[shadyMrPatch]

"It's something that would have been unimaginable to happen in the UK a few years ago"

You say that but we had it happen in 1997 to prevent parliamentary discussion of the cash for questions scandal that ultimately toppled the Major Conservative government.

I believe that the Blair government considered it in the run up to the Iraq war too but didn't.

[ineedasername]

Not only was that 1997 incident during a time and issue that was not nearly as critical to the existence of the country, it was not at all comparable because it did not fundamentally prevent parliament from taking meaningful action on the issue: when parliament reconvened it could take up the issue again at it's leisure. In this case, prorogueing parliament had the effect of preventing nearly any meaningful action from taking place before it was too late. It's the difference between delaying action and denying it out right. (Yes there would have been a couple of days, not nearly enough for meaningful review or careful legislative action.)

Also length is a strong distinguishing factor. A few days or even a week or two are different enough in this situation to elevate a difference of degree to a difference in kind.

Finally, it happened with a PM that had a majority. Arguably the PM is not overuling the purpose of parliament when parliament itself agrees with the action. That is not the case here, there is no majority for the PM, and to all available evidence there is a majority that oppose this move by Johnson.

[roenxi]

> In this case, prorogueing parliament had the effect of preventing nearly any meaningful action from taking place before it was too late.

Did nobody tell parliament that Brexit was an issue? They've had 3 years to act. Why 2 more weeks is so critical isn't actually all that obvious in the big picture. If a 5-week break in parliament is the difference between outcomes in a 3 year process; it is too close to call and it is democratic enough whatever happens. The details are important but ultimately just politics.

On truly divisive 50-50 issues, either option is basically acceptable in a democratic country. Democracies are to avoid the 60-40 splits where countries barrel in to truly foolish ideas that nobody supports. Brexit or No Brexit by means fair and foul aren't going to be death blows; the public has been polled and the politicians have been given time to talk. Neither really expressed a clear direction. It falls to the executive to execute something.

Anyhow; courts made a good call. More talking makes for a happy parliament.

[ergothus]

> They've had 3 years to act. Why 2 more weeks is so critical isn't actually all that obvious in the big picture.

When you dont have agreement on what to do and a deadline is looming, it seems obvious that, however much it should NOT have been needed, it is in fact critical.

You arent chopping 5 weeks off of a 3 year period, you're chopping 5 weeks off of an 8 week period.

[mytailorisrich]

They were adding 3 weeks to a 2 week suspension that was planned for party conferences. This is after the 5 week summer recess which they took as usual.

This is really about playing politics against Johnson and the government, not an actual outrage. Of course the government was doing the same by prorogating.

[jfengel]

Part of the problem in this case is that it's not 50-50. It's more like 33-33-33 for hard brexit, soft brexit, and no brexit, with varying second-choice preferences depending closely on precisely how you phrase the question. There's no option that doesn't leave most people angry. Especially since it's more like 25-25-49, such that the largest single group is outweighed by two other groups that are almost, but not quite, as sharply divided.

It's a pretty fundamental flaw that interferes with "near tossup means it could go either way" as a philosophy. It's a pathological case, but not uncommon.

[lolc]

Yes parliament was stalling hard decisions. But this prorogation was not planned three years ago! Neither was the extension. How should they plan their sessions when they can be disabled at a whim?

[ineedasername]

They've had 3 years, but not to act in the current (very different) circumstances than were present for that 3 year period. Most of that time was spent in the actual substantive negotiations, but those fell apart in their ability to gain parliamentary support, precisely because Theresa May held her cards too close to her vest and away from parliamentary scrutiny & input, and that gave rise to the time crunch here.

Regardless of whether they could have acted sooner, Johnson's move was to prevent them from acting now when faced with a new administration and new course of action that had every appearance of going against both the will of parliament and (though less legally relevant) the will of the people in that most do not support crashing out without a deal.

You can't claim they had 3 years to act on the current situation when the current situation just arose in the form of a new PM that was attempting to side step any parliamentary review or legislation over his course of action.

Finally, they actually did act this past spring to vote that no deal wasn't an acceptable outcome. It was part of a series of non-binding votes that established governmental norms should have meant that it would be honored. When, after Johnson became PM, it was clear that it would not be honored, parliament quickly acted in the short time before being proroqued to actually enact in law the requirement to ask the EU for an extension in the face of no-deal. So, not only is 3 years not what they had to address the current situation, to they extent that they could address the current situation, they did so. Their desire to do more was prohibited by Johnson's (now illegal) actions.

[pjc50]

> Brexit or No Brexit by means fair and foul aren't going to be death blows

Just because there's no agreement doesn't mean there will be no impact!

[NikolaNovak]

It was also a bit of an issue for Conservative party in Canada - though nowhere near at the scale & criticality of UK.

[makomk]

Yeah, though somehow the British press managed to omit that little fact from their regurgitations of John Major's claims about how dangerous and remarkable this action was. His prorogation seems much more clear-cut an example of frustrating Parliamentary scrutiny too; he completely blocked Parliament from sitting between the time he announced it and the election he was hoping to protect, unlike this case where Boris left windows for them to act both before and after the prorogation, and he didn't even have the justification that Boris did of doing it to end an over-long session and hold a Queen's Speech.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Not a few of Major's cabinet ended up in jail, for various reasons.

In fact there's a better precedent - Attlee's prorogation in 1948.

The difference is that both were done by a PM with a working majority, so it could be argued they were done with the consent of Parliament.

Johnson nuked his own majority from orbit, so there's absolutely no argument that he's acting with the confidence and approval of Parliament.

Which is part of the problem. Parliament will remove him with a No Confidence vote soon. But first it wants to make sure that he doesn't make any other attempt to game electoral or Parliamentary procedure to force through the mad Brexit agenda that his hedge-fund owning backers want to profit from.

[roywiggins]

The prorogation in 1948 was about creating a pro-forma session of Parliament just for the purpose of passing a law an extra time, so as to pass it over the objections of the Lords. It didn't actually prevent Parliament from having its say, which is the issue today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation_in_the_United_King...

(BoJo's government still has the confidence of Parliament until it doesn't- that's not what the court ruled on)