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Comment by neilwilson | Hacker News Reader

We retain the capacity in the UK to do just that.

Parliament sits above the courts as effectively the Supreme Court of the UK, where everybody's interests are notionally represented (the current mis-named 'supreme court' is really just the Court of the United Kingdom). The King, via the Ministers of the Crown, could propose a building as a Bill in Parliament. If Parliament then passes that as an Act, then it will happen and nothing can stop it from happening. Including using the Army to detain and remove protestors if necessary. All it needs is the relevant sections in the Act.

Recovering this power is why Brexit was so important. With it we can build the green infrastructure we need as we built the railways - via dictatorial Acts of Parliament that brook no opposition.

Now all we need are MPs prepared to use that power to save us from oblivion.

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> Recovering this power is why Brexit was so important. With it we can build the green infrastructure we need as we built the railways - via dictatorial Acts of Parliament that brook no opposition.

Like, for example, the High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Act, which passed in 2017 and was pootling through parliament from 2013? i.e. almost entirely before even the Brexit referendum, and definitely before Brexit?

Have you skimmed through the Act?

It was passed, deliberately, with thousands of pages of legalese, riders, caveats, opt-outs, etc…

Very different from a one page Act that would delegate supreme power to some HSR committee with the power to destroy anyone who resists.

>Recovering this power is why Brexit was so important.

Yet public infrastructure in Britain still costs 2-3 times what it costs in continental Europe. It strikes me that blaming the EU was a very convenient excuse.

To some extent that explains the current disarray of the Tory party. Almost since the UK was brought into Europe (by the Tories, mind you!), the British right, and parts of the left, have adopted a position of simply blaming Europe for everything (including entirely imaginary things; see euromyths). After Brexit, this is an increasingly implausible platform, so you see a casting around for new scapegoats (I’m pretty much convinced that’s where the Tories’ newfound obsession with trans people comes from, say), and new fantasies (see Liz Truss’s great economic plan).

Mate, Britain can't lay 80 miles of rail track, brexit or no brexit

… I mean, if whoever proposes it never wants to be elected again, then sure. However, the EU in no way stopped the UK from doing that; common sense stops it from doing that. It would simply be politically untenable.

The UK has a severe problem with NIMBYism; not being in Europe wouldn’t just make that magically go away. In practice, the UK leaving the EU will likely hurt infrastructural development; doing so has damaged the British economy, and the UK now simply can’t afford it (big, forward-thinking infra work is about the first thing to get defunded when budgets are tight, generally, and the British budget isn’t just tight, it’s a black hole).

Yet they would get elected again - since if it passed through Parliament it has the support of the majority of representatives and if it was done properly the consultation would have happened ahead of the decision.

Once the decision is made the minorities objecting to it can be cleared out of the way - because they have already had their say in Parliament via their representatives.

Also budgets in the U.K. are never tight and we can always afford anything we have the people to do.

Brexit was, and always will be utter folly.

That power existed before the referendum too. The leave campaign was full of intentionally vague statements that were emotionally charged but lacked any factual substance.

Our “sovereignty” hasn’t changed. The NHS didn’t get any additional funding. Trade deals have gotten worse not better. The whole thing was just smoke and mirrors.

Literally the only thing the referendum was sincere about, was David Cameron’s desire to consolidate votes and reduce the number of his own MPs leaving for other right-wing parties.

He succeeded at that, but its cost the economy literally billions.

It didn’t before. Any individual could appeal to European law via Judicial Review to overturn an act of parliament where it fell into the EU treaty ambit - particularly if they were European.

Now we’re out of the EU that option no longer exists and we can now pass legislation that cannot be stopped by the courts

I see it's 2024 and fantasies are still going strong amongst brexiteers.

Are you unfamiliar with the process known as judicial review?

While the above poster is a little overenthusiastic, there is no judicial review of acts of Parliament. Judicial review seeks to challenge whether a public body reached a decision lawfully, and acts of Parliament are always lawful provided they are passed in the property manner

https://davidallengreen.com/2023/01/courts-and-politics-and-...

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