Your Thurrock posted an article I
wrote on Sunday night about Brexit and events in Parliament on Monday changed
matters before the data stream was cold so I wrote a follow-up article based on
the new situation. As it hasn’t been
posted on Your Thurrock yet, I
thought I’d post it here.
If you’d
like to see the first article you can see it here: http://www.yourthurrock.com/2018/12/10/blogspot-brexit-stand-edge-precipice/
Theresa’s Brexit May-hem
They
say that a week is a long time in politics but it seems in these febrile times
that a couple of hours is a long time.
Mere hours after sending in my last blog things changed and, by the end
of the day yesterday (10th December), the Brexit soap opera that has
plagued the UK for over two years got even more bizarre and worrying.
In a
cowardly move to try to save face Theresa May, without prior notice or giving
Parliament a say and after many assurances that it would not happen, decided to
postpone the ‘meaningful vote’ on her Withdrawal Agreement. She was forced to admit that she would lose
the vote, stating that “if we went ahead and held the vote tomorrow, the deal
would be rejected by a significant margin”.
She went on to try to justify her cowardice by saying that she didn’t
want to “divide the House at this time”.
Speaker
of the House, John Bercow, was not pulling any punches when he made clear the
displeasure of the House over the postponement of the ‘meaningful vote’: “Halting
the debate, after no fewer than 164 colleagues have taken the trouble to
contribute, will be thought by many Members of this House to be deeply
discourteous. Indeed, in the hours since news of this intention emerged, many
colleagues from across the House have registered that view to me in the most
forceful terms.”
Bercow
continued: “Having taken the best procedural advice, colleagues should be
informed that there are two ways of doing this. The first and, in democratic
terms, the infinitely preferable way is for a Minister to move at the outset of
the debate that the debate be adjourned. This will give the House the
opportunity to express its view in a vote on whether or not it wishes the
debate to be brought to a premature and inconclusive end. I can reassure
Ministers that I would be happy to accept such a motion so that the House can
decide.
“The
alternative is for the Government unilaterally to decline to move today’s
business, which means not only that the House is deprived of its opportunity to
vote upon the substance of the debate tomorrow but that it is given no chance
to express its view today on whether the debate should or should not be allowed
to continue.
“I
politely suggest that, in any courteous, respectful and mature environment,
allowing the House to have its say on this matter would be the right and, dare
I say it, the obvious course to take. Let us see if those who have assured this
House and the public, over and over again, that this supremely important vote
is going to take place tomorrow, without fail, wish to rise to the occasion.”
Judging
from the Hansard coverage (from which some of the quotes used in this article
derive), no Minister rose to the occasion and, following some short discussion
of the fact that many MPs required assurances over the so-called Northern
Ireland ‘backstop’, Theresa May told the House that “We are deferring the vote
and I will be going to seek those assurances”.
In
going down the less democratic route and postponing the ‘meaningful vote’ in
such a manner Theresa May showed her contempt for Parliament less than a week
after her government was found in contempt of Parliament. She compounded this flagrant attack on
democracy by not providing any details of when the debate would continue or a
date for the vote.
In this
commentator’s opinion Theresa May should have a motion of contempt of
Parliament against her but that’s not in my power.
However,
Theresa May did succeed in uniting much of the House when Jeremy Corbyn
proposed a debate on whether Parliament should approve of the delay in the
debate and ‘meaningful vote’ as every Labour MP stood in support of Corbyn’s
motion and, most embarrassingly for May, so did many Conservative MPs.
Corbyn
made a passionate speech on how the public might view the government, stating:
“The public will look at the behaviour of this Government and how they treat
their democratically elected representatives with despair. Our constitution
works on the basis that Governments control the business of the House because
they have a majority in the House. The Government appear to be avoiding a vote
on a change of business because they fear that they do not command a majority.
We have no indication when the debate will be resumed or completed; neither
does it seem reasonable that the Government will wait until Thursday before
confirming the business of the final sitting week before Christmas”.
Corbyn
concluded: “The Government’s incompetence cannot be used as an excuse to
threaten the country with no deal. It is vital that the Government treat
Parliament with respect, honour the terms of the original business of the House
motion as agreed and therefore seek the approval of the House, not act by Prime
Ministerial fiat, to defer the meaningful vote.”
With
such support across the House Corbyn’s motion was carried and today (11th
December) will see the debate on whether Parliament will approve of the delay
in the Brexit debate and whether Theresa May will get another metaphorical
black eye to go with the one she got after losing three votes in a row last
week, the first time a government had done so in decades, and having her
government found in contempt of Parliament, the first time ever in history.
The
fact that no date for the continuation of the Brexit deal debate was given is
especially worrying as, according to the House of Commons Twitter account, the
date of the ‘meaningful vote’ could in practice be “be 28 March as matters
stand”. This would be subverting the
democratic sovereignty of Parliament in order to push through Theresa May’s
lame duck deal and leave no time for Parliament to amend the deal. Whether Dominic Grieve’s amendment designed
to prevent a ‘no deal’ scenario could be enacted in this case is anyone’s
guess.
Theresa
May is now rushing around trying to get a better deal with the EU despite the
fact that she has already stated on numerous occasions that this is the best
deal she could get and the fact that the EU aren’t willing to negotiate any
further. Donald Tusk said that the EU “will
not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop, but we are ready to discuss
how to facilitate UK ratification”.
It
would be a major understatement to say that Theresa May has very few options
moving forward especially if the vote on today’s debate goes against her. Again, no one should have any sympathy for
Theresa May because her incompetence and errors of judgement have brought her
to this point. She has had too many
chances to do the job she has vowed to do but has allowed her arrogance and
hubris to get in the way. She called a
snap election that eroded her Parliamentary majority. She entered into a deal with the DUP to prop
up her minority government and, in doing so, gave them proportionately more
power than they would have had if the Conservatives had retained their
majority. She allowed votes to go on in
the absence of Conservative MPs which would have failed if they had been there
to vote them down.
Ultimately,
the Conservatives (and Theresa May in particular) have brought about this dire
situation. They didn’t need the help of
opposition parties to make a mess of Brexit, they were completely capable of
doing that themselves. Unfortunately,
they could just destroy the UK in the process and that’s something you should
all be worried about, however you voted in the referendum.
