UK in/out referendum on the EU (Brexit vs Bremain)

oooh! according to The Guardian its possible that the Supreme Court will rule that Johnson was unlawful.



its gonna be epic!

Fun to see history re-enacted. Trump has been shot down by lower courts many times, and the main action of the Supreme Court has been to refuse to hear the appeals, basically upholding the lower courts. I suppose this will be the first of many tangles between Boris and the courts.

He has also been accused of using public funds on a 'model.' Its probably Stormy Daniels.



Update. they are going to give us the results of the court hearing tomorrow, Tuesday 10.30am.

Mrs Figg wrote:Update. they are going to give us the results of the court hearing tomorrow, Tuesday 10.30am.

Excellent! I'll bring the popcorn!

I just saw they ruled unanimously against Boris.  It seems common sense can prevail in legal circles.

From the Guardian there was a phrase that struck me: "The court stopped short of declaring that the advice given by Johnson to the Queen was improper. It was a question they did not need to address since they had already found that the effect of the prorogation was itself unlawful."

So in British eyes "improper" is a step beyond "unlawful"?  

It wasn't the only reason I stayed up late last night, but I'm glad I was able to hear the result and follow the reactions to its immediate aftermath live. This is nuts. I think it's clearly the right decision, but it's still uncharted territory for the British constitution. The UK Supreme Court has only existed since 2009 and it doesn't even have the authority to strike down Acts of Parliament. This is, for better or worse, not a political system with a strong tradition of judicial review--at least until now. It will take years to hash out all the long-term implications.

Good going, BoJo. You just fundamentally redefined your country's constitutional balance of power between the branches of government because you assumed everyone would roll over and submit while you kept ignoring conventions.

"BoJo"

{{{ Well, well. This will probably not be a short post!
Things are interesting, but perhaps somewhat overblown.
Effectively not much has actually changed in a practical sense.

But before I get into all that, I want to take a few steps back here and talk Labour.

Its Labour's party conference, and this Court decision could not have come at a better time for Labour- but the cracks its papering over will soon reappear. I base that on the farce that was the Conference to that point.

Its first necessary to understand how Labour Conference works when it comes to voting on policy.
One might expect that motions are put forward, selected for voting and then the party faithful vote on them.
And this in indeed the case- except there is a crucial, fixed and rigged step in-between motion selection and voting.
The stitch up occurs between the party leadership and the Unions. Because of the huge influence the Unions have over the party their combined votes outvote all the party delegates at Conference.
In this particular case the issues was what Labours Brexit position was going to be.
The majority of the party grassroots and many Labour MP's up to Shadow Cabinet level want Labour to unequivocally support Remain.
Corbyn and the Unions want to hold a general election after the 19th October and then hold a second referendum and for Labour to be 'neutral' on that.

So prior to the conference vote Corbyn and co locked themselves up with the Union heads and agreed their position. With the result that the vote was going to go Corbyn way before it even got to the party members on the floor of conference.

This as you might expect did not go down well and we were treated to remarkable sights, such as speakers from the grassroots simply going to the podium, declaring it pointless to say anything as its all been stitched up, and walking back off again.
The chair for the vote refused a 2nd vote, or to take a card count, passing the motion in Corbyns favour on a hand vote, leading to more accusations form Remainer leaning Labour grass roots that they had been stitched up in a rigged vote. Not helped by the chair for that debate being from one of the unions involved in the stitch up.



So the Court case on Boris is manna from heaven as its shifted the focus off Labours conference disaster.

But also getting buried under this are the policies Labour has voted to enact if elected.
The most unpopular, worst result for Labour in recent memory was for Michael Foots manifesto from 82 - a manifesto so left wing it was utterly rejected by the electorate and led to first Kinnock, then Smith then Blair radically transforming the party and moving it towards the centre ground and to be more business friendly (arguably Blair took it too fare the other way and ended up right of centre, but the overhaul aim since Foot has to get away from the severe left radical policies and more to centre left social justice policies).

Corbyns manifesto is left of Foots.

So among the things voted for-

The abolition of private education.

Scrapping Ofsted which not only inspects schools standards but has large welfare of children responsibilities and replacing it with something that only says nice things about schools.

