Brexit in a nutshell

trevor432990

To be honest re-reading the list I cannot really see that much bias in the statements I've made and I have tried to be as factually correct as possible.

psikey

Don't worry, it is fine, but Remainers have to call it biased as they can't accept the vote didn't go their way.

kav

It's mostly factual but I've highlighted the parts in bold that are speculative/emotive/biased. The most blatantly biased point is the last one, because all that actually happened was the legal system was followed and a decision was made that leave voters didn't like.

IronGiant

Some leave voters

psikey

Speaker of the House John Bercow is biased and no doubt about that based on his actions.

Your other highlights I would agree could be seen as biased.

I have no issue with the Judges findings at all. They did strengthen the law to now show that intent is considered. As it stood Boris wasn't unlawful until the new precedent was agreed by the judges.

If Leavers are being honest (like me) we all knew Boris Prorogued for the length he did to stop Remainer MP's blocking Brexit. Soon it will be back to the people in a GE to get Brexit done.

GadgetObsessed

The following points are personal opinion rather than fact.
The UK negotiation team headed by David Davis> Dominic Raab > Stephen Barclay were undermined by civil servants led by Olly Robbins who created May’s deal

I don't know of any evidence that the deal was undermined by civil servants. Personally, I felt that the UK government was never clear on what they wanted and overall the deal was about as good as we could have realistically expected. Especially given the relative size of the two parties - with the EU economy being around 6 times larger than the UK.

The issue with NI and the Backstop is a particularly thorny one. Given that the Stormont agreement prevents any border controls I don't see any clear solution other than keeping NI aligned with the EU (unacceptable to the Unionists) or keeping the whole UK aligned with the EU (possibly acceptable to Unionists as they don't want NI to have different rules to the rest of the UK - but unacceptable to some Brexiteers.)

To try to provide Boris Johnson with some time to carry out shuttle diplomacy with EU and World leaders he decided to Pro-rogue Parliament until 17th October

There are different views as to why Boris prorogued parliament. One widely held view being that it was simply a mechanism to bypass a parliament over which Boris did not have control.

Given that there appeared to be no particular negotiations with the EU or any other country in that time, it seems unlikely that the purpose of the proroguing was to give the PM more time to make trade deals.

With no written constitution this country is now at the mercy of non-elected judges to decide what political events they wish to become involved with and rule over

This implies that (a) the country does not have a constitution and that (b) judges can rule on whatever they wish and (c) come up with judgments based upon their political allegiances rather than the law. This country does have a constitution - but some of it is based upon precedent and protocol rather than having been codified in law. Personally I am in favor of a written constitution - it would have prevented the proroguing debacle as it should have made it clear that it is not within the PM's power to prorogue for a long period to bypass parliament. What judges can and cannot rule on is determined within law and they can only make their judgement based upon interpretation of the law.

In this case a frustrated PM went beyond what he was legally permitted to do in order to prevent Parliament from going against his wishes. Legally, as we are a parliamentary democracy where parliament is supreme then the PM does not have the power to bypass parliament.

Parliament maintains its supremacy. If judges rule against a particular action by an PM/Parliament then Parliament is free to change the law so that particular action is then legal and no judge could ever rule against it. Of course this requires a bill to pass through parliament to change the law - so requires the majority of MPs to agree. In this case the PM would need to get a Bill through parliament creating a law stating that the PM has the right to pro-rogue for up to X weeks whenever they wish. With the current parliament such a bill would be unlikely to succeed.

Ousted former ministers and party grandees rebelled and the ‘impartial’ Speaker of the House John Bercow colluded with them and the opposition to thwart Brexit

Opinion was divided on some of the votes that Bercow allowed. To say that there was "collusion to thwart Brexit" is personal opinion and the use of the term "colluded" implies that there was some sort of wrongdoing involved. You may believe that there was wrongdoing but that has to be presented to an outside observer as opinion rather than fact.

After three years of promising much but secretly doing the opposite Theresa May decided to resign in June 2019

I don't think there was a particular secret or that May was deliberately doing nothing. Rather, she had led herself into a position without a majority and did not have the political skill to achieve her ambitions.

The government wanted to call a General Election but a new law introduced in the Cameron era prevents elections being called quickly in succession

The Fixed Term Parliaments act sets the timetable for elections to be every 5 years on fixed dates. An election can be called before this if a 2/3 majority of the house votes for it or if the government loses a vote of no confidence and the official opposition fail to form a government. Personally, I think that this act is a good one. Allowing a Government to call an early election when it is advantageous to them, makes the general election system less fair.

kav

Regarding Bercow, he has biases as everyone does but my main concern is whether or not his biases resulted in abuse of his position. At best the evidence is inconclusive. He's theatrical and often deploys unconventional approaches, but he has not, based on anything credible I've read, abused his position as Speaker. Happy to be corrected if anyone has evidence to the contrary, aside from not liking him because he voted Remain.

Just to be clear, my comment above wasn't about whether or not Bercow himself was biased, rather that the comments about him were biased and framed from a Leave-supporting perspective.

richp007

I notice IG you didn't correct Psikey above though who should have said "some" Remainers

Your honesty is to be commended. I'll just wait and see if anyone from the Leaver brigade shows up to correct you, as any Remainer who suggested this at the time was apparently talking total crap.

As usual, I won't hold my breath

Bercow hasn't abused his position. If he had I'm quite sure the likes of Mogg, Leadsom etc would have rounded on him much more than they have, and pursued far strongly the process of having him removed.

He is no doubt a Remainer, but he's just allowed Parliament to do it's job through the process. The government have just thrown their toys out the pram over it and as such some Leaver's have followed suit.

EarthRod

While underwater it might be a good idea.

SteakAndCake

Bercow is biased toward Parliament and empowering Parliament.

Because parliament are majority Remain, and government are majority Leave, some observers incorrectly infer he has Remain bias.