Challenging the Benn Act

[Parker231]

Today’s news reports are saying that the Government won’t break the law but won’t ask for an extension. As a deal with the EU doesn’t seem to be happening, Johnson will have to request the extension?

The EU's only offered deal has been roundly rejected by Parliament.

The Deal which May and her team negotiated with the EU, was rejected by Parliament, including the ERG party within a party members, who only reluctantly supported her Deal at the third presentation. She didn't kick them out for disloyalty, which was a pity. She ought to have kicked them out earlier, but perhaps she thought it better to have them inside the tent pissing out.

The Article 50 guidelines state that informal discussions can take place before the leaving member invokes Article 50 and starts the two year clock. That never happened either.

Article 50 also anticipates that the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship between the EU and the leaving member are discussed in parallel. That never happened either.

Because May chose to take a belligerent approach.

Do remember Leavers, this Parliament was voted in after the Referendum. If you don't like its apparent Remainer composition, you need to remind yourselves that these are the MPs people chose to represent them. They didn't give May the mandate for her hard Brexit.

Also remember the Benn Act is law. Slippery Boris couldn't say whether he would obey the law or not.

Peregrina do remember that most of the MPs were elected on manifesto that would implement the referendum result

I think everyone is utterly sick of things.
Most people wish the Referendum had never happened.
Some still want to leave and 'get it over with'.
But anyone who thinks about it knows that if we leave we are NOT 'over it' at all, but only just starting. Whether or not there was any sort of Deal, we'd be mired in negotiations for years and years to come - probably for most of the rest of my working life, and for my kids' formative years.

It just seems such an amazing act of self-harm...

People did not vote for May's interpretation of the Referendum result. May did negotiate a Withdrawal agreement, which would have been the starting post for implementing the result - significant numbers of her own party were happy to vote it down. Consider Ken Clarke who despite being a longstanding Europhile, was prepared to vote for it three times, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who only voted for it once.

That ought to tell you something about implementing the result - Clarke was honourable enough to try, Rees-Mogg not, until expediency forced a vote out of him.

All the verbs are so weird. 'Implementing'. 'Delivering'. You'd never talk about 'delivering' a divorce, would you - and that's simple compared w Brexit!

Seems to me:

• Nobody voted for anything clear. There was no clear Brexitland ahead, and no clear path to one either.
• AND, the only thing that was clear from the Referendum itself was that, in every constituency (ex Gibraltar!), society was utterly divided.

It's completely tragic that politicians didn't grasp this and deal with it.

I'm beginning to think he thinks he can throw the DUP under the bloody bus (lots of bodies under this bus) and that throwing his own moderates was a kind of trial run for what he could get away with. He already has no majority so he blissfully doesn't need them. I'd be happy with this. But hey, I'm just wildly speculating.

Article 50 also anticipates that the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship between the EU and the leaving member are discussed in parallel.

I read it like that as well, it's not what it actually says though, and it's certainly not how it's been interpreted.

In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.

The framework for its future relationship is, apparently, the immediate relationship on leaving the EU. The future relationship beyond the transition period is to be discussed when the UK is free to discuss it - after Brexit, during the transition period.

@peri

If you look at the three votes on the WA, almost all of labour MPs voted against every time. Even at the third attempt only 4 labour MPs voted for the WA.

Not being a Labour voter, I am not particularly minded to look to see what Labour MPs voted for. They did however, want a different deal to May's, which is why I assume they voted against it.

But it doesn't alter the fact that when May first brought her deal back, she had a majority with the DUP, and if the ERG had voted with her, plus the votes from Kate Hoey, Frank Field and a couple of others, it would have got through. So Johnson (who is not an ERGer as far as I know), and Rees-Mogg and his cohorts scuppered it.

They did however, want a different deal to May's, which is why I assume they voted against it

Disagree. It was to try and force a General Election along the lines of;

Look what a mess Conservative Party are making of Brexit, does that not prove you should vote for us

Since Brexit party topped the EU elections in May 2019, labour have said little about an election.

