His very exciting agenda
And I thought we’d gone crazy. Boris is getting away with his coup.
Parliament will be suspended just days after MPs return to work in September – and only a few weeks before the Brexit deadline.
Boris Johnson said a Queen’s Speech would take place after the suspension, on 14 October, to outline his “very exciting agenda”.
But it means the time MPs have to pass laws to stop a no-deal Brexit on 31 October would be cut.
House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said it was a “constitutional outrage”.
The Speaker, who does not traditionally comment on political announcements, continued: “However it is dressed up, it is blindingly obvious that the purpose of [suspending Parliament] now would be to stop [MPs] debating Brexit and performing its duty in shaping a course for the country.”
Shit’s getting real.
How long will it take Childe Donald to try to do the same?
Three Conservative members of the Queen’s Privy Council took the request to suspend Parliament to the monarch’s Scottish residence in Balmoral on Wednesday morning on behalf of the prime minister.
It has now been approved, allowing the government to suspend Parliament no earlier than Monday 9 September and no later than Thursday 12 September, until Monday 14 October.
Nice job, Brenda.
Could she have done anything else? I have no idea. I don’t understand the arrangement. The Crown plays a merely formal or ceremonial role…but then why did three Tories zip up to Balmoral to get her ok and why does it matter that she handed it over? I don’t know. Anyway she did, so Johnson’s coup is going ahead unless MPs can stop it.
Donnie of course is all for it.
Would be very hard for Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, to seek a no-confidence vote against New Prime Minister Boris Johnson, especially in light of the fact that Boris is exactly what the U.K. has been looking for, & will prove to be “a great one!” Love U.K.
Or England, or Queenville, or whatever they’re calling it today.
She could have chosen otherwise, but it was a no-win situation for her, because either option is a form of constitutional crisis. Rejecting the advice of her Prime Minister is automatically a crisis in itself, it has not even been contemplated since 2010. She would be dismissing Johnson as PM. A monarch has not dismissed a PM since 1834, and the constitutional tradition has moved considerably since then. It is not an exaggeration to say that part of the relevant precedent is what led to the English Civil War.
But her other option was to accept a tactic designed to prevent Parliament from expressing its will, which may be a constitutional crisis as well. Faced with a Hobson’s choice, she had adhered to the tradition of deference to the nominally elected Parliamentary authority. Without a doubt, this is the worst moment of her reign.
Thank you, that’s helpful. I didn’t realize saying no would amount to dismissing him.
I guess our two Great Nations are competing on which can give the best show of This Isn’t Working.
Think of it as a gentleman’s agreement, established partially before and then definitely after Oliver Cromwell’s funny business, wherein heads of government pretend to defer to the Crown to receive the Crown’s pro-forma imprimatur, in return for not lopping off the head that wears the Crown once more. Canada has the same tradition, with (a representative of) the very same monarch. I assume Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps a few other former colonies operate under a similar principle (and the same principal).
It’s something of the opposite of the myth of ‘Checks and Balances’; everyone knows that it’s a vacuous tradition and that the monarchy has no corporeal power any longer, though the Crown technically does have the right to disapprove of major decisions. (Technically this actually happens to make Commonwealth-style governments fall, through so-called ‘confidence’ votes, the outcomes of which determine the fate of the government which still requests it from the Crown or a representative of same). But the real exercise of a ‘royal veto’ would be a one-time move; in all but the United Kingdom, it very likely would result in Her Madge no longer being the head of state within 24 hours, and within the UK itself, it might well lead to the rapid end of the Crown…though presumably, but by no means certainly, by the same means that Cromwell employed.
The upshot of all this is, of course, that one hundred percent of the blame falls upon BoJo’s dandered shoulders.
(Bah. *Not* through the same means that Cromwell employed.)
Some more context: some media figures are speaking as if this is some extraordinary act, the equivalent of a dictator abolishing democracy. That’s a gross exaggeration. Parliament gets prorogued all the time. (As in, every year or so.) The current session is actually the longest one in centuries. And so in one sense, it’s fairly normal for a new Prime Minister to want to prorogue a long-running Parliament, so that he can begin a new session with a Speech From the Throne outlining his government’s agenda.
That’s not to say that I support what Johnson is doing, or think it isn’t objectionable or even — in the Speaker’s words — a “constitutional outrage.” There’s context on the other side, too. This session of Parliament has been long-running because it’s dealing with a looming crisis and unable to reach a clear resolution. The PM’s request is intended to limit Parliament’s ability to weigh in on said crisis. And the PM himself may not actually command the confidence of Parliament (though I believe the Opposition will have the opportunity to test that before prorogation). So a PM with shaky democratic legitimacy is asking the Queen to silence the institution that actually represents the people at a time when its voice is most crucial.
But I agree that the Queen had little choice. Johnson, not her, will ultimately have to face the people in an election. And if Parliament is so shocked by this move, it will have an opportunity (I believe) to vote no-confidence, at which point, if — a big if — they are able to unite around Corbyn or someone else as a caretaker PM, said PM could then advise the Queen to rescind the prorogation.
My understanding of the British system (somebody correct me if I’m wrong) is based much more on precident and tradition rather than a written constiturion. As the American version of the game is supposed to follow a set of actual rules which are being ignored, disregarded, or broken, I declare the United States of America winner in this month’s edition of This Isn’t Working. The winner of this round gets a Disfunctional Government with the chance of advancing to Police State and Military Dictatorship in the playoffs. Winners go on to compete for the status of Failed State in the Finals. Good luck to all!
You’ll need it…
Incidentally, Canada had a less dramatic “prorogation crisis” in the last decade.
