Andrew Farran

The implications of the UK Supreme Court’s decision in holding the Boris government’s Prorogation of Parliament as unlawful, null and void, have far reaching implications for the Westminster system both in the UK and elsewhere. As for Brexit, the decision has made a UK exit from the EU by 31 October without a deal less likely, and more in accordance with legitimate process. (more…)

It is not new news that British politics are fragmenting. What we can’t be sure about is how the political lines may permanently be redrawn. How might the two main drivers, Brexit and the next General Election (if and when held), impact on the process and determine political outcomes for the foreseeable future? (more…)

Had the English Settlement of 1688 been followed with a written Constitution Britain might not be in the pickle it is today. Then the tussle between King and Parliament had resulted in civil war. While the Royal Prerogative Powers have been formally retained by the Monarch they are now in reality in the hands of one, King Boris, who recently secured them without endorsement by Parliament or other formal anointment.   (more…)

Will PM Boris Johnson crash through and with what consequences if he does? He has set himself a wild challenge, on the level of do or die. Determined to achieve Brexit even without a deal, the likelihood at this stage is that he will get his Brexit but with consequences that will leave Britain anything but ‘great’; indeed relatively weaker (see: John McCarthy at: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/john-mccarthy-enter-boris/ ).

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“Are policy makers driving policy or is it the country’s spooks and their ideological soulmates in the so-called security establishment whose views are amplified in the conservative media?” (Tony Walker, The Age)

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President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies are shaking established structures. Regardless of Trump’s future they are unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. His split with China opens unprecedented opportunities for Australia. Indeed a brave new world, if we have the intelligence and the skills to navigate the transition along with our regional partners.  (more…)

After a brief break the Gods got stirring again and it is only a matter of time before the British political system to all intents and purposes can be said to have gone irretrievably mad. Or can that yet be turned around?   (more…)

It is heartening to observe that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a body heavily subsidised by the Commonwealth Government to provide objective strategic advice, is beginning to open itself up to contestable thinking on critical strategic issues. Perhaps the government, of whatever persuasion, may be about to get its money’s worth.   (more…)

Is the path to Britain’s withdrawal from the EU now finally clear, some three years after the Referendum that decided it should leave – to regain national sovereignty, to control its borders, and to conclude its own trade agreements with the rest of the world? Deadlines have come and gone – 28th March, 12th April, 22nd May and now a flexible extension to 31 October; or the UK may leave at any time meanwhile if it can get the EU agreed Withdrawal Agreement through its Parliament. Parliament has approved the extension prospectively, largely with Labour votes but with many Tories dissenting. A majority of MPs are opposed to a no-deal Brexit. The EU Council will meet on 30 June solely to review progress, not to engage in further negotiations on the withdrawal. (more…)

Prime Minister May’s Brexit was on course to be delivered on 29th March as scheduled until the resubmission of the previously thwarted Withdrawal Agreement was blocked by the Speaker John Bercow, citing a 1604 convention last used in 1920 to the effect that legislation previously rejected cannot be resubmitted in the same Parliamentary session unless in a fundamentally different form.

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The UK will make Brexit on 29th March if the government is to avoid a huge humiliation and unforgivable damage to its economy, not to mention the nation’s future diplomatic standing and credibility.

This appears to have got through to Theresa May, the UK PM, as the civil service is working day and night to prepare hundreds of statutory instruments and other measures to prevent a legislative vacuum on withdrawal. Preparations to prevent chaos for trade and transport systems are not as well advanced which gives a further clue to future intentions.

To extend the negotiating period for any time under Article 50 of the EU Treaty is not an option. The public is sick and tired of the whole business. Agitation in the streets is growing, and the credibility of the political class is crumbling.

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As the deadline of 29^th March approaches what could be the UK Prime Minister’s game plan to get her deal across the line and avoid the chaos and disruption that a crashing out Brexit would entail? She would want to avoid a ‘golden duck’ – and make a comeback from her unprecedented defeat in the Commons on 15^th January. A successful exit would be a political triumph even if it would not please all her supporters. Failure however would represent one of the worst ever diplomatic disasters for a British Prime Minister.  (more…)

The recent series of procedural votes in the British Parliament did not provide the hoped for route through the impasse for an unruffled Brexit. The hustle and bustle over the next few weeks will be more theatre than substance, deliberately, as Britain moves inexorably out the EU door, facilitated not surprisingly by Prime Minister May’s much maligned Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration.
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Uproar and acrimony has resumed, even more intensely, over Brexit at Westminster this week on the resumption of Parliament following the Christmas break. The expectation, or rather hope, that members might have softened their hard lines after a due period of reflection and deeper thinking, in the ‘national interest’, have been sorely disappointed.

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The British Government is in total disarray, thrashing about for a way to minimise public outrage when the country crashes out of the EU without a deal on 29 March, which now appears inevitable. Its energies are now being devoted to planning for that catastrophe. 

What is remarkable is how little understanding its Ministers and their MPs have shown of international trade law and practice, and options otherwise available to them in their predicament were they to open their minds to them. (more…)

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Theresa May suffered three defeats in just a few hours in the British Parliament this Tuesday which doesn’t auger well for her EU Withdrawal Agreement next Tuesday. The various coalitions that have been the drivers to date may not hold well together thereafter.  (more…)

Thursday 15th November was a most extraordinary day at Westminster where a besieged lady tenaciously stood her ground at the despatch box and stared down some hundreds of howling Parliamentary interlocutors (mostly of her own party) and remained totally unfazed in defending the 585 page Withdrawal Agreement she had negotiated with the European Union.   (more…)

This note was prepared following a five hour emergency Cabinet meeting last night accepting the deal with the EU and a brief statement without details by the British PM, Theresa May, declaring that the draft Agreement was the best deal possible, was in the best interests of the British people, and better than no deal. Such detail as we have at this stage is based on well informed leaks to the British media. (more…)

It had been expected that Prime Minister Theresa May would be thrown under a bus, figuratively speaking, this week, next week, or sometime soon. If this has not happened it would be that no potential usurper has a plan that could secure passage through Parliament. Meanwhile, it is said, she is staring down her political opponents as might Boudicca in similar circumstances! (more…)

The constant reiteration in speeches of a “Rules-Based Order” is reducing the concept to relative meaninglessness, lacking either content or policy. There is already in existence a rules-based order which is undergoing change. The question is: what kind if change should that be.  (more…)

There are fears that the Trump Administration may, with the urging of America’s military/business and security complex and support from middle America, extend its trade war with China into a new Cold War. This would be unlikely to gain substantive international backing though were it to happen it would pose an uncomfortable dilemma for Australia as to how to respond – a long awaited test of national maturity.  (more…)

The route to overcoming any impasse in the UK/EU Brexit negotiations may involve riding roughshod over their respective obligations under the global trading system, in particular the WTO. This, together with President Trump’s on-going assault on the system, threatens to bring it down altogether – with nothing better in its place.  (more…)

It is monstrous and ill conceived that the US National Security Adviser to President Trump, the notorious underminer of international institutions, including those with clear humanitarian purposes, one John Bolton, should get on his high horse to denounce the ICC whose jurisdictional powers are as far removed from the United States as are the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas removed from the United States in the South China Sea. (more…)