UK Parliment

So lets debate this please

Was it right for Boris and the Tories to close Parliment

Was it right that the UK Supreme court overruled this

Is it right MP's are back at Parliment

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MartinII · 70-79, M

1. I think it was a reasonable thing to do, but perhaps unnecessary and unwise. I wouldn’t say right or wrong.

2. It was extremely unwise of the Supreme Court to claim jurisdiction. It sets a dangerous precedent, and I am sure a future government will seek to limit the Court’s powers.

3. It depends what use they make of the few days that will be available before Parliament is prorogued again. What they should do is allow the Prime Minister to call a general election.

milkymum1 · 31-35, F

@MartinII I think if Boris had closed Parliment for a week maybe two weeks at the most it would have been accptable, but for five weeks there was more to it than needed.

The UKSC is there to stop any PM or government from acting as they did as no PM or government are above the law.

They will only let the PM call a GE once he has agreed to extend for another 3 months as law says if you go in to a GE you have to come out of it as it was, but Boris has brought this all on himself.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@milkymum1 I disagree with your second and third paragraphs. The law the Prime Minister is said to have broken is one invented by the Supreme Court. Call it good law or bad law as you like, but it is a far more radical, and in my view egregious, departure from constitutional precedent than the long prorogation was.

As to your third paragraph, the problem derives from the Fixed Parliament Act introduced by the Cameron coalition government. With the government prevented by parliament from governing, a general election is obviously necessary. Before the Cameron Act, the PM would simply have advised the Queen to dissolve parliament and we would be in the middle of the campaign now. As it is, the Act has allowed unscrupulous operators like Grieve and Letwin to frustrate democratic government solely in order to prevent the implementation of a policy which they don’t like. I said at the time it was introduced that the Act was a constitutional outrage, but I didn’t think it mattered too much in practice because I couldn’t imagine any opposition party refusing a government’s request for a general election. Now I know better.