Supreme Court ruling: “PMs should not be allowed to abuse their power again””

"Boris Johnson is a serial, self-interested liar who is in effect waging war on his own country"

Boris Johnson

It was the ruling many of us were waiting and hoping for: the Supreme Court unanimously ruling the PM’s prorogation of Parliament was against the law.

It proves that regardless of your position, you cannot ride roughshod over this country’s democracy, silencing the parliamentary representatives chosen by the public. It also proves that this nation won’t allow itself to be bullied into agreeing to legislation that hasn’t been thought through seriously enough.

But it should never have come to this. 

Members of Parliament should not have had to heckle Black Rod in the commons as Parliament was closed. People across the United Kingdom should not have had to give up their free time marching to defend democracy.

Amid the Brexit chaos, we should not have had to waste time having three judicial rulings over the legality of the PM’s actions.

Not to mention what a huge distraction this all is to the other very serious issues of the day, which are claiming lives here and abroad: fighting austerity and tackling climate change.

So while today signals a great reprieve for our democracy, we’re still a long way from achieving full accountability. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

An abuse of power

The Prime Minister has blatantly – and now officially unlawfully – abused his power to further his own agenda. It’s obvious that he must stand down and make way for a leader of national unity to get us through the current Brexit crisis.

If this has shown us anything, it’s that pandering to hardened factions is not only dangerous but it simply does not work. Our country is in crisis: we need to get a caretaker Prime Minister in place who can unite our Parliament to work towards a solution.

There’s no good way out of this mess, but we need a referendum so that the country has the opportunity to rethink: as the old tailor’s saying goes you measure twice and cut once.

But this isn’t just about Brexit. This case exposes that we have a democratic deficit here in the UK, and our system is unfit for any country in the modern world, not least the mother of all parliaments. 

This mess could not have taken place had we had a written constitution in place. We need a written constitution to prevent leaders abusing their powers, and we need a more democratic electoral system so that voters feel that they can always vote for whichever party they actually believe in.

No one should have to settle for second best. Our so-called democracy has allowed for an unelected prime minister and his cronies to abuse its loopholes and cracks to attempt to force us to leave the EU without objection.

That’s not what any of us voted for – whichever side of the Brexit debate you’re on. And let’s not forget all of those people who were disenfranchised during that referendum, not to mention the foul play enacted by the Leave campaign.

What happens next?

Where we are now is in a place where this prorogation doesn’t exist – it wasn’t legal.

Tomorrow, Parliament will reconvene to hold Boris Johnson and the Tory government to account on its Brexit plans which threaten to destroy our economy, job market, small businesses, food and medical supplies, and the rights of millions of EU nationals living here in the UK, as well as UK citizens living on the continent.

The scale of this victory for us and the defeat for Mr Johnson is beyond what anyone expected, but we cannot afford to be complacent. 

The PM has lied on such a massive scale. He’s lied to the Queen, to the public, to fellow politicians.

Boris Johnson is a serial, self-interested liar, who is in effect waging war on his own country.

He has made his position untenable and must either resign or a vote of no confidence must be triggered.


Alexandra Phillips MEP is Green MEP for the South East Region of England.

12 Responses to “Supreme Court ruling: “PMs should not be allowed to abuse their power again”””

  1. Chester Draws

    He has made his position untenable and must either resign or a vote of no confidence must be triggered.

    Your side declined to make the no confidence vote when they knew it would have succeeded. The Left are responsible for him still being PM. So, huff and puff as much as you like, but the Left obviously don’t think he is a mortal threat to the country.

    Of course, a no confidence vote would have triggered an election. And the Left are terrified what the voters might think of their shenanigans — which are just as bad as Boris’s.

  2. Peachy Essay

    Where’s Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain to extricate it from the current mess? All he’s doing here is slagging off Boris Johnson and playing to the crowd. Boring and unimpressive.

  3. Michael Fitchett

    The only reason Corbyn will not call vote of no confidence is that he does trust Johnson :about as far as he can throw him.

  4. Alasdair Macdonald

    A vote of No Confidence which was passed would not, under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, have automatically resulted in a General Election. Parliament as a whole would have had to agree by a 2/3 majority or, if another MP, usually, the Leader of the Opposition, was unable to form an administration.
    Indeed, even before the FTPA, it was only the ‘convention’ under our risible ‘unwritten constitution’ that a losing PM, e.g Mr James Callaghan, called a GE. It is clear that the attitude of the present government and of Mrs May’s that such conventions matter very little. What the Supreme Court has done is, based on the judgement of the Scottish Inner Court, ‘tack down’ a bit of the constitution. It has sought- after all these centuries – to curb the powers of kings which is inherent in the ‘Crown in Parliament’ concept

  5. Why did Plaid Cymru call for Johnson to be impeached? | Left Foot Forward

    […] The Prime Minister flew back from New York yesterday as Parliament reconvened after the Supreme Court’s decision to rule his prorogation of Parliament unlawful. […]

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