I’m going from memory plus a glance at Wiki, which is always dangerous, but: Steven Harper’s Conservatives had a minority government at the time, i.e. a government with the most seats but not a majority, and not a formal coalition that gave them a majority. The Opposition parties banded together and proposed to vote no-confidence in the Harper government and request that the Governor-General (the Queen’s representative in Canada, who fulfills her functions) ask them to form a coalition government rather than calling a new election.
In order to avoid a non-confidence vote that he would lose, Harper asked the GG to prorogue Parliament in early November. She granted it, on the condition that the new session begin by the end of January.
It actually worked out for Harper. During the intervening time, he railed against the proposed coalition (which would have relied on the support of the separatist Bloc Quebecois), the main opposition Liberal Party cannabilized its lame duck leader Stephane Dion, and the opposition coalition fell apart by the time Parliament resumed in January, with the Liberals agreeing to support the Conservative budget. The Harper government held on with a minority for another couple of years, and then won an outright majority in 2011.
Which, arguably, means that prorogation — though vociferously denounced by many as anti-democratic and coup-like at the time — was legitimate. Putting aside the question of the BQ’s participation, it was probably not a loss for democracy that a coalition that couldn’t hold itself together for two months when it wasn’t even in power was denied the chance to flop around limply as the government under a lame duck Prime Minister. The people’s representatives in Parliament went on to prop up Harper’s government for several more years, and the voters themselves didn’t unite in horror against the supposed coup. (I pause here to note that any argument about Canadian election results has to have the usual caveats about how the Tories won a majority in 2011 with much less than majority support, due to the multi-party system and first-past-the-post voting, if you combine Liberal and NDP votes yada yada yada….)
The Grauniad isn’t impressed
Also, tiny request: can we please call him ‘Johnson’, not ‘Boris’? It’s the whole ‘Boris’ fiction that got him this far and I just think it’s important to keep at the front of our minds that he’s not the bumbling, genial fool that he pretends to be, he’s a narcissistic, sociopathic serial liar (sounds familiar…).
It’s interesting, because a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were watching a play called, I think, King Charles III, about Chaz ascending the throne after Elizabeth died. One of his first actions is to sign a bill that would strip the freedom of the press, and he took a principled stand and did not sign. It led to a standoff between the crown and the PM, and ultimately Parliament proposed to strip the crown of its legitimacy (such that it has). The king would not back down, so they forced him to abdicate, turning the throne over to William and Kate. William promptly signed the bill, peace was restored, the riots were ended, and everyone was happy (except, of course, Charles).
During the crisis, Charles shut down Parliament.
What I found odd about this play is that the press, which was facing severe restrictions on what it could print, was backing Parliament on this. I found that hard to accept, even if they are in general anti-monarchy.
I didn’t know how much to trust the veracity of the play, though it was interesting in that I agreed with the position of Charles, without being able to agree with the overwhelming need to save the monarchy. I was thinking, good bye, good riddance, but I hated the idea that the press was being put under these restrictions that would ultimately not allow it to insult elected leaders. Elected leaders do so need to be insulted now and then.
This situation is giving me a look into a real life discussion of this very sort of plot line.
Sorry about the “Boris” thing. I think of it as belittling rather than cozy. Will try to remember.
I almost (but not really) feel sorry for the Queen. It must be difficult to be a puppet to constantly changing masters.
On the other hand, she’s got that nice place to summer in Scotland.
#10: I would imagine that the nuances of calling him ‘Boris’ would be somewhat different to an observer based in the USA. There wouldn’t be that persistent immersion in the carefully orchestrated campaign to present him as a nice-but-dim ‘cheeky chappie’ for the last twenty-odd years, and the continuing presentation of that persona by the right-wing press as they attempt to disguise his true awfulness (they have to blur the similarities to Trump – even now, that would be fatal to Johnson’s quest for self-aggrandisement: we do not like Trump over here).
I think here it’s more a sign of disrespect. My husband was reading me an article by a sports writer once, talking about how they always called the white players by their last name, but black players were called by first names. It’s considered a means of infantilizing them. That’s also why women so often get first-named, no matter how important or accomplished they might be. That’s one reason I no longer let my students call me by my first name, especially after learning that they always call the male profs by their last names…Mr. This, Mr. That, iknklast, Mr. Something else.
Just another example of how we are divided by a common language (or whatever that phrase is; I’m too lazy to look up the exact phrase after a long day with back-to-back labs).
Yes, pretty much. Australia willingly pretends to be under the rule of a monarchy as a polite fiction, creating the appearance of English empire, while actually being entirely sovereign. Irritatingly, this gives rise to fairly regular misunderstandings from others in the world, who buy the illusion and believe Australia to still be under the authority of the UK.
Worse still is the sheer range of people falling for it: Brits, who believe Australia will snap to attention if the queen issues an order; non-Commonwealth people, who don’t know that the Commonwealth is an empire on paper only, and even Australians who think we need to leave the Commonwealth in order to become sovereign… many of whom want an American political system!
@iknklast #14: there is an element of that here, too. Women get first-named, men get mistered. Women are called ‘girls’ more often than men are called ‘boys’ (although ‘lads’ is quite common, but that has overtones of ‘lad culture’ — not a good thing).
With Johnson, the whole ‘Boris’ thing is about presenting him as a mate, your chum who you’d go out for a pint with, “one of the lads” (), good for a laugh, always stands his round. It’s all bollocks, of course. Farage does something similar: the pint and a ciggie look, designed to appeal to mateyness and to disguise his privileged roots under a veneer of being a bit down-to-earth.
The problem is that it works, hence there is a small effort being made here to deliberately refer to him as Johnson, and to ask people not to feed the myth.
@Holms #15
It’s why the UK has to leave the EU, doncha know? Even if we have to bypass Parliament to get it.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944/2650866344931810/?type=3&theater