Force employers to grant flexible work hours to menopausal women

Force landlords to sell their houses to any tenants that want to buy them and have lived in the resident for 3 years or more.

Nationalisation of various private industries.

Massive increases in upper end taxation.

Invest billions of tax-payer money in electric cars.

A 4 day working week, with no loss of earnings over working a full week.

On  more sensible grounds, well frankly the more sensible stuff is all nicked from the SNP and what they have done in Scotland, in this category of indikit policies stolen from Scotland we have -

Free personal care for over 65's with the most severe needs and free prescriptions.

Now its worth remembering the last Labour government, who had nowhere near this left an agenda, left office leaving behind a note informing the new incoming coalition government 'sorry there's no money left'.

Given that, and ten years of austerity policies as a result, its hard to see how the country can afford to increase wages, cut the hours people work while maintaining pay, tax business and private wealthy individuals more and give away a list of freebies as long as your arm.

Then there are questions of personal choice over the State choosing for you- dissolving all private schools removes parental choice, scrapping ofsted would mean also scrapping the published lists of schools and how they are rated, denying parents the ability to check up on a schools performance before sending their children there.
And as for forcing Landlords into selling their properties- that one in particular seems a bit of ill-thought out leftie madness to me as all it will do is make things worse for tenants as either there will simply be a lot less private rented accommodation if people are afraid of losing their properties by renting them, or all tenancies will be non-permanent, even more so than now, ensuring no one stays in one place for as long as 3 years to qualify to buy. Its completely unworkable.

And whilst the Boris court thing has caused the big stir and hidden all this from view its only temporary, with an election in the offing in probably November this extremely left wing manifesto, the most left wing any Labour government has stood on post the war, is what they will be trying to sell to the people.


Ok, so now lets have a look at the mess Boris is in. Or is he really?
Unless he chooses to resign, which seems unlikely then there are only two ways to out him- a vote of no confidence, or a general election.

Corbyn today ruled out the former, saying he wont do it until after No Deal Brexit is off the table by forcing Boris to delay at the EU meeting on Oct 19th. After which there will be a General Election anyway.

So unless Boris chooses to go, with Corbyn unwilling to force him to go, I see no reason why he would go before the general election and I expect him to stand at that election.

And frankly the next general election is an English only one effectively.
Scotland is irrelevant in this show- the SNP will almost certainly dominate there, Labour will either creep past the Tories here with Ruth Davidson gone to a miserable 2nd place, or remain in 3rd as now if the Lib Dems steal their thunder here, of which there is a good chance.
So in terms of an election that realistically is between Labour and Tory, returning the SNP makes a point about a 2nd indie referendum, but is largely irrelevant to the outcome at Westminster.

And England has never once in recent memory displayed a leaning for overtly socialist policies, not anywhere in the numbers you need for an election. And indeed a lot of the proposed policies outlined above will be a severe turn off to many English voters if passed manifestos can be used as a guide. On top of that the Labour vote is split between remainers and leavers. And if you are a reaminer, Corbyn's 'I'm neutral' stance may well incline you to vote for the outright Remain Lib Dems, and if your a labour brexiteer then the unequivocal position of the Brexit party may seem a better bet for achieving that than neutral Labour.
Either way even putting aside how left leaning the policies are, Corbyns neutrality alone will almost certainly lose labour votes.

For Boris his main election issue is Farage and his Brexit party- if Boris doesn't do a deal with Farage then there is a very good chance the pro-Brexit vote will get split, and in a tight election that could well be the difference between Boris returning as PM and Labour sneaking in through the backdoor.
If he does do a deal however then there is a very good chance that even if Boris does not secure an outright majority he will have one with the brexit party added to the tally.

So my prediction is if Boris hangs in there he will try to get a deal from the EU and stick to plan A- triumphant return amid chaos and challenge the others to vote against the people by voting down his new deal. If this works he will have neutered opposition, taken all the wind out of Labour, Lib Dem and SNP sails on the matter and can call an election in triumph as the man who did the impossible and delivered Brexit on the promised date.

If he has to delay Brexit again he will simply go straight to the polls, relying on the unpopularity of Labours far left manifesto and Corbyns indecisiveness and alliances with Farage to win the day and return to PM with a mandate for any sort of Brexit he likes.

