Longest Parliament Suspension in Decades Tests U.K. Constitution
Comment of the Day

August 28 2019

Commentary by Eoin Treacy

Longest Parliament Suspension in Decades Tests U.K. Constitution

This article by Thomas Penny for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

With just over two months until Johnson’s self-imposed deadline to leave the European Union with or without a deal on Oct. 31, every day is going to count. And since Johnson wants a new Queen’s Speech to set out his government’s legislative agenda, which is usually followed by five days of debate, it will be more like two weeks of parliamentary time lost.

While suspensions of as much as two months were common in the 19th century, most prorogations of Parliament in recent decades have lasted for less than a week. Johnson’s suspension for 35 days will be the longest since the 1970s, according to the House of Commons library.

The U.K. doesn’t have a written constitution and, within reason, governments can do whatever they like as long as they have a parliamentary majority. But given that a number of ex-ministers -- including former Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and Theresa May’s Justice Secretary David Gauke, have already attacked his move, that is far from guaranteed.
 

Eoin Treacy's view

Exiting the EU and retaking the ability to set its own rules and regulations is a once in a generation opportunity to recast the UK’s economy as a pro-growth engine for innovation and trade. Grasping that opportunity is the only way the UK will make a success of Brexit, so it is imperative that the raft of measures proposed in September is not simply a commitment to double down on spending without a plan to grow.

The willingness to contemplate and plan for a future outside the EU is essential in the negotiations to get a better exit deal. It is by reducing the options to a polarity that the best chance of deal is to be found so it is good news that the UK is finally following this path. The Pound recouped much of its intraday decline against the Euro today and continues to unwind its oversold condition relative to the trend mean.

The FTSE-250 has failed to sustain the breakdown from this year’s range suggesting the odds of a retest of the upper boundary near the psychological 20000 have improved.

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