Watching various politics programmes during the week, it seems that most of the very highly paid pundits and political journalists don't actually understand the British constitution.
Next week, parliament will undoubtedly vote down May's bad Brexit Deal. In discussing what happens next, Brextremists have claimed that it will mean that come March 29th. Britain will leave, because that is what the existing EU Withdrawal Act says. But, that assumes that the Act is not amended, so that something different happens. The political pundits, echoing the argument of the Brextremists say, but its not up to parliament to put forward such legislation, as only the government can propose legislation.
Actually, that's not true either, because MP's have limited abilities to put forward Private Members Bills that can become law. However, the main point, her, that the political pundits seem not to have grasped is the actual relation between the government, i.e. the Executive, and parliament, the legislature. The government is being treated as though it is some autonomous body, with its own democratic mandate that can only be checked, in some way, by the legislature. Not true.
The government, is the government elected by parliament. It is essentially, an executive committee of parliament. The British parliamentary system, despite what the media might try to present, with all of their focus on the party leaders, and the concept being incessantly pushed by Sky of Leaders' Debates, is not a Presidential System, such as that in the US, or France, where the President does indeed have their own democratic mandate, resulting from being directly elected, in a general election.
The Prime Minister is not elected in a General Election, in the way President Trump or Macron was elected. The Prime Minister, elected by other MP's, not the general public. That is illustrated by the fact that, in 2016, May was elected as PM, having been elected as Tory Party Leader, after Cameron stood down, without there being a General Election. The fact that the Prime Minister is first elected as the Leader of the government Party, hides the fact that they are, in fact, elected by MP's as a whole, because, usually the government party has a parliamentary majority, so that no vote in parliament is formally required to do so. So long as the government party has a majority in parliament, its Leader is de facto, the Prime Minister. Only when the government party loses such a majority, and thereby ceases to be the government party, does the Prime Minister's position itself become exposed, as depending upon the support of parliament as a whole.
So, for example, its conceivable, that the Tories, having lost the Meaningful Vote, on Tuesday, might see it also lose a confidence vote. But, its conceivable, though not likely, that May could then ignore the wishes of a majority of her own party, and stitch up a parliamentary majority comprising some Tory MP's, and some Labour MP's for, say, a softer version of her deal. Providing she could command a majority of support from all MP's, she could remain as Prime Minister.
But, the reality is that May is unlikely to come back with a proposal to scrap Brexit, or to extend Article 50, immediately. But, the pundits are then wrong to think that only she, as Prime Minister, and her government can do so. If she loses a confidence vote, it will be possible for a coalition of Tory, Liberal, SNP, Green, Plaid and Labour MP's to come together, and put forward their own nominee for Prime Minister to be submitted to the Queen. They can do this so long as they can command a majority for that nominee in parliament. Once appointed by the Queen, that Prime Minister can then appoint their own government, and Ministers, leaving them free to cancel Brexit, or to ask for Article 50 to be extended, so that they can call another referendum and so on.
If Corbyn continues down the road of arguing for Brexit, even if a General Election or a referendum were to be called, its fairly obvious why a large chunk of Labour MP's, might join with Tory Remainers, and the other opposition parties to form such a national government to stop Brexit. That would open the door for them transform such a National Government into some kind of new party, which until now has seemed impossible. As Paul Mason has pointed out, this is effectively what happened in 1940.
Anyone thinking that Brexit will happen automatically on March 29th. is fundamentally wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment