The Supreme Court and its EU Origins
September's decision of the Supreme Court (SCUK) to declare void the proroguing of parliament, was an unwelcome and undemocratic intrusion into British political life by 11 unelected judges sworn to uphold EU rules.
The Supreme Court https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/history.html
The Supreme Court was formed 10 years ago in 2009, as a result of the Blair government's Constitutional Reform Act (2005). This package of reforms was supposedly essential to a modern Britain, because of the need to separate the judiciary from the legislature, and because of devolution and the Human Rights Act (1997). At the time, opposition to the measure was somewhat diverted by saying there would be no real change in the role of the new court, which replaced the Law Lords.
Supreme Court https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/ar_2009_10.pdf (See section one, 'Establishment of the court Background', and section two, 'Mission and Strategic Objectives')
However, the judiciary soon showed itself willing to challenge the government and Parliament if need be; this was the purpose of the SCUK. It is important to question the basis of these challenges.
Changes and Challenges https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/oct/26/uk-supreme-court-changing-law
The Supreme Court is now the highest court of appeal in the UK, but because of the principle of supremacy of EU law, it plays a subservient role. According to article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) all national courts must interpret the treaties in line with Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) case law and should validate EU regulations, directives etc.
CJEU https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/the-supreme-court-and-europe.html
and ECHR https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/08/13/5-kick-judges-out-of-politics/
Because most British legislation has its source in Brussels, the decisions of the Supreme Court are necessarily pro European Union. The SCUK oversees the lower courts, ensuring they abide by EU case law and legislation. In fact, this means that much public policy is made, not by elected political representatives, but by unelected judges; this process of EU judicial activism encourages court decisions that oppose public opinion. It should come as no surprise that the court takes no heed of the popular mandate of 2016, the decision to leave the EU.
Judicial activism https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/04/the-rise-and-rise-of-judicial-activism/
The supposed separation of powers of the legislature, executive and judiciary far from being constitutional protection against tyranny has become a tool to implement the will of the undemocratic and unrepresentative EU commission and increasingly of the CJEU.
If Thatcher was a monetarist iconoclast, Blair was a builder of institutions that met the transnational needs of financial capitalism. New Labour's constitutional changes brought into being EU based institutions, Trojan horses in the constitutional life of Britain which coincided with major aspects of EU policy in the economic, regional and judicial arenas. This was so with the independence of the Bank of England in 1997; the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assemblies in 1999; and with plans for the formation of a Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Ruling - A Coup Against Democracy
A written constitution is needed to defend our rights. Never has there been more need for one than now.
The unwritten British constitution has sustained a strange balance of power. Parliament is understood as the House of Commons, the unelected House of Lords and the Monarchy. Parliament calls the Executive government of the day to account. It does this mainly through the House of Commons, but also the House of Lords; the Monarchy by and large stays out of this as a result of the 1688 settlement.
Putting unelected judges above the Executive and PM, however dreadful and weirdly elected they were, is an act of fascism. The EU will try to make any deal impossible. These EU dominated Law Lords of the Supreme Court (set up by Blair as a deliberate political act) are there as tools of re-pression against the people.
Article 9 of the 1689 Bill of Rights reads: “The freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.” Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament was an attempt to prevent it from overturning the biggest democratic mandate of the people it has ever received.
Parliament’s crime is greater than Johnson’s; he was right to try and remove Parliament’s attempts to organise coups against the government and the people.
The courts have not previously intervened in the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. The courts do not hold Parliament to account, the people do.
The Supreme Court has now decided that the rule of law can determine Parliamentary decision making and rule on the political decision-making of a government. This replaces the principle of elected representation and represents a coup against democracy. It will widely be seen as the opposite, especially by the Left and the liberals.
The law is happy to permit mass unemployment, starvation, poverty, homelessness, capitalist exploitation and making war. The law is no god-like abstract over and above society with higher moral authority.
The British deep state will use any mechanism to stabilise the rule of the multi-national corporations who, above all, require membership of the EU. An example of the stability required is the huge profit that the hedge fund companies are making out of the collapse of Thomas Cook.
These hedge funds will get at least £250m out of the collapse, the same amount as the government refused to give to bail the company out. Stability means the extremism of making super profits.
The EU, the petty bourgeois nationalists like Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru, SNP, the neoliberal Liberal Democrats, the TUC and the social democrats within the Labour Party are intensifying their pressure for Remain. A small minority of socialists and a large majority of the working class want us to leave the EU.
The most organised and well-funded proponents of Leave are The Brexit Party and the Tory Party. A pre-Brexit general election would be won by the Tories and Brexit Party. Labour would lose.
Labour may only have a chance of winning a post-Brexit general election when it can put forward more progressive policies to rebuild Britain; policies similar to those this Party was arguing for in the 1990’s.
Leaving the EU remains the central political priority. There is no alternative.
Parliament vs People
Democracy is not quite dead yet, despite the best efforts of Parliament, which insists on talking to itself incessantly and ignoring the people. It should come as no surprise that only one faction of Parliament is trying to deliver what the people decided over three years ago. For all the bluster of remainers and their pretence of defending democracy it is they who are carrying out one of the most slow-moving coups in British politics, against the people.
A diabolical mix of ‘centrists’, Blairites and mindless lefties is aligned with the Ruling Class of financiers and corporate interests. Parliament wants a No Deal Brexit off the table because they don’t want any meaningful negotiations with the EU that might result in a Brexit deal. They want to destroy the people’s democratic decision, preserve the metropolitan elite and continue our colonial dependence on Brussels.
Any cracks in the EU are threats to Neo-Liberalism. Too many MPs want to remain inside a weak and failing EU because they have no vision for Britain other than a client state of Europe that provides finance and some services with low productivity. Labour, like other parties, says it wants another referendum but knows that is unlikely as Parliament wouldn’t vote for it through fear of an angry electorate.
Like other parties they hide behind asking for another humiliating negotiating extension. The Labour Party is a hollowed out shell. It ignores the needs and aspirations of our working class as shown in its self-destruction in Scotland, losing most of its seats. Labour is a counterfeit organisation that clothes itself with the trappings of working class values; nothing could be further from the truth.
We are in new territory. The two main parties have changed radically, one positively, one disastrously. Momentum is yet another example of entryism by ultra-left groups, which have scant regard for our class. The actions of factions within the Tory Party and opposition parties are designed to keep the political elite class in power at all costs. What have we come to when the stupidity and connivance of Labour with dissident Tories has resulted in another old Etonian, Johnson, being the only instrument for the delivery of Brexit by 31st October?
Parliament has shown itself incapable of acting democratically in the interests of the British people. The responsibility remains with us to change how we govern ourselves. We cannot allow politicians to destroy our democracy.
Burston Strike School
On September 1st workers from across Britain came to celibrate what became the longest strike in British history and to honour those who struggled against intimidation and threats from the Church, employers and landowners. Despite the forces set against them the strike lasted from 1914 to 1939.
It began when two teachers, Annie and Tom Higdon, were sacked after a dispute with the school management committee over the squalid conditions of the school. Children at the school went on strike in support.
Rather than give in, the teachers set up the alternative Burston Strike School, attended by 66 of their 72 former pupils, in a marquee. But, with donations from the labour movement, Burston Strike School moved into its own building and carried on teaching local children until shortly after Tom's death in 1939.
