The fact that it was unanimous really drives home how obviously illegal it was. I would love to see a direct criminal or civil consequence for this, as it negatively affected the rights of all UK citizens.
As such, when a group of parliamentarians are among those who have sued arguing their ability to do their job is frustrated, then parliament is frustrated.
The recess issue is relatively irrelevant given that we're already in uncharted waters, with Parliament having sat unusually long due to Brexit. It's already established that the timeline relating to Brexit means other conventions are being sidelined because of the importance of getting this sorted. Since Boris didn't wait for votes over recess to happen, he can not say that there would not have been adjustments made. E.g. even if Parliament as a whole were not to sit, there'd have been nothing stopping Parliament from continuing certain committee work, for example.
I know that the judgment is very recent but I suggest that you read it in full when you get a chance. The court specifically noted that a substantial amount of delegated legislation related to Brexit was scheduled to be handled by parliamentary committees in the period (under provisions in the European Withdrawal Act), and that parliamentary committees continue to sit during recess. They specifically rejected the Government’s claim that a recess period is equivalent to a prorogation, noting that during a recess parliamentary questions can still be asked (and answered) and committees continue to sit.
The prorogation is unlawful not because it prevents debate on the floor of the houses, but because it shuts down all activity in parliament in way that recess does not, and that no reasonable explanation was given to do this.
It's a model of calmness and clarity.
Is this really implying that the government doesn't keep track of Prime Ministerial communication to the extent that we're not even sure what day he gave formal advice to the queen?! Surely at the very least there is a call log.
The government doesn't have a parliamentary majority, and Boris hasn't stood as a PM candidate in a general election.
More importantly, the government isn't non-democratic by any definition.
Specifically, Boris was elected prime minister by a very small number of people, and no-one voted for the cabinet.
> PM wants an election as well, which he's likely to win (well, according to polls... which are likely wrong!)
It's kind of irrelevant what the PM wants - general elections are held in accordance to the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 (which was passed when the tories were in government). If he wants an election, it has to be with the consent of Parliament (ie the people).
Not since 1931 has a UK party received a majority of votes cast. A quirk of the voting system has usually given a parliamentary majority to one party.
Voters didn't specifically vote for a minority government in 2017. In fact, a greater proportion of them voted for the Conservative party than in the previous election, at which it "won" a majority.
FPTP can even deny a parliamentary majority to a party with a majority of votes. This is essentially what happened in the last pre-Apartheid election in South Africa, at which most voters voted for the anti-Apartheid coalition.
I'd even go as far as to partly disagree with your judgement that FPTP isn't a secret. Clearly many do know that the House of Commons is elected by FPTP, but even most political correspondents seem unaware of its far-reaching consequences. Among ordinary voters, many are unaware of FPTP. I've met UK voters who don't accept the UK doesn't already have PR for general elections.
(I've also met teachers who tell me their politics students believe we have PR until taught otherwise. I think it's a natural assumption that it necessarily takes more votes to win an election than to lose.)
I keep having arguments with UK voters that think that it takes a majority in a constituency to win a seat, for example. Many refuse to believe this isn't the case even when I give examples showing it takes just a plurality in each seat, because it just seems wrong to a lot of people, even when asking them how else you'd pick the winner in a single-seat constituency without any form of ranked voting.
FPTP just seems to seem totally counter-intuitive to people when you make them actually work through the implications.
As an immigrant, it's incredibly frustrating to come across "natives" that knows less about their own electoral system than I do.
Well, you're wrong, so why don't you go and do the basic reading first?
"In a democratic government the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all."
The lack of proportional representation deprives UK voters of both majority rule and adequate minority representation. The consequences are usually subtle, but the February 1974 general election gave the most seats to a party without the most votes. The 1951 election gave a majority of seats to a party without the most votes.
There's another problem, too. The First Past the Post electoral system prevents the electorate from correcting the state of affairs (except perhaps by accident). Call me cynical, but calls for an early general election under the existing system look like a power grab rather than a sincere attempt to let the electorate decide.
FPTP typically overrepresents some parties at the cost of others (and at the cost of voters). Politicians might want an election when they believe they will be more overrepresented afterwards than before. That's why it's no surprise for the opposition to suddenly stop wanting an election when the government begins to want one.
