Quite astonishing that this question apparently is now the heated topic
of conversation the length and breadth of the benighted land I once knew as
home….with some people in little doubt that the five-week suspension of Parliament
which starts next week is precisely that – and the government arguing, on the
other hand, that it is a routine affair…
These, of course, are very uncivil times in which emotional and
insulting words are too casually thrown around. “Words”, however, “are important
– they are all we have…..”
Some words have a precise
meaning which can be undermined when used as an insult….which is perhaps what
Napoleon meant when he apparently said
“Why and how are words so important that they cannot be too often used”.
Fascist is one recent example (although,
for me, all adjectives ending in “ist” run this danger). TS Eliot put it best
when he wrote….
“Words
strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.”
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.”
Thinking before we act or speak is always advisable… Parents
used to advise their teenage kids to “bite their tongue” after blurting out a
questionable remark….but that probably shows my age…
So my first reaction is that talk of a “coup” is not all that helpful.
Wikipedia’s
entry for "prorogation" is quite useful. I certainly had no recollection of John
Major having used it mid March 1997 to avoid having to answer questions about
the “cash for questions” affair – leading to New Labour’s election 6 weeks later…
But a lot of people have a vague memory of its use by Charles I in the
17th century – leading to a certain event known as the English Civil
War…
But, normally, the “prorogation” (or suspension) of Parliament is a
routine matter lasting a few days….But there is something called the “Party Conference
Season” – the 4 week period at the end of September and beginning of
October when the British political parties hold their Annual Conferences.
So, technically, it is true that
the prorogation adds only a few days to what, otherwise, would have been a
normal parliamentary recess…..
But these, patently, are not normal
times. And it has been all too easy for “Remainers” to paint the abnormally
long period of prorogation as a denial of government accountability….
There are at least 2 blogs which focus entirely on constitutional
issues and it is interesting to see what they have been saying. The
Constitution Unit has had only one post on the question – to which its answer
is very clear…it’s
“improper” and should be reversed.
UK Constitutional Law has a
more varied response…. And, of course, the two legal appeals so far made
against the prorogation have failed – with the Supreme Court making the final
decision in a week or so…
So for those of a betting nature, I would simply remind them that the government generally has the inside track…..
ppps A very good balanced analysis from a public admin Prof with echoes of Jim Callaghan’s famous question can be read here
Update; Andrew Rawnsley of the Observer is always good for a
reflective Sunday piece on the week’s politics in the UK which tries to look
round all the corners…Today’s
also suggests that resignation is on the cards
pps; How naive I am to complain about loose language. My blog hits have in the past week limped along at under 100 a day. Until the weekend when they first went to 500 and have in past 24 hours hit the 1000 mark......proof (if I really needed it) that it pays to use extreme language!!ppps A very good balanced analysis from a public admin Prof with echoes of Jim Callaghan’s famous question can be read here
I don't think the issue can be answered juridically or constitutionally, particularly given the fact that the UK has an unwritten constitution. It can only be answered by examining intent and context.
ReplyDeleteGiven what can be discerned in relation to intent, and what we already know about context - its a coup. I began writing about the slide towards Bonapartism back in 2012 - History Repeating As Farce. That looked at the way Cameron had taken the Tories out of the EPP, to line up with European far-right nationalists et al; it looked at other strong state measures such as proposals to abandon jury trials in all cases (something previously only allowed in Northern Ireland during "The Troubles"); it included a strengthening of the ties between Church and State, and so on. Under May that tendency increased. We had the attempt to by-pass parliament over Brexit decisions, the attacks on the judiciary, the election campaign based around the need for a "Strong and Stable Leader", with Fox going off the visit Duterte and proclaim their "shared values", not to mention May's own fawning to Trump, Johnson's fawning to Putin's cronies, and we know that Russian oligarch money has been funnelled through back door channels into the Tory Party, as well as the same sets of connections via Cambridge Analytica with Steve Bannon and his international ultra national networks.
A coup does not have to be a permanent process. Erdogan essentially implemented a coup in the guise of defeating a coup, and then restored the facade of parliamentary democracy. Indeed, following the Reichstag Fire, Hitler proceeded with the outward appearances of parliamentary democracy, for a time.
The same is true with Bonapartism. Bonapartism always exists on a spectrum, at one end looking indistinguishable from normal bourgeois democracy, at the other end looking like Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Germany. Presidential systems such as those in the US or France, always contain some element of Bonpartism, because Executive power is vested solely in a single person, and the degree of the Bonapartism is dependent on a number of factors, such as the amount of power vested, the ability of the other arms of the state to limit that power, but also the intent of the president, and the intent of other politicians in holding them in check.
Trump is a Bonapartist, but I would not characterise the US yet, as being a Bonapartist regime, for example. Trump wants to use his office in a Bonapartist manner, and he is having some success in doing that, despite the checks and balances. He is able to do that because, the rest of the Republican Party are not holding him in check, but facilitating him, and they are doing so because Trump has shaped the Party itself in his image; and secondly, he has used his powers to reshape the judiciary, not just at the Supreme Court level, but at the local and state level.
In Britain, we have been moving closer and closer to a Presidential System. Hailsham described it decades ago as an elected dictatorship, because of the power of the PM. Like the Republicans, the Tory Party has been shaped in the image of the ultra-nationalists, and Faragists, which is the base Johnson rests on.
The intent was to limit the options of parliament, and to create an appropriate backdrop - much like the Reichstag Fire - the context is an ever onward slide towards Bonapartism and a strong state, to contain the inevitable social contradictions that Britain and its economy faces as the age of conservative social-democracy (neoliberalism) comes to an end.