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The fact that it was unanimous really drives home how obviously illegal it was. I would love to see a direct criminal or civil consequence for this, as it nega

• tomp 7y ago
  The funny thing is, prorogation was a democratically elected government trying to prevent a democratically elected parliament from democratically (by members of parliament) stopping a democratic (by the populace) decision to exit the EU.
  • pavlov 7y ago
    The Johnson government isn't democratically elected by any usual definition. The government doesn't have a parliamentary majority, and Boris hasn't stood as a PM candidate in a general election.
    • tomp 7y ago
      I'm not exactly sure how UK government / prime minister elections work, but I'd expect that this government was elected on the exact same basis as previous governments. PM wants an election as well, which he's likely to win (well, according to polls... which are likely wrong!) More importantly, the government isn't non-democratic by any definition.
      • growse 7y ago
        At the last GE, the government wasn't elected with a majority. The people specifically voted to not give the government unfettered power to do whatever they like. Specifically, Boris was elected prime minister by a very small number of people, and no-one voted for the cabinet. > PM wants an election as well, which he's likely to win (well, according to polls... which are likely wrong!) It's kind of irrelevant what the PM wants - general elections are held in accordance to the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 (which was passed when the tories were in government). If he wants an election, it has to be with the consent of Parliament (ie the people).
        • lambertsimnel 7y ago
          The lack of proportional representation means that the consent of Parliament is rather different from the consent of the people. Not since 1931 has a UK party received a majority of votes cast. A quirk of the voting system has usually given a parliamentary majority to one party. Voters didn't specifically vote for a minority government in 2017. In fact, a greater proportion of them voted for the Conservative party than in the previous election, at which it "won" a majority.
          • growse 7y ago
            I'm a PR cheerleader as much as the next guy, but our FPTP system isn't exactly an obscure secret. You might not like the outcome that it gives you, but it's by definition what the voters voted for.
            • lambertsimnel 7y ago
              I take a different view of whether the results of elections are "by definition what the voters voted for". FPTP tends to produce results at odds with popular support. It has produced majorities in Parliament for parties that received a mere plurality of the votes. It has produced at least one Parliament in which a party without even a plurality of votes received a parliamentary majority. FPTP can even deny a parliamentary majority to a party with a majority of votes. This is essentially what happened in the last pre-Apartheid election in South Africa, at which most voters voted for the anti-Apartheid coalition. I'd even go as far as to partly disagree with your judgement that FPTP isn't a secret. Clearly many do know that the House of Commons is elected by FPTP, but even most political correspondents seem unaware of its far-reaching consequences. Among ordinary voters, many are unaware of FPTP. I've met UK voters who don't accept the UK doesn't already have PR for general elections. (I've also met teachers who tell me their politics students believe we have PR until taught otherwise. I think it's a natural assumption that it necessarily takes more votes to win an election than to lose.)
              • vidarh 7y ago
      • pjc50 7y ago
        > I'm not exactly sure how UK government / prime minister elections work, but I'd expect that this government was elected on the exact same basis as previous governments Well, you're wrong, so why don't you go and do the basic reading first?
      • lambertsimnel 7y ago
        There is a definition of "democracy" by which the government (and indeed Parliament) is non-democratic. Admittedly, it's a narrow definition, but nevertheless it's one that most developed countries satisfy. That definition is one suggested by Ernest Neville: "In a democratic government the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all." The lack of proportional representation deprives UK voters of both majority rule and adequate minority representation. The consequences are usually subtle, but the February 1974 general election gave the most seats to a party without the most votes. The 1951 election gave a majority of seats to a party without the most votes.
    • jajag 7y ago
      All true - and yet this parliament seems remarkably reluctant to allow the electorate the opportunity to correct this state of affairs.
      • taejo 7y ago
        It's almost as if the clock is ticking on a very important deadline, and parliament wants to make sure it is dealt with before it takes any other action that might delay that.
      • lambertsimnel 7y ago
        Opposition parties might be concerned about being absent from Parliament when the Brexit deadline passes. There's another problem, too. The First Past the Post electoral system prevents the electorate from correcting the state of affairs (except perhaps by accident). Call me cynical, but calls for an early general election under the existing system look like a power grab rather than a sincere attempt to let the electorate decide.
        • jajag 7y ago
          God forbid that voters have a say!
          • lambertsimnel 7y ago
            Voters should have a say under proportional representation. Holding a general election under First Past the Post would likely hand the government to a faction with minority support. I don't mean this to be partisan or pro-/anti-Brexit, but FPTP typically doesn't settle issues and increasingly doesn't provide good government in the UK. FPTP typically overrepresents some parties at the cost of others (and at the cost of voters). Politicians might want an election when they believe they will be more overrepresented afterwards than before. That's why it's no surprise for the opposition to suddenly stop wanting an election when the government begins to want one.
