(Five-minute read)

As the Brexit ‘meaningful vote’ in Parliament is delayed what, exactly, will

MPs vote on? and what will be left of a burning Britain?

Under the Bill of Rights of 1689, it is for parliament and parliament alone to

govern its own proceedings, which includes interpreting the consequences of

it’s motions.

So it follows that in order to have a meaning or purposes with an assigned function the people’s meaningfully vote must be a General Election.

Why?

Because without a written constitution the Crown has the final say, not forgetting that it is the EU that has the right to withhold its consent on the final deal.

God only knows these days what is meaningful.

Think about things that are meaningful to you, words of wisdom, people that inspire you, or even a piece of art that speaks to you!

We had meaningful dialogue with Donald Trump.

When it comes Brexit there is no doubting that lies made a meaningful contribution to the referendum prior to people voting out.

In a mechanical sense, Brexit would now be disturbing the workings and the structure of the European Union more but for the spirit and future perspective and meaningfulness of the European Union.

By meaningfulness, one has to ask which has the quality of having great value or significance, England or the Europen Union.

We are left with pondering just what is a stake.

Is Brexit communicating something that is not directly possible to expressed like big, consequential, earth-shattering, earthshaking, eventful, historic, important, major, material, momentous, monumental, much, significant, substantial, tectonic, weighty?

Or is it just a storm in a teacup.

As in many Brexit end-game scenarios, however, there could still be a mismatch between British and European law:

The UK parliament can do nothing to bind the rest of the EU into continuing to treat the UK as a member state.

Unless something changes, however, the UK’s membership really will—under international law, and more specifically the Article 50 procedure of the Treaty of Lisbon—simply cease on 29^th March at 11pm GMT, potentially with no deal.

There is no automatic way for England to force Brussels to pay attention and interrupt the Article 50 process:

In other words, if parliament wants to stop Brexit or give time to adjust the approach, it must either use brute political pressure to change the government’s mind or otherwise change the government.

“Press Pause”

The most fundamental ground rule of the British constitution remains the same as it ever has been: The crown in parliament is law. When the crown, which in effect means the government of the day, forgets about the parliament bit, its power will not long endure.

The “traditional” means of forcing a government out—through an election after a no-confidence vote—has certainly become harder to accomplish under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act;

THEN YOU HAVE FIRST PAST THE POST VOTING SYSTEM. AN ELECTORAL SYSTEM THAT IS WIDE OPEN TO MANIPULATION THAT IS NO LONGER DEMOCRACY.

BECAUSE:

Ignoring the point that votes are supposed to have equal value, wherever you live.

Come election time, most constituencies have no prospect of changing hands. This means that the few marginal seats and the small number of swing voters, who live in them decide the government.

Now, in the new world of online campaigning, and with the ability of companies such as Facebook to produce detailed profiles of its users, first past the post is more vulnerable than ever.

When the world’s most primitive voting system is targeted by the world’s most sophisticated data outfits, democracy doesn’t stand a chance.

IF ENGLAND IS TO HAVE ANOTHER REFERENDUM ITS TIME TO INTRODUCE PR.

With proportional representation, the share of seats each party wins reflects the share of the vote they receive. There are tried-and-tested systems of PR in use across the world – and in the UK’s devolved assemblies – that keep a local constituency link and give voters far more power to decide who will represent them.

Every vote counts with PR, not just the marginal ones, so it takes millions of votes to change the final result.

PR would make elections far more resilient to the rapid evolution of big data and micro-targeting; it would free political parties from a joyless arms race in marginal constituencies, and it would make everyone’s vote matter.

Around 85% of developed countries already use some form of PR.

There you have it, not the I’s to the right nor the I’s to the left but a meaningful vote.

All human comments appreciated. All abuse or like clicks chucked in the bin.