According to the Mail, then, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the one to which they, the Mail, have been fighting to bring back power from Europe (decent British judges, applying decent British law, enacted by decent British elected parliament…. (try not to laugh at the back), using decent British values), is fundamentally corrupt and can’t be trusted to make a decision about the law of the United Kingdom and its constituent parts regarding the right, under the legal systems operating therein, of the queen to enact the necessary legislation to remove the UK from the EU.
They seem to have little sense of irony at the Mail. I wonder if the British government doesn’t get its way on this, will the Mail demand that the case be taken to the European Court? After all, they clearly have serious doubts about the integrity of the UK’s own very most senior judges, and their abilities to distance themselves from their connections or private feelings when it comes to making judgements…and seriously, that bodes ill for justice in a newly independent UK.
No one is saying, of course, that the will of the people, as indicated in the referendum, should not be enacted. Article 50 should be enacted. The question is more technically about WHO enacts it. And in law that can be everything. Do something wrong at the beginning of the journey and it can invalidate everything you do thereafter.
If British/English/Scots/Irish laws say that use of the Royal Prerogative is illegal, then surely everything that follows from its use would be illegal. How embarrassing would that be?
As I see it, the first question is: Does the UK government, using whatever law it uses (English, I assume) have the right to invite the queen to use her powers under Royal Prerogative to initiate the Article 50 procedure, or must this be decided by the sovereign UK parliament?
The second question is: how is that right affected by different Scots and Irish law, and, given the results of the referendum in Scotland and NI, what rights, if any, do THEIR non-sovereign parliaments have to represent their will, and for it to be considered?
Of course, unlike some of you, I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll be very happy to stand corrected on any of that. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
Oh, and one last thing. The Daily Mail has just trashed the Supreme Court of the UK for being a pile of unelected (unlike the Daily Mail) Europhiles. Any judgement they make is bound to be biased. So, what happens if they agree with the government that the queen is entitled to make the decision and the Scotland and the Irish can like it or do the other thing? Will they still be a pile of unelected idiots, or will they suddenly have become sensible and sober upholders of the Great British legal system?
Will they still be a pile of unelected idiots, or will they suddenly have become sensible and sober upholders of the Great British legal system? It’s awfully complicated.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
If memory serves me right here Tris the Lord Advocate of Scotland is using as part of his argument article XVIII of the Treaty of Union. Now, like you, I aint no legal whizz but, and it is a huge but, I wonder what if the Supreme Court said to Westminster something along the lines of:
“O.K. then WM you can go ahead with your use of the Royal prerogative however in so doing you must, as a result of so doing, relinquish all control over Scotland and return full independence to Scotland. Full independence must be given to Scotland before exiting the E.U.”
Of course we all know this will never happen Tris but can you imagine the number of headless chickens running riot throughout number 10 and the Cabinet if it did happen. They wouldn’t know whether they were coming or going … agreeing to this for Scotland or should it be the E.U. … working that out with the E.U. or should it be with Scotland… LOL
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Aye, you’ve got a vivid imagination, Arbroath. But it’s nice to dream.
It may be that they will say that the Queen has that right under English law. I suspect she doesn’t in Scots Law and I have no idea in Irish Law.
But imagine that they said, Ok, under English law you can do this, but under Scots and Irish law, you need consent from the people of these countries (via their parliaments).
It could be that they would have to find a way to take England and Wales (which shares English law) out and leave us and Ireland in.
Ok, I’m only dreaming. Almost undoubtedly the British courts will find that there are ways around inferior Scots and Irish law and that in matters relating to international affairs English law must prevail.
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Royal Prerogative is EXPLICITLY not reserved by the Scotland Act.
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Well, it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court acts on that.
My understanding is that the queen (or her prerogative) cannot act against the wishes of the people in Scotland. The people wanted to remain part of the EU. She cannot act against that at peril of her throne. But then who’s going kick her off the throne?
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Aye that’s true Tris … partner keeps taking me to the doctor’s to see if they can gie me something for it … sadly I’m too old they say so I’m stuck with a furtive mind as they say. LOL
On a more serious note though I think there could well be a chance that they might not make a decision themselves and say the decision must be made in the European courts. Oh to be a fly on the wall of May and co. if that were to happen. LOL
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OK. I’ll prescribe something. A half bottle and a fish supper (not wrapped in the Daily Mail).
