Internal Market Bill and how Parliament works

A FIGHT WITH THE EU ... LORDS ... TORY BACKBENCHERS ... AND THE DEVOLVED NATIONS

The Herald (a Scottish broadsheet) pulled no punches in its report

Likewise their cartoonist depicted how Johnson had seemed under siege from outraged Tory backbenchers

From January, the UK government wants to continue to have a joint market across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - the "internal market".

Instead of the rules and regulations around things like food and air quality and animal welfare being set in Brussels, now they have to be set closer to home - and there is a row over who should have the final say.

Many powers are set to be directly controlled by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations, in fields including food labelling, energy efficiency and support for farmers.

However, the UK government has said the devolved administrations will still have to accept goods and services from all other parts of the UK - even if they have set different standards locally. (source: BBC, Dec 2020)

The Internal Market Act 2020 is one of the most controversial bills to ever successfully pass through the UK parliament.

It was widely characterised as breaking international law bu contradicting and breaking parts of the Brexit deal, an international treaty. 

There was much media speculation about a backbench rebellion, and frontbench resignations ... but in the event Johnson and his whips got their way: 328 of 363 Tory MPs voted with the government, as did the DUP, with just 2 Tories voting against.

The saga exposed flaws in the UK parliamentary system...

ELECTIVE DICTATORSHIP? GOVERNMENT BACKBENCHERS THE DE FACTO OPPOSITION?

Labour leader Keir Starmer was criticised for failing to whip up significant public pressure on the government. In the event, any hopes of a government lay with the prospect of a backbench rebellion, which simply didn't transpire. Of 35 Tory MPs who refused to vote with the government, only 2 actually voted against. The whip system triumphed: most Tory MPs who held principled opposition to the bill failed to vote against, fearing for their seats (Johnson had shown he could be ruthless after succeeding May, forcing out all Tory MPs who voted against his Brexit bill) and/or for their hopes of becoming a government minister whenever Johnson eventually held a cabinet reshuffle.

ELECTIVE DICTATORSHIP? WHAT ABOUT THE DEVOLVED NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS?

While the Northern Irish response was predictably split on nationalist/unionist lines, the Welsh and Scottish governments were clear in their opposition - but the UK government refused to consult or seek authority from either. The Welsh government took the case to the High Court of Justice, but lost. The Scottish Parliament voted on whether to authorise the bill's contents ... and voted against, formally denying the UK government permission to carry this out, but this had no impact on the bill passing into UK law.

As the BBC article quoted above indicates, this is a story about how powers once based in Brussels are redistributed back within the UK:

The Scottish government says a Westminster "power grab" is under way, because any responsibility which is not specifically reserved should automatically come to Holyrood.

But the UK government says what is happening in January represents "the biggest transfer of powers in the history of devolution".

ELECTIVE DICTATORSHIP? WHAT ABOUT THE HOUSE OF LORDS? plus...Biden pressure

The Lords repeatedly refused to back the bill, voting against and attaching amendments. The Commons used their power to ignore the Lords vote.

Above: a Daily Mail report 9th Nov 2020 (this saga went on for months!) also highlights the direct pressure from the incoming US president, who bluntly and undiplomatically warned that any breach of international law - especially that around the GFA - would ensure the UK would fail in efforts to win a trade deal with the USA. The EU would also threaten legal action (see Daily Mail video)

ELECTIVE DICTATORSHIP? WHAT ABOUT THE FREE PRESS?

TV news reportage did give space to a series of prominent critics, including multiple past Tory Attorney Generals (they have responsibility for ensuring government actions are compliant with laws), but the press largely reflected the right-/left-wing split. That means that the government largely escaped criticism from the Times and Telegraph (broadsheets) or the Mail, Express, Sun or Star (tabloids), facing criticism mainly from the low-circulation Guardian and Mirror only.

Indeed, the UK nationals ignored the huge story of the crucial vote on 29th September 2020, focusing instead on another potential government rebellion over covid restrictions (see Paperboy) - only the Scottish press led on the story.

READ MORE...

Executive backs down from confrontation with Lords (Dec 16, 2020, Guardian)

The Wiki.

BBC overview.

There are lots of news clips on this (YouTube), such as...

