The European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Benn Act) is a sham that has more to do with political posturing than anything else.
The Act was written by experienced Parliamentarians who know very well that it is usual for any Act of Parliament to specify some detrimental consequence to befall he who offends against it as a means of ensuring compliance, but this particular Act contains no such provision !
Surely one must ask oneself why this is so, and the logical conclusion is that those that wrote it intended the Act to be easily ignorable without punitive consequence.
Theft carries up to 10 years imprisonment, burglary up to 14 years, and fiddling your income tax can invoke a penalty of up to five times the amount evaded plus a term of imprisonment. All such punishments are specified within the Act that creates the offence, and yet the Benn Act contains no such provisions.
The authors of the Act could have specified that failing to abide by it bans the PM from entering the Palace of Westminster for 6 months, invokes a fine of Ā£50K, removes the PM from office, or disqualifies him from continuing as an MP. Are any of these measures contained within the Benn Act ? No they are not.
It is an Act deliberately written to have no teeth with which to coerce compliance just in case it comes about that Jeremy Corbyn happens to be the PM when mid October arrives and he decides that asking for an extension to article 50 is not appropriate.
The Act was written by experienced lawmakers.
The Act contains no adverse consequence for non compliance.
Ask yourselves why this is so.
If Johnson fails to abide by the Benn act they will go for misconduct in a public office - unlike last time they should easily be able to secure a conviction.
Misconduct in a public office carries a tariff of up to life imprisonment.
Call me Mr Thicky but surely the opposition could simply call a VoNC on the first sitting day after the 19th, get Johnson out and then the temporary PM writes the letter to the EU instead.
Nopeā¦ they should get Pritti Patel as Home Secretary to introduce a one line bill imposing the penalty of being hung, drawn and quartered for MiPO.
I think it could make history as the first vote in this Parliament by this Government to actually pass
VoNC allows 14 days for a new government to be formed - during which time Johnson would still be PM, that takes us past Oct 31.
The problem with a VoNC is that Corbyn canāt command the confidence of the house or form a government with a working majority either, so inevitably it will lead to a GE. I think we are out of time now for a VoNC then an election to get a new PM installed who would ask for an extension before 31st Oct, especially as the GE might well result in another hung parliament.
Even if we have the 14 days off the process by directly agreeing a GE undert the FTPA the earliest that could be held would be the last week in October - and taking that path would, again, leave Johnson as PM in the interim in charge of the process and the ultimate date of a GE (which could be moved back bast 1st Nov).
In this I think Corbyn and the other opposition leaders are correct - we need to secore an extension (ideally forcing Johnson to ask for it), then sort out an election.
If Cox is such a hot-shot lawyer (earning 40k+ which he failed to declare on time) why didnāt he defend the Govtās case for prorogation?
Ah yes, of course - he would lose his position of Law Officerās privilege to not disclose information and wouldnāt get paid for his advocacy as itās his job!
If the opposition got their act together and had a temp government ready for the say the 21st then Corbyn (or whoever) could send the letter well before the 31st.
What worries me somewhat though is that a) Johnson seems happy to ignore the law and b) there are loopholes in the Benn act which he can exploit.
Could it be that if the Junta ignore the law and fail to send the letter, an eventual appeal to the SC could be successful reversing the withdrawal on 31st October as if it had no effect?
An alternative would be after the meeting of the EU and no action is taken as prescribed by the so called Benn law an injunction could be sought compelling the Junta to send the letter?
The only acknowledged loophole in the Benn act is the one whereby parliament approves a deal before the 19th (removing the obligation to ask for an extension) but subsequent legislation to ratify the deal before the 31st is blocked.
However I donāt see the PM being in a position to bring a new deal back to the table by the 19th, much less parliament agreeing it.
The general feeling is that Johnson will try to side-step the Bill rather than disobey it directly - which is where relying on misconduct in a public office is quite powerful as it catches all ways in which he might try to thwart the Bill.
Unfortunately party politics rears its head as soon as you try to get āthe oppositionā to do anything, Labour is too small on its own and Corbyn too toxic a figure.
This is the curse of Brexit, the only agreement is that dropping out of the EU with no arrangement to smooth the transition will be disastrous and must be stopped but after that there is no agreement at all on how to proceed from there and a government and an opposition both just strong enough to block things but neither capable of progress.
Neither a GE nor further referenndum guarantees resolution and things are going to get ugly, or rather uglier whatever path we take.
We have already done damage to our nation which will last decades. We really should stop now and revoke A50, lick our wounds and not start down the path to leaving the EU until we have consensus on how to do so.
In spite of him lying through his teeth to Parliament in his Statement to the House the other day after Parliament resumed saying something on the lines that the EU said they wouldnāt re-open the agreement - and they have, the said they wouldnāt change the Backstop but they are agreeing to it and so on. The telling bit was next day when M. Barnier was asked about this and he said they were still waiting for legal papersā¦
I know who I believe!
I note the BBC also misreported this, saying exactly the same thing and implying that the High Court found for the PM rather than declining to comment and passing the matter to the Supreme Court - in fact the quality of BBC reporting is increasingly pissing me off; they reported the fact that Johnson has been referred for investigation over the Jennifer Arcuri thing with the Comment from No 10, mumbling the attribution making the report sound as though the headline was āIn a politically motivated attack Boris Johnson has beenā¦ā
Iād complain but it probably wonāt do any good and if I start there is no bottom to the well of poor reportage from the BBC to get heated up about.
Wouldnāt piss on him if he were on fire and heās my MP!
Typical crony though; he was BloJoās Police lead when he (BloJo) was mayor of London and Iām ashamed to have ever been an officer of the BCA.
Probably just as well Iām not associated with them any more. Iād have been ex-communicated!
I was on the selection panel for his predecessor who, regrettably, resigned his seat following a few āissuesā mainly associated around inappropriate behaviour sending naughty photos to a female and his associations with Bashar al-Assad.
