So. Let me see if I've got it now:
The Executive Government (Boris) wants the Legislative Body (Parliament) suspended for a few weeks, so that they don't have time to pass a law requiring that the UK can't leave without a Deal with the EU, when they return from being suspended. (Didn't they do that once already?)
There is only one EU Exit Deal on the table, the one the EU said
cannot be renegotiated. "The Backstop", dealing with the Irish border issue and maintaining the Good Friday Agreement, also is non-negotiable. Or rather, non-further-negotiable, as the UK and the EU
already agreed on it once.
The Parliament refuses to ratify that Deal, and wants to ask the EU for a
second extension to be able to re-negotiate a new Deal and one that doesn't have the Backstop. Which the EU has already said is a
non-negotiable issue.
Boris has to go to the Queen and ask her to suspend the Parliament, as he hasn't got the authority himself to do that.
The Queen has done so - they're furloughed for a few weeks.
The Queen, by tradition, goes along with whatever the Boris of the time requests. [Basically, there is no governmental purpose to the Monarchy anymore. It just rubber-stamps issues as part of the pomp-and-ceremony-and-we-must-uphold-tradition thing. What exact purpose do they all serve now? Anything vital? I had always rather liked the Queen. But had also rather hoped she'd go out on a limb to do what was best for "her" people even if it meant the end of the Monarchy. Obviously that's not gonna happen. Or maybe she does think this is best. I do wish she'd just actually stop waffling and say something substantial about it.]
The one and only Deal, with attached Backstop, negotiated by both powers (the UK government and the EU government) is sitting on a back burner, slowly cooking to a cinder. But it could be ratified by the UK Parliament and then run by the EU Parliament, who almost assuredly would approve it (?). It would involve a several-year phase-out of EU control, rather than a cliff-dive that will gut the UK economy for many years.
The Parliament could always weasel out of it later, as they tend to do, after avoiding the upcoming tragedy of a Thelma and Louise exit.
Boris is saying that if there's a no-Deal exit, he's keeping the money that the UK already committed to the EU (aka the Divorce Bill) to cover operational costs. If he does so, the UK's credit will be shot to hell and no country will be willing to trust the UK in any future agreement for many, many years. Since the UK will have to be negotiating trade agreements with foreign countries, this does not seem a particularly wise situation into which one should place oneself....
That aside, there is no real way to not implement "The Backstop" to keep Northern Ireland, already a tinderbox, without risking NI possibly going up into something like a civil war when the economy tanks and people's lives there go to hell. Basically, shredding the Good Friday Agreement.* Given things as they are now, that is - the controlling powers in the UK not wanting to remain under any sort of EU customs control and not seeming to care about much else or the damage they would do when doing it.
The Protestant faction (DUP) in Northern Ireland refuse to accept "The Backstop" and, although they are a tiny minority of seats in Parliament, they torpedoed the Deal because the last government (Boris-predecessor) didn't have enough seats from various parties that supported her remaining in power without the DUP's few seats' support. So, instead of taking one for the team and just throwing the DUP under the bus and then falling on their own sword
for the good of the country as a whole, the Boris-predecessor curried the DUP's favor and lost the vote to ratify the Deal. But kept control of political power, for at least a while.
Sinn Féin has some seats (7?) in Parliament and could vote on this Deal, but refuses to take up those seats, basically abdicating any power they had in the issue.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/sinn-fein-mp-british-parliament-irish-republicans-brexit What the hell?
The lack of a formal agreement on 31 October between the UK and the EU makes "The Backstop" irrelevant - a hard border will occur between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, as NI will no longer be in the EU.
Financial disaster is looming for NI farmers due to the immediate high tariffs that will be slapped on their agricultural produce, a large percentage of which normally is marketed in the EU. Other NI industries that depend on there not being a hard border and tariffs will suffer as well. The timing is particularly bad, as Late October and November are when farmers sell a lot of their young animals for slaughter and for breeding stock. If you can't export 'em, there's no need for them to exist. So, the market for both will crater. As will farm income, and the knock-on to farm suppliers and the supply chain both in and out of the farms. (I believe?) I would assume a similar situation, although possibly not as dire, will happen to the same parties in Scotland, Wales, and the parts of England that are involved in agriculture.
