16/12/2020
In anticipation of a deal being agreed in the next few days, it is reasonable to expect that parliament should be placed on alert, ready to process an implementing Bill before Christmas.
And that,
it seems, is precisely what is happening, with plans being made to ensure that MPs and peers will be available to sit on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next, with 24 December still under discussion.
The plans are being prepared amid a swirl of rumours that a deal is imminent, even though both UK and EU sources have "firmly denied" that this is the case. A government source says that the sitting plans are "entirely provisional", and the fact that plans are being made does not in any way suggest that there's been any movement in the negotiations".
As to the conduct of the negotiations, we have nothing official, with the gaps filled by a rash of speculation, the accuracy of which there is no means of judging. With the oft-repeated mantra, that there are still "significant gaps" between the sides, we are no further forward than we were yesterday.
The possibility of talks being concluded this week, however, cannot be excluded. But if parliament is then to ratify the agreement, with one day being allocated for a debate in the Commons, and another in the Lords, this makes a mockery of this whole "parliamentary sovereignty" thing.
Members of both houses have not been appraised of the details of the government's negotiating stance, and nor has there been anything from parliament by way of a formal mandate.
If an agreement comes to pass, members will then be expected to review a document which may run to well over 1,000 pages, in the space of a few hours, before being process complex legislation through both Houses to make it happen.
Since they are being asked, in effect, to ratify an international treaty, not a single word of the deal can be changed anyway, under the current procedure. MPs and peers will be asked to take it or leave it, in an all-or-nothing vote, with the whips out in force to make sure the government gets its way.
As for the British people, their opinions are irrelevant, and they won't be consulted by the government, formally or informally. And any idea that we might be given a referendum on it is strictly for the birds.
In any event, the whole thing is a charade anyway. If this is a mixed treaty, it will have to be ratified separately by the EU's 27 Member States, which cannot possibly happen before the end of the year, or for many months after that. On the face of it, the EU must decide to allow provisional application, pending ratification.
The bizarre thing is that, if Member State ratification is required, some states may well have a referendum. Quite possibly, Ireland might be one of those countries. We could, therefore, be in the position where our MPs and peers approve the deal "on-the-nod", with no clear idea of what they are voting for, while any democratic input â such that it is â might come from the Irish people.
In all the prattle about "sovereignty", therefore, the thing that is getting left behind is any idea of democracy. While the Johnson administration has an electoral mandate to "get Brexit done", it has no specific mandate on the nature of the trade deal it should negotiate, and has not bothered to ask what people actually want â assuming they even know.
Thus, while the "Vote Leave" slogan of "take back control" may have looked very pretty on the side of a big red bus, it practical terms it is meaningless. It actually represents a dilution in people-power. Before Brexit, we did at least have the right to vote on any new EU treaty which took on more powers, but on this treaty we have no vote at all.
One might even recall the wuzzies complaining about the Efta/EEA option in terms of it supposedly committing us to EU law without any say in its formulation, with the claim that it put us in the position of "pay no say".
But that is exactly the situation in which "we, the people" find ourselves with this deal. Whatever the outcome, we will be expected to pay for it in one way or the other, having had absolutely no say in its formulation or implementation.
No doubt, the reward for our obedience will be the opportunity to listen to the Oaf prattling about the "fantastic" deal he has brought home, when all the while it will be self-evident that he has delivered a pig's ear.
At least, though, there is some unease in the Tory ranks. After Rees-Mogg said he expected parliament to approve any required legislation in six days, with deliberation lasting just 48 hours in the Commons and Lords, Iain Duncan Smith, expressed the view that the trade deal will now be "rammed through at speed".
Even now, though, there is no reason why this should be the case. If the EU cannot ratify the treaty, and must allow its provisional application, then there is no reason why a similar procedural device cannot be used in Westminster, with any legislation approved subject to the later ratification of the treaty.
That way, at the very least, there might be a more extensive debate and some areas flagged up for revision or renegotiation. As it stands, if we do get a deal under the current terms, it is the worst of all possible worlds â a sub-optimal treaty rushed through with minimal scrutiny by a parliament that has no real idea what it is voting for. That is certainly not what we voted for on 23 June 2016.
We were supposed to have left this sort of thing behind us when we left the EU but, the way it is going, we are simply swapping one form of tyranny for another. Whatever things we might have gained from Brexit, democracy won't be one of them.
Also published on
Turbulent Times.
