Brexit process

[Little John]

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/2 ... tatorship/

A parliamentary dictatorship

This zombie parliament is holding the nation to ransom.

‘Super Saturday’, they called it. Which is ironic because the events in parliament on Saturday demonstrated just how pathetic and exhausted our parliament has become. Once again parliamentarians were presented with a Brexit deal, and once again they dithered and dodged and shirked their democratic duties. In backing the Letwin amendment, which says Boris’s Brexit deal cannot be approved until implementing legislation has been passed, MPs signalled their desire to continue frustrating Brexit, and to continue using parliament as a weapon against the people’s will.

This parliament is not simply out of touch with public sentiment – something we already knew from the fact that 70 per cent of MPs, and a staggering 95 per cent of Labour MPs, voted Remain, while 52 per cent of the electorate voted Leave. No, it feels increasingly illegitimate, too. It lacks all political and moral authority. It is a zombie parliament. It has no real democratic mandate to govern. ‘But we voted for these MPs just two years ago!’, Remainer apologists for the zombie parliament will cry. True, but 80 per cent of those MPs were elected on manifestos that promised to take the UK fully out of the EU. And vast numbers of them are now reneging on those manifestos. They are tearing apart their contract with voters and in the process obliterating their own right to govern.

We have a Remainer parliament defying the wishes of a Brexit electorate. Numerous parliamentary devices have been deployed to the end of frustrating the people’s will. From the speaker John Bercow’s cynical manipulation of parliamentary processes to sideline the enactment of Brexit and boost the cause of Remain, to the anti-democratic Benn Bill that has now come into force and legally cajoled Boris to ask the EU for another extension, parliamentarians are using their power and their mechanisms not to enact the will of people, but to fetter it and block it. This is why they get so angry if anyone says the key divide in Britain today is between parliament and the people – because they know it’s true. And somewhere deep in the recesses of their anaemic moral consciences, that truth still stings.

‘Super Saturday’ continued this foul process of using parliamentary devices to stymie progress on Brexit. This isn’t about whether you back Boris’s treaty or are sceptical of it (as spiked is). The important thing is that in triggering the Benn Act and forcing an unwilling PM to plead with the EU for a further extension, our Remainer parliament has once again put off the fulfilment of the people’s will. The wild cheering among the reactionary middle classes of the ‘People’s Vote’ lobby who were gathered outside parliament as the Letwin amendment was passed made it clear to the entire nation what was happening here. This was not about giving MPs more time to pore over Boris’s deal, as they ridiculously tried to convince us it was. No, it was yet another underhand Remainer assault on the people’s democratic desire to break from the EU.

MPs are now doing things in parliament that they explicitly told voters in the General Election of 2017 they would not do. The two main parties promised they would not prevent the enactment of the 2016 referendum result. Candidate after candidate in the General Election said they would not seek a second referendum. Millions upon millions of people voted for them on this basis. Now, numerous MPs are betraying – yes, betraying – those voters by doing the very things they said they wouldn’t. They’re blocking Brexit. They’re campaigning for a second referendum. Many MPs are no longer even in the parties they stood for in 2017. They’ve switched to parties whose political positions, especially on Brexit, are entirely contrary to the outlook of their voters. This parliament, in the words of the attorney-general Geoffrey Cox, is a disgrace.

And yet it stays. It cannot be moved. Why? Because, not content with frustrating the democratic will of 2016, these parliamentarians are also blocking a General Election today. The shamelessness is quite staggering. They plot ceaselessly against the people’s democratic wishes and then they cushion themselves from our judgement by continually blocking a General Election. The end result is something like a parliamentary dictatorship. We now live under a parliament that is acting against the democratic interests of the people and which is preventing us from protesting about this fact at the ballot box. Such is their determination to stop Brexit that they have turned parliament into an entirely anti-democratic institution, into a tool of the elites against the public.

And then they say they are defending parliamentary sovereignty. This is a lie, and they know it is. In truth they are doing grave harm to parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty derives from the will of the people. Where else could it derive from? And yet this parliament explicitly agitates against the will of the people, to the end of continuing to sacrifice this country’s sovereignty and to outsource its law-making power to the foreign technocracy in Brussels. To sideline the British people and cling to the interfering technocracy of the EU is to trash the history and meaning of parliament, its sovereignty, and its relationship with the people.

In a sense, the events of the past few days – and of the past three years – have been valuable. They have made it clear that the greatest block to democracy in the UK is right here in the UK itself. It is our own out-of-touch and morally emaciated elites who represent the greatest threat to democratic life in this country. To use a radical old slogan: the enemy is at home.