Oh no… not foreigners? Wash your mouth out. What would Stairheid Maggie say?
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WHIT?
Only a HALF BOTTLE?
Are you mad?
Don’t you realise I need at least a FULL bottle a day otherwise I get a dose of the shakes! LOL
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Oh dear, a whole bottle of Irn Bru?
I hope they don’t run out. What would Humza do?
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“that bodes ill for justice in a newly independent UK”
The UK is independent already. It is one of 27 fully independent countries which have freely entered into a common economic and travel area, feeling that to be in the common interest of all 27. If it was not independent then it would not be able to wage wars, nor indeed to admit several hundred thousand non – EU nationals to live and work.
Scotland does not set its own taxes. It does not decide on who has residence and property rights here. It does not get any say in wars. It cannot enter into treaties with other independent countries. We need our independence, they never lost theirs.
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28 even. And no excuse. Head hung again….
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You know what I mean though David.
No more of these regulations from Brussels; no more courts in Luxembourg or Strasbourg; no more Johnnie Foreigner messing with the sound fair decent Great British values that they tell us we should be so proud of.
Just a pile of supposedly corrupt judges who are not interested in the law of the land, just their own political preferences.
That’s what these people bla on about. The perfection of Britain over Scotland and Britain over Euopre and Britain over the rest of the world (with the obvious exception of the boss in the Whitehouse (although we think from now on it should be the Goldhouse.
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tris and other referendum lovers
Referendums under the UK laws( we have no written constitution dont ya know )
are not worth a warm bucket of spit even snp ones.
there is no reason whatsoever other than political calculation to listen or not
to what the People/mob wish for at the time of the joke vote.
If you want to have a constitution based on referenda best move to another nation
or change our rag tag one.
As I mentioned before were in any voting Democracy does it say one vote lasts forever and can
never ever be nullified even the usa can change tear up their constitution if they wish to.
It has been said many times the mad Eurosceptic sickos swent on and on about restoring
Parliamentary sovereignty and the primacy of UK laws and judges.
And when that fact bites them in the erse they not only whine they actually incite violence
against any naysayer who(a) disagrees with them or (b) actually has the rule of Parliamentary
law on their side.
these scum are just loudmouth bullying scum who work at the behest of a wealthy elite
who see a chance to freely rape the citizens of the UK outside of the eu protective laws.
The thing of wonderment is this is surely contempt of court the way they are defaming
judges carrying out their lawful responsibilities no point in expecting that female scarecrow
Prime minister May hearing she attempted to secretly enforce schools and teachers for christ sake
to monitor and place children of immigrants at the bottom of the class is disgusting.
A woman who would do that is capable of any kind of evil .
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Of course you are right Niko. Referendums are not binding on the government, although in the crap little leaflet that Cameron put out he said that the government would carry out the wishes of the people. (Of course that was when he thought, no, was sure, he would win.)
The trouble is that unless Mayhem carries out Brexit, no one will ever bother to vote in a referendum again.
Anyway, they are making a fuss over nothing. 450 +/- constituencies in England and Wales voted FOR Brexit. Their MPs, or most of them, will vote the way their constituents voted… or maybe they want to retire at the next election. So, Brexit will pass through parliament.
The Daily Mail and the Diana have it all wrong as usual. It’s about points of law. Not about Brexit.
And of course you’re going to get the very worse kind of lowlife out there rioting.
Can you imagine the kind of people who killed Jo, being told that Brexit wasn’t going to happen? Can you imagine Nuttall throwing Nicola under a horse? And how angry would the queen be?
Seriously though, if we think we have problems with the fascists, racist, nut jobs now, imagine what it would be like it they were denied their prize.
Aye, Mrs May is a charmer. Just like so many of them from the queen down, she proclaims herself to be a Christian and behaves like a bag of vomit..
