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ROBERT HARDMAN: What would happen if Corbyn went to see the Queen?

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ROBERT HARDMAN: What would happen if Corbyn went to see the Queen?

In a composite picture created by MailOnline we show what might happen if Jeremy Corbyn goes to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen and demand he be able to form a government

Of all the scenarios being tossed around by the political classes ahead of a turbulent autumn, the best of the lot surely has to be this week’s offering from Labour’s John McDonnell.

Addressing the Edinburgh Fringe on the state of the nation, the Shadow Chancellor outlined what happens in the event that Boris Johnson loses a vote of no confidence when Parliament returns next month.

If the Prime Minister then decides to push Britain into an election rather than hand over the keys to No 10, Mr McDonnell is very clear about what would follow.

‘I don’t want to drag the Queen into this,’ he said (while relishing the prospect, like any good republican). ‘But I would be sending Jeremy Corbyn in a cab to Buckingham Palace to say: “We’re taking over”.’

Here, in one sentence, Mr McDonnell has unwittingly revealed all that we need to know about a prospective Labour administration. First, it is not Mr Corbyn who is in charge but Mr McDonnell who would be ‘sending’ the poor old duffer off to the Palace. 

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell outlined at the Edinburgh Fringe what would happen in the event that Prime Minister Boris Johnson loses a vote of no confidence when Parliament returns next month 

And, second, he clearly regards the Monarch as some sort of bit-part player in his grand neo-Marxist world view.

Let us, though, for one moment, indulge Mr McDonnell in his fantasy.

It is an historic moment as Mr Corbyn clambers in to his taxi while the TV news choppers hover overhead, following his every move through the London traffic.

‘There’s Jeremy Corbyn now heading down the Mall, er, past Clarence House, er . . .’ waffles the commentator, desperately filling airtime as the Labour leader heads for the Palace gates.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pictured in the back of a taxi. ‘Let us, though, for one moment, indulge Mr McDonnell in his fantasy. It is an historic moment as Mr Corbyn clambers in to his taxi while the TV news choppers hover overhead, following his every move through the London traffic’

At which point, an armed policeman politely redirects the taxi 516 miles in the opposite direction to Aberdeenshire where the Queen will be in residence until mid-October.

Ten hours later, with around £700 on the meter, our long-suffering cabbie turns off the A93, through the granite gates of Balmoral, past Prince Charles’s ‘SLOW Red Squirrels’ signs and up to the front door. Whereupon, it will be a swift U-turn and another £700 drive back to Mr Corbyn’s Islington home.

Because the Queen is not going to be told what to do by the Opposition, however pumped up it may be feeling.

Nor, for that matter, is she going to send the Army round to evict a PM who is holed up in his study and refusing to leave after a motion of no confidence.

So what will she do? And at what point might she be ‘dragged’ into all this?

There is no question that the weeks ahead will be historic. Since the Brexit referendum, we have heard commentators talking sometimes hysterically about a ‘make-or-break week for the Government’, only to find it is much like the last one.

However, the advent of a new PM and a new Government versus a seemingly implacable EU with less than three months to go means that we are, indeed, heading for stormy constitutional waters.

In which situation, people on every side will always try to invoke the Monarch.

So let us focus on the few things about which we can be certain. The Queen has absolutely no wish to intervene. She is a stickler for precedent. And her advisers will be doing all they can to ensure that the politicians sort out a mess of their own making.

For MPs have effectively written the Monarch out of this part of the script. When they rushed through the Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2011, they effectively removed her right to dissolve Parliament and they laid down new rules on how to remove governments.

Having done so, it is pretty rich of them to expect her to sort things out when it all goes wrong.

It is worth re-reading the debate on this flawed piece of legislation. This was a pet project of the then-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg as the Coalition government was getting underway in 2010. He wanted a guarantee that, having led his Liberal Democrats into a power-sharing deal with the Tories, the Government would get a full five-year term.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wanted a guarantee that, having led his Liberal Democrats into a power-sharing deal with the Tories, the Government would get a full five-year term

The whole thing was forced through Parliament at breakneck speed but what really stands out in the short debate on the subject is the glaring omission of one key player: the Queen. Almost everyone forgot about her.

A handful of Tory backbenchers, notably Jacob Rees-Mogg (now Leader of the House) and Geoffrey Cox (now Attorney General) warned that the Monarch’s ancient role was being erased.

Yet Mr Clegg’s Bill sailed through. The result is an Act which, we now discover, is woefully short on detail.

The idea was simple enough. A General Election would be called in the event of two situations. First, if two-thirds of Parliament voted for one.

Second, if the Government lost a vote of no confidence and no motion of confidence was subsequently passed within two weeks.

Clearly, if Mr Johnson can do a deal in those 14 days and secure a renewed vote of confidence, then his government carries on.

But if he cannot, there is nothing in the rules to explain how Mr Corbyn or anyone else might create an alternative government if Mr Johnson wants to run the clock down and have an election instead.

People would doubtless demand that the Queen intervene but she cannot appoint a new PM until the old one resigns.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson pictured outside Downing Street. ‘Clearly, if Mr Johnson can do a deal in those 14 days and secure a renewed vote of confidence, then his government carries on’

Her only other options would be to sack Mr Johnson — and it is not remotely in her nature to be the first Monarch since 1834 to sack a PM — or to find a precedent for not sacking him. And that means rewinding the clock to 1979 when Labour’s Jim Callaghan lost a vote of no confidence.

He then stayed in office for another month while he prepared for an election. There was, he said, no question of resigning: ‘Mr Speaker, now that the House of Commons has declared itself, we shall take our case to the country.’ He went to see the Queen to seek a dissolution and it was granted.

These days, that dissolution is not even hers to give. So, I believe that the Queen’s advisers will feel it is right for her to stay well out of it.

Labour’s Jim Callaghan served as Prime Minster between 1976 and 1979. Callaghan lost a vote of no confidence in 1979 and stayed in office for another month while he prepared for an election

Some have raised another scenario, namely that a cross-party coalition of MPs will be cobbled together with the sole aim of delaying Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Under the so-called ‘letter-writing government’ plan, an alliance of Remainers would form an interim government with a single policy: writing a formal letter to the EU seeking an extension to Article 50.

It might sound fiendishly clever to all those policy wonks plotting around the poolside (don’t these people ever have a normal holiday?). But it seems very unlikely that all these factions could ever agree on who their PM might be.

Mr McDonnell has made it clear it would have to be Mr Corbyn. The Lib Dems would never agree to that. Remainers have suggested a respected old grandee like Ken Clarke but there are many Labour MPs whose tribal DNA would prevent them from ever endorsing a Tory PM.

It is a prospect fraught with uncertainties and one which the Queen and her advisers will want nothing to do with. It is an almost sacred constitutional doctrine that ‘the Queen’s business must be carried on’. In other words, the machinery of State must continue to function (which is why governments stay in office until the morning after an election).

Look at the preface to the Monarchy’s website. It is her job to give us ‘a sense of stability and continuity’. The idea of a ‘government’ with one policy and no obvious leader must be anathema to her.

So, as Parliament returns for some bloody fisticuffs, the Queen will remain in the Highlands. The Royal Family will stand ready to do their duty and prepare to patch things up when this is over. It is their task to help to reunite a fractured land and show the world there are some things about Britain which never change.

And if Mr Corbyn decides to turn up in a cab, he will find a sign on the door: ‘Gone fishin’.’

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