A controversial motion that will grant the government the power to force through Brexit legislation has been passed.
[...] It means the Conservatives, despite not winning a majority at the general election, will take control of a powerful Commons committee, and grant themselves the power to force through legislation without it being voted on or debated in parliament.
With parliament needing to change, amend or import wholesale thousands of laws and regulation to prepare the UK for its exit from the European Union, the EU Withdrawal Bill has been designed to allow for new laws and regulations to be passed via controversial legislative device called a statutory instrument, which are debated in tiny standing committees.
But the government has now voted to give itself a majority on the little known Committee of Selection, which decides the make up of those committees, and in so doing has seized control of the whole process.
[...] Liberal Democrat Chief Whip Alistair Carmichael commented: "This is a sinister power grab by an increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister.
"The Tories didn't win a majority at the election, but are now hijacking Parliament to try and impose their extreme Brexit on the country.
"It is a bitter irony that Brexiteers who spent their careers championing parliamentary sovereignty have now chosen to sell it down the river.
Source: The Independent
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 13 2017, @03:17PM
Taking the votes as-were under different rules and then just extrapolating blindly isn't fair either.
If, say, Denmark didn't get in because it would need a 2/3rds majority, would it stay out for ever more since 1973? No. They'd re-vote in the time between if they cared.
If they knew you needed 2/3rds majority, they'd campaign harder and put across sensible cases (something which was at least partly responsible for Brexit which largely felt like an accidental vote!).
And maybe limiting members would actually have worked for us too... can Greece get in/stay in? Can the former Russian states? Turkey? If they required 2/3rds majority in their own country to apply and 2/3rds majority to be accepted, maybe they wouldn't be in either and it would be a bit more stable today.
What-if's that assume nothing else would ever change in 44 years in between are largely just useless.