UK Government shows willing to sacrifice justice system in pursuit of Fake Brexit – likely to continue beyond October 31st

The less said about Boris Johnson’s prorogation the better: it was always intended as theatre. It’s not about one side of the political aisle frustrating another – it’s about bamboozling the public.  British Government has long since abandoned any pretence of being constitutionally correct or restrained, so it makes little difference that  the imposturing Crown’s justice system (the Queen is “the fount of justice”) has ruled that Parliament (from which the Crown’s powers are gifted) must sit to deny the sovereignty of the Commonwealth [or Republic] (from which Parliament’s powers are derived). So much the better, this unholy mess, if it will bring clarity of perception and a sense of consequential purpose to those to whom, so far, it has been slow to arrive. All is broken, and it needs bypassing, and superseding, and rendering obsolete and illegitimate. The one thing that will be said is that the Supreme Court has made an interpretative judgement about the Executive’s intent – the Executive’s right to prorogue Parliament is not an issue. This is an overreaching, and will only serve to create public conviction that the Crown’s justice system can’t survive into the new constitutional era that Britons must forge from this Brexit experience.

Regardless of all the fearmongering by his pal Delingpole at Breitbart, there is no danger to Boris Johnson’s Brexit from this episode. To this end, by the way, Claude Juncker appeared on the ever-so accommodating Sky News over the weekend to address the befuddled British. It’s all part of the bait-and-switch operation. Why else, if the reader needs convincing, would the EU, all of a sudden, be able to reach a compromise on the question of the Irish border† (previously the perennial strawman stumbling block) for a slightly altered Article 50 treaty? On the horizon is the return of the Malthouse Compromise – which represents the best the so-called Tory rebels, the European Research Group so-called “Spartans”, could muster in defiance of Theresa May’s (and now Boris Johnson’s) Fake Brexit.

In support, on the other flank of the attack on public perception – and simultaneously inhabiting the current affairs ether – the Labour party conference voted for a motion to abolish private schools and absorb their assets into the State education system. Given that the same old families that constitute British Government would never compromise the system by which they feed themselves, generation after generation, into power, this is an empty gesture designed to signal to Tory voters that a Labour Executive would mount a class-war‡. It is supposed to motivate support for the Conservative Party in an election.

And so, it should cause little surprise that in New York, yesterday, Johnson appeared unfazed, and indicated that the denial of his prorogation would make little difference to getting a deal:

As the law currently stands the UK leaves the EU on 31 October, come what may.

But the interesting thing, the exciting thing for us now, is to get a good deal. And that’s what we’re working on.

I’ll be honest with you, it’s not made much easier by this kind of stuff in parliament, or in the courts. Obviously getting a deal is not made much easier against this background. But we’re going to get on and do it.

What Johnson is saying here is that the situation has merely produced greater pressure to obtain a deal; that being said, there is still a good deal of squeeze in terms of time, even though prorogation has been denied. Expect there to be yet another extension to the exit day. Yes, it is true that Johnson did explicitly state that this was 31st October, but the way he said it allowed room for alteration. The exit day is 31st October as the law currently stands – and the law can be changed: the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019, otherwise known as the Cooper-Letwin Bill, appears to be the provision by which this can be done.

If there is confusion about this issue in the Leave-voting public – and there undoubtedly is – it is surely due to horrendous obstinacy regarding the assimilation of some simple knowledge; to wit, how the repealing of the European Communities Act 1972 (EC Act 72) constitutes leaving the EU. People just won’t apprehend it, even though there can be no concept more undemanding.

The day that the EC Act 72 is repealed is the day that Britain leaves the EU.

Therefore, when the EC Act 72 is to be repealed would dictate the date of the “exit day”. It’s not the other way around, as many people imagine. At the moment it is 31st October. But it will have to change by necessity if the Government is not willing at that time to perform the necessary function.

This is what happened on March 29th. The Government failed in its obligation to repeal the EC Act 72 as part of a default exit from the EU after failure to obtain an Article 50 treaty. Instead, a state of EU-membership by fiat-legality – as the situation has been characterised here at FBELǂ  – was created by Statutory Instrument (SI). Of course, in the infamous Tilbrook judicial review (or the application for one, and the subsequent “going-through-the-motions” appeal), which thrived on the idea that Britain somehow automatically left the EU on the 29th March, it was argued that the SI was an act of prerogative power when any new exit day should have instead been sanctioned by Parliament; i.e. there should have been provision in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 for this to happen. Arguably, there was – and for those interested, Tilbrook’s “skeleton argument for appeal” even refers to it:

the power in s.20(4) conferred on a Minister of the Crown by regulation to,

“amend the definition of ‘exit day’ in subsection (1) to ensure that the day and time specified in the definition are the day and time that the Treaties are to cease to apply to the United Kingdom”

It is the author’s view that Tilbrook took a lot of people up a long garden path*; the bottom line has always been that Britain leaves the EU upon the repealing of the EC Act 72. The FBEL reader, in contrast, has been shown evidence of this since 2016. Let us examine yet another piece, this time from analysis of the Tilbrook case where it is stated that “The Government has admitted there also needs to be a Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill passed to finalise the UK’s exit”. This implementation bill has sometimes gone under the name of the Great Repeal, and would feature the repeal of the EC Act 72.