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I still don’t understand why the government didn’t put it to a vote in Parliament way back in early autumn. I think they would have won it easily. It’s only removing MPs from the process that has made them turn it into an issue. It also strikes me that back in summer/autumn MPs were quite disorganised about Brexit. They’re still disorganised but some kind of opposition is coalescing, however weak it might be. I’m guessing the Government are now more worried about Parliament imposing conditions on the negotiations. This is relatively simple compared to what is to come and the Government have managed to make a right mess of it. We’re all doomed!
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Yes, agreed. If the High Court could tell them that they needed parliamentary approval, why could their own legal experts not.
Have it through parliament within a week before it has become an issue and bobs yer uncle.
Shame they are such a set of thickos.
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Reason they want to avoid putting it to Parliament is simple. While they may force it through the Commons relatively quickly and easily, the House of Lords is a different matter. They might not be able to stop it, but they can certainly tie it up as long as possible using every possible parliamentary trick in the book like burying it in as many amendments as possible. If it needs to go through Parliament therefore, March 2017 is pretty much guaranteed to be off the table for triggering Article 50.
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Well, they may yet win. The Supreme Court may agree with the English government and tell Liz she can declare it signed with the power vested in her by God.
If not, maybe they will arrange for the roof to fall in on the House of Lords and rid themselves of their lordships deliberations. Who knows what the Lords will do. They have no mandate to do anything except agree with the referendum outcome.
.
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Thanks! Now it all makes sense.
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Can’t they set a time limit for the bill, even in the lords?
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The Parliament Act 1911 states it as a Maximum of 2 Years / 3 Parliamentary Sessions that they can delay Legislation for. So unless the Lords agrees, it’d be at least January 2019 before it got passed assuming that they delayed as long as possible. Which then adds a Problem for the Government in that the next Election is due in May 2020.
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Oh lord. They had said that they hoped to get it through in a day… a couple of hours in both houses and off to the palace for royal assent.
Rees Mogg said, if they had to they would create 1000 lords (which was interesting given the complaint from these people that the EU is all unelected officials!
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Colin. You may find this interesting. The shorter they keep[ it the more likely it is not to attract amendments, or so they think. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/03/16-key-words-could-force-britains-divorce-eu/
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It certainly is a interesting tactic. I believe it won’t work as intended though. If they try to make it as short as possible, it just gives more opportunity to add extra clauses to the bill. It could easily come to the Lords as a single paragraph and come out as long as War and Peace.
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Well, I wondered about that.
I don’t know how amendment are “born”, but the lack of words in a Bill of a hugely complex matter shouldn’t stop it being questioned and revised.
Of course Scotland may get no consideration in the Lords as we don’t really have any pro Scotland members.
This is the only disadvantage i can see of the SNP saying no to their ridiculous house of aristocrats.
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Aye, I have to agree with that. the Lords certainly are no Friend to Scotland. To paraphrase the old saying, my Opponent’s Opponent is not necessarily on my side, even if our goals are similar.
I agree with the SNP’s stance on Non-Membership of the Lords even if it does mean certain Tactical Options aren’t available to them. Lords is like a Cesspit, you might go in looking to clean it up, but you’ll end up smelling like everything else in there by the end of it. You just have to look at some of the Labour Peers to see that, abandoning principles for Ermine.
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Yep. I wouldn’t suggest that they accept ermine, although there is obviously an argument that they should so that they can vote on issues like this.
Simply the best thing would be to get rid of aristocrats in government, but that’s clearly never going to happen in the 17th century Britain we live in.
I absolutely agree that to take the peering in the hopes that you can bring about the end of the organisation, is pointless.
And yes, you only have to look at Kinnock. Perfect example of a man who swore that the Lords should be abolished and now sits in there with his wife.
Yuk hypocrites.
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As I see it and for what it’s worth the main issue in this little affair is the right wing media reporting, which is specifically targeting the judges involved. Now I doubt very much that these guys read the mail but the hatred being stirred up here in the aftermath of the referendum, is in my opinion, becoming an incitement to violence. We have a dangerous msm riding a wave (or so it believes) of English nationalism that’s doing nothing less than purposfully trying to intimidate the judiciary.
This is part of a long term trend folks, it’s been gaining momentum for a while now and who knows where it will end.
But apart from that, everything’s just fine.
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Yes. I agree and it’s dangerous. Once you let this kind of thing out of the box it’s not going back in.
