Dear Colleagues,
I suppose if you aren't a subject of Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth
ll of England and Queen Elizabeth l (in dispute) of Scotland, and a
student of politics or Unwritten Constitutions you will not be very
understanding of the finer elements of the proceedings of the
Westminster Parliament, the politics which drives the United Kingdom,
encourages the Constitutional Monarchy, and keeps the Legislature well
fed, if only because there are many of us here in the UK who are in
exactly the same position! It reminds me so much of my old shop steward
days, when our union used to sit in one of those smoke filled rooms for
days, negotiating the annual deal for the workers. Our paid National
Union Official, described it as Sadists and Masochists having an orgy at
the Company's expense. We all thought it funny at the time. Now it is
nice to sit back and watch those others, our "betters" in Parliament and
government go through the same process, though it is a pity that us
taxpayers have to pay for it all.
Those of you, coming from the New World, which didn't see the invention
of the nation state of the US of A, until July 1776, will be unlikely to
comprehend the relevance of the creation of a Convention of 1604
attached to English Parliamentary Procedure saying that the same motion
cannot be moved more than once in the same parliamentary session, being
used to put the kybosh on a government tactic to delay the Brexit
decision. Unless of course you look closely at your own Houses of
Congress and the Senate, and therefore, like filibusters, will, no
doubt, make it seem the most useless and irrelevant twaddle to most of
you. After all, the USA has a written constitution based on the
separation of powers of the judiciary, executive and legislature,
whereas the UK has all of them rolled into one.
And those of you, who come from dictatorships, or ex dictatorships, or
republics with a written constitution, or so called democracies, or
tribal democracies or primitive democracies, will also not understand,
much of the goings on in this great United Kingdom bourgeois liberal
parliamentary democracy, composed of a House containing elected
Commoners, a House containing both hereditary and appointed Lords, and
religious representatives composed of Bishops from the established
church, the Church of England, with a constitutional, hereditary
sovereign, who sits once each parliament on a golden throne and signs
the final proceedings of parliament and makes the Acts, legal and
enforceable.
It was the use of this Convention by the Speaker of the House of
Commons, Mr. Bercow (a remainer) which is driving its parliamentary
representatives nuts at the moment, much to the chagrin and bemusement
of the population, no matter what beliefs they have in remaining or
leaving the European Union. Believe it or not, the ordinary subject, the
"man on the Clapham omnibus", carries on his and her business as usual,
laughing or grumbling, as his/her mood may be, or looking and listening
with astonishment at the antics of their most respected and highly
honoured political representatives in Parliament.
It is interesting to note that on such a great day as World Happiness
Day, the Prime Minister, Mrs. May decided to beleaguer and berate, our
most right honorable representatives in the House of Commons, (out of
which more than 400 or 650 of them are remainers) for their
prevarications and procrastination, as if, she herself was unable to
play political games and use delaying tactics.
The goings on in the UK Parliament is confusing to most people,
including not only the plebeians, but also the politicians and leading
members of the ruling circles, many are at a loss on what to do,
scratching their heads and nether parts, not only here in the UK, but
also in the European Union. Time is now precious, the 29th March
deadline, the date on which, by law the UK leaves the European Union, is
very much alive and kicking, rearing its ugly head at Parliamentary
dalliances, and the UK government is no closer to resolving its
difficulties in getting Parliament and the British people to accept the
deal agreed between the EU and Mrs May, the Prime Minister, than it was
when the tumultuous result of the referendum, which led them all,
including myself, to wandering around with our mouths agape; in awe that
the Queen's subjects had dared to cock a snook at its betters, the
ruling classes of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and most
of all the non elected Bureaucrats of the European Union.
The most recent turn of events with the Speaker of the House of Commons
rejecting the latest motion by the government, on the basis of a
Parliamentary Procedure,because of a Convention established in 1604
which says that the government cannot repeat the same motion in the
Commons without substantially altering it, has scuppered the latest
attempt by Mrs. May, the P.M. and her disunited Cabinet from going down
that route, and which is contained within Erskine May's most learned
works on Parliamentary Procedure, cannot be ignored or treated with
disdain. (How well I remember that book, a Penguin Classic, which I
picked up cheap at Jumble Sale in my political, Communist Youth). Her
policy of sorting and sifting, of slowly removing the obstacles to her
deal, separating the wheat from the chaff, by various means of perfidy,
bribery, false promises, bounty and all the usual deceptions of jobs for
the boys and girls, has been forced to a stop, and with only a couple of
weeks to go.