      • rsynnott 7y ago
        If parliament allows an election now, it presents an opportunity for Boris to weasel his way out of requesting an extension. Given past Boris performance, why on earth would they?
    • simonh 7y ago
      Prime Ministers are elected by parliament, not directly by the people although they must be elected MPs. This isn't America or France.
      • matthewmacleod 7y ago
        Prime ministers are not elected by parliament. I appreciate the difference you are trying to highlight, but the current prime minister took this role without any form of election in parliament, and almost certainly no longer has the ability to command confidence.
      • vidarh 7y ago
        > although they must be elected MPs Alec Douglas-Home became PM while a member of the House of Lords in 1963, though he renounced his peerage on becoming PM and stood for a safe seat (Kinross and Western Perthshire). While waiting for the by-election, he was PM without being a member of either house. It's unlikely this will happen again, but there's as far as I know still no law preventing it.
  • Ensorceled 7y ago
    I think we can all agree the referendum was not “I want to leave the EU in the most chaotic and economically dangerous way possible, preferably with no plan for what to do next”
    • repolfx 7y ago
      In fact it was. It was a simple vote between leaving and remaining, with the exact details of both options being left undefined. Certainly our remainer establishment would have wasted no time in interpreting a Remain vote as permission to rapidly speed up integration. The pathologically EU-loyal British establishment is now trying to destroy the vote via the following simple trick: 1. Declare that there's no way to leave without a "deal" 2. Make it clear to the EU they can dictate any terms they want whatsoever because the UK will under no circumstances walk away from the table. 3. EU dictates terms that are essentially the same as not leaving, or actually even worse. 4. Establishment declares that this "deal" is the same thing as leaving and tries to ram it through, or failing that, to cancel the whole thing by claiming that the UK can't leave unless the EU agrees due to <generic chaos>. Both outcomes are fine by them because it establishes for good the principle that leaving the EU should be as impossible as an American State seceding from the Union, which is what they want. What we see at the moment are people actually working in the real economy, like port operators, saying they're prepared for no deal and there'd be no disruption at all. The EU has also quietly agreed various unrelated agreements to e.g. keep planes flying and even granting London a financial passport, the thing they said they'd never actually do. The fact that "no deal" actually means already "a bunch of small continuity deals" has gone largely unnoticed in the UK. But ultimately now it's gone far beyond port disruption, mobile roaming costs or other trivial things. The British people are receiving a message loud and clear that the entire ruling class simply will not let the UK leave unless the EU agrees, despite it being a theoretically self-governing nation. If the UK doesn't leave without the EU's agreement then many will conclude it's actually a dictatorship.
      • growse 7y ago
        > Both outcomes are fine by them because it establishes for good the principle that leaving the EU should be as impossible as an American State seceding from the Union, which is what they want. Leaving the EU is pretty easy. There's a raft of existing models to base the new relationship on - Norway, Switzerland etc. Pick one, maybe tweak it slightly to make sure you don't start a war in NI, done. The problem is that the entire process is being run by isolationist extremists who see the UK's largest trading partner as Beelzebub and reject any form of broad agreement with the EU.
  • pjc50 7y ago
    The government is not directly elected. It is, in a sense that's both very technical and actually constitutionally important at the moment, appointed by the Queen.
    • tomp 7y ago
      > The government is not directly elected. Almost no government is.
      • pmyteh 7y ago
        That's the major difference between Presidential systems and Parliamentary ones. In the first, the head of government is directly elected and the legislature separately, and in the latter the legislature chooses one of its own as head of government. Semi-Presidential systems (like France) are somewhere in between.
    • maitredusoi 7y ago
      This is just a technical point of view, as from now on the Queen has always appointed a person that has been choosen by the parliament. Perhaps with Willam, thing will change, but sorry, with QEII , I can't see her saying I appoint Corbyn even if parliament decide it is Johnson ;)
      • tomatocracy 7y ago
        Actually, the Queen was historically rather more involved than this in the era of Hume, Macmillan and Eden; and previous monarchs before her even more so. I agree that in the current era though, she would only send for an alternate PM if they had demonstrated confidence of the House of Commons, which is very unlikely.
  • delfinom 7y ago
    I would argue that a 50/50 vote is not democratic, as it does not represent a majority.
• OJFord 7y ago
  So 'obviously illegal' that a high court previously dismissed the case as out of scope of the law?
  • shakna 7y ago
    The High Court in the UK does not generally rule on matters of Parliament. A matter undertaken by the Parliament may still have been illegal, but not under their purview, because of that.
    • stordoff 7y ago
      Neither does the Supreme Court[1]. Prorogation is different in that it is not a proceeding of Parliament, but imposed upon them by the usage of the prerogative powers. [1] It is forbidden from doing so by the Bill of Rights 1688: That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.
