commons. Presumably because he couldn't be a candidate in the by-election as a member of the Lords, there had to be a period during the campaign when he was actually a member of neither House.)

Ooh, good attention to detail! I don't think I'd ever looked deeply into the exact process in Home's case, but you're right. He became PM on the 19th of October, ruled from the Lords for four days, then had no political position (other than PM) for fifteen days, then was elected MP, but was still unable to sit for another five days because Parliament was in recess.

Great trivia answer to remember!

[also meaning that the answers to "who was the last PM to preside from the Lords" and "who was the last PM not to preside from the Commons" are different...]

[alice]

Well, it's just happened... 311 to 293.

[KathTheDragon]

What just happened?

[Linguoboy]

What just happened?

Brexit: Full legal advice to be published after contempt vote

[dewrad]

What does that mean? Well, if the Prime Minister and/or the Attorney General is found in contempt, they could be suspended from Parliament (not unheard of)

Or, under a little-known law, suspended from a high place in Parliament...

The committee also contains Sir Christopher Chope, who may be even worse.

That'd be Christopher "yes, this Bill may look entirely reasonable to everyone else, but I'm going to oppose it on technical grounds because my sense of pedantry overrides my sense of decency" Chope.

I live in the next constituency along from Chope. He's routinely excoriated in the local press for being a horrifying bigot, and my contact in the constituency Conservative club reports that he's widely regarded as an absolute arse and a disgrace to the party (!). However, he's highly unlikely to be deselected as the committee of the local party are so right wing that they regard him as a dangerous lefty, and even if he were deselected Satan himself could run on a platform of sacrificing babies and Christchurch would still elect him if he pinned a blue rosette to his horns.

[Linguoboy]

Consequently, the present Christchurch seat contains one of the most elderly electorates in the country – only Eastbourne and Devon East have an older average voter age and Christchurch has the highest proportion of over-60s of all UK seats.

[chris_notts]

I live in the next constituency along from Chope. He's routinely excoriated in the local press for being a horrifying bigot, and my contact in the constituency Conservative club reports that he's widely regarded as an absolute arse and a disgrace to the party (!). However, he's highly unlikely to be deselected as the committee of the local party are so right wing that they regard him as a dangerous lefty, and even if he were deselected Satan himself could run on a platform of sacrificing babies and Christchurch would still elect him if he pinned a blue rosette to his horns.

Don't the Conservatives already run on a platform of sacrificing (poor) babies? I thought that was the whole point of benefit cuts, universal credit, bedroom taxes...

[Salmoneus]

Well, it's just happened... 311 to 293.

Turns out I was wrong, though: it's actually been sent to the Privileges Committee, rather than the Procedures Committee. This is a smaller committee - 3 tory, 3 labour, 1 SNP (although it too, coincidentally, contains Sir Christopher Chope). They'll decide what punishment to recommend, but also who to recommend be punished.


Notably, the media are reporting that the contempt finding will 'force' the government to release the advice, but this isn't actually clear. The Speaker has said that it is "unimaginable" that the advice wouldn't now be released, which is a pretty stern warning, but the government says it'll respond to the finding tomorrow. It's still possible they may refuse to co-operate.

The Privileges, Procedures and Public Administration Committees apparently may all now seek to hold hearings on the question of what advice the government has the right to demand. The government claims it's unprecedented for such private briefings to be disclosed... but the BBC points out that in a similar crisis some time ago, George III was compelled to reveal who had advised him to impose his stamp tax on the colonies. It may be, however, that Theresa May feels she is a more august figure than George III, and isn't subject to the same sort of constitutional restraints...


Anyway, potentially more important is the other vote the government lost today. This was another motion from Remainer Tory (and former Attorney General) Dominic Grieve, and under its terms Parliament will have the right to instruct ministers on what do if May's deal is rejected by the commons.