@FishesaPlenty

I guess Framework could be the skeleton and the details discussed during the transition. However, even the Framework seems not have been discussed?

The Brexit party didn't actually top the EU elections. The Remain parties got a slightly bigger share of the vote and the same number of seats. You have to leave Labour and Tories out of the running, the Tories did dismally, as did Labour, but no one knew what Labour stood for, bar some individuals.

But certainly Labour have their problems - they don't know whether to go with their members or with the floating voters who usually vote for them.

Since Brexit party topped the EU elections in May 2019, labour have said little about an election.

Labour are clear that they want an election, but not until no deal has been ruled out and an extension granted.

If Johnson was not trying to circumvent the law, we'd be having a GE next month.

Labour are clear that they want an election, but not until no deal has been ruled out and an extension granted

Polls suggest the most likely GE result would be a coalition between Brexit Party and Conservatives. If they were to get a majority anywhere like the number of constituencies that voted leave (400+) they could overturn any previously passed law.

Polls also show that more people fear Corbyn as PM than they fear a no deal Brexit. So labour's chances look slim.

So does that not bring the UK back to the same position as before with no deal the most likely outcome?

If you were watching the events last night, it came down to Trust. People do not trust Johnson, or his unelected adviser who lives in a £1.6 million house in Islington.

May, for all her faults, would I think have been unlikely to have pulled a stunt like proroguing Parliament like that. Still now it's been done, it can be done again, by a Government of the flavour which Leavers don't like.

news.sky.com/story/amp/boris-johnson-would-not-win-an-election-outright-polling-seen-by-no-10-suggests-11805584

Not sure how much weight this carries when the comments were made by Amber Rudd’s advisor but with so much going on, nothing is a certain.

@peregrina

How does proroguing change the date at which UK must leave the EU that is already set in law, 31 Oct 2019?

Government can be changed by election, but I don't rate labour's chance if people are more afraid of Corbyn as PM than a no deal.

Smaller parties always do badly under the seat system. So a coalition between Brexit and Cons Party is the odds on favourite to win a GE, overturn the Benn Act and return the UK to same place as it was before

@MysteryTripAgain - as I (now) see it the 'framework' is how things will work immediately after Brexit and then going forwards, unless and until a new trade agreement is agreed.

It seems to me that it's been deliberately interpreted that way, when it could have been interpreted to mean a (skeletal if necessary) future trade agreement.

The logical thing to do would have been to skip the transitional stage and the whole issue of the backstop and negotiate a new trade agreement before Brexit. I suspect that would have made it too easy for us (and future members) to leave though. I can't see any other reason for not approaching the issue logically.

but I don't rate labour's chance if people are more afraid of Corbyn as PM than a no deal.

At the last election, people were not as afraid of Corbyn as we had been led to believe they would be. Most party leaders tend to last about five years, so his time is likely to be up soon.

The logical thing to do would have been to skip the transitional stage and the whole issue of the backstop and negotiate a new trade agreement before Brexit

Article 50 guidelines produced by EU in February 2016 allowed for discussions before Article 50 was formally invoked, but guidelines were changed by EU in February 2017 and stated that withdrawal had to take place before future relationship was discussed. That being the case there was no benefit to delay invoke of Article 50.

However, does not excuse UK from not making any plans before the referendum was called and before Article 50 invoked

That was my point - they were the EU's guidelines. The EU could have interpreted A50 differently and handled the issue more logically but they chose not to.

Will be interesting to see the documents when they are released tomorrow following last nights motions. I hope they become public. I know some of the Project Yellowhammer document was leaked but would be good to see it in full.

Some of you really don't understand how negotiations work.

The sequencing of negotiations is inevitably dictated by the interests of the side with the greatest negotiating power.

At the last election, people were not as afraid of Corbyn as we had been led to believe they would be. Most party leaders tend to last about five years, so his time is likely to be up soon

How much of labour’s 40% was attributable to the lie they told students that loans would be scrapped?

In the same way as the blatant lies Johnson told about the £350m