I
spent several hours yesterday, and again this morning, in watching the proceedings
of the House of Commons in Britain, the so-called Mother of Parliaments, as they
embarked on the five-day debate during which they will presumably decide on the
fate of the deal to leave the European Union that Prime Minister Theresa May
has put before them. I was able to watch so much of it because The Guardian newspaper has obligingly been
running the debates live on its web site.
Watching it all took me back to that
time almost 60 years ago ---- never! It can’t be that long ago, surely ---- when,
as a correspondent in London for The
Montreal Star I conceived it to be
one of my duties to cover debates in that
institution given over to deliberation and decision-making. I was never ordered
by my employer to do that. They were buying news services from most of the
great London newspapers, as well as from the news agencies, so they would have
been completely covered for any news arising from that source in an emergency, whether
I wrote anything or not. Rather, I got into the habit of paying attention by
going at least twice a week to listen to Prime Minister’s Question Period, and
if the House was on a subject that interested me, I would stay to hear at least
the leading speeches given from both sides. Another part of my duties was to
write what might now be considered
investigative journalism on subjects of unusual interest, and I quickly
discovered that in doing such research, one of the simplest ways to get information about, for example, British liquor licensing laws, land ownership
in Britain, the continuing elevated status and wealth of the noble families in spite of the attempts
by previous Labour governments to curtail their powers, or some other similarly
esoteric subject, was to consult the
Hansard accounts of the most recent debates held in Parliament. The
statements made by the government and opposition spokespersons, plus the
inevitable speech from some backbencher who always turned out to have an
absolute mastery of the subject, whatever it might be, usually provided an
unrivalled overview of any subject you might like to name. For me, such a method
--- which, readers may remember, was very similar to the methods of research
undertaken by the famous radical reporter of American politics, I.F.Stone, a
man who always read the published information wherever it was to be found,
something that most reporters neglected to do ---- had the added advantage that
it also revealed the high level of British political oratory and wit. (For
example, I came across the statement of one Conservative member who said,
during a debate on licensing hours, that
“The British pub is an institution that has declined into a state of sordid
neglect which I personally find immensely
agreeable”).
Of course at that time, the traditional
formalities of Parliament were kind of amusing, and as I began to watch
yesterday I was expecting there to have been quite a few changes. In those
days, approval was expressed by hanging the hands on he desks, accompanied by a
guttural rumble of approval. Clapping was not allowed although later I believe
it was encouraged at least in the Canadian Parliament.. Yesterday a woman MP got
up and pleaded for a change in what appear to be the enduring formalities
because, she said, she deplored that when some young person had been praised for some praiseworthy action
the day before, MPs were not able to express their approval with applause. Mr.
Speaker, John Bercow, explained that he allowed
applause if it came as a spontaneous reaction to some item of interest,
especially if it was not party-oriented
in nature, and was not being used simply as an item of inter-arty animus.
I noticed that Mr,Bercow had made the
considerable change that he no longer wears the heavy white wig that was
customary for all Speakers before him: I looked up this Bercow, a very amusing
fellow to judge by the way he carried himself in the Speaker’s chair, and
discovered he was Conservative member who started his political life as a rabid
right-wing agitator, strongly against modern social customs such as same-sex
marriage, yet a man who had been turned
by experience into such a liberal in his
attitudes that he had for quite a long time been considered likely to defect to
the Labour party. He had been elected Speaker on three occasions, the only man
ever to have been so honoured, but in the process he had earned such obloquy from
his won party that his two most recent elections had been achieved more from
opposition votes than from the support of his own party.
What struck me yesterday as the
five-days of debate got under way was the extreme politeness with which members
addressed one another. Years ago it had been forbidden for any member’s name to
be mentioned, so that members had to be addressed, or referred to as “the Rt.
Honourable Gentleman,”, or “the Honourable
member for Hampstead and Kilburn”, which
left casual observers always wondering who was the particular person speaking,
and from whence had he or sprung.
I don’t know whether the excessive
politeness with which speakers yesterday gave way to interruptions from honourable
members from all sides of hte House was exceptional because of the solemnity of
the occasion, but it did seem that each speaker was limited to eight minutes.
