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Parliament must vote on whether government can start Brexit process
- hbex5 10y agoThis puts Labour in a very difficult position. The bill will, of course, carry. But this will expose the wide gulf between the Labour leadership and its traditional white working class base (who were overwhelmingly leave) as it tries to straddle two stools and fails. I expect the Prime Minister is quietly allowing herself a wry smile as she realises what a powerful weapon to beat the opposition with she has been handed by the court. Be under no illusions, although the bill will pass, this could do serious damage to the opposition in the process, as Labour MPs decide whether to vote against their hearts and frustrate the democratic will of their constituents or prefer to ensure their career prospects. Around 70% of Labour MPs are in seats where leave was a majority, but most Labour MPs are urban liberal types who want to remain and will be viewed as traitors by the Twitterati and Guardian set if they side with their constituents. I really don't envy Jeremy Corbyn.
- seanhandley 10y agoI'm not sure sure it'll be an overwhelming majority - this is a great opportunity for constituents to write to their MPs to appeal for them to vote in favour of staying in the union. There was a lot of remorse, particularly when the NHS promises turned out to be lies.
- grabcocque 10y agoTBF there's been zero polling evidence for this. This is just wishful thinking.
- seanhandley 10y agoTell that to The Economist http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/10/daily-chart-6 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/10/daily-c...
- djmobley 10y ago> There was a lot of remorse, particularly when the NHS promises turned out to be lies. Poll after poll has shown people who voted leave are happy. People who voted remain are unhappy.
- seanhandley 10y agoTell that to The Economist http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/10/daily-chart-6 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/10/daily-c...
- djmobley 10y agoWhy have you linked me to an article which states ~90% of leave voters do not regret their vote?
- mattcoles 10y agoCould that possibly be because people are happy when their side 'wins'? And conversely are unhappy when they 'lose'.
- richmarr 10y ago>... write to their MPs By all means try, but writing to your MP to ask them to put their career on the line by angering Brexit voters & party leadership is a tough sell. My MP (Stephen Hammond) has made it very clear that he'd rather toe the party line despite opposing Brexit. I don't mean to disparage, I just think letters are a lost cause. Perhaps there are alternative approaches?
- adamjc 10y agoThis is true for almost every MP in the UK. The whip system heavily discourages voting against the party, regardless of what the constituents would prefer. The best you'll see are MPs 'abstaining' (i.e. not showing up).
- PJDK 10y agoThe NHS promise is a funny one to latch onto. We've not left the EU yet so how can the promise be broken? Now you might think it's likely to be broken in a couple of years (and you're probably right) but still. Not that anyone making the "promise" had any authority to do so.
- DanBC 10y ago> We've not left the EU yet so how can the promise be broken? Because all of the people making the claim backtracked the day after the result.
- PJDK 10y agoI think what they said was "we can't actually commit to this because we're not the government". Given the sum isn't actually massive and NHS spending is likely to increase anyhow it may very well turn out to have happened anyway a year or two after Brexit.
- DanBC 10y agoNHS spending has decreased, and it's likely to keep decreasing. That's what sustainability and transformation plans are - cuts to provision of service. In recent years we've seen a reduction of 1 in 16 acute beds, and 1 in 5 MH beds. This would be ok if we'd seen an increase in funding for community services or for care services, but they've been cut too.
- PJDK 10y agoSorry but that's just not true. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-... The specific cuts you mention may have happened, but money going in in real terms has increased. How much is the "right" amount to spend on health care is probably for a different thread.
- DanBC 10y ago
- letsgettats 10y agoI think Labour's position has already been decided https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/corbyn-to-impose-three-line-whip-on-labour-mps-to-trigger-article-50 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/corbyn-to-i...
- markprovan 10y agoLet's be honest, Labour stopped being a proper opposition a good while ago.
- dogma1138 10y agoThe house of commons represents many more people than those who have voting rights in the referendum. Residents are also the constituents for MP's.
- satysin 10y agoCorrect. This is a win/win for May IMHO. Any MP who votes down the deal will be committing political suicide if they are in a leave constituency (which they most likely are outside of London). Brexit will happen no matter.
- Daviey 10y agoIt wasn't just London that voted remain [0]. I hope MP's will vote based on the indication that their constitutes voiced. [0] https://vis4.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/brexit-map-1-1371x1200.png https://vis4.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/brexit-map-...
- Paul_S 10y agoIt genuinely saddens me that a strategic decision like brexit was triggered and decided on based on local politics and grievances.
