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Prorogations are routine. Prorogations to suspend Parliament to stop it doing things inconvenient to the executive really aren't. As with so many things with Br

by pmyteh 7y ago

Prorogations are routine. Prorogations to suspend Parliament to stop it doing things inconvenient to the executive really aren't. As with so many things with Brexit, it puts us beyond the conventions of Parliamentary government. I agree that it's not a Reichstag fire situation. For American readers the closest analogy is probably with FDR's court packing plan: within the law, but an attempt to end-run another branch of government and take its power away. Nevertheless, opponents (including within his own party) saw that as corrosive to good government and stopped it. I think they were right to do so. The line between that (and the Johnson situation) and the 'soft authoritarian' democracies with executive-dominated institutions is not all that wide.

tomatocracy 7y ago
Perhaps a technical point but we don't have 'parliamentary government'. The House of Commons is not, and never has been 'the government' (ie the executive). It is a check on what the government can do, as is the Lords - the government cannot change the law, raise taxes or raise a standing army without their consent. Although its not a phrase associated with Westminster (its more closely associated with former Dominions when they became self governing) it might be better described as 'responsible government' ie the government is held responsible by Parliament. This tension between Parliament and the Crown has been a part of the UK's (and before that, England's) constitutional settlement since Magna Carta in 1215, and arguably before that.
- pmyteh 7y ago
  Differing technical vocabularies, I think: I meant Parliamentary as opposed to presidential or semi-presidential (the two other main categories of Western-style democracy in political science). Americanists in particular see our insistence that Parliament is not part of government quite bizarre - they include the judicial branch too. You're absolutely right that Parliament hasn't governed directly for a long time (arguably not since the civil war, and that was itself a highly unusual period where some questionable constitutional innovations happened). It's also the case that the question of whether the Crown can govern without constraint from Parliament has been settled in principle for centuries: it can't. The Commons has had to repeatedly assert this over the years, and it looks like they're going to do so again.

by pmyteh 7y ago

tomatocracy 7y ago

Perhaps a technical point but we don't have 'parliamentary government'. The House of Commons is not, and never has been 'the government' (ie the executive). It is a check on what the government can do, as is the Lords - the government cannot change the law, raise taxes or raise a standing army without their consent. Although its not a phrase associated with Westminster (its more closely associated with former Dominions when they became self governing) it might be better described as 'responsible government' ie the government is held responsible by Parliament. This tension between Parliament and the Crown has been a part of the UK's (and before that, England's) constitutional settlement since Magna Carta in 1215, and arguably before that.

pmyteh 7y ago
Differing technical vocabularies, I think: I meant Parliamentary as opposed to presidential or semi-presidential (the two other main categories of Western-style democracy in political science). Americanists in particular see our insistence that Parliament is not part of government quite bizarre - they include the judicial branch too. You're absolutely right that Parliament hasn't governed directly for a long time (arguably not since the civil war, and that was itself a highly unusual period where some questionable constitutional innovations happened). It's also the case that the question of whether the Crown can govern without constraint from Parliament has been settled in principle for centuries: it can't. The Commons has had to repeatedly assert this over the years, and it looks like they're going to do so again.