Waiting and Moving - British Politics

Far be it from me to determine what the Supreme Court should think about proroguing Parliament. However, the Edinburgh Appeal Court finding was factually based, and so there are only two grounds that the Supreme Court can reverse its ‘unlawful’ finding: one is that the facts are wrong, and the other is the facts are right but it is political. But if the latter is the case, then what political means are there to reverse a decision that closes down the ability to resist proroguing?

We know that the monarch is not able to do anything other than what the Prime Minister demands, so the protection of conventions comes down to the courts and the law. The advice may well be to take proroguing into Statute Law, so that it cannot happen again, although the problem here is that the Monarch through the House of Lords invites the Commons to it for proroguing – how does that work if the House of Commons makes it subject to Statute Law?

While we wait the Liberal Democrats are at Conference, and its MP numbers are boosted by defections. I would suggest that one reason more ex-Tories (removed or fed up) might cross over is because they have failed to set up a (let’s call it) National Conservative Party, to be a more moderate one than that which contains the European Research Group and is being misled by Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings.

The situation now is equivalent of that of Robert Peel and the repeal of the Corn Laws. The Tories became the Conservative Party, and, for that matter, the Whigs became Liberals. The parties of the Monarch versus the Nobles evolved, which it was bound to do after James was removed and a different kind of monarchy was introduced – from Orange to Hanover and beyond. The parties were reforming for the new Middle Class (especially the Liberals; the Conservatives connected the landed and the workers until the Liberals radicalised somewhat). The Conservative Party today is overstretched between its pro-European socially concerned strand and its mainly English nationalist wing. Labour is still trying to manage its Social Democrat versus Socialist wings; at present Corbyn has put his ideology to one side to make a more across the parties effective opposition. But the Liberal Democrats are sniffing a pivotal role themselves, seeing a centre-radical position for electoral gain. If the four party system creates freak, random results, damaging the Tories and Labour, the Liberal Democrats may be able to get over those tipping points in constituencies and really build up the numbers. However, they have hoped before and been disappointed.

By the way, it has always made sense that the demand for a second referendum is a policy for opposition: if the Liberal Democrats ever won a General Election that is sufficient to revoke Article 50. It does not need a second vote when that is the second vote.

Liberal and Thoughtful Website creator; critical examiner of social sciences and theology, religious liberal, ‘terror blogger’.