- nailer 10y agoI posted to HN about Brexit's effects on tech before the vote and most people here said they'd rather not read about politics, then promptly flagged the article. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11952724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11952724
- davidgerard 10y agoAll politics is local. All Theresa May's actions since getting the leadership have been on the basis that she will always choose being Prime Minister of a smoking crater over not being Prime Minister of not a smoking crater.
- Paul_S 10y agoThis is chilling and explains a lot of problems in politics. Does game theory have any ideas about this?
- matt4077 10y agoThere isn't much theory to it: you have to design systems that align people's personal interests with the interests of the people/entities they're representing. That's usually easier in the business world where structures are malleable. But more often than not, well-intentioned policies are often subverted until they only create a superficial appearance of fairness (i.e. bankers' bonuses, too-big=to-fail). In politics, there is nothing you can do but hope for the decency and analytic ability of the population, and the press to provide the context for accurately judging daily politics.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- arethuza 10y agoActually all evidence of the campaign suggest that Corbyn and advisors were pretty strongly in favour of Brexit but couldn't be open about it - they pretty much had the 1970s view of the EEC/EU as a "capitalist plot". See: "All Out War" by Tim Shipman: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01I9AEIPU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01I9AEIPU/ref=dp-kindle-redirec... [Edit: Absolutely fantastic book - it doesn't take sides at all and is pretty damming about everyone involved with the possible exception of Dominic Cummings (who had a blog article here on HN a few days ago)]
- grabcocque 10y agoI've heard lots of good things about this book. Thanks!
- arethuza 10y agoI've just about finished the Audible version - which is excellent as the narrator manages a subtle impersonation of the various voices. Worth noting that it is laugh out loud funny at some points as well, which I wasn't expecting. Edit: To think that for a single text about a tweet we'd probably have a different PM....
- SixSigma 10y agoCorbyn was a leading part of Tony Benn's Labour Leadership campaign team. One of Benn's campaign promises was "out of the EU on day one". I think that's why he was quiet on the subject during the Brexit campaign and took a lot of flak from the Remain camp for "not doing enough", i.e. he's Brexit ideologically but knows it is political suicide from his liberal backers.
- youngtaff 10y agoLet's face it Corbyn is probably the worst Labour leader since Michael Foot
- ue_ 10y agoI really wish the "far left" parties were more popular. Unfortunately labour seems to want less focus on class issues and more on silly tax issues and identity politics. Really wish Corbyn could pull labour through to a proper leftist party.
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoIn what way is "class" not identity politics? Is it just identity politics that you identify with?
- caf 10y agoBut doesn't the opposite equally apply to Conservative MPs that represent well-heeled urban constituencies that voted Remain? I would have thought this represented a golden opportunity for a London-based "euro party" to form on the basis of challenging at the next election all MPs in that general region that vote for the enabling legislation.
- Ntrails 10y agoIt's very easy to say "I don't agree but we must abide by the results of the referendum", it's much harder to say "Sod the referendum, I'm voting for what I think is right for the country".
- return0 10y agoNobody envies Corbyn like he does himself. I thought the guy was a closeted pro-brexiter anyway.
- Chris2048 10y ago> white working class also known as working class given that just under 90% of the country is white. Do non-white working class vote differently?
- pjc50 10y agohttp://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/ http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-... : "Nearly two thirds of Labour and SNP voters (63% and 64%), seven in ten Liberal Democrats and three quarters of Greens, voted to remain." There are a lot of people who paid their £3 to vote for Corbyn without realising that he was a Leaver (and spectacularly incoherent on policy in general). A lot of people in this thread seem to think the PM has benefited from this decision, which seems strange given that she was on the other side of the litigation! It's potentially explosive for the Conservative party as well. Many MPs were for Remain, and most importantly a large part of the traditional business/corporate backers depend on single market access, financial passporting, etc. (I note in passing that if a Labour government had dropped the pound by 20% and threatened to expel much of the finance industry from the City, the Tory press would be screaming at them and demanding heads.) No, the problem is that nobody really knows what happens after the button is pressed, only that it might be extremely bad. So nobody wants to press it. Look at Gove and Johnson turning down the opportunity to be PM! Look at how many senior Leave people have simply .. lost interest in the process. Farage has gone off to be a radio host: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/1147470/nigel-farage-start-new-job-political-analyst-fox-news/ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/1147470/n...
- dogma1138 10y agoAnd the GBP goes down again. May's speech at least brought some certainty now what? If they want to call art 50 before March it will require a rush vote that may be have a different outcome. And even then the EU might come and say well sorry but the referendum was binding in our view so better call it anyhow. This can turn into a very Kafkaesque shit show.
