Re: Vaccine uptake

Just because a country has a thriving anything industry doesn't mean the population as a whole will benefit from that. After all the UK has a thriving financial sector...

Get Brexit done, eh? Most wouldn't even guess when that mess will be fully 'done'.

I dislike BoJo. Hate is something Tories are better at.

No, that was done by the EU - for being itself.

Governments are elected to run the country as it is. They have no authority - even if it's in their manifesto - to change the constitutional arrangements of the country, without separately seeking its permission.

You'll agree that Blair didn't get this - note how the English were not consulted about setting up toy parliaments in Wales and Scotland.

nor were the Scots living in England

Our constitution as traditionally understood (parliamentary sovereignty) does not require permission (apart from Royal Assent).

There was a school of thought that asserted that signing Maastricht was ultra vires.

IMO that applies, or should have done, to any of the EU treaties.

Yes. That's when the rot set in and the EEC "Common Market" which we voted to join in 1975 mutated into the EU "United States of Europe".

I agree: the signing of Maastricht should have been debated in public and there should have been a referendum. It was, as you say, beyond the powers of a government to decide, without public consultation and backing, to make such a sweeping change.

The UK, unwritten, constitution only allows for public involvement at General Elections,, We are a Parliamentary Democracy - Parliament (as elected) makes the decisions.

The specific action was for treason with Maastricht since it made Her Maj a subject of a foreign power.

Ultra vires because Her government did not have the power to do it.

Not quite. The 75 vote was whether to stay in. There was never a vote about joining.

McWhirter and Atkinson ran that argument in 1993 but their DIY constitutional lawyering was even worse than my DIY bricklaying. Their legal actions went nowhere. No surprise as the conventional view was and is that:

a. the government makes treaties under prerogative powers; but

b. treaties can't automatically change domestic law or constitutional arrangements. That requires Parliamentary authority. Hence e.g. the primary legislation required to implement Maastricht.

It didn't go nowhere because of whatever the conventional view was. It went nowhere because it was a private prosecution. The Attorney General has the power to take over any private prosecution, and this was done. The AG then declined to continue the case.

Thus the question of whether they had a case or not WAS NEVER TESTED.

He himself wanted Brexit. One of the faces of the campaign. Cart and horse sort of thing. Without Brexit, I doubt he'd ever have been PM or leader of the Tory party. Too toxic for most.

I know you Tories like to be loyal to a fault with your party leader. Except when they aren't - like with May. But don't transfer that view to others who are capable of thinking for themselves.

Ah right. Now you want a politician to simply back what you want regardless of their beliefs. That's how we've ended up with BoJo. One who will say anything - regardless of facts or truth - to suck up and keep himself in power.

I didn't much care for Corbyn. Stuck in the past. Although not quite as much as Moggie.

There you go again. Transferring your own personality onto others? If you disagree with anyone, you must then hate them.

Good grief.

This is not 'an aspect of regulation' - this was a fundamental attack on the status of the monarchy. And the British constitution. Her majesties government has no authority to render Britain and its monarch a subject of a foreign power.

That presumably is why the government adopted the private action for treason from Ross Mc Whirter, and failed to pursue it.

Ultra vires because no matter how many people in parliament passed it, it had no authority to do so, and under the aegis of *ultra vires*, that means that legally the Maastricht treaty never was signed. And we never were a member of the EU.

Not really., The case was 'adopted' by the government and quietely dropped. It never was allowed to go to court. I wonder why...

No surprise as the conventional view was

Which was in the matter of making thee queen subject to thg EU, unconstitutional and ultrar vires.