Parsing tricky political words
August 16, 2019•723 words
So... Jeremy Corbyn has announced that he will table a vote of No Confidence in the House of Commons as soon as the summer recess is over, and we're heading for a Second Brexit referendum.
Or has he?
Well, no. Not quite. Not even nearly, really.
"I therefore intend to table a Vote of No Confidence at the earliest opportunity when we can be confident of success." [My emphasis]
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1161751909788782594/photo/1
Well, the emphasised words look perfectly reasonable - after all, there's no point tabling a NC vote when you dont think it will succeed, unless you're just looking to make vague some political point.
But the timing then becomes key - given that one of the outcomes of a NC vote under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act is a General Election, and given that such things take time, it is quite likely that any delay of more than a week or so beyond the return of Parliament would render any Brexit impact moot - if we don't do something by 2300 31 October, then the UK leaves the EU, and then things get tricky.
Assuming that he gets and wins a NC vote in a sensbile time frame, he will then "seek the confidence of the House for a strictly time-limited temporary Government with the aim of calling a General Election".
Well, there are two things going on here: firstly, I'm not sure that a "temporary Government" is a thing; all Governments can be brought down by the terms of the FTPA, including one given power under its term. Saying that a Government is time-limited is meaningless: it could reject such a time limit once in power, and would still be subject to removal by the FTPA in exactly the same way as any other Government.
Secondly, as Femi Omuwole has already said, if a temporary Government is established, then it "already [has] control of the executive"; what would be the additional benefit of calling a General Election?
What next?
All of what happens next relies on the agreement of the EU to an extension of the negotiating period behyond 31 October.
If no such extension is given, it is practicalyl impossible to see a different withdrawal agreement being negotiated, leaving us with three options:
- Leave the EU without a deal - in this case, all Crobyn's efforts are fruitless, from a Brexit point of view, since this is the default position now.
- Leave the EU with the current Withdrawal Agreement in place - it's hard to see how this could get through Parliament, since it's been s o soundly rejected already, but some have said that they could now support it.
- Revoke Article 50 unilaterally
What does the letter really mean?
This is the point of this post: let's not be deluded by what we think we're reading, but hold our politicians to account for what they say, and not give them the opportuinity to come back later and say "yeah, but I didn't say that..."
It would be in keeping with the detail of Corbyn's letter, but not perhaps in the spirit that readers assume, to do the following:
- No Deal Brexit at the end of October Corbyn calls a No Confidence vote at the start of October - this would have no impact on the current default position of No Deal Brexit, since there is no time for anything material to happen.
- No Deal Brexit at the end of October, but with a surprise Election Corbyn calls a No Confidence vote, wins it, and forms a Government... and then call a General Election - in this case, a No Deal Brexit might still happen at the end of October, again because timing issues make it impossible for anything else to happen.
- Labour Government, No Deal Brexit at end of October Corbyn forms a Government, fails to get agreement from the EU for an Article 50 extension and leaves the EU with No Deal.
- Labour Government, Revoke Article 50 Corbyn forms a Government, fails to get agreement from the EU for an Article 50 extension and then decides to revoke Article 50 unilaterally.
My preference is Revoke Article 50, and if a Labour Government is a necessary step towards that, then I'm in, but I'm not holding my breath.