Now, she is having to apply for an extension to the law of the land,
which says that the UK will leave the EU on 29th March 2019 at 11.p.m.,
so that she can take even more time to get the UK Parliamentarians to
agree to her withdrawal deal. A deal which no one likes a deal which
no one wants, a deal which is said to be better than no deal, a deal
which will prevent the UK falling into an economic and political
disaster. Now, she has to go arse crawling to the non-elected European
Bureaucrats to get their permission to extend the Withdrawal Date. And
the UK is supposed to be a sovereign nation! A myth like the Untied
Kingdom....:-)
There is no guarantee of course that the EU non-elected bureaucrats will
allow or accept this extension of course, and they will dictate the
terms, and the length of it if they do grant an extension. The people
of the UK in the meantime, have to suffer further and longer the agonies
of not knowing or remaining within an organisation, of which the
majority who voted in a people's referendum, voted to leave by 58% to
48%. And; whose M.P.s at the last election, all agreed to abide by the
decision of the citizens referendum, in their manifestos, to wit,
leaving the EU.
However, the European Union has its own problems coming to the fore, and
the antics of the United Kingdom in trying leave the darned place is
stirring up all the wasps and bees who want to keep the honey for
themselves. A populist movement is developing fast in Europe, and it is
rejection this concept of a European Nation, along with many undesirable
things, like condemning and subverting US interests, and sanctions which
are being imposed on Russia and Iran and other countries for trading or
dealing with them. Big changes are on the way, as new elections will be
taking place in May for the European Parliament, and many European
countries are not happy with the way things are going.
Why is this very British debacle so confusing? Why all this turbulence
amongst the M.P.s, Government and Parliament. Once again, what one has
to remember, is that although all the M.P.s and all the parties agreed
in their manifestos to abide by the the result of the referendum; out of
650 M.P.s there are over 400 who are, in fact fully in support of
remaining within the European Union, and to them a deal or no deal is
irrelevant. They want to stay in the European Union. Whilst I wouldn't
say that they want to do this at all costs, they certainly don't want to
do it at a cost to themselves. After all, many of them, to remain M.P.s
have to get selected and elected by their Constituency Party
hierarchies, and many of those constituencies and party hierarchies
voted in favour of the UK leaving...and it looks very much like the May
government won't last for more than a few more months...though, I hasten
to add, nothing is certain...:-)
As most of you know, I am a Brexiteer, and have been ever since I was
forced to join the European Project in 1972 under Ted Heath's
Conservative Government. It's not that I don't like beg a part of
Europe, I have a house in France, after all. It's just that I don't
like another layer of unelected bureaucrats running my life, a bunch of
charlatans who can't even budget properly, who hide the European Budget
from the people of Europe because they can't account for it properly,
who exclude the developing world through high tariffs, and who are
always trying to dictate to the rest of Europe how they should be
conducting themselves and their economies. I just happen to think that
we should trade with everyone, make our own deals with other countries,
a more free and less regulation bound kind of trade, allowing each
country to protect the interests of producers, consumers and users by
legislative means and goodwill. More control exerted over the likes of
Google and Facebook and other international conglomerates, who think
that they are in existence to be subsidised by the world taxpayers,
whilst they peddle fake news, and make huge profits for their
shareholders, at the expense of the "man in the Clapham Omnibus". Trade
with developing countries would be nice too, on an equal and fair basis,
like Venezuela which has all that oil and gold, and shortages of stuff,
which we have a surplus of; or developing countries in Africa and the
Middle East. Dealing with Russia and China where we can get cheaper oil
and cheaper well made goods, which can be used for the public good
rather than all that expensive military stuff we can buy from the US of
A. Far better to trade useful goods than weapons to kill and maim one
another.
Still, in the World of International Happiness, I am never more happy
than when I am grumbly, and putting the world to rights, is my hobby as
well as my horse... I hope you enjoyed my little encomium and that I
helped to make your day a happy one...:-)
ATB
Dougie.
P.S. Because of the delay in Brexit, me missus and I have just had to
shell out a whole £21 to purchase international driving licenses for
driving in France, as we are going over to France as EU citizens for a
holiday before Brexit, and may be coming back as UK citizens with no
European Rights in April.
The sacrifices we make for our country and Europe!!!