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from the we've-always-been-at-war-with-eurasia dept.
The UK Supreme Court has ruled that Parliament must vote on and approve of invoking Article 50 which triggers arrangements for leaving the European Union:
The Supreme Court has dismissed the government's appeal in a landmark case about Brexit, meaning Parliament will be required to give its approval before official talks on leaving the EU can begin. The ruling is a significant, although not totally unexpected, setback for Theresa May.
[...] The highest court in England and Wales has dismissed the government's argument that it has the power to begin official Brexit negotiations with the rest of the EU without Parliament's prior agreement. By a margin of eight to three, the 11 justices upheld November's High Court ruling which stated that it would be unlawful for the government to rely on executive powers known as the royal prerogative to implement the outcome of last year's referendum.
Also at NYT, WSJ, and The Guardian.
Previously: Brexit Court Defeat for UK Government
(Score: 2, Insightful) by schad on Wednesday January 25 2017, @06:01PM
The votes would've mattered if "remain" had won, which is, I suspect, what the government firmly believed would happen.
It's hard to imagine Parliament not following through here. But I'm American, so my understanding of politics in the UK is limited at best. If this were the US, a whole bunch of moderate politicians would lose their jobs as a result of this (because it would force them to commit to a position). But the outcome would, if anything, probably be tilted more in favor of whatever the people chose. (That is, if it were 51-49 in the referendum, it would be more like 60-40 in Congress.)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday January 25 2017, @06:31PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday January 25 2017, @07:38PM
Honestly, it's hard to say. There does seem to be an undercurrent of "buyer's remorse" that followed the referendum results. Depending on the extent of that (or the MP's' estimates of that), they may vote stay, or just leave the issue to fade away without comment. If I understand it correctly, they can kill the whole thing by taking no action.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday January 25 2017, @09:01PM
Frankly though, with May talking about a clean break from the EU and some countries saying they'll veto any deal that doesn't include free travel (which May can't/won't accept) and/or won't approve any extensions, I think we're most likely headed for a hard exit in a little over 2.5 years time - whether there is a deal in place or not. Barring some seriously obvious public regret or a considerable amount of painful economic/industry/trade upheaval in the meantime, I'm not sure whether enough MPs will vote against it given they'd almost certainly lose their next re-election, the Lords is more questionable, but as a veto without grounds/public support would likely end the Lords as it currently stands I can't really see it either.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday January 26 2017, @12:55PM
It also boils down to constituency votes in a lot of places. Here, around 75% voted remain, so our MP would be committing political suicide to vote to invoke Article 50 - his majority is quite slim and he'd lose it instantly if he did. Other places, such as Cornwall, have had a really crappy deal from Westminster for decades and a moderately good deal from the EU. Their MPs have to weigh up voting against their constituents interests or voting against their wishes. That's not an easy call, especially if you expect your opponent in the next election to point to all of the jobs and funding lost in the region as a direct result of invoking Article 50.
That said, the buyers' remorse is somewhat overrated. Anyone who reads the Daily Mail or Daily Express will have the firm belief that Brexit is wonderful for the economy. A lot of people in poorer areas of the country still regard the vote as a way of sticking it to the political establishment (though quite why they think London politicians would be upset by a vote to give more power to them and remove several of the checks on their authority I didn't quite understand) and still believe that this is worthwhile. Worse, the UK has such a large economic imbalance at the moment (really not helped by the fact that Westminster keeps forgetting that 80% of the country exists) that a lot of leave voters honestly believe things can't get any worse than they are (though when food prices go up and unemployment benefit goes down, they might change their mind).
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday January 26 2017, @01:35PM
Politicians advocating to remain is a reasonable position. 48% of people who voted wanted that, and their views should be represented. It's reasonable to stand for election on that platform, and to do everything they can to soften the impact of leaving by e.g. trying to remain in the single market.
Europe has always split the Tory party, and now it looks like it will split the UK too. Scotland and maybe Northern Ireland will try to go a different way to England and Wales, and Gibraltar... Will probably end up being half Spanish.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 25 2017, @06:32PM
In America, if you put an unconstitutional bill on the ballot, and it wins, it's still the purview of the court to strike it down.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday January 25 2017, @07:20PM
In America, if you put an unconstitutional bill on the ballot, and it wins, it's still the purview of the court to strike it down.
It's worth noting that a plebiscite (now commonly called a referendum [wikipedia.org] or "ballot initiative") historically in most places was merely a non-binding consultation of the people. In most democracies, so-called "direct democracy" -- where legislation happened by popular vote -- was to be avoided. The people are NOT lawyers, and while that may be seen by some as an advantage, laws ultimately will be litigated in the courts. If the people don't understand the legal implications of the language they vote for, they might not like the consequences. (See, for example, the Florida referendum debacle this year, where energy companies tried to slip through a referendum that appeared to be helping the people but actually would have had the legal ramifications of assisting the power companies more.)
Not only that, but there's the obvious problem of reducing a complex issue to a single "up/down" vote, which in many cases surrounds a politically charged issue.
Anyhow, there's no mechanism in the U.S. for a federal plebiscite or referendum. About half of states have them in one form or another [wikipedia.org], though their use has become increasingly common in the past few decades. (After an early surge in a few states in the early 1900s, there was a significant lull in the mid-1900s in use of plebiscites in the U.S. I don't know whether this might have had anything to do with the reputation that such popular initiatives got around that time from their use in fascist regimes, e.g., to confirm powers under Hitler [wikipedia.org], his annexation of Austria [wikipedia.org]), Mussolini's decisions, etc.)
