ciphergoth | Abolition of Parliament Bill

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Abolition of Parliament Bill

I thought word of this had already spread far and wide, but it seems not to have reached everyone, so here it is. Bizarrely, a bill nicknamed the "Abolition of Parliament Bill" that (indirectly) gives ministers the power to abolish Parliament and seize dictatorial powers in perpituity has not received much press attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_and_Regulatory_Reform_Bill

This is being rushed through Parliament with one hour for debate. I kid you not.

http://saveparliament.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act

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The LRRB is insane, but genius from the point of view of legislators. None of that messy discussion stuff!

There are supposed to be some proper protests soon that I am likely to be attending, if feasible. I'm already supposed to be going to another SOCPA one. But I really am such a rubbish activist :¬(

It's a bad bill and shouldn't be passed, but some of the commentary is a little alarmist. In particular, the measure against removing necessary safeguards would stop many of the postulated abuses. It should still go down in flames, though.

What measure is that? Is this part of the Bill as it stands, or a proposed amendment?

AIUI as it stands it is absolutely as bad as described, and the commentary is in no way alarmist. A relatively small amendement would make it merely a very, very bad thing, rather than the end of democracy as we know it. I look forward to hearing more about the measure you refer to.

Part of the bill as published. It's mentioned in the Wikipedia article as one of the conditions any order must satisfy, and this notably precludes most of the examples of using the passed Act to modify its own text.

It wouldn't be hard to improve it with a small amendment. Not passing it would be better, though. The executive doesn't need any more power.

You're referring to section 3.2.d:

3 Preconditions

(1) A Minister may not make an order under section 1 [...] unless he considers that the conditions in subsection (2), where relevant, are satisfied in relation to that provision.

(2) Those conditions are that [...] (d) the provision does not remove any necessary protection; (e) the provision does not prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which that person might reasonably expect to continue to exercise.

So the minister has to be satisfied that the protection afforded by living in a democracy is not necessary and I can't reasonably expect it. I don't feel any safer. The House of Commons Procedure Committee felt the same way:

We are also extremely concerned by the apparent unwillingness of the Government, certainly to date, to agree to additional safeguards being added to the Bill.

A court can knock back such an order if the conditions aren't satisfied, which means that the minster must have acted reasonably rather than on a whim. Frankly I think the courts are probably a harder barrier than the Commons, these days.

I agree with the committee, but I don't agree that their comment implies that they agree with the more apocalyptic statements.

You mean that the safeguard is judicial review?

Hmm, I know some people who know a thing or two about judicial review, I'll see what they think...

"Reasonable" in the judicial review process effectively means "not so unreasonable that you'd have to be mad to do it". It's extremely difficult to establish. The Government has already been invited to confirm that the Bill would not be applied to a list of key constitutional legislation, including Magna Carta, and has refused.

In order to knock it back, you have to persuade the courts that the Minister's decision is Wednesbury unreasonable, something courts are very loath to do. Furthermore, it's not clear who would have the standing to bring the case. Frankly, as safeguards go, this seems a seatbelt made of wet noodles.

If only we knew a "rebellious" back bench Labour MP ...

I think we can rely on there being objections to it.

Yup. But I think Paul's point about the relative lack of noise in the mainstream media is pretty valid. Its been kicked around the 'net plenty tho'. Maybe we just have to wait for a quiet news day and a lazy journo.

OT, but does your sister still have the flat just down the road from me?

Paul's point - yes, I agree. People should definitely be onto their MPs to see if it can be blocked. Definitely.

Yes, Kate's still in the same place. Unless she's done a flit very quietly.

And my MP seems to have "declined" to respond to correspondence on the subject...

at this rate it will lead to civil war. except the british are far too lethergic for civil war.

Dear turkey, are you sure Christmas is as great as all that?

I've moved from Harry Cohen to Keith Hill. Neither of them strike me as great independent thinkers.

I've moved from Harry Cohen to Keith Hill.

If you'd stopped halfway would you have ended up with Harry Hill?

