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The funny thing is, prorogation was a democratically elected government trying to prevent a democratically elected parliament from democratically (by members of

• 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
              I'd have to agree with you that I think a lot of voters don't understand FPTP. I keep having arguments with UK voters that think that it takes a majority in a constituency to win a seat, for example. Many refuse to believe this isn't the case even when I give examples showing it takes just a plurality in each seat, because it just seems wrong to a lot of people, even when asking them how else you'd pick the winner in a single-seat constituency without any form of ranked voting. FPTP just seems to seem totally counter-intuitive to people when you make them actually work through the implications. As an immigrant, it's incredibly frustrating to come across "natives" that knows less about their own electoral system than I do.
    • 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.