[Little John]

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/2 ... k-control/

Boris’s ‘deal’ won’t take back control

A Brexit that limits democracy is not a Brexit worth having.

Boris Johnson led the Leave campaign with the slogan ‘take back control’. When he made his concluding remarks at the Wembley Arena debate, he was cheered by millions when he declared ‘that this Thursday can be our country’s independence day!’. Millions voted to leave the EU because it met their aspiration for greater democracy. They wanted powers to be repatriated from the EU in favour of their elected representatives in parliament.

And yet, more than three years later, the government, now led by Boris Johnson, has been ground down by a political class that has never accepted that aspiration for greater democracy. It has responded to the popular desire to ‘take back control’ by seeking to take power from the EU in order to vest it in technocrats empowered by treaties, such as the one that Boris Johnson is currently seeking to have approved by parliament.

This is not a Brexit ‘deal’. Boris Johnson is proposing more than a deal. It is a treaty, a document that will regulate by force of law. A treaty is essentially a contract that sets out what the signatories can and cannot do. In other words, a treaty pre-determines and regulates future conduct. It takes issues out of the political sphere, in which the people engage in a dialogue with their elected representatives. And it places these issues in a technical sphere, in which the people and their elected representatives are mere observers of judges, who interpret what the treaty requires, and of technocrats, who do as the treaty requires.

The prospective treaty known as the ‘Withdrawal Agreement’ – most of which was negotiated by Theresa May, and kept following Johnson’s renegotiation – sets out in a ream of paper what Britain is required to do during a transition period, which is set to start when Britain formally leaves the EU and last until the end of next year (subject to any agreed extension). The phrase ‘Withdrawal Agreement’, therefore, is also misleading. The treaty establishes that during transition Britain will remain subject to the EU laws and policies that the British people voted to be freed of. As the recital says, during transition ‘Union law, including international agreements, should be applicable to and in the United Kingdom, and, as a general rule, with the same effect as regards Member States’. This means that during transition Britain will be subject to EU-determined laws on free movement, trade, state aid, competition policy, agriculture and fisheries. In fact, during transition the UK will remain subject to almost the entire panoply of policies covered by EU laws, just as it is now.

The principal bits of the EU that Britain will withdraw from under this ‘withdrawal’ agreement are the EU’s decision-making institutions, from the EU Council and Parliament down to every other EU institution, body, office and agency (Article 7). This means that during transition, Britain will be subject to the EU’s laws but will have no say in how they are framed or applied. Britain will be subject to rule by a body over which it has no voice, vote or veto. This treaty will not take back control — it will leave control vested in the EU for the period of transition. To all intents and purposes, during transition, the UK will be governed by a foreign power in respect of all policy areas over which the EU is competent (and that is rather a lot).

Treaties of this nature are only entered into by states that have been conquered or defeated. In Britain’s case, its political class has been defeated, at the ballot box by a public that voted in June 2016 to take back control. But rather than accept that power should return to the people, the UK’s Remain-dominated elite would prefer to be ruled by a foreign institution, the EU, than by a parliament accountable to its electors.

And this won’t end with the transition period, either. Transition has always been about getting the UK used to supplicant status. Some commentators have noted with concern one aspect of this domination: that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will be the ultimate decider of all issues that arise under the treaty. Outside of the colonial era, international treaties have invariably provided for dispute resolution by independent arbitration, rather than by a court that belongs to the other treaty party. As Dr Carl Baudenbacher, a Swiss lawyer who recently retired as president of the EFTA Court, said: ‘It is absolutely unbelievable that a country like the UK, which was the first country to accept independent courts, would subject itself to this.’ And Martin Howe QC, who chairs Lawyers for Britain, predicted that ‘we will have bitter cause to regret such concessions in future years as unpredictable and activist judgements come out from the ECJ, which the UK and our parliament will have no choice but to obey’.

The reality of this treaty has been glossed over because the British political class has framed the post-referendum debate to ensure that a No Deal exit is off the agenda. As a result, many Brexiteers, even the so-called Spartans of the European Research Group (ERG), have decided that Boris Johnson’s ‘deal’ must be supported because the choice is between no Brexit or Brexit with his ‘deal’. But this framing of the debate means that the choice is between rule by Brussels (with EU membership) or rule by Brussels (with an EU treaty).