Oh, and one addition to all this- there is nothing in the court ruling preventing Boris from doing the exact same thing again and proroguing Parliament for a Queens speech- he'll only be able to get away with about 4 days at most, but on top of the time its taken to get this far another 4 days on top eats up most of the time proroguing would have anyway and challenging it again in the courts would take longer than just having the Speech.

Constitutionally there are voices calling for a written Constitution in light of all this - now those who have followed my views on that matter over the years know I am not in favour of such a prospect. And in fact despite this whole thing seeming like a mess it is infact a demonstration that the system as is does work in terms of checks. The PM, the highest office in the land has been found guilty and the decision reversed. The courts effectively have backed the unwritten rule that Parliament ids sovereign as the representatives of the people, even over party, even over government.
An irony in itself as one of the biggest claims of the Brexiteers is that leaving is necessary to restore the sovereignty and authority of our Courts- and now we have a very sovereign authoritative court decision the Brexiteers don't want it!

Blimey so much to discuss and I haven't even got to the ramifications for Monarchy out of this, Ill come back to that in a later post maybe, for now suffice to say I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting between PM and Monarch! }}

yes indeed, being a fly on the wall would be exciting  Thank you SO much for the posts you put up about all this. Im one of those durrrrr brains who need things spelt out simply for me to understand, once its simplified I can take it in so, thank you ! Ive never had a head for politics, never been interested which, looking back is a daft stance to take. Everyone should have some idea of whats going on if only because it IS your life this schemers are playing ping pong with. "We" are nothing but bargaining & bartering tools to this high tie lot & I now feel Ive shuffled along like a guinea pig led this way or that & saying "oh, ok" to the lot of it.
"we" may all moan what bastard he or she is but, we've let them be that bastard to some extent if "we" don't start learning about how politics work & what is going on & schools could help towards that by educating kids in their last year of education.

This may be getting me into the weeds, but why do menopausal women need flexible hours? (that is to say, more than anyone else?)

{{{ Well the poor dears Halfy, they need extra special treament for the fact they can become pregnant, they need extra special treatment because they have hormones, I suspect time off for periods will be next on the agenda or anytime they feel a bit moody. The poor weak things they must need all this protection unable as they appear to be to function in the workplace due to their inferior femine bodily needs and lack of mental rigour to overcome it and which they have no means to control or handle.  

And yes that was deep sarcasm having spent my working life with women who could frankly work through illness, colds and hangovers that would have floored me for days.
And more seriously there is already a deeply damaging underlying prejudice in the workplace against employing women on the basis that they will sod of for children at some point leaving the company needing to replace them anyway, adding to that misbegotten notion by insisting they need time off for menopause too is not going to help but simply give misguided employers even more reason to think hiring a woman in a career position is a liability.
Stupid, virtue signalling nosnense with no actual thought behind it beyond 'this will make us sound worthy and pro women' or any consideration for if it might actually make it worse not better for women in the workplace.  This is classic Momentum policy.

edit add - If they really want to help women in the work place massively increase funding to the department for work and pensions to investigate employers to ensure that they really are paying equally for equal work and double the fines to those who aren't. Cut taxes to small companies with fewer than 100 employees by the same amount it would cost them to provide childcare for employees, do the same but with corporation tax for large companies and add childcare facilities to the duties of the NHS and provide the buildings to do so ensuring there are enough places to meet needs. Give families the right, even if couples have different employers, to co-ordinate holidays times with school holidays. Where the job allows have flexible working hours and where its shift based have a staggered shift pattern so that there can be shifts that start in the morning and end in afternoon, or start in afternoon and end in the evening to allow for the often changing school hours/clubs/music practise/ etc .
You know, actually useful stuff. Not acting as if women need protection from their own bodies. }}

I have to agree with all of what you say Petty. In particular abolishing private education is a bit Stalinist. As for menopausal women it looks like they are trying to turn it into a disease when it isn't a disease, women don't need time off for hormones unless it is very debilitating or you need time for doctors appointments, mostly you just take a painkiller and get on with it. I do agree though that stuff like periods and menopause have been taboo and ignored for decades and at least they are attempting to remedy this.

