England: Mr Bates versus the Establishment

So the pound has gone up. The market thinks brexit is less likely to happen

That is precedent though, not law. Precedent can be broken.

For example, as part of the Lib Dems going into coalition with the Tories there was a referendum on introducing preferential voting into parliamentary elections. However, the referendum wasn’t necessary - parliament could have passed a law saying this is how elections will now be run.

Just because there was precedent that parliamentary elections are first past the post didn’t mean there was any law (i.e. constitution) saying how they should be run, or what had to be done to change how they were run. The precedent could be changed.

Similarly, as referendums have no law setting out how they are run, they can be setup any which way. Usually they’ve been non-binding in the UK, which means further legislation has to be introduced to ratify the results (if it calls for a change).

Although I’ll generally agree with your points, I would point out that having fiscal cash flows from the stronger to the weaker economies does mitigate the effect of the currency. The impact of the GFC would also have been mitigated if the entire EU hadn’t got a bee in their bonnet about austerity as well.

You’re conflating a number of issues.

All law can be changed whether it is legislation (by Act of Parliament) or common law (by judicial decision. Although technically the common law doesn’t change it just gets added to and previous precedent gets distinguished - sometimes spuriously).

The UK has an act of parliament which governs referendums. Typically they pass a separate act to govern each referendum which they did for brexit. They are non-binding because they are subject to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

In Australia we have a written commonwealth constitution and state ones too. These are acts of parliament too and can be changed by acts of the relevant parliament. Both the Victorian act and the commonwealth act have provisions which entrench them to a certain degree and in some instances (all instances in the case of the commonwealth) require a referendum approving the amendment. The constitutions don’t however set out how elections are run - that is in the relevant electoral acts which can be changed by the parliament by passing legislation without a referendum. Exactly how the uk parliament can change their elections laws too.

We can hold referendums in Australia which do not relate to changing the constitution and, just like the UK, typically pass an act of parliament to govern how it is run.

Anyway, I hope the above assists - it is a messy area of law and can be confusing.

But none of that argues against my original point - the UK parliament can set up a referendum anyway they want.

More generally, it appears to me there are two main voting blocks who might change to get out of this deadlock. There are the Tories who voted for May’s deal who have to realign with one of the other options, and there is the Labour leadership + followers. For me the logical outcome (so it won’t happen) is a second vote with managed no-deal versus remain. Those who voted May’s deal can say to their constituents “I voted the deal, that’s off the table so these are the remaining options”, so they have some protection. May can argue the same, and she was originally Remain anyway. Even the hard brexiters would find it a little hard to argue as their preferred option is on the referendum.

The issue with all that is it needs Labour’s leadership to support it. And nobody knows WTF Corbyn et al will actually go for. You would think with his main push of a general election and Labour renegotiation now off the table with the no-confidence vote, he would have to take a position. But we know he doesn’t like this. Ironically, the referendum with Remain vs. Negotiated No-Deal would mean he could support something that allows him to still not take a position, so maybe its a realistic possibility.

…

The reality is, if this was a logical world, then the “Deal” option should be off the table (due to May’s vote being lost), and the Labour election + renegotiation should be off the table (due to the no-confidence vote results). Which should only leave Remain, No-Deal, or maybe one of the existing systems (such as Norway). The third one hasn’t really had any major support at any stage. So it should be Remain vs. No-Deal. But somehow I expect it will become “how much more time can we delay things” option.

yep, there’s no mandated format for them, and due to Parliament having ultimate sovereignty they can choose to ignore a national result anyway, or act/repeal at a later time.

Your original statement was that the uk does not have a constitution so there are no rules.

As I stated in my posts above nothing about this statement is correct.

  1. It does have a constitution, it’s just not all in the one spot.

  2. There are rules. There is a UK act dealing with referendums in general.

Anyway, carry on.

Ok, so it turns out that last week the Parliament passed an amendment to some motion that now requires the re-submission of a revised deal within three Parliamentary sitting days . It reads as though everyone - in the absence of codified rules and instead using procedural convention- are all too busy dredging up ancient rules and precedents from the 1800’s to manipulate the Brexit happenings and no-one really thought the speaker would allow it. 17 conservatives crossed the floor to ensure the 3-day requirement got passed, many of whom apparently are trying to force a 2nd Referendum. But May may(!) now be able to find some other obscure procedural precedent to get around the requirement. LOL. Meanwhile, the deadline draws ever nearer.

for those who know, and without a Gov General fail-safe that we have, can the Queen dissolve parliament?

