{"id":1305,"date":"2010-05-14T17:14:23","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T15:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2010-05-15T13:52:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-15T11:52:51","slug":"1305","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1305","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Dissolution on 55%<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a good deal of political, academic and legal noise building up over this. If you take it literally as an unchangeable statute, it is unsustainable. If you\u00a0treat it as a current plan to guide the Prime Minister, who by moving to a\u00a0fixed term Parliaments of 5 years has given up his right to seek a dissolution early, on what to do if a dissolution is after all the best course, then it is fine but pointless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is because there is a difference between a Constiutional Convention for which there is no established mechanism to vary (a written Constitution would provide for ammendments subject to conditions of approval) and Laws or Stautes, which can be varied at any time. Thus it is certainly within Cameron’s remit as Prime minister, invested with all the Royal Prerogative powers, to push\u00a0 a \u00a0Bill through both Houses saying that he will not ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament unles 55% of the Commons\u00a0tell him to, but this could be overturned by another variation at any time. The idea of a fixed term parliament is that it cannot be dissolved early otherwise there would be no point in it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only person, in fact, in law and under whatever Constitution we do actually have, with the power to dissolve parliament is the Queen. She can do this whenever she likes. In practice she does it only if asked to do so by\u00a0Her<\/em><\/strong> Prime Minister. The Prime Minister does so only if an opportunity for a renewed mandate is spotted or if the five year term runs out and is not extended by both the Commons and Lords voting for an extension. If a law is passed removing the power of the Prime Minister to exercise <\/em><\/strong>the Royal Prerogative, it does not mean that the said Royal Prerogative ceases to exist.<\/p>\n

It is in these arguments that the extraordinary constitutional position of this country\u00a0is laid bare. There is much talk that Parliament is Sovereign. In a democracy the People are Sovereign. Our country was, is and remains a Monarchy. In a Monarchy, the monarch, only the monarch, is Sovereign. A whole plethora of customs and practices dilute that sovereignty and lend it to a\u00a0parliament, elected by the people. It is high time that all of this was written down and approved by the people. A written Constitution cannot be long delayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the declaration by this brave new coalition government that it will press on for five years and pass a bill to that effect is welcome. It can reach whatever agreement it wishes between the participating parties concerning its own break-up. It cannot legally bind Parliament itself on the matter of its dissolution,\u00a0simply because Parliament has no power in the matter whatsoever. That remains, whatever it does, with the Queen. She will act only upon the advice of her Prime Minister. Whoever he or she is. Parliament can restrain<\/strong><\/em> that person, but not empower<\/strong><\/em> them. Power, all of it, comes from the Queen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is what a Monarchy is. It is also why many countries prefer a Republic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dissolution on 55% There is a good deal of political, academic and legal noise building up over this. If you take it literally as an unchangeable statute, it is unsustainable. If you\u00a0treat it as a current plan to guide the Prime Minister, who by moving to a\u00a0fixed term Parliaments of 5 years has given up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}