  • robin_reala 7y ago
    And another high court unanimously ruled it as inside the scope of the law. I think it’s obvious at this point that the English High Court got it wrong this time.
    • benj111 7y ago
      I don't think its fair to say the lower court got it wrong, the written and case law here is, sparse. TBH either way it was going to get appealed so the judges decision is moot. I certainly wouldn't be wanting to make the decision, and I'm sure he thought it was above his pay grade also.
    • OJFord 7y ago
      > And another high court unanimously ruled it as inside the scope of the law. Sure, but if high courts are disagreeing about whether it's even within the scope of the law at all, isn't it a bit much to call it 'obviously illegal', i.e. not only in 'obviously' in scope, but also with 'obvious' ruling?
• makomk 7y ago
  It wasn't obvious at all. Even ignoring the fact that traditionally this was outside the purview of the courts entirely, the Supreme Court had to take a very aggressive approach to the evidence to get this result. First, they decided that it didn't matter whether the Prime Minister had unlawful intent, only whether prorogation did in fact frustrate Parliament. Secondly, they decided that it was up to the Prime Minister to prove in detail that his prorogation didn't have this effect. (This was important because no-one has been able to come up with a convincing argument for how exactly this particular prorogation would stop Parliamentary scrutiny of Brexit. It was scheduled to avoid all the important dates where such scrutiny was likely, and the court had documents showing this was intentional.) Thirdly, they had to play up the fact that Parliament could theoretically sit or carry out other actions during the three-week party conference season if it was in the usual recess rather than prorogued in order to justify the claim that this prorogation was at all unusual in the first place. Which is technically true, but by convention no-one does this because using your control of parliament in ways that monkey with the other parties' annual conferences is pretty bad for democracy.
  • vidarh 7y ago
    There was no reason to come up with an argument for how this would stop scrutiny of Brexit, as the only arbiter of what matters to parliament is parliament. Further this argument rings hollow when Boris has demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to try to sidestep the wishes of parliament in this respect, and so Parliament has every reason to want to be able to react quickly to any further attempts from the government to act in ways it has no support for. As such, when a group of parliamentarians are among those who have sued arguing their ability to do their job is frustrated, then parliament is frustrated. The recess issue is relatively irrelevant given that we're already in uncharted waters, with Parliament having sat unusually long due to Brexit. It's already established that the timeline relating to Brexit means other conventions are being sidelined because of the importance of getting this sorted. Since Boris didn't wait for votes over recess to happen, he can not say that there would not have been adjustments made. E.g. even if Parliament as a whole were not to sit, there'd have been nothing stopping Parliament from continuing certain committee work, for example.
  • mantap 7y ago
• DiffEq 7y ago
  Or perhaps it could just show how elitist, political and pro-EU these Justices are? After the Referendum the established political elites have been trying everything in the book to deny the democratic vote of the people. This is another example of it.
  • lawlessone 7y ago
    Because moneybags Farage isn't the elite or Jacob Rees Moggs?
  • rimliu 7y ago
    So court is undemocratic? People voting on falsehood is democtratic though? But the prospect of changing their minds when the new information becomes available (aka the second referendum) is undemocratic again?
  • andygates 7y ago
    This isn't Reddit, hush.
• turc1656 7y ago
  I have to disagree. Not only does it seem completely lawful to me, you'll notice that none of the justices could cite an actual law that was violated. Their summary makes this a bit clearer - "...was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification." They never actually indicate any law that has been violated. Just sort of a general assertion that it was an asshole, undemocratic move that they have now declared to be "illegal". Furthermore, I remember when it was originally announced that he was considering doing this and every single lawyer, pundit, and news outlet that I read said very clearly that while it was "unthinkable" it was completely legal and he had every right to do so with the power of his position/office.
  • jfk13 7y ago
    > Not only does it seem completely lawful to me Interesting. Do you have extraordinary legal qualifications that make your opinion more valid than the unanimous judgment of the highest court in the land?
    • turc1656 7y ago
      Ah yes, the old "you're not a lawyer so your opinion is worthless" argument. As I mentioned, every single thing I read by legal professionals leading up to this decision said it was entirely legal. I am not a UK citizen, let alone an expert in UK law. But I read up on it and I can follow my own path of logic based on what they described the law to be. Also, let's not pretend like the courts get things right all the time. Even the "highest court in the land" fucks up all the time. Same here in the US. The judges are just as biased as everyone else. The law on this isn't even complicated. The Queen, not Boris Johnson, has the power to prorogue parliament. Therefore the request that she do so cannot be an illegal act by Boris Johnson. That's really simple logic to follow. And the Queen is immune from legal process so no act done by her can be deemed illegal which is why the court ruled that it was the advice/request that was illegal. This insane logic is just as outrageous as the actual request to prorogue parliament made by Johnson.
  • dadarepublic 7y ago