Tory Brexiteers argue that transition will only last for about 14 months (until 31 December 2020). And some in the ERG have even claimed that transition will pave the way for a No Deal exit on 1 January 2021. This argument ignores political reality. As Sir Ivan Rogers, the former UK Brexit negotiator, observed: the EU’s aim has always been to ‘maximise leverage during the withdrawal process and tee up a trade negotiation after our exit where the clock and the cliff edge can again be used to maximise concessions from London. So that they have the UK against the wall again in 2020.’

But by 2020 the UK will be in a weaker position to negotiate with the EU. It will have paid the EU a colossal exit fee, which is not legally required, of about £39 billion, so that bargaining chip will have gone. And the EU will have had 14 months to pass and apply laws that suit the needs of German exporters, French fishermen and European bankers that will have left the UK desperate to exit transition. But worst of all, the UK’s political class will, by January 2021, have a trump card: it will be able to sign away chunks of British sovereignty on the grounds that, in comparison to transition, the UK will be regaining a few modest powers.

The outline of Britain’s future relationship with the EU is prefigured in the Political Declaration. It begins by stating that the ‘basis for cooperation’ is ‘core values and rights’ that ‘incorporate… the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights’ (Paragraph 7). On this basis, the odious ECHR looks set to be cemented into the British constitution with a further treaty.

The Political Declaration then refers to the creation of a free-trade area which will be anything but ‘free’. What is proposed is ‘deep regulatory and customs cooperation, underpinned by provisions ensuring a level playing field’ (Paragraph 21). Policies covering ‘state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environment, climate change, and relevant tax matters’ are specifically mentioned as needing to be regulated by the future treaty (Paragraph 77). In other words, the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be premised on renouncing parliament’s right to determine swathes of economic and social policies.

In recent years, treaties have become a powerful tool for restricting democracy. Treaties with a limited and specific focus, which either party can unilaterally end, should not threaten democracy. In the Brexit context, several such treaties would be required, for example to keep planes flying and lorries rolling. But the treaties envisaged by today’s Remain-dominated political class – first a 535-page Withdrawal Agreement, then a future relationship premised on embracing the ECHR – do threaten democracy. They seek to turn political issues into technocratic issues. They will be drafted by a political class that loathes the idea of ordinary people determining policies and laws democratically. This political class loves the idea of people like them pre-determining policies and laws with the stroke of a draftsman’s pen, laws which are then interpreted and applied by other people like them – well-paid technocrats who can lord it over ordinary people with the authority of a treaty.

Boris Johnson’s proposals will shatter the paramount principle of any liberal democracy: that its people are sovereign. Membership of the EU always tested that principle, but at least it could be said that EU membership was about pooling sovereignty, rather than surrendering it. But under the ‘Withdrawal Agreement’ there will be no pooling sovereignty, only a surrendering of sovereignty to a foreign power. Once this principle has been abridged, the UK will be at the EU’s mercy when it comes to accepting onerous treaty terms in the future relationship.

The vote to leave the EU was a vote for democracy. It expressed the desire for ordinary people to repatriate laws from Brussels and vest them in a parliament where lawmakers would be answerable to the people. Brexit has been derailed by a political class that will not accept the impulse behind Brexit. But that impulse will not die, and it now needs to be channelled into rejecting Boris Johnson’s ‘deal’. The British people voted to take back control — they should settle for nothing less.

[RevdTess]

It is our own out-of-touch and morally emaciated elites who represent the greatest threat to democratic life in this country. To use a radical old slogan: the enemy is at home.

Of course I take the opposite view to every word of that article, until we come to the last line, which I agree with wholeheartedly! I've always said the enemy isn't the EU, it's our own so-called democracy which isn't a democracy at all but an oligarchy of elite interests.

We differ of course in who we think are the elites, who we think are reactionary, and who we think are anti-democratic. We see the same problem, but the opposite cause, and therefore the opposite solution, though we both call it 'more democracy'.

[Lord Beria3]

Brexit twitter are saying that boris appears to have a slim majority for his deal tomorrow and is likely to defeat both amendments.

[Little John]

It is our own out-of-touch and morally emaciated elites who represent the greatest threat to democratic life in this country. To use a radical old slogan: the enemy is at home.

Of course I take the opposite view to every word of that article, until we come to the last line, which I agree with wholeheartedly! I've always said the enemy isn't the EU, it's our own so-called democracy which isn't a democracy at all but an oligarchy of elite interests.

We differ of course in who we think are the elites, who we think are reactionary, and who we think are anti-democratic. We see the same problem, but the opposite cause, and therefore the opposite solution, though we both call it 'more democracy'.

