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Legislation seeking to extend our period in the EU that is not sponsored by a minister violates the fundamental division of roles in our constitution. Ministers propose spending (here, EU contributions). Parliament approves it or not. Parliament cannot propose spending itself.
Because a non-minister-sponsored bill extending EU membership violates the principle that MPs cannot impose spending on the Crown, it can only be heard in Parliament if the PM recommends Consent be given to violate that key constitutional principle. He shld recommend against that
Why *shld* the PM agree to violate key principles of our constitution just so his anti-No Deal opponents can frustrate govt policy? What he shld do is follow the normal constitutional practice & refuse Queen's Consent for the 3rd Reading of this constitution-violating bill.
People will doubtless holler & yowl if Boris withholds Queen's Consent to the constitution being violated by a non-minister-sponsored EU extension bill, but it is he who wld be following the constitutional norm & his opponents who were seeking to break it.
If a party thinks our constitution shld be otherwise, they were welcome to argue for that at a General Election & install a new PM to change the balance btwn Executive & Legislature. But that has not bn done, & til it is the Executive's entitled to uphold its constitutional role.
This is not a matter of obscure ancient devices not used for centuries. It is a matter of the Executive using the powers it exercises frequently - dozens of times in the past couple of decades alone - to circumscribe correctly its role relative to that of the Legislature.
If you want a concrete example, the one I think is most closely analogous is the withholding of Consent to a 1999 non-minister-sponsored bill forbidding the Executive to go to war without a prior vote in Parliament.