Yes, in U.S. states that do allow such initiatives, any law passed (like ANY law) is subject to the constitutions of the state and the U.S., and may be overturned on those grounds. But perhaps even more relevant to the present discussion, in many of the states that do allow initiatives, they need to be approved by the state legislature at some point in the process.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fritsd on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:09PM
I do have some appreciation for the meaning of the old word "thing", or spelled "þing": Thing [wikipedia.org].
It's a bit self-referential: if the people of the community are gathered, then what they decide, is what the people have decided. Of course that can be subverted, I haven't seen Leni Riefenstahl's film but I've heard about it.
One day, shortly after the 2008 crash, our local city council decided to declare roads in our small village as "private", so that they could renege on maintenance costs for a few decades.
My neighbour came to my house to ask me to follow him to a meeting in town (he gave me a lift, we didn't have a car yet then). In the aula I saw a Kommun representative, and practically all of the village (at least 100 of the circa 200 people (we didn't have the 200 asylum seekers yet, then)).
I could understand only a fraction of the discussion with my crap Swedish, but I got the feeling that I witnessed direct democracy: the local government wanted to do something less nice to its people, well the people are here, speak to them face-to-face then to explain why there is no more money for road maintenance in the rural outskirts.
(It was al very civilized).
PS I'm impressed that the Icies have been doing things for nearly 1100 years! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Redundant) by VLM on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:28PM
laws ultimately will be litigated in the courts
I see nothing to disagree with in your post; to the best of my understanding there are three "services" provided by the legislators essentially notarizing the vote.
First they're claiming its legit and not fake news or fake results or open for congressional hearings. I suppose it could happen theoretically. So the official position is the vote happened and it was legit and this was the result. So you can stop debating if Russian hackers mean we need to do the opposite of the vote or if the legislators will have hearings or who knows. Its done. Signing a death certificate never killed anyone but it did formally document the event.
The second is they timestamp it. So if a pirate said you provide monthly tribute payment on the first of every month then the exact date of the signoff is the official legal date. I suppose in 50K pages of legislation there is corruption or something such that the exact date of leaving interacts with some other weird legal obligation or payoff or purchased regulation here or there. The date of the election is when the election happened not when the results are applied. The date "they" called the election is the date "they" thought would be fun to declare it. But the date the legislature approves is the official burned in stone date it takes over. Just like the prez doesn't take over on election day or when the election is "called" but exactly and precisely on inauguration day. Also this is relevant to sequence problems did this law get approved after or before brexit legally happened. Any bill that for some reason needed consideration before brexit is declared is either dead or theoretically got moved up to before it was declared. Sequence is sometimes important in the big picture, is something passed tomorrow officially grandfathered in as an exemption or merely illegal? Gotta pick an official date.
The third is we'd like to think legislatures have been housetrained and will not foul the carpet (although we know they are actually savages). Anyway in theory if for the sake of argument we the people voted to eliminate the CIA, then we'd like to think that the legislators would do a professional cleanup job. So more than just zero out the budget and legislation directly applying to the CIA but also clean up indirect messes such as perhaps FCC frequency allocations for spy radios or interdepartmental authorization for cross training sharing 007 gun ranges, roll up the retirement plan, sell surplus property, a full deep cleaning. This is almost "cheaty simple" because the CIA is one isolated department. What if the vote were something across all levels of government like banning of microsoft products or mandatory Android phones for all govt employees or banning pink dress shirts or ties in the office? It sounds so simple to say "in the entire government" but to implement it might take zillions of pages of laws all in different areas and theoretically the legislators are responsible enough and house trained enough to not foul their (our) beds.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2017, @09:19PM
reducing a complex issue to a single "up/down" vote...
...worked beautifully in Crimea.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:32PM
The votes would've mattered if "remain" had won
Farage and UKIP would have gone on stirring - he was already planning his protests when he was interviewed early on referendum night and thought "Remain" was going to win. The much vaunted e-petiton demanding a new referendum was actually started before the referendum by a Leave supporter [huffingtonpost.co.uk] who assumed they would lose.
Anyway, if "remain" had won, the issue of putting it to parliament would be irrelevant, since it just meant doing nothing.
It's hard to imagine Parliament not following through here.
They will, unless there's an unprecedented outbreak of backbone-growing in parliament: the only significant group of MPs definitely voting against leaving are the Scottish Nationalist Party - and they can argue that the majority of Scottish voters backed remain in the referendum. They may be joined by a few Labour and Conservative rebels, but that's unlikely to swing it. At most, a few amendments will get tacked on, and voted down unless they're totally inane. The House of Lords could block or amend it - but parliament can always overrule the Lords, and any amendments they add should be worth considering because those unelected old geezers do actually have a shitload of legal and constitutional knowledge and experience between them.
But I'm American, so my understanding of politics in the UK is limited at best.
Main point here: the House of Commons is sovereign and has the vote that matters on most things. The PM's party usually has an absolute majority in the Commons, so usually gets her way unless any of her MPs have a sudden attack of principals - defeats for the government are a A Big Thing but they do happen. There are a limited number of "royal prerogative" powers that the PM can exercise on her own, signing treaties with foreign countries, for example. The PM thinks she can use these to send our Article 50 "resignation notice" to the EU. However, EU membership goes a lot deeper than the typical treaty and (despite what some people would like to think) Article 50 is irreversible, so invoking it would negate the prior Acts of Parliament that integrated the EU in UK law - so she's now been forced to do what she bloody well should have known to do in the first place, which is to submit a bill to parliament. Since she's got a Commons majority and support (albeit with a hint of "don't throw me into the briar patch") from the closet Brexiteer leading the main opposition, the only practical upshot will be that the issue gets properly and openly debated in parliament.
In the unlikely event that it gets rejected then the voters will get the opportunity to punish their elected representatives at the next General Election (which, in that case, could be sooner rather than later).