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MONARCHY QUEENS CONSENT SECRECY AND ROYAL ASSENT

There are many hidden ways in which the conventionally neutral, non-political monarchy actually impinges on and influences parliamentary democracy.

The Guardian has fought against attempts to suppress revelations on how they use 'queen"s consent' to preview all parliamentary bills and indicate anything they (the monarchy) wants changed.

One revelation, kept hidden after this was debated in the Scottish Parliament, is the exemption for green energy law (Gua
rdian, July 2021). In July 2022 The Guardian published an extraordinary list of the 160+ laws with exemptions for the monarch.

This covers a range of animal welfare and environmental laws, the most basic discrimination laws, even the primary health and safety at work law, plus exemption from almost all forms of taxation on her private income.

HOUSE OF LORDS

Wiki table of numbers 2021

HELPFUL LINKS: Wiki, BBC Bitesize; BBC doc series (iPlayer); Guardian news articles;

Hereditary peers were eventually culled to 92 under Blair reforms. The ongoing role of these, and reserved
places for religious figures, is widely known - along with a perception of corruption, the place being filled by party donors and Lords taking up the daily stipend for doing nothing in particular.

Like the famous democracy description, of course, the Lords can also be viewed as the least worst option, bringing in experts that elections tend to fail to.

Like the election of The Speaker in the Commons, there is an obscure, little-known process for that 92 to self-elect any replacement for death or retirement. The electorate is exclusively that 92 - almost all of white men of course. This was highlighted by the Guardian when the late Tony Benn's son Stephen won the 92nd seat unopposed. A doubly troubling event given his father, forced to resign his Commons seat on the inherited peerage passing to him on the death of his own father, forced a change in law to enable him to renounce his peerage and win back a Commons seat.

CORRUPTION CRONEYISM Is there an issue in UK?

Corruption is generally linked to weak democracies dominated by single party rule, but is hardly unknown in Europe or the USA. Brazil's populist president faces calls to step down, for example, not least for perceived corruption.

Governments of both major parties have faced accusations of corruption, and the unchecked ability of former ministers to make millions 'advising'/lobbying for corporations after they've left government is a stain on both major UK parties. The huge fees for giving talks can be seen as a quid pro quo too.

The Conservatives, as the traditional party of business as opposed to the unions, are especially prone to such accusations (New Labour faced this on health, housing, energy and arms deals especially). A new report highlights the likelihood of 'aggregated corruption' over housing, with huge amounts paid to the Tories by building companies and correspondingly high number of meetings with ministers. MPs expressed anger that 10% of Treasury officials had all phone message data wiped, without any backup, including those facing FoI demands to release texts linked to the Cameron lobbying scandal.

UK PARLIAMENT The Speaker

I'll start for now with (Feb 2021) the Standard on Sir Lindsay Hoyle scolding Johnson for baiting the SNP (he's been warned before for saying Scottish NationalIST Party, it's National) ... Or, if you read the very right-wing Express, it was Johnson blasting the SNP!!!

JUNE 2021 - 

BERCOW JOINS LABOUR WITH STRONG ATTACK ON JOHNSON'S' 'DISGRACEFUL' TREATMENT OF PARLIAMENT AND TRUTH

I wonder if they'll make him a Lord? He had a lot to say (Guardian)

HOYLE CONDEMNS COVID PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT BEFORE ANY PARLIAMENTARY STATEMENT

Evening Standard reports Hoyle forced the government to send someone to Parliament, but still hours after the scheduled press announcement. The Daily Mirror covers the se story but with a stronger interpretation of Hoyle's statement.

HOYLE BOTTLES OUT OF BATTLE OVER TORY AID CUT?

30+ Tory MPs were willing to rebel to force the government to reverse it's cut to overseas aid. Now they can't. (Guardian sketch article)

SUPREME COURT is it's independence under threat?

The UK Supreme Court came into being through the Blair government's reforms of the House of Lords. Before then, the Law Lords sat in the upper house to give a final say on legal issues, after they were a separate institution, split off from the legislature.

This made the court system closer to the US model, where the Supreme Court forms part of the separation of powers between a bicameral house, elected president, state powers and the court. But ... obviously without the intense partisan element that we see there, most recently with the Trumpian packing of the court with 3 new conservative judges (or justices) despite having blocked Obama from appointing one a year before his second term ended.

