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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, @01:18PM (2 children)
You are bound by the terms of the vote. A margin of 0.1% would have been binding and a margin of 4% is certainly binding.
I agree with you, but not selectively. In other words, if you want to change the law such that laws must be passed with an 80% majority I would be the first to agree with you and help out in any way I can. However, as it currently stands that is not the law or what is understood. It's a similar thing to the US election. I, again, would be the first to support abolishing the electoral college and going for direct voting - even better if it was proportional instead of first past the post. But you don't change the rules after the contract has been signed, sealed, and executed. And for what it's worth I'd be saying this exact same thing had the 4% gone the other way and Brexit failed. If, after the UK exits from the EU, another organization wishes to try to rally a vote for rejoining the EU then that would again perfectly fine within their rights. And if they win that vote by 0.1% I'd again be the first to support their right to have that democratically decided action carried out.
Democracy is not pleasant. The decisions may not be what we'd prefer, but it's vastly better the alternative of minority authoritarian rule. And as such, I view attempts at countermanding democracy as one of the most heinous of actions.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 13 2017, @03:41PM (1 child)
"I agree with you, but not selectively."
Agreed. My position is all or nothing.
Hence I have never voted except ONCE when we were proposing a slightly-more (but not much) mathematically-fair system.
You don't formulate your methods to suit your outcome. You formulate your methods to produce a more accurate outcome. "Do the UK people want to leave the EU?" has roughly the same mathematical proportion in answer as implying that all humans are female. Slightly over 50%? Must be the truth, then. All humans are female.
Trouble is, your example provides a problem, say as any such problem: "Should we nationalise or privatise?". The answer is basically mid-way and liable to bounce over otherwise insignificant changes. if the answer is 50% + small error, then almost every four years you're going to undo what happened last year, in perpetuity. There's an enormous cost to that, that's risky to the country as a whole. Surely it's more sensible to raise the barrier so we don't ping-pong between options at all but are certain that we know what the answer is? Otherwise we throw money away to join the EU and then do it again to leave it and then again to join it.
A majority prevents ping-pong of the options, and I'm MUCH more concerned over wasting money going back and forth (and voting!) than whether we're actually in or out.
The problems with democracy, however, are many. I'd like to vote for myself please. Oh. Only if I stump up thousands of pounds, only in one area, etc. etc. etc.? What about if I want to vote for my mate John? Or Stephen Hawking? Or someone else who doesn't want to run or can't because of the prerequisites? Oh, I can't. What if I want to vote for a convicted criminal (presumably reformed, but it's my vote). Or a policeman. Or a judge. Or a former bankrupt (banned categories of people who can't run for election). It's not a "free" vote as such. I can't even officially vote for "None of the above", I have to play games tinkering with the grey areas of spoiled ballots.
(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.