This is... astonishing. Parliament, to be sure, can do what it wants, but in practice it's usually little more than a rubber stamp on all but the most controversial issues: its powers to propose policies are almost entirely delegated to the Government. That's how it always works: the Government proposes legislation, and Parliament says yes or no (and it's almost always yes) - minus the occasionally dotting-the-i's uncontroversial bill from a private member. Grieve's motion effectively takes that power, at least temporarily, back, and allows Parliament to instruct the government what bills to present to Parliament. This will terrify No. 10 - but it's worth noting, Parliament doesn't have the infrastructure to actually do this efficiently and coherently (which is what the Government is for). It's not clear exactly what will happen. There's another amendment under discussion that will actually prohibit the government from allowing a No Deal brexit, and apparently it may have the votes to pass - that means, if the government can't negotiate a better deal, there may be no brexit at all. Alternatively, apparently people are trying to find the votes for a bill to adopt the Norwegian model - which will include freedom of motion. Essentially, Parliament is now so utterly pissed off with May's inability to get things passed in a timely manner, it's decided it's now going to directly take over her job.

This, by the way, is a great case study for how political institutions work, and why reform is so hard, and why democracy is so precarious: if you block the system, the system mutates. If one set of procedures stops working - because you're trying to reform it, or just because the people holding the levers are incompetent - other procedures are developed. Parliament has decided it can't in the short term remove May's government... so instead it's attempting to, at least in this one area, remove the concept of a Government altogether. This is also, on the other hand, a great example of why British democracy has lasted so long, and why there are advantages to a flexible constitution: under stress, it can bend instead of breaking.

Of course, this will probably just be a historical footnote. It may come to nothing, and even if it does end up sorting out Brexit, it'll just be a one off. Except... No 10 will worry that there are a lot of contentious problems coming up, and if Parliament does get into the habit of solving them without the Government somehow, it may grow to like the idea...

[Salmoneus]

Consequently, the present Christchurch seat contains one of the most elderly electorates in the country – only Eastbourne and Devon East have an older average voter age and Christchurch has the highest proportion of over-60s of all UK seats.

Although, interestingly, Eastbourne is a Lib Dem seat.

Chris: not so much sacrificing, as culling.

[alice]

Meanwhile, in an attempt to steal Parliament's thunder, Nigel "expletive" Farage has resigned from UKIP. Although nobody is yet taking bets on him rejoining to become re-elected as leader; perhaps he's going to form his own political party and attract many Brexiteers.

[Salmoneus]

So, the promised TV debate between May and Corbyn isn't happening after all.

It always looked doomed, largely for scheduling reasons: May insisted that the government's priority was to ensure that the televised debate not clash with Strictly Come Dancing; but Corbyn, while acknowledging the importance of Brexit on a theoretical level, felt that it was more important that he honour his commitment to himself to have the night in and watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. As a result, negotiations were fraught from the beginning.

Three possibilities emerged, if the timing issue could be resolved. ITV proposed a head-to-head debate between May and Corbyn. The downside, of course, is that May represents neither the Leave nor the Remain camps, while Corbyn has no opinion on Brexit, and thus probably couldn't effectively hold her to account. As a result, the BBC responded with the idea of a multi-speaker debate, with representatives from all the major parties and maybe a Brexiteer too. Channel 4 then one-upped that idea by suggesting that everybody from every side be represented except the leaders of the two main parties.

Corbyn supported the ITV debate, because it gave him the most screentime, and didn't create the impression - which Labour loathes - that they might be only one of several possible alternatives to May, rather than being the embodiment of The Opposition.

May, on the other hand, supported the BBC debate, because Corbyn didn't, and because the more people were on the stage with her, the fewer questions anyone might be able to ask of her. As May is unable to conduct a two-person conversation without reciting the same answer from her notes again and again - and had to skip the election debates altogether in 2017 as a result - the only way she would be willing to have a debate would be if it was too crowded for there to be any actual debate element, so she could just deliver her speech and leave.

However, because Corbyn refused to attend the BBC debate, it had to be cancelled. And now the ITV debate has had to be cancelled too - whether because May won't turn up or because no uncontroversial timeslot can be found, or just because there's no public interest, is unclear.

As a result, a debate WILL go ahead, but it'll be the Channel Four debate, consisting only of people with no authority or power sharing opinions nobody cares about.

But hey, just because our political system is unable to organise a single episode of TV is NO reason to be pessimistic about our chances of navigating Brexit without serious injury! Brexit is, after all, a much easier issue than debate format negotiation.


-----

Meanwhile, BOTH houses of parliament are now spending all day abusing the Prime Minister. Officially it's a five-day debate on the Prime Minister's Deal - but since the houses are split between people who think the deal is shit and want to tell everyone how shit it is and people who think the deal is shit but who don't want to talk about how shit it is, with only a tiny minority of people who actually think that the deal is shit but worth defending as less shit than the alternatives, it's not so much a debate and more a week in the stocks for the PM. The "debate" is going on eight hours a day, of which about seven hours a day is furious dismissal of the Deal - although apparently there's no debate on Friday. On Monday, however, the debate may go beyond midnight.

