NEW VIDEO THREAD -
Following on from the new Brexit Horror piece on brexitshambles.com, here's a thread from today's @CommonsEUexit session confirming the government have ensured the opposition will be taking a knife to a gunfight over the EU deal meaningful vote fiasco. 1/9
Following on from the new Brexit Horror piece on brexitshambles.com, here's a thread from today's @CommonsEUexit session confirming the government have ensured the opposition will be taking a knife to a gunfight over the EU deal meaningful vote fiasco. 1/9
Sir David Natzler, clerk of the HoC, explains to @SeemaMalhotra1 how the government has endeavoured to draft a motion that was as close as possible to being unamendable thereby attempting to neutralise any opposition in parliament. 2/9
@Jacob_Rees_Mogg chair of the European Research Group and a master practitioner of both the art of filibustering and Commons procedure, takes a keen interest in the mechanics of the motion likely to be laid down in order ratify any EU deal. Go figure..... 3/9
Now @EmmaReynoldsMP asks Sir David about the rare commons procedure 'free standing resolutions' a smorgasbord of resolutions on which, if history is anything to go by, the likely result would be confusion meaning the government would be happy. 4/9
@EmmaReynoldsMP continues and teases out of Sir David that the only vote that actually matters is the governments resolution, 13.1.b, and no other would have any legal force. 5/9
Now @patmcfaddenmp asks the 'expensive question' on what happens IF the House agrees the package SUBJECT TO A FURTHER REFERENDUM and what's its legal status. Sir David diplomatically hypothesises over such a situation omitting to say if the deal is not ratified we crash out! 6/9
Now with the lawyers in front of the committee, @PeterGrantMP asks the question all Brexiteers don't want to hear the answer to...at what point did parliament lose control of the Brexit process. The answer is obvious....7/9
Sara Hagemann tells the committee that the EU27 are likely to ratify any deal, but @JDjanogly asks, what happens if the EU fails to ratify a deal? Simon Usherwood answers that come the 29th March 2019 we'd crash out. So much for 'Taking Back Control' then! 8/9
The only people in control here are an unelected government acting on a potentially illegal mandate. We think we'll need both @Keir_Starmer and Dominic Grieve at the top of their game for this. You can watch the full session here on our YouTube channel 9/9