Ouch. The rest of us will see it in the grocery store.
The majority of the population in Northern Ireland are not Protestant or members of the DUP - it appears that the population expressing religious beliefs are pretty much evenly split between Catholic and Protestant, and
neither are in the majority in NI anymore. (Only about 41% of the population claim to be some variety of Christian.)
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/new-debates-needed-for-northern-ireland-s-changing-demographics-1.2194036 So why is the DUP even that relevant?
In the middle of all this, one of the more critical times for the UK in recent history, the legislative body, instead of burning the midnight oil to try to come up with a compromise solution, goes on vacation for several weeks, because that's what they always do. (!)
"Leavers" were primarily older, less educated persons who identified as "English."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028 Because England has a larger population than the other countries, however England votes is what the rest of the Kingdom gets stuck with. (?) How is that even remotely fair to young people in the UK? They're the ones who are going to have to live with this mess, after gramps kicks the bucket in 10 years.
Looping back, the Boris cannot negotiate a new "Deal". It's not going to happen. The EU has repeatedly and firmly stated that there can be no further negotiation on the existing Deal. Much of the marketing of the "Leave" campaign involved the promise that a "good" Deal would be easily obtainable, and so leaving the EU would be on the UK's terms. After several years of serious negotiations, a Deal was hammered out between the UK and the EU. That Deal was opposed by various factions of the political class in the UK, who sank the Deal in Parliament by voting against it.
Boris does not wish to allow Parliament a chance to keep any variety of "Deal" alive, whatever his reasoning. Hence the end-run to the Queen.
He also does not wish to allow another referendum on the matter of leaving the EU as that would give the people of the UK the choice between mandating that the government drives over an economic cliff or remains in the EU for the time being. That is, he does not trust that the people of the UK would support the position that his political party supports ("Leave with No Deal"). So, if he assumes that the results of a referendum would be to NOT leave the EU, and so blocks such a referendum, he is knowingly thwarting the will of the people of the UK.
That is completely un-democratic.
Parliament can't get their heads out of their collective and metaphorical backsides, for all their squabbling and power-grabbing. They do seem more interested in remaining in power than in doing anything coherently for the good of the entire country. The Queen can't mandate anything (apparently). So, the people should have the final say - it's their lives that are going to be impacted. There should be a second referendum, with the options clearly described, and then the result followed within a matter of weeks.
[Sorry, I'm from the land of initiatives and referendums, where matters can be revisited as often as the voters wish them to be. I absolutely do not buy that having a second vote, especially given that the promised scenario cannot be materialized, is "un-democratic".]
*Shredding the Good Friday Agreement would trigger various political factions in the US Congress to block any trade deals with the UK government. So Trump can bluster all he wants to about "great trade deals with the UK", and he'll be stonewalled. [Even if the UK wanted to buy chlorinated chickens. The problem of which is not that they are washed in chlorinated water prior to packing, it's that they are de-beaked without anesthesia, kept in horrible surroundings for their minimal lives, loaded up with GMO feed and antibiotics, and then slaughtered in a manner that would cause most sensible people to go vegan. THEN washed with chlorinated water to kill anything that might be hitch-hiking, packaged, and sold on. Full-stop. https://freefromharm.org/animalagriculture/chicken-facts-industry-doesnt-want-know/]
So, there's a national election in the USA next year, right? A possibility that Trump might be voted out? It would be so nice if the political machine got Joe Kennedy in line with Joe Biden. I could go with that ticket, no problem. They need to avoid putting a woman up for president, as she can't win at present. Or a religious minority of an unpopular persuasion. But Biden/Kennedy, yeah, they'd have a chance. Please God....
No more BBC for me this week. I'm over it. Let me know when the mushroom cloud clears.
