How Bercow Changed the Future of Brexit - Brexit Explained

you might not know that we have an Instagram account we post exclusive content over there as well as links to the Articles that we post on our website we also recently reached 10,000 followers so to celebrate we asked my extra special content planned be sure to head over there and give us a follow so that you don't miss a thing so as you might have seen yesterday John Burke oh the Speaker of the House of Commons made a surprise announcement citing Erskine may a 19th century political document on parliamentary procedure he argued that it would not be proper for Parliament to vote on May's deal for a third time unless it was substantially different from the deal on offer last week order I wish to make a statement to the house there has been much speculation over the past week about the possibility of the government bringing before the house a motion on brexit for another so-called meaningful vote on the 13th of March however the right honourable lady the member for Wallace II asked on a point of order whether it would be proper for the government to keep bringing the same deal back to the house ad infinitum I replied that no ruling was necessary at that stage I did need to treat of them now and their ruling is required now there may be people who have an opinion about it I'm not really preoccupied with that but a ruling would be made about that matter at the appropriate time and I'm grateful to the right honourable lady for reminding me that such a ruling might at some point in the future be required said Tuesday subsequently members on both sides of the house and indeed on both sides of the brexit argument have expressed their concerns to me about the house being repeatedly asked to pronounce on the same fundamental proposition the 24th edition of Erskine may states on page 397 that and I quote a motion or an amendment which is the same in substance as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session it goes on to state that and I quote attempts have been made to evade this rule by raising again with verbal alterations the essential portions of motions which have been negative whether the second motion is substantially the same as the first is finally a matter for the judgment of the chair this convention is very strong and of long-standing dating back to the second of April 1604 one of the reasons why the rule has lasted so long is that it is a necessary rule to ensure the sensible use of the houses time and the proper respect for the decisions which it takes so far as our present situation is concerned let me summarize the chronology of events the draft EU withdrawal agreement giving effect to the deal between the government and the EU was published on the 14th of November the first scheduled vote was due to take place on the 11th of December however on the 10th of December the vote was postponed after 164 speeches had already been made over three of the five days allotted for the debate that postponement was not caused by me nor by the house but by the government indeed I pointed out at the time that this was deeply discourteous to the house over five weeks later the first meaningful vote was held on the 15th of January which the government lost by a margin of two hundred and thirty votes the largest in parliamentary history subsequently the second meaningful vote was expected to take place in February but once again there was a postponement it finally happened only last Tuesday the 12th of March the government's motion on the deal was again very heavily defeated in my judgment that second meaningful vote motion did not fall foul of the convention about matters already having been decided during the same session this was because it could credibly be argued that it was a different proposition from that already rejected by the house in procedural terms it was therefore quite proper that the debate and the second vote took place last week it has been strongly rumoured though I have not received confirmation of this that third and even possibly fourth meaningful vote motions will be attempted hence this statement which is designed to signal what would be orderly and what would not this is my conclusion if the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that he's neither the same nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the house on the 12th of March this would be entirely in order what the government cannot legitimately do is to resubmit to the house the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week which was rejected by 149 bigots this ruling should not be regarded as my last word on the subject it is simply meant to indicate the test which the government must meet in order for me to rule that a third meaningful vote can legitimately be held in this parliamentary session this was a surprise to everyone especially the government who gave a slightly grumpy statement to the press about not being given any forewarning Berko gave three reasons for his decision firstly he claimed it was concerned with judicious use of parliamentary time when that time is finite it is a necessary rule to ensure the sensible use of the house's time and the proper respect for the decisions which it takes secondly Heathrow is useful to ensure clarity and consistency so far as the statute book is concerned and finally he argued that another vote will undermine the concepts of respect for the importance of decisions made by the house and the weights to be attached to them decisions of the house matter they have weight in many cases they have direct effects not only here but on the lives of our constituents he also explained that he let the second vote go ahead because it was substantially different to the first one because of the statutory instrument that was added at the very last second so this is obviously upset the government but what did everyone else think well quite a few breaks the tears congratulated Berko afterwards thinking that this decision makes me still less likely and therefore no deal more likely some breaks idiots argue this meant that there couldn't be another vote on a second referendum as had already been a vote on a second referendum last week but Berko said that it depended on circumstance while this announcement hasn't exactly helped the government it doesn't completely preclude the possibility of a third meaningful vote although Berko said that a substantial change would require some sort of renegotiation an EU level and not just a clarification of Jeffrey Cox's legal advice this isn't completely impossible while the withdrawal agreement is unlikely to be reopened the EU have made it clear that they're happy to expand on the political declaration that accompanies the agreement which would count as a change at the EU level there's also the possibility of some sort of deal with the DUP which could include a legally binding commitment to locking in Northern Ireland so that it stays completely within the regulatory framework in the event of a backstop surely this would count as a substantial change to the agreement finally there's one other way to get the deal through the parliamentary convention that burka was referring to in Erskine may only says the same motion can't be brought back in one session so technically the government could dissolve or prorogue Parliament Jacob Riis MOG actually pointed this out in Parliament this would mean an emergency Queen's speech from May and it would require the backing of the Privy Council which isn't guaranteed Parliament could then resume business the next day and the government won't be allowed to bring Mae's deal back again however while this is legally possible it hasn't been done since 1948 to force something through called the Parliament Act which limited the power of Lords to block bills if Mae was to do this again it will be constitutionally massive but then again this is brexit so anything could happen as always make sure you subscribe to stay up to date with our videos also follow us across our social networks so that you see all of our exclusive content and our articles when they're posted on the website you can find us by searching for TLDR news you

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Keywords: bercow, speaker, chair, speaker of the house, house of commons, house, parliament, commons, change, impact, affect, effect, brexit, may's deal, killed, ended, end, kill, may's, may, mays deal, deal, agreement, withdrawal, meaningful, vote, third, third meaningful vote, three, meaningful vote

Id: 4FWL1TFhHIw

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2019