I was particularly struck by the
silky eloquence of women members who spoke. One after the other, be they former
journalists or barristers, accountants, doctors or what have you, one member after another rose to deliver a
masterly, coherent statement of his or her beliefs. For example, the first
speaker I heard was the Rt.Honourable Margaret Beckett, an 11-year Cabinet
member in various Labour administrations, whose demolition of Ms. May’s negotiated
deal left no doubt as to its deficiencies. She was followed from the other side
of the House by an brisk, active-looking woman called Anna Soubry, who
astonished me by saying her speech could be shorter than she had supposed
because she completely agreed with the argument just heard from the last speaker.
That these two women were on opposite sides of the House seemed to matter little,
and when I looked her up I found she was another member who had gained a reputation
for free-thinking, independence of mind, and sound judgment.
After listening for several hours, I
have heard only two members say they were prepared to support Mrs, May’s deal,
which she had insisted was the only possible deal to be expected from he EU,
and the alternative of which could be only a no-deal exit with all the dangers
it posed.
I turned it on this morning, in time
to hear a few routine subjects being discussed before getting back on to the Brexit
negotiations. First, a handsome young woman spoke eloquently, without any reference
to a single note, in favour of her private member’s bill designed to prevent asylum
seekers from being held in indefinite detention, as was the practise. Only refugees were treated in his way, she said,
criminals having to be released after 28 days if no charges had been laid. She said her family had arrived in 1977 as
refugees, and she was so extremely proud to represent her constituency which
had a notable record for accepting immigrants, as well as refugees. She
apologized for “my very long speech,”, was warmly applauded with that guttural
expression of approval that is heard only in the House of Commons, I believe,
and was commended by Mr. Speaker Bercow for having completed her remarks within
the ten minutes which were allotted to them, so she had no reason to apologize
on that account. Then he called, who will present the bill, and the young woman
stepped down into the corridor between the two sides, and as she did so the
Speaker called dramatically, “Tulip… something or other” I did not hear. The young woman took up her position at the far end of the House, bowed to Mr. Speaker, advanced halfway along
towards him, stopped and bowed again, and upon reaching the bench, bowed a
third time and handed in her bill for consideration. Mr. Speaker asked which date
had been fixed for its consideration, she said January 29, 2019, and he called
for a vote. “I think the ayes have it.
The ayes have it,” he intoned in the traditional form. He then delivered a little homily in which he
called upon any member who had spoken in the debate during the day to turn up
when the summing up speeches are delivered by both sides. He had observed yesterday
that certain members who had spoken had apparently had other things to do than
to listen to a summing up of the day’s proceedings, and he wanted to ask that
for the rest of the debate until the vote on Tuesday, he expected everyone who
had spoken to be in the House for the day’s summing up.
I had time to look up Google for any
British MP who might be called Tulip, and sure enough, up came the name of Tulip
Saddiq, the member since 2015 for Hampstead and Kilburn. And an exceptionally
active member she had been having spoken in Parliament 216 times, having asked 950 questions of the government,
and having written more than 500 letters to Ministers. So evidently more to this
honourable member than just her good looks and her silky eloquence.
Mr. Speaker then called on the government
spokesman for the day, the Home
Secretary Sayid Javid. I could not help but contrast this man, son of another
immigrant with the Home Secretary of Harold Macmillan’s government, Rab Butler, the essence of plodding
British solemnity. Mr. Javid yielded to honourable members so
often he almost found it difficult to make his points.
Mrs May suffered defeats in three votes
taken on this first day of debate: one was to find the government in contempt
of Parliament for refusing to give members the full legal opinion they had
deceived from the Attorney-general; the second was in an amendment proposed by
one of her own members, Dominic Grieve, establishing that in the event of a
defeat for Mrs. May’s motion on Tuesday, the House of Commons would be permitted
to follow alternative options; and that
the members voted down a government compromise which would have referred the
dispute about contempt of Parliament to parliament’s privileges committee, that
would not have had time to vote on it until after next Tuesday’s definitive vote.
So Mrs.May is off to a rocky start,
but the argument now is that enough Brexit-favouring Conservative members might
realize from the figures so far provided that a no-deal might be the only
result of their defeating Mrs.May’s deal, and possibly with that realization
could swing behind her at the last minute.
We will wait and see.
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