Parliamentary sovereignty

[AtW]

"Boris Johnson will scrap the need for parliamentary approval to call elections, and ban the courts from questioning the dissolution of parliament under legislation that hands powers back to the prime minister.

Johnson published legislation on Tuesday to scrap the Fixed-term Parliaments Act passed by the Conservatives as part of a deal with the Liberal Democrats in 2010 to ensure a stable coalition government. It means parliaments should serve a fixed five-year term but it has been overruled twice by the 2017 and 2019 elections.

The most controversial change is an attempt to bar the courts from ruling on the powers of the government to dissolve parliament. The move will be seen as a direct retaliation against the supreme court, which humiliated Johnson last year after it ruled that his prorogation of parliament at a key point in the Brexit talks was unlawful."

Johnson publishes plans to regain power from courts and MPs | House of Commons | The Guardian

[malvolio]

To be fair we muddled along for a couple of hundred years under the old system, where the PM had the right to call elections all by him/herself until the idiot Clegg thought he had a right to change the world in exchange for supporting Cameron, so this doesn't really fill me with any particular dread.

People need to remember the distinction between Parliament and government it seems...

[jamesbrown]

The FTPA was one of the stupidest pieces of legislation ever. Pretty much everyone with a passing interest in UK politics agrees.

[SueEllen]

The most controversial change is an attempt to bar the courts from ruling on the powers of the government to dissolve parliament. The move will be seen as a direct retaliation against the supreme court, which humiliated Johnson last year after it ruled that his prorogation of parliament at a key point in the Brexit talks was unlawful."

How does it work mucking around with laws that are only applicable in Scotland?