The author has seen another criticism of Tilbrook – which was made in support of an assertion that there is no means by which Government can change the current October 31st exit day date (such is the stubbornness) – whereby it was said that his judicial review application overlooked something called the commencement order (to end the jurisdiction of European laws). It has been said of this instrument, which was signed in August by the “Secretary of State for exiting the EU”, Steve Barclay, that because it hadn’t been signed at the time the March 29th date was superseded, it meant that that date had not been converted from a provisional status, and thus was liable for alteration.

The author feels that this “light switch” justification for changing the exit day might be a red herring. In all the times, between 2017 and 2019, that Theresa May promised 29th March as the day Britain would leave the EU, there was no mention of it being a provisional date. But then, of course, there was no need to mention what didn’t need qualification. The exit day is and always has been one that suits current intentions regarding the repealing of the EC Act 72. Exit day is always provisional until Government is willing to repeal the EC Act 72.

This truth is evident in the explanation of the commencement order provided to i-News by Professor Scott Lucas, Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Birmingham University: it is an instrument that “simply enacts changes approved by Parliament ahead of Theresa May’s initial Brexit deadline.” So, when the Government’s own press release says the signing of the commencement order meant that “the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 will take effect when Britain formally leaves the EU on October 31”, we can imagine that, had the commencement order been signed earlier, it would have expressed the leaving day as 29th March. Because the exit date does not dictate the day when the EC Act 72 is repealed – it is the other way around. The exit date is that whichever when the Government intends to repeal the EC Act 72.

Expect the exit day to change from October 31st. Indeed, the legislation is already in place that will bring this about; the following is from the BBC, September 9th:

Parliament has passed a law that aims to block the UK leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October…

Under the act – introduced as a bill by Labour MP Hilary Benn – Boris Johnson might have to request a Brexit extension on 19 October, pushing the deadline back to 31 January 2020.

But there are two scenarios in which he would not have to do this:

1. MPs approve a Brexit deal in another meaningful vote…

2. MPs vote in favour of leaving the EU without a deal

In either of these scenarios, Mr Benn’s law would not force any Brexit extension to be requested.

What this means is that Boris Johnson must request of the EU an extension in order to negotiate an Article 50 treaty if MPs haven’t already ratified one, or if they haven’t voted to leave the EU without one. Of course, the latter scenario is never going to happen, because the Commons is an entity that seeks to maintain globalist governance of Britain. That leaves less than four weeks to agree a deal with the EU, and have it ratified by Parliament. In truth, dear reader, are we not looking at another exit day?

The BBC article linked to above goes on to state that Johnson could revoke Benn’s act – if he calls an election, and then wins a majority enough to do it (which he at present has not got). However, this is unlikely. It is the author’s opinion that the UK Government does not want to risk bringing into office parties that have promised a second referendum or indeed to overturn Brexit: the idea has always been to finagle a Brexit that looks like extraction from the EU, but in fact is not (because failure to deliver any kind of Brexit would put a wrecking ball through the illusion of British representative democracy). If the British are suddenly faced with a Labour Executive after an election, then it will mean that the bluff has been called. Things would get very interesting then – the author would expect any and all stated intent to deny Brexit to be forgotten very quickly; Labour would merely take over the juggling for a Fake Brexit from the Tories – and face an increasingly ungovernable country that could not confuse, like it might have during the rule of the Tories, the Executive Branch for anything other than an implacable foe.

† Juncker also warned of a hard Irish border in the event of a no-deal Brexit – to which the Leave-voting English and Welsh taxpaying citizenry should say “whatever”. Let the Irish, keen Europeans as they are, host EU border guards.

‡ Labour’s plans for employment are as provocative. For instance, there is to be a new unionism by redistribution of ownership of private business into the hands of a collective which will inevitably be represented at the top, of course, by a politicised elite. This is even before the outright nationalisation of all amenities and the rail network.

ǂ Potentially meaning that that any subsequent activity by Government since 29th March in relation to obtaining an Article 50 treaty has been unlawful.

* The author didn’t give any money for the cause, so it is of no concern of his whether or not Tilbrook in fact exploited the lack of understanding mentioned in the body of the article.