- gambiting 10y agoWhy would EU say that? The referendum wasn't even binding in the UK, why would EU say that it is for them?
- djmobley 10y agoPlenty of statements made by the Prime Minister and others since the referendum could conceivably be interpreted as Article 50 invocations if the EU wanted to go down that road. They won't, of course, because an acrimonious Brexit is in nobody's interests.
- davidgerard 10y agoBrexit is in nobody's interests, and yet here we are.
- gambiting 10y agoWell, clearly it's in interest of Rupert Murdoch, since his newspapers keep calling supreme judges "traitors of the people" and spewing nonsense about how UK is going to be some sort of paradise after leaving EU. So there must be a group of ultra-rich people for whom brexit is beneficial in some way.
- midgetjones 10y agoThey're literally saying it will be great for them and terrible for the rest of us. I doubt it'll make a blind bit of difference though. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-guy-hands-says-cut-wages-30-percent-twenty-years-private-equity-a7540986.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-guy-h...
- philh 10y agoI found the headline quite misleading: it sounds to me like "Court orders that Parliament give Article 50 the go-ahead", but it's actually "Court says that Article 50 cannot go ahead without Parliament's approval".
- sleepychu 10y agoThis is a context thing, in the UK this issue is so much discussed that the meaning is clear. I agree that if you're not familiar with the case you could read it the wrong way though.
- philh 10y agoI am in the UK, and I'm sufficiently familiar with the case that I'm willing to stick my neck out and say "no, it was just unclear". But it's changed now (thanks, mods!), so shrug.
- shaqbert 10y agoWhat hypocrisy to even consider bypassing the parliament in the first place. Thank god the Surpeme Court still stands up for the Parliamentary supremacy [1]. Have a non-binding referendum and then the government bypassing the parliament altogether would have really put the UK in a constitutional crisis and created lasting damage to the very institutional stability that is behind the success of UK governance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom#Parliamentary_supremacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...
- grabcocque 10y agoThe failure lay with David Cameron's government, by not putting any legal effect in the bill that authorised the referendum. One paragraph was all it would have taken. 'If the referendum carries, the Prime Minister shall be authorised to invoke Article 50'. Why didn't he? Because Cameron never considered for a second he could lose the referendum. He was an idiot.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- StavrosK 10y ago> Because Cameron never considered for a second he could lose the referendum. He was an idiot. Was he an idiot? Or did he figure that, if he did lose the referendum, he needed to put as many obstacles between the result and the actual Brexit as he could?
- loafa 10y agoIf Parliament refuses to carry out the people's wishes, would this be a case in which the Queen would be justified in stepping in?
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> If Parliament refuses to carry out the people's wishes, would this be a case in which the Queen would be justified in stepping in? No. Parliament authorised Britain's EU accession with the 1972 European Communities Act. It then consulted the people in a non-binding referendum. It has every right, Constitutionally, to do as it pleases. Note that the "Crown only dissolves Parliament before a general election under conditions laid out in the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 (dissolution)" (emphasis mine) [1]. [1] https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/relations-with-other-institutions/parliament-crown/ https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/relations-with-othe...
- coldcode 10y agoI find it interesting that an article about British politics stays on the front page but American politics seems to not exist in the HN universe. But I am all in favor of dumb ideas people vote on go ahead, that way everyone will see the end result, and then quietly or loudly realize how dumb it really was. Speculation is entertaining but reality is much harder to dismiss.
- arethuza 10y agoI think timing is the issue - the bulk of the US contingent of HN users probably haven't arrived yet. Once they do arrive articles like this tend to disappear off the front page quite quickly.
- Chris2048 10y agoWhat are you talking about? HN is very US-centric, American politics appear here all the time. Also, Brexit is not a "dumb idea", if you think so, argue you point (or provide your credentials).
- jagermo 10y agoI'm interested, what benefits will a Brexit have in your opinion? I can't see any way that the UK is better off after a Brexit. Especially if you take the looming WTO problems into account: http://www.politico.eu/article/forget-brussels-brexits-toughest-battleground-is-the-wto-uk-theresa-may/ http://www.politico.eu/article/forget-brussels-brexits-tough...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Chris2048 10y agoOk, will prepare that reply over weekend, since it's nuanced: but as replied below, I don't know if it represents most brexiters, I only know the reasons for a few other brexiters.
- mercer 10y ago
- anewname 10y agostill confused on the whole politics on HN things I guess. This is fine, obama's promises are not. Can someone explain please.