Then again ... despite the right-wing press fury at the UK Supreme Court blocking Johnson's attempt to prorogue Parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit without a vote, the legal system is notoriously narrow in its demographics. The legal system is not representative of the ethnic or social class mix of the UK.

In November 2020, the Tory government launched proposals to reform the Supreme Court - to effectively scrap it. This would start with a renaming, plus making it multiple themed courts, all reducing its status. Labour critics argue this is a direct reaction to Conservative fury (at least on the Brexiteer side - former Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve led parliamentary efforts to resist Johnson's attempt, and lost the whip) at the Court's decision on prorogation.

Whether those critics are right or not about the motivation, such a move would reduce the status of the Court at a time when it and the Speakership have emerged as key counterbalances to the executive, with the legislature struggling to fulfil its constitutional role of holding the executive to account.

Are unelected judges any better or more democratic than unelected peers? That is another way to look at the Court. 

Here's a Nov 2020 article from the Guardian on those government reform plans. The bias is evident in the prominence given to the Labour critics rather than the Tory government; I'd equally expect the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg to be more prominently featured in a right-wing paper's coverage. This appears to be what The Telegraph (source of The Guardian's report) did (it's behind a paywall) - here's the start of the Guardian article:

Government-backed plans to reduce the size of the supreme court and rename it have been condemned by Labour as an assault on the independence of the judiciary.

The proposals, said to be under ministerial discussion, are supposedly aimed at curtailing the court’s ability to become involved in constitutional issues such as last year’s parliamentary prorogation case, which ended in a resounding defeat for Boris Johnson.

The report in the Sunday Telegraph said Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Commons, had privately accused the court of a “constitutional coup” after the justices unanimously ruled that the government’s attempt to prorogue parliament to prevent it debating Brexit was illegal.

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The proposals resemble a policy paper published by the thinktank Policy Exchange in July entitled Reforming the Supreme Court. That also suggested replacing the supreme court with an “upper court of appeal” and having specially selected panels for separate cases.

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The press showed the usual split on the prorogue ruling; the Mail took things quite far (see Gdn analysis + Wiki)

JUNE 2021 - MPs/PEERS TAKE PM TO COURT OVER RUSSIA EKECTION INTERFERENCE REPORT

WOW!!! MPs and peers are taking the PM to court over his treatment of a report into Russian links. The Trump parallels grow stronger. Evening Standard

DEC 2020

JOHNSON TAKES REVENGE ON SUPREME COURT, REMOVES ITS POWER TO BLOCK PROROGATION. UNCODIFIED CONSTITUTION...

Guardian. 

The most controversial change is an attempt to bar the courts from ruling on the powers of the government to dissolve parliament. The move will be seen as a direct retaliation against the supreme court, which humiliated Johnson last year after it ruled that his prorogation of parliament at a key point in the Brexit talks was unlawful.

The Cabinet Office confirmed the legislation would “reaffirm the longstanding position that the prerogative powers are not reviewable by courts, providing legal clarity”.

Dr Jessica Garland, director of policy and research at the Electoral Reform Society said the government should be making efforts to decentralise power, rather than reclaim it. “The UK already has one of the most centralised political systems amongst modern democracies so any plans to give our already dominant executive more powers should be carefully scrutinised and treated with caution,” she said.

“Any reforms to our politics should be made with the view of moving powers away from the centre, which already has significant control over the Commons and the Lords, which the Prime Minister can pack with appointees at will.

...

PARLIAMENT how it works

 Some resources on how the UK Parliament works. Or doesn't....

Trust in government has fallen away significantly since 2016. A similar survey in 2016 showed that 22% of people said they trust the government “most of the time” or ‘“just about always”, the highest level in NSCR surveys since 2007.

By 2019 this had dropped to 15%, the lowest level recorded in over 40 years, with more than twice as many people, 34%, saying they “almost never” trust the government. (Guardian)

The government’s Brexit strategy is in danger of driving the UK down a “very slippery slope” towards “dictatorship” or “tyranny”, according to a former president of the supreme court. 

Addressing an online meeting of lawyers, Lord Neuberger on Wednesday evening condemned the internal market bill, which enables the government to breach international law and exempts some of its powers from legal challenge. 