I see that Nigel has abandoned his march to the court because it was in danger of being used by EDL and other extremist right wing groups.
I wonder if there will be trouble.
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Let me help you out with a little laegal process which hopefully will provide you some insight as to how the system works.
By way of example
First parliament makes a law eg assume they pass an Act called “Dividing Fences” and all they put in it was
1. A dividing fence between properties shall be 2 metres tall, or as otherwise agreed between the parties.
End
The Mr A and Ms B cant agree on where the fence will be, what height, what material to use in construction etc. They get lawyers involved and the court determines the outcome.
This court case then forms part of the ongoing Law in addition to the initial Act. Now unless someone else goes to court subsequently and gets another ruling this continues in force until a new act repealing the old one and establishing another arises.
Hence it is very important to go back through the pages of history to determine what the current state of the law is. That is why things like the Declaration of Arbroath are so important, because they are the law of the land until such time as they are changed. For constitutional law change is not readily achieved. So you will see in the various court submissions this whole history being played out.
A further complicating factor is that the UK Supreme Court is a contrivance to again try to put an English head on a UK body. They cannot. As you will see the SC sits as two separate courts all be it in one courtroom in front of 11 judges. This gives the appearance of unity, but that is not the substance. Scottish judges will hear the Scots Law and English judges the English Law.
So what is going to happen, well reading the submissions I suspect that the High Court decision will be upheld. Therefore parliament has to trigger Art 50 under English Law. I also think that the Scottish Parliament will have to give consent. They won’t. Result anger from English Brexiteers, which could explode in any direction.
Alternatively if the Scottish Governments consent is not required then the SNP vote against Brexit in UK parliament and they trigger A50 anyway. Some bright spark will do a Gina Miller and go back to court claiming this time that the Act of Union has been annulled as the UK Governemt has ignored the “considered will of the Scottish people”.
Either way pffft the UK union is dead.
As for the daily heil. The editors should be up for contempt. 5 years should be sufficient to give them the message…”Nemo Me Impune Lecessit”
Hope this helps. Enjoy the popcorn.
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He he… It does. Thank you. Of course Northern Irish law is different again, it seems, so they must take it into consideration too.
I will enjoy the popcorn. 🙂
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The Declaration of Arbroath is a brilliant piece of Scots law Kangaroo. Not only is it recognised the world over as the oldest written constitution but being the Scottish constitution (although most people either don’t know about this or just ignore it for whatever reason) it can not simply be repealed or amended by Westminster it MUST be done so by Holyrood. Therein lies the elephant in the room for May over this little issue, Holyrood will NOT repeal the DoA, at least not so long as SNP are in power and have passing support of the Greens.
I am pretty sure that if SC gives concent for A50 to be given Royal prerogative then there will be uproar in Scotland not in no small part due to it going against the DoA. This could/should lead to her nibs being kicked off the throne in Scotland via the Scots Claim of Right. Whether or not this would actually happen is of course wide open at the moment but this is what I’d expect to happen not least because there is a great under swell of unrest in Scotland with regards as to how WM is seen to be treating the people in Scotland.
There is also the little matter of article XVIII of the Treaty of Union itself. The Lord Advocate of Scotland has apparently included this in his submissions to the SC in his argument. In effect it is my understanding that if the SC uphold this part of his submission then the union is in effect dead.
p.s. I don’t know if you saw the papers review last night Tris but quite a few seem to be going with headlines that imply there is “trouble at mill” in 10 Downing Street over Brexit! In fact it appears so bad that even the DM (spits out into bucket) ran with a headline about May threatening to sack ministers who leaked stories to the press! LOL
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Aye. It’s really funny. The letter that she ordered to go out about leaks, was LEAKED.
Bloody MayHEM… teh words booze up and brewery come to mind.
And the fool, Murdo thinks that the SNP is out of its depth.
What a balloon!
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Looks like we are on the same page.
Loving every minute of watching WM tie itself in a Gordian knot.
There is effectively only one way for this to end.
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So, good, that’s settled. Can Munguin be the president?
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Not without a vote by other fluffy dolls!
Oops!
Mundell has a vote!
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Who?
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