On Tuesday 12 September 2017, Theresa May will try to pass a law which Jeremy Corbyn has called an “unprecedented attempt to rig parliament and grab power”.
Have you been wondering what all the fuss is about? If so, a lawyer’s viral video has nailed the PM’s plans to the wall. And he takes just two minutes to bust her.
Subverting democracy?
As The Canary previously reported, Tory MP Andrea Leadsom has proposed a motion which would effectively give the Conservative government the majority power on all House of Commons committees.
Currently, committees with nine members have four Conservative, four Labour and one SNP MPs on them. This is because they reflect the outcomes of general elections. But Leadsom’s motion would change this, giving the Tories five members; therefore, a majority. As The Huffington Post reported, the motion says that:
where a committee has an odd number of members, the government shall have a majority. [And] where a committee has an even number of members, the number of government and opposition members shall be equal, but this instruction shall not apply to the nomination of any public bill committee [which hammers out the guts of legislation].
So effectively, Leadsom is trying to take power of all important House of Commons committees; ensuring that the Conservatives can push through laws in the form they want.
Nailed to the wall
But now, lawyer and campaigner Peter Stefanovic has attacked what he calls May and Leadsom’s attempt to “steal democracy” and “seize control”. He says:
Let’s be clear on this. These are committees made up of MPs who scrutinise legislation. Any attempt to change the make-up of these committees to give the government a majority is an affront to democracy. It’ll make it harder, if not impossible, for opposition MPs to block laws that affect all our lives… May is effectively planning to sideline all opposition…
‘Consensus conshmensus’
Campaigners have also started a petition against the attempted power grab. It has already reached over 100,000 signatures.
And ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston also called it an attempt by May to “rig” parliament, saying:
It is now a case of consensus conshmensus. With the aid of her most important minister… she will attempt to rule by diktat via the gaming of parliamentary rules.
Authoritarian May
The motion is concerning; not least because committees often draw up the details of laws. So in theory, the guts of the Repeal Bill, which decides which EU law is passed into UK legislation after Brexit, could be decided by Tories, and no one else. But what Leadsom’s motion shows is the disregard the Conservatives have for true democratic process in the UK. And it also demonstrates a worrying lurch towards the worst authoritarian tendencies of May and her minority government.
Get Involved!
– Sign the petition against May’s ‘power grab’.
– Support The Canary, so we can keep reporting on these attacks on our democracy.
Featured image via YouTube