Edit: No, she no longer can. She lost that power in 2011 ! FMD.

No she can’t.

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yeah, just looked it up. The pollies gave themselves the power in 2011 via fixed terms. LMFAO.

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Why would you want parliament dissolved now?

I think it’d be a nice option to at least have (or perhaps threaten is more accurate) , because right now there aren’t (or don’t seem to be) any achievable options (other than the default no-deal exit). Those that want an extension and new referendum vote can’t get the numbers. Those that want to withdraw entirely can’t get the numbers. Those that want an election can’t get the numbers. Those that want Mays ‘back stop’ deal can’t get the numbers. The EU are flatly refusing to budge on the NI/Eire border issue.

It’s hard to see how anything but a cold exit happens from here. Which means WTO terms, including a hard border along the Irish frontier. Which supposedly no-one wants, and is about the only thing most agree on.

Don Mania has hit the nail on the head. Deep down the UK has never considered themselves to be part of Europe or more directly European. This was a key driver in the Leave vote.

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Probably right. When I lived in the UK, they didn’t like being called part of Europe.

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Likely to be Sinn-Fein members who never sit in Parliament.

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It’s really anyone’s guess what happens from here, but I find it fascinating to watch.

My money would be on an the Hard Brexit (WTO Terms) because it’s the thing that will happen if no progress is made toward any other option. While I don’t buy into what some people call “project fear”… I’ll be stocking up on some essentials in early March.

Second most likely option would be for the EU to offer a legal assurance on the Irish Border, then the previous Act would possibly pass parliament (although it’s got a lot of ground to make up). Let’s face it, if it weren’t for the border issue, the withdrawal agreement in a better position.

Third, an extension of time. But even then there would need to be a clearer path toward an agreement because I can’t see the EU agreeing to an extension of time without a getting some clarity back from the UK.

I think an eventual “Remain” is very unlikely but probably my preferred result at this point. Would be quite funny. Someone tweeted recently their preferred option is now a Hard Remain… scrap the useless UK Government and get run by Europe

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Watching the Poms sweat about this is highly amusing!

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Reading a couple of articles that suggest “this is not the Brexit the people voted for”. So Exactly what Bexit did they vote for? I suspect there’s no clear answer to that, just like there’s no clear answer on how to get it done.

Arguably, a “no deal Brexit” is actually what they did vote for, in the sense of full autonomous control over every decision moving forward and controlled borders/people movement. With obvious repercussions such as hard borders in NI, trade deals having to be totally re-done etc etc. But high profile cretins such as Boris Johnson have seemed convinced all the way through of an inflated UK’s inherent importance to the EU and assumed that they’d effectively - in many ways- be kind of paid to leave the institution they themselves want out of. Which simply hasn’t happened. France is now preparing to spend on a no-deal exit, installing customs points at airports, ports etc for UK trade/people.

Meanwhile , Hitachi have halted construction of a new Nuclear powerplant in Wales, due to financial uncertainty. A couple of other sites have also hit roadblocks. These are all very important to UK infrastructure by the early 2020’s. Shorter term, the UK purchases about 25% of its power from France. Do the French turn that off on March 29 until a new trade deal is hammered out?

UK health system is now stockpiling supplies in case of a hard exit.

UK postoffices won’t be able to cope with International drivers licensed applications since suddenly every EU citizen in England will need one. I’d never even thought of these sorts of things.

UK sheep industry - and flow on to farming suppliers - will likely collapse as they’ll lose tarrif-free access to their main market. Good for Australia though, as our lamb will be cheaper than a tarrif impacted UK export…

This thing is going to hurt in areas that are probably not yet even foreseen. Many will probably be fixed over time via individual trade deals, but that won’t happen overnight. Especially if they spend the next two months squabbling over an exit plan that won’t get through anyway.

I find the whole thing very interesting. But I’m glad it’s not us. There are some insoluble factors in play.

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