Keith Hill's bugger all use, he's the private secretary to Tony Blair and can't seem to act in any way because of it. Or perhaps that was merely a handy excuse to reject my request to consider signing the early day motion condemning violence against women (VAW) and calling for an integrated VAW strategy.

Whereabouts are you living then? You must be out south London, way near us?

Brixton Hill - aren't you on my address filter? *goes to check*

Ah, we'll soon be neighbours then! Welcome to the south London posse of intelligent terrors :-)

Have you moved sweetie? We still owe you both a sunday dinner :)

We've not quite moved, but we will be doing so in the next 3 weeks - month. Our landlord and landlady have had unexpected financial trauma and need to reclaim our flat. Luckily we'll only be shifting a bit further up to Streatham Hill, perfectly within reach for Sunday lunches, last minute outings, picnics on the common and much more :-)

Fab :)

Oh you weren't - check my recent entries for my new address

It's ok, I could work out why I didn't know you'd moved. I'd somehow managed to completely bugger up everything, take you off default view and put you in all kinds of silly security groupings (do you really want to be in my diets group?!). Functionality now restored, and we must do drinks sometime, I believe I still have you memory card!

If you want to try and get him to explain himself sign up at http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/

He is useless and you'd expect that from such a loyal Blairite. PPS's generally don't sign EDMs as they're not meant to associate themselves with 'particular groups advocating special policies'. However, quite a few of them signed the anti hunting EDMs, so they can get away with it. As with a lot of parliamentary stuff, it's a protocol thing rather than a hard and fast rule.

The thing that really bugs me is that because he has an extra special little job of his very own, his contituents voice in the democracy is gone. Gah!

Harry Cohen hasn't replied to me either, even with his usual "I've copied it to the minister, what more do you want?" sort of response.

I have emailed my MP on this subject. I do not have high hopes for a response, as I don't think he's especially 'rebellious'.

BTW, is anyone else coming to the Naming The Dead protest in Parliament Square on Sunday? I know it's after Subversion but it's not til midday.

Have already written to my MP expressing concern, and received a prompt response. Given that my new MP is Diane Abbott, though, I suspect I have been preaching to the converted. :o)

The high priestess, more like :)

Hooray! Diane Abbott rules.

The bit I find ironic in the Wikipedia article is that one of the six Cambridge law professors mentioned writing to The Times is no stranger to changing the law without Parliamentary approval: the Court of Appeal acknowledged that without Prof Spencer's activism, it's highly likely that six people - so far - in England and Wales would not have been convicted for grevious bodily harm (plus one in Scotland for reckless endangerment) in relation to the reckless transmission of HIV.

This is despite a case dating back over a century which said it should not be, despite the failure of Parliament to vote for making it so - despite being given several oportunities over the years - and despite the published views of the government saying it should not be.

It's exactly the same process - and, coincidentally, exactly the same precedent overturned - as happened when intramarital rape became criminal.

Hmmm, Clarence was certainly referenced in that, but a) he wasn't charged with rape, and b) the theory that it wasn't criminal predates it by ooh ages (you can tell I'm away from my notes on this, can't you?)

The Law Commission were using Clarence approvingly in terms of the nature of consent as recently as 2000, eight years after RvR, and six years after the Act that confirmed that marital rape was rape.

It's quite chilling reading http://saveparliament.org.uk/.

I'm going to write in to my MP now, unfortunately this isn't a labour area but still...

Actually I've noticed that our MP, Oliver Heald, is pretty strongly opposed to the Bill in it's proposed form, he's on the opinions page of http://saveparliament.org.uk/.

Yay, I just got a really long e-mail back responding to what I raised. That was quick!

I couldn't help but wonder whether much of the noise surrounding the recent education reforms wasn't a convenient distraction from this nonsense, but that's perhaps a little too cynical.

The governemtn doesn't really need this law to become a dictatorship. the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 already gives them the power to

(1) lock up all opposition MPs
(2) lock up all government MPs who dare to disobey the executive
(3) extend the life of parliament beyond 5 years
(4) Make Tony Blair President-For-Life (technically, it' be making him monarch for life, but what's in a title?)

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Civil Contingencies Act 2004