As for BloJo I think its better to keep him in post as he is totally discredited and weakened, the last thing we need is Demonic Raab to take over the leadership. He needs to face the music. The Opposition must ignore the blustering from Rees Mogg and Cox and hold off a general election until after 31st October. That is vital. Once he fails to come up with a deal on the 17th, he must be forced to ask for an extension, by that stage his 'do or die' bollox will be well and truly discredited. A general election is also dangerous for Labour, I could not believe the stitch up vote, it was appalling. It was obvious Corbyn had failed. I think Watson is going to call for a recount, maybe that's why the extremists wanted to get rid of him. Not keen on Watson but at least he is a moderate in comparison with Momentum.

As for BloJo I think its better to keep him in post as he is totally discredited and weakened, the last thing we need is Demonic Raab to take over the leadership.- Figg

{{That is a very good point Figg. With Boris having purged anyone on the moderate side likely to be any sort of threat to his position, combined with Boris being a moderate pretending to be a hard right wing of the party Brexiteer - meaning the ones immediatly behind him likely to succeed him are the real right-wing deal - Boris is actually the lesser of Tory evils right now.
Though I'd take Rabb over Patel as PM, that's even scarier, but then its like trying to choose between your two favourite flavours of dog shite, neither is palatable. }}

yep Patel is much worse. Raab is thick, she isn't.

{{ Yes, and also devious and a liar, and thats not slander its based on the facts-

On 3 November 2017, the BBC's Diplomatic correspondent James Landale broke the news that Patel had held meetings in Israel in August 2017 without telling the Foreign Office....made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was discussed. The BBC reported that "According to one source, at least one of the meetings was held at the suggestion of the Israeli ambassador to London. In contrast, British diplomats in Israel were not informed about Ms Patel's plans.

The short version is she then said it was all above board the Foreign Office and Foreign Secretary knew about it (notably Foreign Sec at time was non other than Boris), it was just a private holiday with some friends she met.

Followed not long after by a summoning from the PM and Patel saying-

Patel released an apology for her actions, and corrected her remarks to The Guardian, which she said gave the false impression that the Foreign Secretary knew about the trip before it happened, and that the only meetings she had had were those then in the public domain. According to Downing Street, May learned of the meetings when the BBC broke the story on 3 November. When May hosted Netanyahu the previous day for the Balfour Declaration centenary, she was not aware that her minister had had meetings with him in August.

Followed by-

further revelations about her contacts with Israel, including details of two more undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials in Westminster and New York in September 2017, that Patel had not disclosed when she met the Prime Minister on 6th. As a result of these further revelations Patel was summoned to Downing Street once more on 8 November, where she met with the Prime Minister and subsequently resigned from her cabinet position, after 16 months in the post.

So yeah devious liar, who Boris tried to cover for till May found out the Foreign Office not only didn't know about her meetings when there, but that she met the Israeli PM too before May did and had other previous secret meetings.

Boris of course has made her Home Secretary- in charge of our law and order and our justice system. }}

That's a lot to process folks!

How about a little background on Lady Hale? She seems like a straight shooter and a breath of fresh air amid all this posing, posturing and fence-sitting.

  eBay is now selling Lady Hale T-shirts. I want one.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/style/lady-hale-spider-brooch-shirts-20167343

{{ Couple related points on the Supreme Court, ladies first, so

'The UK Supreme Court has only existed since 2009 and it doesn't even have the authority to strike down Acts of Parliament. This is, for better or worse, not a political system with a strong tradition of judicial review--at least until now.'- Eldy

Thats sort of right Eldy, the last part not so much. There is in fact a very long tradition of judicial review, just had a different name.

You can go back to pre 1390 for the roots of it, that was a sort of court within a court, it could advise the Sovereign, pass laws and dispensed justice.

Fast forward till 1339 and the Houses of Parliament had for some time been hearing appeals from the lower courts to see if decisions should be reversed. Now the Commons withdrew itself from that role as part of a seperation of powers idea and the Lords solely took on the role. This was normally a nominated panel of esteemed judges who were also Lords, but in exceptional cases the entirety of the Lords could sit in judgement as one massive court.

