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As
an almost lifelong political junky, I have to confess that for the last week I
have been riveted, mouth open in amazement, in the proceedings of the House of
Commons in London, as they agonizingly struggle to find a way of passing
Britain out of the European Union.
As I am writing this, the debate
drones on, with commentators saying that nothing like this has ever been heard
of before in British Parliamentary memory. I have to admit it is unusual,
because my experience with Parliaments has convinced me that invariably the
result of any debate, on no matter how serious a subject, is known in
advance. I cannot remember any vote in
which I took an interest that violated that rule: essentially, the debate
turned out to be fire and brimstone, signifying in itself, little enough. I
even remember a debate in the House of Lords on one of those intense social
policies of the 1960s in Britain, abortion or capital punishment ---I tend to
think it was the latter, but am not sure of it --- in which the Archbishop of
Canterbury, a member of the Lords, spoke in favour of the proposed policy and
then voted against it. A sort of reducio
ad absurdum of democratic politics.
For years I was able to say that the
only political vote I ever witnessed in which the result was not known in
advance, took place within the British Labour party, at their annual conference
at the beginning of the 1960s, and concerned the effort made by supporters of
the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, to have the Labour party accept their aim
“to ban the bomb”, as party policy. They succeeded, in a manner of speaking: they
won the vote taken following the debate, but it made no difference to party
policy. When Labour was elected to government in 1964, they never implemented their
avowed anti-nuclear weapons policy, but continued to use imported American
nuclear weapons, which they have to this
day. So, is Parliamentary democracy just full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing? Good question….
Today’s debate is a good test of that
question. Britain’s Conservative government held a referendum on whether the
country should continue to be a member of the European Community, or leave it. They expected to win, but lost it. Prime Minister David Cameron scuttled off with his tail between his legs, and the
party elevated the Home Secretary, Theresa May, who set about the arduous task of negotiating the
terms of quitting the grand European project.
At first she was hoping to be able to
achieve the withdrawal without having to seek Parliamentary approval, but
eventually it was forced on her, and this week’s debate has been billed as the
moment of decision --- a five-day debate
on a deal May has achieved with the European bureaucrats and politicians that she
has presented as not only the best deal on offer, but also the only deal
available.
Having watched, so far as I could, the first three days of the debate with a
certain admiration as to its tone, quality and politeness, I was looking
forward to the last two days building to an exciting vote --- which would have
been the first occasion to my knowledge that the result of a Parliamentary vote
would have been uncertain until the vote was counted. But when I turned on the TV in the morning I
was greeted with the news that Ms. May was expected to cancel the vote. All was
confusion: some of her staff were still telling reporters no cancellation was
in prospect, but others were claiming they had it on good authority….etc….
As I had experienced so many times in
the 1960s, a big occasion in the House of Commons usually manages to live up to
its billing, When the chamber had to be rebuilt after the war, Winston Churchill
advised there should be fewer seats than Members, so that on the great occasions
the excitement would be heightened by the corridors being full of standing Members who were not able to find a seat.
He was right: the chamber was filled
to capacity, with Members coming and going, forcing themselves through the
standing phalanx just inside the entrance, as ordinary business was being
conducted while waiting for the Prime Minister.
A moment or two after she took her seat, the Speaker rose and called on the
“Rt Honourable the Prime Minister, a statement.” She said she had carefully listened ---- loud
groans from the Opposite benches --- to honourable Members, both inside and
outside the House, and it had become clear to her that if the preferred deal
were to be put to the vote, it would be lost by a considerable margin. (More groans and shouts of agreement). Mr. Speaker
rose to his feet: he said his intention was to call every person who wished to
question the Prime Minister, “but she must be heard.” And asked them to quieten
down.
She said she had decided to postpone
the vote, and to return to Brussels to attempt to get further clarification
about the so-called Northern Irish backstop, the most important item to which
so many members took exception. She
said this in spite of the fact that she had spent weeks telling them all that
no further changes were possible to the proffered deal.
From the beginning I have found this
concept of the “backstop” --- a saying from the cricket field --- confusing and
puzzling. A short explanation of it is that it is a position of last resort,
designed to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland in the event that the
UK leaves the EU without securing an all-encompassing deal. At present,
goods and services are traded between the two jurisdictions on the island of
Ireland with few restrictions. The UK and Ireland are currently part of the EU
single market and customs union, so products do not need to be inspected for customs
and standards.
Even more bewildering
is the fact that both sides would hope that the backstop need never be used, and on the British side,
they want to be clear that it is a temporary measure; otherwise, it would amount
to their having to stay within the EU indefinitely. The backstop has been described as an
insurance policy, but --- I am now quoting The
Guardian explanation --- “The EU still requires a ‘backstop to the
backstop’ – effectively an insurance policy for the insurance policy. And they
want this to be the Northern Ireland-only solution that they had previously
proposed,” May told MPs. Raising the stakes, the prime minister said the EU’s
insistence amounted to a threat to the constitution of the UK: “We have been
clear that we cannot agree to anything that threatens the integrity of our
United Kingdom,” she added. Maybe readers will be more perspicacious than am I,
and will understand what the above two paragraphs mean.
When she finished, the Leader of the
Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn rose to say the government had lost control, and was in
an absolute shambles. If she couldn’t do
better than she had done, she should give way to allow someone else to try.
This debate has held a number of surprises
for me, not the least of which is that Ms. May was on her feet, or at least up
and down on and off them, for more than three hours, answering the comments
made to her by Members. The first person
called after Corbyn was a young woman, from the Scottish National Party, Kirsty
Blackman. She looked like a teenager, and made such a brilliant three or four
minutes demolition of the government’s position that I couldn’t help but wish we
had some like her in our own House of Commons.
After a couple more intervenors, Mr. Speaker Bercow rose to say that after 164
Members had already spoken in a debate that promised to come to a conclusion
with a vote, it was discourteous to them that the vote should be cancelled. The best way to deal with it, he said, would
be for a Member of the government to move
a motion to adjourn the debate, so that the
motion could be debated and the House could decide whether it wished to have
the vote ending the debate as planned, or not.. “I would be happy to accept such a motion,”
he said. But the government was not listening
to him: Ms. May carried on answering objectors just as if Mr. Speaker had not
spoken. Soon the BBC cut away to give
one of their veteran reporters the chance to say that he had never heard a
Speaker condemning a government so strongly on the matter of how it was
handling Commons business.
When I turned it on later in the day,
the Chamber had only a scattering of Members present, but they were still
fulfilling Mr. Speaker’s promise to hear everyone who wanted to speak, and most
of them did.
An expert interviewed by the BBC gave
it as his opinion that had she allowed the vote to go ahead, she could have
counted on roughly 200 Members, of the more than 600 in the Chamber. He had never heard of a government being
defeated by such a huge majority.
The leaders of the European
Community, in response to these surprising events, reinforced what they had
said before: that hey were not prepared to negotiate any changes in the deal
they had already signed off on.
As some said today, “we shall see.”
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