AND ONE EXPERT’S DAMNING LEGAL VERDICT
THE Speaker is right to raise the question of whether a third vote on the Government’s Brexit deal should take place. The ‘samequestion’ rule – under which a defeated motion cannot be brought back in the same form during the course of a parliamentary session – is well precedented.
But it would be quite wrong to apply it to disallow a third meaningful vote.
Since the deal was last put before the House of Commons, there have been two
significant votes: one on preventing a No Deal Brexit and another on extending Article 50. The deal may look broadly the same – but those two votes have produced fundamentally different circumstances, and mean MPs are no longer facing the same question.
In addition, there has been time for a more considered look at the effects and implications of the legally-binding documents concerning the Withdrawal Agreement brought back by the Prime Minister from Strasbourg last week. The vote for a delay of the Article 50 deadline resulted in a resolution that specifically provided for a third vote, and so implicitly gave the House’s permission to have one. The Speaker should respect that.
If there is a majority for the deal, preventing the vote would be to frustrate the will of the House. It would be deeply concerning to see a Speaker act in such a way. Those who are opposed to the deal should want to win with a majority on the substance, not by procedural manoeuvring or on a technicality, and the Speaker should allow that.
The Speaker’s reputation for impartiality has already become questionable. It is difficult to see how it could survive the application of the same-question rule to a third vote on the deal when that samequestion rule was not applied to prevent MP Dominic Grieve’s Remain-supporting amendments to motions to reopen questions that had been finally resolved in a more effective way during the passage of the Bill for the Withdrawal Act.
Parliamentary procedure exists to facilitate not thwart the wishes of the majority. The best test of what the majority wants is a vote, not a ruling from the Chair.