No we don't see the same problem. I see all people in power as being the same, whether they are home grown or foreign. That is to say, they have power and they will attempt to hold onto it by any means, democratic or otherwise. However, the UK parliament, for all of its manifest faults is, in principle, more democratically accountable to the British people than is the deeply undemocratic bureaucracy of the EU.

[cubes]

* The UK will still be subject to certain EU fishing rights

Fishing is a relatively tiny industry, why is it considered so important to brexiteers? Especially when they're willing to throw far bigger and more important industries on the bonfire?

[UndercoverElephant]

* The UK will still be subject to certain EU fishing rights

Fishing is a relatively tiny industry, why is it considered so important to brexiteers? Especially when they're willing to throw far bigger and more important industries on the bonfire?

It is important to me because it is likely to become much more important in a collapsing world, and we need to be able to control and preserve it. "Other industries" have nothing to do with it.

[UndercoverElephant]

So parliament will vote tonight to reject Johnson's timetable for getting the bill through in the three days, and he's going to try to get a general election when they do.

Looks like a general election on December 5th.

[cubes]

Doesn't look like a general election so far.

I suspect he'll bring the bill back with a more extended timetable then it'll pass this stage. I think it will eventually pass parliament and there won't be an election until the new year (after brexit). I think BJ won't win a majority - once brexit is "done" people will quickly go back to their usual voting patterns imo, in fact, they may even be pissed off that brexit actually hasn't finished and there's at least another year of 'discussion'.

I hope for the sake of all of us you're right about brexit (particularly no deal), I don't think you are however.

[RevdTess]

So the govt have passed the ball back to the EU to decide how long an extension to offer if any. The EU will want to know what the extension 'is for'. But that question will be determined by how long the extension is.

If it's no extension, then we'd be heading for 'no deal'. If it's a month extension then we might see the govt bring back the bill even though it'll face much longer scrutiny. If it's three months then presumably we're heading to an election.

[RevdTess]

It's turned into a Monty Python sketch. Perhaps it always was.

MPs seek more clarification about what the term "in limbo" means.
"The bill is not dead but it is inert," replies Speaker John Bercow.
"It is not on a journey, it is not progressing, it might be said to be static," he says.
"It is not a corpse."

[UndercoverElephant]

So the govt have passed the ball back to the EU to decide how long an extension to offer if any. The EU will want to know what the extension 'is for'. But that question will be determined by how long the extension is.

If it's no extension, then we'd be heading for 'no deal'. If it's a month extension then we might see the govt bring back the bill even though it'll face much longer scrutiny. If it's three months then presumably we're heading to an election.

My money would be on longer than three months.

[Little John]

Translation:

The political class is in utter crisis. They dare not revoke Brexit for fear of an escalation of the public backlash that already exists. They dare not VONC the Tories and have an election for fear of the backlash that already exists. They dare not be seen to vote the current deal down for fear of said backlash escalation. They are simply foundering about, with nowhere left to turn except to keep obfuscating.

All the while, making it ever worse for themselves until, eventually, the public get to vote. When that time comes, the EU election results are going to look tame by comparison with the political massacre that is coming

[UndercoverElephant]

They dare not VONC the Tories and have an election for fear of the backlash that already exists.

No. They dare not VONC the tories unless they've got a copper-bottomed guarantee that a no deal brexit can't happen before the election takes place.

The moment there is an extension of 3 months or more, parliament will vote for an election. December 5th or 12th.

[RevdTess]

They dare not VONC the Tories and have an election for fear of the backlash that already exists.

No. They dare not VONC the tories unless they've got a copper-bottomed guarantee that a no deal brexit can't happen before the election takes place.

The moment there is an extension of 3 months or more, parliament will vote for an election. December 5th or 12th.

I agree with you, with one uncertainty: Would BJ still want an election if the EU offers a 'flextension' where you can leave as soon as the deal is passed into law? And would a VonC pass if the govt opposes it? I can't see the DUP supporting it for example as a non-Tory govt would be much worse for them (although a BXP govt would satisfy them I imagine).

It would I'm sure be really hard for Johnson to now refuse an election once a 3 month flextension is offered, having condemned the parliament as zombified and having demanded an election several times. But I actually think it would be better for him electorally to accept a month delay and get the deal into law and be the man who got Brexit done, rather than go into an election having promised to 'die in a ditch' rather than fail to leave by 31st October. That way lies electoral ruin as so many will turn to the Brexit Party.