[Former Tory Attorney General] Grieve said not only did the bill breach international law, it contained an “ouster clause which goes to the heart of parliamentary democracy”, preventing the government being challenged over its actions.(Guardian)

The UK Parliament YouTube channel is an excellent resource (though as an official site it can sometimes present an over-optimistic view of how the Parliament functions in real life). Below is a screenshot of some of their playlists.

Example of the Parliament: An Introduction to Parliament (most of the vids are shorter, 1-2mins)

PLAYLISTS:

INTRODUCTION TO PARLIAMENT

WHAT IS THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

WHAT IS THE HOUSE OF LORDS

HOW DO ELECTIONS WORK

HOW LAWS ARE MADE

This video on Select Committees is very useful!

The Parliament channel also have much longer videos from 9 years ago: Select Committees (19mins)

SPADS! UNELECTED...UNACCOUNTABLE?

The role of the special advisor is a very controversial one, with Dominic Cummings' role in government widely seen as undermining democracy: as PM Johnson's most senior/influential advisor, he is overseeing an attempt to centralise power even further in Number 10, and sideline even the cabinet, never mind Parliament! He made history when he was given the Number 10 garden for his press conference to make a statement following the press revelations about his trip to Durham, seemingly in breach of covid regulations.

As neither formally a civil servant nor an elected politician, yet as a clear part of the executive, he cannot be called for questions in the Commons nor held formally responsible for any policy decisions. Can the legislature have any real impact on or scrutiny of him? The 18-rated BBC TV series the Thick of It satirises the role of such (usually) shadowy figures.

Here's the notorious episode of BBC's Newsnight when a fed up senior journalist calculated that Cummings' behaviour was so clearly out of line that the usual 'balance' wasn't required (her bosses disagreed and warned her).

This controversy was even covered in breakfast TV - it was the dominant media story for a week. For once the right-wing press were also highly critical of the Tory government and PM Johnson - notably the Daily Mail. Cummings/Johnson seem to have calculated that the press was not as powerful as it used to be and dismissed all the pressure to sack Cummings. Months later - perhaps they were correct. Cummings remains at the very centre of the UK government, as unaccountable as ever to the UK legislature (or the executive?!).

THE ROLE OF THE MP

MPs' reputation has been absolutely battered in recent years, from the endless series of sex and corruption scandals that wrecked the premiership of Thatcher's successor, John Major to the Daily Telegraph's expenses scandal (MPs were found to be claiming for all sorts of things including...have their moat cleaned; some were actually jailed for fraud: claiming payment on a house they didn't actually live in), to multiple cash for questions cases.

The DUP's Ian Paisley Jr even faced a recall vote when he was revealed to have asked questions in the Commons about Sri Lanka ... but hadn't registered his paid visit to Sri Lanka. This requires 10% of constituents to vote for a recall and force a bye-election. He narrowly avoided this: 9.4% registered for a recall vote.

But that can give a very unfair impression of the work MPs actually do - and such stories clearly contributed to the protest vote element of the Brexit vote. MPs routinely hold surgeries (open office) for constituents, regardless of how they voted, to help them with problems they face with branches of government especially.

Here's a great example of a passionate MP at work. Mhairi Black (SNP) was just 20 when elected!

THE SPEAKER:

ALONG WITH SUPREME COURT + GOVERNMENT BACKBENCHERS, THE MAIN BARRIER TO ELECTIVE DICTATORSHIP?

Betty Boothroyd kickstarted the 1990s modernisation of the role, ditching many of the ceremonial aspects that went back centuries in an effort to make the Commons (by then always televised live) look more relatable and professional to modern voters. The traditional wig was an early casualty!

John Bercow will be studied for decades to come - his battles with Boris Johnson (and Jacob Rees-Mogg) and his treatment by the right-wing press (who felt he was overstepping his role/powers and actively trying to block Brexit) were extraordinary. Johnson broke with centuries of tradition by refusing to give Bercow a peership when he stood down at the 2019 election.

This video, from right-wing tabloid The Sun (Murdoch), doesn't show MPs at their best (though the likes of Skinner are arguably standing on points of principle!), but do show examples of the Speaker intervening to ensure order. Will current Speaker (Bercow's former Deputy) Sir Lindsay Hoyle prove such a notable figure? He has already blocked MPs from voting to stop the extension of emergency covid powers (as Bercow was Tory and Hoyle is Labour, both are arguably good examples of how The Speaker must be neutral).