Alec Douglas-Home became PM while a member of the House of Lords in 1963, though he renounced his peerage on becoming PM and stood for a safe seat (Kinross and Western Perthshire). While waiting for the by-election, he was PM without being a member of either house.
It's unlikely this will happen again, but there's as far as I know still no law preventing it.
The pathologically EU-loyal British establishment is now trying to destroy the vote via the following simple trick:
1. Declare that there's no way to leave without a "deal"
2. Make it clear to the EU they can dictate any terms they want whatsoever because the UK will under no circumstances walk away from the table.
3. EU dictates terms that are essentially the same as not leaving, or actually even worse.
4. Establishment declares that this "deal" is the same thing as leaving and tries to ram it through, or failing that, to cancel the whole thing by claiming that the UK can't leave unless the EU agrees due to <generic chaos>. Both outcomes are fine by them because it establishes for good the principle that leaving the EU should be as impossible as an American State seceding from the Union, which is what they want.
What we see at the moment are people actually working in the real economy, like port operators, saying they're prepared for no deal and there'd be no disruption at all. The EU has also quietly agreed various unrelated agreements to e.g. keep planes flying and even granting London a financial passport, the thing they said they'd never actually do. The fact that "no deal" actually means already "a bunch of small continuity deals" has gone largely unnoticed in the UK.
But ultimately now it's gone far beyond port disruption, mobile roaming costs or other trivial things. The British people are receiving a message loud and clear that the entire ruling class simply will not let the UK leave unless the EU agrees, despite it being a theoretically self-governing nation. If the UK doesn't leave without the EU's agreement then many will conclude it's actually a dictatorship.
Leaving the EU is pretty easy. There's a raft of existing models to base the new relationship on - Norway, Switzerland etc. Pick one, maybe tweak it slightly to make sure you don't start a war in NI, done.
The problem is that the entire process is being run by isolationist extremists who see the UK's largest trading partner as Beelzebub and reject any form of broad agreement with the EU.
I think that the real issue here is that there doesn't appear to be a majority in Parliament for anything (witness the indicative votes earlier this year, which found no majority for any form of deal).
I think that the reason many MP's are unwilling to let the UK leave without a deal are as follows:
1) It doesn't solve anything. You still need to agree what to do for a future relationship, from a much, much weaker position (only Council of Ministers agreeement for Article 50 deal, versus Council, EU Parliament and all national regional parliaments required for a future trade deal).
2) The EU will not allow any trade deals to happen unless the Irish border, the rights of EU citizens and the money issues are resolved.
3) The UK imports the majority of their food, and WTO tariffs are really high on food, leading to potential problems with food supply (remember that it's November, when not much grows in the UK).
Like, I don't doubt that some MP's want to remain in the EU, but for my money most of them have voted for some form of Brexit deal, with the exception of the rabidly fanatical members of the European Research Group.
Additionally, with respect to the terms offered by the EU: Yes, they will be worse than staying in the EU. By definition, if you leave a club, you no longer have access to the facilities of the club. It would make zero sense for the EU to do a deal for the UK that was better or the same as membership, because no-one would remain in the EU then.
I think that the citizens of the UK have been let down by many of their political representatives, but i don't believe that their desire to remain in the EU is the cause.
If all the Eurosceptics had voted for May's deal, it still wouldn't have had the numbers to pass. I think its fairer to lay the blame on the opposition parties who voted against it largely to try to create chaos which they thought would lead them to an election they could win.
To the contrary, May’s government only tried to appease the hard-liners in her own party. Johnson has taken it even further in the same direction.
Like, the first vote definitely wouldn't have passed with them, but the third definitely would have.
Now personally, I think the Opposition should have voted for the deal, but the primary respionsibility falls on the government.
May’s majority including the DUP at the time was 7 (I think - this was after the defections to the Independent Group) so those 6 would have tipped it into a loss on their own.
Otherwise you don't have an opposition, and then you don't have much of a democracy.
It's the job of the government to secure the votes it needs for its policies, and conversely to propose policies for which it can secure the necessary votes.
