THE Queen’s position in the British constitution remains foundational to our Parliamentary system. Formally executive power is vested in the monarch, hence the ‘royal prerogative’. But since this is used by the Prime Minister, the Monarch is in reality powerless. The PM’s position derives from the people and she exercises it with that legitimacy and in the name of the sovereign.
The Remainer coup in process could be interpreted as the Speaker, colluding with Dominic Grieve and other extremist MPs, even with a clerk to the Commons who is there as an officer of the Crown, seeking governmental power and also therefore use of the royal prerogative, usurping the monarchy and the democratic authority of an elected government. On the face of it this is a power grab of astonishing hubris and skulduggery, betraying the monarchy and the people, indeed arguably placing loyalty to the EU executive above the Queen, displacing British executive power so carefully mediated in the checks and balances of our constitution. Here is an ever so polite putsch in cut-glass accents and the poshest London clubs.
I am extremely glad to say that possibly the most highly qualified constitutional law expert in the country, Sir Stephen Laws, has written a forensic analysis of what is happening. He engages with the claim that the Bercow/Grieve coup claims to give the people’s representatives, MPs in Parliament, control of Brexit after governmental failure to get a deal and the fear of a No Deal exit from the EU. He says: ‘Current proposals for Parliament to “take over the process” are based on fundamental misconceptions about the UK constitution, and that makes them both dangerous and wrong.’
It entails seizing the control of Parliamentary business and introducing legislation against the will of the elected government, controlling finance and all aspects of policy. The Liaison Committee of the Commons, the rebels suggest, could form the cross-party body to control Commons business in cahoots with the ultra-Remainer Speaker. But Sir Stephen says that this would logically mean that the PM resign and be replaced by the chair of that committee. A cabal with no electoral manifesto warrant would become the government. The Speaker would seize unprecedented power, with the bravura and bearing of Il Duce himself – not a remark from Sir Stephen’s forensic analysis, I stress!
Sir Stephen’s commentary is of the highest order, a must-read for anyone keen to follow this outrageous power grab to prevent the Brexit mandate being carried through, and a threat to prod Brexiteer MPs to vote for May’s punishment ‘deal’ so as to avoid Bercow’s coup to kill off Brexit altogether.
