Following last week’s Supreme Court decision that the Government acted unlawfully over the five week prorogation plans, OnTheWight put some questions to Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Robert Seely.
Prior to the return of Parliament last week, he was asked:
- What’s your view of the Supreme Court ruling today that Boris Johnson acted unlawfully?
- Do you believe the judiciary is unbiased?
- Will you abide by the ruling?
- When do you intend to return to Parliament?
Bob replied,
“We have a tendency at the moment to be too partial. We welcome judgements that serve our ends, and damn those that don’t. The rules of fairness that we all need to accept are questioned if they don’t serve our purposes.
“With that proviso, I think there are significant problems with yesterday’s landmark Supreme Court’s ruling. Clearly, we need to accept the result, but personally I think it is partially political, somewhat muddled and a little unclear.
“The judgement asks four questions, in paragraph 27, in relation to the legality of the prorogation of Parliament. Is it justiciable? How is its lawfulness to be judged? Was it lawful? If it was not, what should happen?
“The crux of the case is in paragraph 50. It says: “a decision to prorogue Parliament (or to advise the monarch to prorogue Parliament) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature.”
“This is a fair point. If, for example, a tyrant attempted to shut down Parliament for most of the year, most Britons would consider that to be an act against the spirit of our constitution – an ‘unBritish’ thing to do – as well as being unlawful in the eyes of the Supreme Court. The ruling also makes the case of the supremacy of Parliament, and well done for doing so.
“However, after that it makes a weak case for prorogation being unlawful which appears partially dependant on two half-truths and a dollop of naivety. It says that a prorogation for the Queen’s speech would need only six days or so, but then asks in paragraph 58: “why did that need a prorogation of five weeks.” The answer is that it doesn’t. The recess was three weeks plus the excess time due to conference season. The additional days string out that period when Parliament isn’t sitting. Yes, it helps the Government, but it is a weak argument to use, given the long tradition of autumn recess, to imply that Government is shutting Parliament for a prolonged period when it would have been shut for much of that time anyway. In fact, it is plain wrong. And prior to New Labour, the recess started in July and ended only after conference in October.
“When the Supreme Court says in paragraph 58: “It will be apparent from the documents quoted earlier that no reason was given for closing down Parliament for five weeks,” this is to all intents and purposes a misrepresentation of the facts. The Supreme Courts’ reference in paragraph 56 that: “Parliament might have decided to go into recess” during this period, is feeble. It also suggests that the Court would have suspected that this Remain Parliament might have voted to cancel recess, which is making a judgement on things which have not actually come to pass.
“Secondly, it appears to justify its actions on the fact that Parliament is opposing Government. In paragraph 57, the judgement states Parliament has a right to have a voice – of course it does – but then continues, “and the House of Commons has already demonstrated … that it does not support the Prime Minister on this critical issue.” If it did support the Prime Minister, would that somehow make the proroguing lawful? The tenor of the wording suggests that Supreme Court is justifying its judgement because MPs are opposing Government. That may arouse sympathy, but it is curious grounds for the basis of legal argument.“And nowhere is there a recognition of the amount of time that Parliament has already spent debating Brexit. It is difficult to argue that Parliament’s voice is being blocked – most of Britain thinks Parliament has talked about Brexit for far too long. You have to wonder where the Supreme Court had been for the last three years? Nowhere is there a practical recognition that Parliament is now engaged in a process of trying to take executive powers from Government. Nowhere is there a recognition that Government – which, yes, arises out of Parliament – is trying to fulfil the mandate of the 2016 referendum, and which Parliament is effectively trying to block using arcane procedures.
“Summing up, the court makes a reasonable case for saying that the action it is judiciable, but then makes a very weak case to say it is unlawful. The ruling is justified by a partial misrepresentation of the autumn recess, an apparent sympathy for Parliament’s opposition to Government, and a dollop of judicial activism outlined in paragraphs 27 to 32 which can be summed up on the grounds that: we’ve done it before so we can do it again.
“If there is a silver lining to this ruling, it is to help portray Boris Johnson as the man fighting for the people against a grey establishment forever trying to stymie him – and the Conservative Party – which is now intent on delivering Brexit.”