Now we jump to 1876 and the Appellatte Juristication, the name coming from the name of the Act passed which sought to further seperate and define the process. This was made up of judges whose job was scrutinizing the practices of the House and hearing appeals form lower courts. However as Lords they could still vote on legislation, this was not the ideal seperation of powers and for some time the judges simply didn't vote out of convention, but they could and occasionally did.
This situation continued until WW2, up till when the Law Lords as they were known heard appeals in the Lords from the lower courts daily.

After the Commons got bombed the the Committee took up temporary lodgings elsewhere to get away from the rebuilding noise. They moved and temporarily called themselves the Appellate Committee- a name which subsequently stuck.

This remained the case till 2009 when the Committee was dissolved and replaced with the Supreme Court.
Which was the same people, new building, some different rules. The loophole about them being able to vote on legislation was legally closed at last completing the last piece in completely separating the Court from the government and making it fully independent, with subsequent judges appointed by an independent committee of legal minds.
From Court judge to the King to independent judiciary in what, oh just about 600 years!

So whilst the Supreme Court is new, its not actually a new thing at all, its just the latest bit of tinkering in a 600 year line of tinkering to slowly make a fully independent judiciary able to review even government.


And for our second point-

'How about a little background on Lady Hale?' - Dave

Or to give her full title, The Baroness Brenda Marjorie Hale of Richmond.
She has been the top judge on the supreme court since 2017. And the first female judge to have held the position. She was Deputy before she was in charge for 4 years.

She was already on the Appellate Committee as a Law Lord, so when the Supreme Court began she was transferred as were the rest of the Law Lords directly onto the Supreme Court.

She was a barrister but spent 18 years in academia at Manchester Uni before she got appointed to the Law Commission (it applies to England and Wales and its job is to scrutinize Parliamentary legislation and its effects once enacted and recommend reforms, many important ones in the area of family law Hale oversaw or introduced) she was then appointed to the Queen's Counsel- about which a whole post could be written, but it started with Sir Francis Bacon and is a descendant of the old Sergeant-of-Law post. Its technically an honorary title granted on merit. There function is basically to represent the Crown in court.

But those are just the highlights of Lady Hales career, she has also been a Recorder (like a circuit judge) served in the Family Division of the High Court of Justice, been appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire, appointed to the Court of Appeal and the Privvy Council. And under the settlement for Hong Kong she serves a s a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal.
Quite a woman to say the least. }}

So how did things like closing loopholes and changing names come about? What's the process for making such changes? Act of Parliament? Do the judges just bestow new names upon themselves?

(( Yeah Acts of Parliament, sometimes accompanied by a head chopping or two, as the Judges themselves just proved Parliament is in charge in terms of who rules the country- they are the House of Commons, the elected representitives of the common people and therefore at the top, even over the PM.

Judges are non political inthe UK. They have no party allegiance thats public at least when in their roles, they are not selected by MP's and the House of Commons has no role in the judiciary. The speration of judiciary and government is a central pillar of it all and that the judiciary be seen by the people to be impartial and out of government influence and control is important to a sense of justice and law. The notion of the US model of Supreme Court, where a PM could appoint judges favourable or alligned to their political party to try to swing the balnce of judgements in their favour is the exact opposite of what our system strives to aim for. And to British eyes seem to undermine the concept of law and justice.

What the UK Supreme Court however just added to reaffirming the Commons dominance is that the judiciary can and will intervene where that constitutional precedent is breached. In this case unanimously that Boris breached it by denying Parliament the right to do the duty for which the people elected it- to legislate and scrutinise government - for solely political reasons without due cause or explanation for its unprecedented length of time, and with the aim of preventing scrutiny of the Government and stopping Parliament being able to voice its opinion through legislation. }}

So now Johnson is so discredited and weak he is reduced to goading the Opposition with aggressive bullying. He is so desperate to save his wretched job he will insult the memory of a murdered MP. What a disgrace watching him jeering and bellowing.
Even his sister has spoken out and called it 'crass bad taste' even his relatives are appalled.

Apparently he is contemplating using "An Order of Council" where the Privy Council get the queen to do something without the requirement of Parliament. This will allow him to suspend the Benn Act for a period of time. This legally allowing him not to comply until it's too late and after the end of October.

I wondered why Cummings was smugly smirking.