We are talking about one committee. The officials have said that the Tory representation should be four out of nine. The government is trying to change the rules to suit them. There is no agreement for the DUP to support the government in an official coalition, therefore it is a minority administration.
I have already shown you the House of Commons rules. The make up is decided by the number of seats gained. The ruling party is entitled to the majority on the committees. Having a minority or majority is a red herring, nothing to do with the rules, just in your mind.
As you are so sure, can you tell us why the officials have said that the government is only entitled to four seats, and May is trying to change the rules. If you are correct why should they wish to change the rules? Your interpretation seems to be at odds with those in Westminster.
So I have shown you the established rules. A motion will seek to change Commons rules so that "where a committee has an odd number of members, the government shall have a majority. The Prime Minister's spokeswomen said: " we believe these are common sense proposals" She also said "The government has a majority on the floor of the house, therefore it's perfectly legitimate that it puts to the house, and therefore MPs, that it should also have a majority in committees" Due to the time constraints it is the most sensible option.
All you have done is repeat what May wants. The officials know what the rules are, and they do not suit her. No party has a majority on the floor of the house and that is factual, not something you can dispute.
The UK government has an effective working majority of 13 because Sinn Fein do not take their seats. This is obviously not taking into account the numbers of any oddball Tories voting against the government and opposition MPs voting with the government.
Conservatives are a minority government no matter what you say. They failed to obtain the 326 seats needed.
The money paid out was purely for a supply and confidence agreement. May could not get what she wanted, 100% support from them. Therefore they are free to vote against her when they choose to do so outside the agreement. You cannot count them into the numbers, which is why the officials have said what the number of committee members are.
To win the vote the Tories will need the backing of the DUP. Without this it would be impossible to force through up to 1,000 corrections. to EU law as intended through the EU (withdrawal) Bill.
An aspect of all this which most brexiters appear to ignore is the fact that with the exception of very large countries such as the USA. China, Russia etc. most other leading industrial nations are members of some kind of larger trading block. The nation state (at least when talking about a country the size of Britain) is too small to compete effectively in a globalized World, yet is too large to guarantee democracy for all of its citizens. So many countries are sandwiched between globalization on the one hand, and a rising regionalism on the other,and, in the meantime, their resources have been mostly privatized so nation states mostly do not have the resources they had 40 years ago. Europe is simply too small to conceive of it's future as being that of individual sovereign states in competition with each other. If the Eurozone collapsed, or even the EU. itself - it would be very quickly replaced for this reason. There is much which is wrong with the EU. It was the free market economist Friedrich Hayek, the intellectual architect of neoliberalism, who called in 1939 for ''interstate federalism'' in Europe to prevent voters from using democracy to interfere with the operations of the free market. The tools of Keynesian economics, upon which democracy relies, are now illegal in Europe - and Thatcherism is, more or less, anchored into the constitution of the EU. We have been asleep to this. We need to regain Europe for it's citizens, not run away from it. We need to demand that the EU. Parliament (the people we actually vote for) actually act as a parliament in more than just name. It has been said that the only people who actually listen to MEPs in Brussels are the interpreters - that, in fact, the EU. Commission (unelected) decides everything behind closed doors.
A good post cologne. It is obvious to all but the most blinkered that the UK is not an attractive place to invest in because of it's size without access to the much larger EU. The disgraced and desperate Liam Fox tells us that countries are lining up to do deals with us, yet cannot name any. His excuse for not proceeding with unofficial talks is that we don't have any negotiators. Why is this, and who is to blame? The EU parliament should not be dismissed. It has a veto to say yes or no on any deal that is constructed between the EU and UK. As it is made up of elected members that we could all vote for it probably should have a louder voice, but the same can be said of the MPs who are faced with a power grab by an executive. Certainly I would wish to see the EU parliament strengthened, but unfortunately when you have elected members such as Farage who do not even bother to turn up except on payday, then the voters will ask, what is the point. Our democracy is being threatened all around the world by 140 characters called Twitter that some believe to be well thought out policies. To ask some to read more is like asking for a nice French cheese moon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41218647 "Vote against our Repeal Bill and face chaos" warn Tory ministers. And the alternative is to vote for it and face chaos too - what a bloody choice. Of course, Labour are already lining up to abstain - typical gutless wonders.
I don't think there is any doubt that it will pass tonight, but the real damage to it will happen when it goes to the committee stage, not due until next month. Meanwhile the Davis team are hoping that the EU will come up with some proposals that they can claim as their own before talks on trade deals progress. I also read that the DUP have not received any of their blood money. Seems it has to be approved by parliament at some unspecified date in the future. How long will they be prepared to wait? The High Court case might well rule it unlawful anyway.
The Green Party's High Court challenge based on Good Friday Agreement & Bribery Act starts on 26 October. Although who knows how long it will take the government to fix the outcome...
The debate that we should have had BEFORE June 2016 continues to intrigue me. 3 points. 1) from my reading of Hayek, he seemed obsessed solely with preventing a recurrence of Germany's National Socialism - which morphed into Nazism. Whilst he could have been right that his ideas would prevent such a recurrence, it seems to be that the adoption of his philosophy had caused more harm to more people than Marx ever did. I would welcome further enlightenment, but preferably not from some faux intellectual (s) who seem to think the world begins and ends in Hertfordshire. 2) Politicians seldom surprise me these days, but the hypocrisy of David Davis is really something. Having fought tooth and nail for the privacy rights of the individual against an overweening too powerful government, he now insists that democratic scrutiny of government will lead to chaos. 3) This is not new, but I wish to remind everyone. I find it truly astonishing that NOW, only NOW, are the people who wanted us to leave the EU are discovering what it means. I can accept that many people voted to leave for genuinely held beliefs, but the term 'Lions led by Donkeys' seems entirely appropriate. The only thing more amazing, to me at any rate, is that now , as realisation begins to dawn ( new trade deals anyone?) there is anyone at all who thinks leaving is a good idea.
I have been reading about the last days of Thatcher and how she was moved out of No.10. It is enlightening to see how her own ministers lined up secretly behind candidates while she was still in office. The motivation for them was not who would be the best leader of the party, the best leader of the country, but entirely about who would give them as individuals the best job in a new cabinet. Consideration of what would be best for Joe Bloggs never even passed their minds.
No they didn't. The Leave campaign won because their people went out and voted. If all the Remain side who didn't vote hadn't been so lackadaisical and confident of winning and actually got off their collective arses and gone and voted there would have been a different outcome. To claim all those who didn't vote wish to remain is a red herring, those who didn't vote couldn't be bothered one way or the other. Had the vote gone the other way would protests in favour of leaving after the event have been as tolerated as those to remain are?
