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from the returning-sovereignty-to-parliament dept.
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @07:08PM
I think there's an important difference here. You're framing this to be an abortion, gun rights, etc type issue. I think those issues have been carefully selected to be completely quixotic. Imagine all guns were banned tomorrow. With the vast amounts of guns in the country it would be unlikely to have any meaningful effect on gun crime. We might see a reduction in suicide rates, but these things are very invisible. Gun rights types would claim themselves unable to defend their families, and those against gun rights would claim it just needs more time. Both sides would probably be right.
For things like leaving the EU, the 'stay' side critically hurt their political position by going from quixotic to real battles. They painted an image of catastrophe, economic ruin, and Britian left in an isolated agony. I think many people believed that. And those were obviously lies. The leave side painted a picture of less immigration which would ideally create better working conditions for UK citizens while also helping to stop things like what's happening in Birmingham. The goals (and fears) are not particularly quixotic. They're real and measurable in very short time frames. Who is right and who is wrong will not be ambiguous.
And as a result here, I think we're going to see support for Brexit likely increase. In trying to find recent polls, I came across this. [theguardian.com] It gotten to the point now that only 60% of UK citizens even want to keep their EU citizenship after Brexit. That is almost unbelievable to me. I do support Brexit, but it's with some reservations. EU citizenship is enormously valuable, but mutually open borders but asymmetric nations pose many problems. That's another topic, but the fact that 40% are now happy to shed their EU citizenship, even when given the choice to exit and retain it, is incredibly telling.