That's democracy.
> In fact it was. It was a simple vote between leaving and remaining
So... do you mean "In fact it was", or do you mean "It was a simple vote between leaving and remaining"?
That's a nice strawman you're building...
> EU dictates terms that are essentially the same as not leaving, or actually even worse.
Yes. I mean, what else would you expect? They're not going to treat a random country better than EU partners.
> working in the real economy, like port operators, saying they're prepared for no deal and there'd be no disruption at all
Real people already have to apply for residency and not everybody gets it. Disruption has already happened.
For example...?
> It's being treated as a special case, like no other country anywhere in the world.
It is a special case, like no other country anywhere in the world.
While the referendum was yes or no, the framing was radically different. The "leavers" ran on a platform of, essentially, we have a plan, the EU will co-operate and there will hundreds of millions of pounds of savings. Then, post-referendum, some of the leaders (including Boris) promptly resigned because they had no plan, others negotiated badly (and one could say, in bad faith), and it became clear there was not going to be millions of pounds in savings.
"Vote yes! There'll be ice cream, cake, and unicorns."
"I vote yes!"
"Thanks! Now, there's no ice cream, the cake is Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and unicorns don't exist you bloody git."
> The day after nothing changes legally. There is no legal obligation on the British Government to take Britain out of the EU immediately. There will be three stages of creating a new UK-EU deal - informal negotiations, formal negotiations, and implementation including both a new Treaty and domestic legal changes. There is no need to rush. We must take our time and get it right.
Almost no government is.
I agree that in the current era though, she would only send for an alternate PM if they had demonstrated confidence of the House of Commons, which is very unlikely.
A matter undertaken by the Parliament may still have been illegal, but not under their purview, because of that.
[1] It is forbidden from doing so by the Bill of Rights 1688: That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.
Sure, but if high courts are disagreeing about whether it's even within the scope of the law at all, isn't it a bit much to call it 'obviously illegal', i.e. not only in 'obviously' in scope, but also with 'obvious' ruling?
And thus, in my eyes, precluding it from being 'obviously' illegal!
Their summary makes this a bit clearer - "...was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification."
They never actually indicate any law that has been violated. Just sort of a general assertion that it was an asshole, undemocratic move that they have now declared to be "illegal".
Furthermore, I remember when it was originally announced that he was considering doing this and every single lawyer, pundit, and news outlet that I read said very clearly that while it was "unthinkable" it was completely legal and he had every right to do so with the power of his position/office.
Interesting. Do you have extraordinary legal qualifications that make your opinion more valid than the unanimous judgment of the highest court in the land?
Also, let's not pretend like the courts get things right all the time. Even the "highest court in the land" fucks up all the time. Same here in the US. The judges are just as biased as everyone else. The law on this isn't even complicated. The Queen, not Boris Johnson, has the power to prorogue parliament. Therefore the request that she do so cannot be an illegal act by Boris Johnson. That's really simple logic to follow. And the Queen is immune from legal process so no act done by her can be deemed illegal which is why the court ruled that it was the advice/request that was illegal. This insane logic is just as outrageous as the actual request to prorogue parliament made by Johnson.
And the courts always get things right, yeah? Especially when it's a rushed decision based on an urgent and time sensitive event? Also, I have no skin in the UK game at all. I'm not a citizen and don't give a shit who's in power over there. I'm just an outside observer with a tub of popcorn.
The court ruled that the advice given to the Queen was illegal and she was the one who actually has the power to prorogue parliament. The Queen is exempt from the legal process and as Queen everything she does within her powers is assumed to be legal. The courts know this, which is why they want the crazy route to declare Johnson's advice/request to be the thing that was illegal. It's absurd.
Although the result is novel, this isn't particularly unusual for how the British legal systems work. Similar in principle to DC v Heller in the US Supreme Court, I suspect: the second amendment is known, but what is means for a particular DC handgun law isn't obvious until SCOTUS rules. The same here: the principle that the Crown can't use the prerogative to frustrate Parliament is now well established (starting with the Case of Proclamations [1610] EWHC KB J22) but it hadn't been tested in court whether that applied to these circumstances. Now we know.