6 Times Johnson Undermined Democracy - TLDR News

[Music] this video is brought to you by the third edition of brexit the colouring book relive the whole process the tldr team's analysis get an exclusive video have a little color and support the channel by picking up a copy and get a never for sale number 10 pin free with your purchase by clicking the link in the description in the aftermath of the owen patterson saga we thought it'd be a good time to do a video documenting all the times the current government has ignored instructions from an independent body because there have been a fair few cases in the last couple of years so before we get into it some disclaimers first this isn't intended as a partisan video we're not just doing this video as a hit piece on the conservatives we do it whoever was in power we're just doing it because this sort of thing is important to cover whatever side of the political aisle it comes from because it implies a rebalancing of power in british politics which the public should know about in ignoring and undermining independent checks and balances the government is becoming more powerful second to make sure this video is fair we're not just going to do a list of all the quote sleazy things the government has done we're only going to look at cases where the government has ignored and undermined an independent body again sticking to this relatively strict definition will hopefully help us to avoid any bias anyway disclaimers aside let's get into it over the last week the conservatives have been hit by at least a couple of sleaze scandals first there was the owen patterson affair when the government tried to protect conservative mp owen patterson after the standards commission recommended he be suspended for 30 days and second there was the report in the sunday times that suggested the conservatives have been selling peerages to their treasurers for three million quid a pop this is translated into a drop in support for the conservatives who according to the most recent ipsos maori poll and now actually a point behind labour when asked about it on andrew marr kierstama insisted that these weren't just isolated incidents boris johnson and the conservatives actually have a habit of this sort of thing owen patterson was lobbying the government on behalf of a company that was paying him hundreds of thousands of pounds and along comes the prime minister instead of upholding standards he orders him his mps to to protect his mate and rip up the whole system and it's not a one-off this prime minister has form he has pattern there are so many examples priti patel the home secretary was found to have breached the minister of code what happened she stayed the adviser had to go the electoral commission started looking at the government what happened the government's trying to clip its wings and now there's been this outrageous undermining of catherine stone the independent commissioner in this very case it's a pattern of behavior and well stammer has a point this isn't a partisan point it's simply a fact that boris johnson's government has a track record of ignoring and undermining independent actors now to be fair occasionally it might be appropriate to ignore independent advice no process is perfect after all but when it becomes a regular occurrence then chances are you're not really worried about the quality of the process you just don't like checks and balances on your power which is why we thought it was worth covering anyway we've had a look through the archive and found six such cases excluding the owen patterson affair a couple of which were mentioned by starman in that interview three of these have already happened and three of these are in the works let's start with the ones that have already happened they are in chronological order number one ignoring the advice of the permanent secretary to the government legal department sir jonathan jones in september 2020 number two ignoring the advice of ethics advisor sir alex allen in november 2020 and number three ignoring the advice of the house of lords appointments commission in december 2020 let's start with jonathan jones essentially back in the brexit days the government's top legal advisor and solicitor to the treasury sir jonathan jones advised the government that their plans to overwrite parts of the northern ireland protocol in the uk eu brexit deal with the internal markets bill would violate international law the previous attorney general sir jeffrey cox had agreed with jones but he'd been sacked by the government for well wanting to abide by international law but the new attorney general suella braverman told the government to go ahead with it against jones's advice um i would say to my um honourable friend that yes this does break international law in a very specific and limited way we are taking the power to disapply the eu law concept of direct effect required by article 4 in a certain very tightly defined circumstance when the government did indeed decide to break international law in a specific and limited way jones resigned on to sir alex allen so alex was the government's ethics advisor which essentially means that his job was advising the government when a minister had broken the ministerial code back in november of last year he advised the government that home secretary priti patel had breached the ministerial code of conduct for bullying civil servants and should therefore resign boris johnson disagreed or ignored the advice kept patel in place and sir alex resigned finally the house of lords appointment commission technically the queen appoints lords on the advice of the prime minister in practice this basically means that the prime minister has historically had the power to appoint whoever they want to the lords this is obviously an imperfect system it means the prime minister can just cram the lords full of their mates to make sure they always have a majority in the house of lords to get through what they want to protect against abuses of this sort in 2000 tony blair introduced the house of lords appointment commission an independent body who monitored appointments to the lords by basically vetoing candidates who weren't appropriate this system worked relatively well until december last year when boris johnson became the first prime minister to ever overrule the commission when he gave a peerage to peter crudus former conservative party donor and treasurer who'd been vetoed by the commission for offering access to david cameron and george osborne for cash in 2012 in what's now known as the cash for access scandal so those are the three cases that have already happened the three cases that are in the works are number one undermining the electoral commission number two undermining judicial review and number three ignoring the ofcom chairs advisory committee let's start with the electoral commission created in 2001 the electoral commission is responsible for monitoring political parties finances and donations it's currently investigating boris johnson over the financing of his downing street flat refurbishment 58 000 pounds of which was allegedly paid for by a conservative donor a potential violation of the electoral commission rules anyway johnson's government is currently pushing through the elections bill which would strip the electoral commission of its power to bring prosecutions making them relatively powerless to enforce the rules and let the government direct the commission in accordance with the government's priorities via a strategy and policy statement whatever that means anyway on to judicial review judicial review is basically when a court reviews the lawfulness of an action made by a public body like the government judicial review hasn't been too kind to johnson for example the supreme court ruled that his prorogation of parliament was unlawful originally the government were planning to limit judicial review via so-called ouster clauses which basically say the courts can't investigate the government on certain matters the government have apparently backtracked somewhat at least according to the first draft of the judicial review and courts bill which only has an ouster clause specifically for the judicial review of controversial immigration clauses nonetheless the bill is only at the committee stage which means there's plenty of time for things to change the final case we're going to be looking at is ofcom ofcom is the uk's media regulator and it's had some control over the content that appears on our screens for the last year they've been looking for a new chair and the government's preferred candidate is paul daker former daily mail editor and arch brexiteer unfortunately for the government the independent panel that conducted the interview deemed deca unappointable the government's way around this was to well just restart the entire process with a new panel and no restrictions on applicants reapplying anyway those are the six cases of johnson's government undermining independent bodies as we mentioned at the start of this video we're doing this because a pattern of undermining independent bodies suggests that johnson just doesn't like checks and balances and it's important that people know that the balance of power in british politics is being shifted towards the prime minister this should also act as a reminder that in british politics if the prime minister has a stable majority at the end of the day they can do basically whatever they want and the only real limits on their power are political like i said at the start of the video you can support the channel by getting yourself or a friend a copy of brexit the colouring book the book contains 25 images of the brexit process as well as custom commentary from the tldr team and a never released video so even if you're not into colouring hopefully you can enjoy it anyway right now you can get a number 10 downing street pin with your book absolutely free if you click the link 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Channel: TLDR News

Views: 84,839

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Id: OTwajkGvlO0

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021