[Salmoneus]

So, my update this morning would have been: Theresa May rejects calls to delay vote.

But this afternoon, my update is: Theresa May rejects calls to not delay vote.

An hour is a long time in British politics (and yet two years seems to have been no time at all...)


So what's changed? Well, May has suddenly learned that there is some 'concern' over elements of her deal, and that she might lose the vote (by hundreds and hundreds of votes, as we've all known from the start). There have been growing calls for her to resign or be replaced if she loses the vote. Therefore, she's delaying the vote.

Not for long! Only until she's reassured MPs and they've agreed to support her proposal. This will take, she says, only "a few days".

She's suggested that several EU members have heard the concerns and will act to respond to them. Prediction: the EU will say that they don't intend to hold us in limbo forever. Further prediction: this will make no difference. We all know they say they don't intend to hold us in limbo forever; most of us probably agree that they genuinely don't intend to hold us in limbo forever. The sticking point, however, is that we have to agree to give them the power to hold us in limbo forever if they feel like it, and being told they don't feel like it at the moment doesn't really address that issue. Not, at any rate, for the hardliners.

So the stasis continues. "This is not government," says Jacob Rees-Mogg. "This cannot continue." The former is true but the latter is not.


Fun fact: of the 54 prime ministers since and including Walpole, Theresa May is currently #37, counting by length of tenure. Maybe she's just desparate to move up to #36? At a quick calculation, she needs to be in power a further 75 days to overtake Spencer Perceval (famous for: being assassinated). After that it's a grudge match against Gordon Brown, and if she surpasses him she'll probably overtake Lord Wellington as well (yes, Gordon Brown lost office exactly one day before drawing level with Wellington). However, that would mean staying in power until the 1st or 2nd of June... and with Brexit on the 29th of March, and local elections on the 2nd May, that frankly seems like a longshot.

(yes, we've had a lot of PMs with very short tenures. 7 didn't make it the full year, and 13 didn't make it to two - the Marquess of Rockingham didn't make it to 2 years despite having had two goes at it... only 25 PMs have made it to the 4 year mark, and half of those needed multiple attempts. Commons instability is nothing new...)

[Raphael]

Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice has decided that the UK could, in principle, unilaterally cancel Brexit - something I hadn't been sure about at all until now.

[mèþru]

But have any UK courts ruled that it doesn't violate UK laws?

[Raphael]

In theory, if there was a majority to cancel Brexit in Parliament, Parliament could simply change any laws that might mandate Brexit. But that's not going to happen.

[chris_notts]

I despair. TM really must be the worst prime minister in the last 100 years, and possibly more. Perhaps we need to introduce performance related pay for PMs, or salary clawbacks for ones who take us to the point of disaster?

As far as I can tell, having taken away the opportunity for some democratic accountability, her plan now is to run down the clock in an attempt to take away any other choices that our representatives might choose to pursue.

If the process ends in chaos because she gambled and lost, she and her little unaccountable clique will be directly responsible and culpable. Perhaps we could introduce the government equivalent of corporate manslaughter and charge her with it if the worst comes to the worst?

She's a disgrace.

[mèþru]

Hey, she didn't purposely withdraw aid to a famine ravished area that the UK is directly responsible for (Churchill and the Raj)


UK's current situation is one of the reasons I like the executive branch being separate from the legislative branch in the US - the two branches are forced to develop ways of functioning without relying too heavily on the other.

[chris_notts]

https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/sta ... 28006?s=20

Maybe the 48 letters are now in on the back of the latest shambles? It would seem like suicide for the Tories, but you never know. If May wins then they're stuck, since she'll never resign, and if she loses then they'll lose what time we have left fighting over which loon they want to march them over the cliff. Either way they won't look good.

[sangi39]

I've recently heard a suggestion that the 48 letter might not be... "solid"? Since they might have been coming in gradually over several months, there's a chance some MPs might have changed their minds, but haven't sent any letters to that effect, so there could be a chance that those that had sent letters in months ago might need to be contacted again to check what their position is now. Is there anything at all to suggest that might be a possibility?