Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Admiral Yi]

So basically don't address the underlying issue(s), but keep wage theft and underpaid service worker classes, gotcha.

Oh yeah, gotta keep that wage theft.  I like to throw in a little wage slavery too. 

[Syt]

I would be a lot more in favor of "free will" work contracts and less regulation of employment if the balance of power between employers and employees was anywhere near equal.

Free Will is quite relative when your choices are taking a shitty job with draconian work conditions or starvation/being homeless.

[Sheilbh]

Unionists are challenging the NIP in the courts as a breach of the Act of Union, the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (which implements the GFA).

It feels like it's fairly unlikely to succeed. But it's interesting in two ways. One is that it is a lockdown-friendly, non-violent way for unionism to express its opposition to the NIP and challenge it. The other is that it involves all of the unionist parties from the Ulster Unionists who have (so far) said that NI should try to make the NIP work all the way through to Traditional Unionist Voice (who split from the DUP) who oppose the NIP and participating in Stormont/GFA. A striking thing is that TUV were responsible for organising the case and getting all of the parties on board which is another sign of the DUP possibly losing their leadership position within unionism to more hard-line groups.

[The Brain]

I would be a lot more in favor of "free will" work contracts and less regulation of employment if the balance of power between employers and employees was anywhere near equal.

Free Will is quite relative when your choices are taking a shitty job with draconian work conditions or starvation/being homeless.

IIRC katmai has a Free Willy contract. But there of course the balance is heavily in his favor.

[chipwich]

Yi, do you believe in minimum wage and worker protection laws in general?

[Grey Fox]

Yi, I'm impressed that you still defend the gig-economy value sucking middleman after being proven over & over that they do not make money.

Uber & the others all think they are Amazon but the taxi industry is not as vulnerable than the book industry ever was.

[crazy canuck]

Am I understanding you correctly that you're okay with people negotiating away their rights?

So it's too bad for people who are willing to negotiate away their employee rights that they can't work for companies that'd prefer not to accord them those rights.

Similarly, is it too bad that people who are willing to negotiate away their right to work in a safe environment are not able to work for companies that are sanctioned for not following occupational health and safety rules?

Or for people who don't mind be subject to racist or sexist harassment to negotiate away their rights so they can work for employers who'd prefer to be openly bigoted against them?

... and so on?

I'm OK with all of those.  Free will trumps all.

However, that doesn't strictly apply to the Uber UK situation, since they entered into contract with Uber before the court had ruled.

When did you go full libertarian dude.

You just have not been paying attention 

[Zanza]

Unionists are challenging the NIP in the courts as a breach of the Act of Union, the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (which implements the GFA).

It feels like it's fairly unlikely to succeed. But it's interesting in two ways. One is that it is a lockdown-friendly, non-violent way for unionism to express its opposition to the NIP and challenge it. The other is that it involves all of the unionist parties from the Ulster Unionists who have (so far) said that NI should try to make the NIP work all the way through to Traditional Unionist Voice (who split from the DUP) who oppose the NIP and participating in Stormont/GFA. A striking thing is that TUV were responsible for organising the case and getting all of the parties on board which is another sign of the DUP possibly losing their leadership position within unionism to more hard-line groups.

Why would the Act of Union 1800 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 have any higher constitutional standing than the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020? All three were major changes of the British constitution and have been passed by the sovereign parliament of the day.

And even if the domestic legislation to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol is somehow constitutionally flawed it does not change the royal prerogative to enter international treaties. If there are any flaws, Britain either needs to pass other domestic legislation without that flaw or break the international treaty it entered, again prerogative power. Can any court in the UK make the government exercise its prerogative powers?

[Sheilbh]

Why would the Act of Union 1800 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 have any higher constitutional standing than the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020? All three were major changes of the British constitution and have been passed by the sovereign parliament of the day.

So there have been suggestions by the courts that certain statutes are quasi-constitutional and these are particularly the various acts of union - but that has all been obiter dicta rather than actually tested in the courts. There is more judicial endorsement for the principle that the Northern Ireland Act (read together with the GFA) form a constitution for Northern Ireland.

I'm not a public lawyer and I'm not sure how strong an argument it is, but I think the argument the unionists would make is that the UK government cannot impose on Northern Ireland (by prerogative, regulation or statute) a law that breaches or changes the GFA/Northern Ireland Act; any such must be approved in accordance with the GFA/NIA and by the institutions in Northern Ireland. My suspicion is that argument in principle is possibly quite strong, but that the NIP does not materially change or breach the GFA/NIA. I could be wrong - as I say it's not my area.

I'm not sure that the withdrawal legislation would be quasi-constitutional in the same way. And the reason I'm not sure is that entering the EEC was constitutional - the European Communities Act - and the courts held that the only way to undo that legislation by activating Article 50 was by a parliamentary vote. I think that's the constitutional moment. It is Parliament voting to authorise Article 50. The withdrawal legislation is, to some extent, administrative to put in place the arrangements necessary following whatever type of agreement with the EU we had. I think it's a bit like the issue the EU had with extending the negotiation period where extending the period for negotiating under Article 50 is easy because that's within the treaties and to do with a current member state. But changing the deadline in the withdrawal agreement is more difficult oncethe UK is then a third party and the agreement is no longer covered by Article 50 it's subject to the same rules as any other agreement with a third party. Similarly if there were any changes in the future to the TCA I don't think they'd be considered constitutional and requiring a parliamentary, I think they could be dealt with, like other treaties, by regulation. Again a public lawyer would probably have a better idea.

And even if the domestic legislation to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol is somehow constitutionally flawed it does not change the royal prerogative to enter international treaties. If there are any flaws, Britain either needs to pass other domestic legislation without that flaw or break the international treaty it entered, again prerogative power.

It's unlawful for the government to exercise prerogative powers in a way that is contrary to statute. If there is statute then prerogative powers can only be used to advance the purposes of the statute. Prerogative powers in general are subject to common law principles of reasonableness and fairness, but having said all that my understanding is foreign policy decisions including treaties are generally seen as non-justiciable by the courts.

Can any court in the UK make the government exercise its prerogative powers?

So in theory I think it can - I don't think it would apply in this case not least because treaty making is seen non-justiciable generally. If statute authorises something that require the government to use prerogative power and the government tries not to, or uses it in a way that is contrary to statute - then the courts can step in. I'm not sure if they could issue a mandatory order (which is an order that requires public authorities to do something) but it would certainly be able to declare the non or mis-use of the power as unlawful. Off the top of my head I think it could be ordered by the High Court, Court of Appeal or Supreme Court.

[Admiral Yi]

Yi, do you believe in minimum wage and worker protection laws in general?

I oppose minimum wages.  Some worker protections I support because of information asymmetry.

[Admiral Yi]

Yi, I'm impressed that you still defend the gig-economy value sucking middleman after being proven over & over that they do not make money.

Uber & the others all think they are Amazon but the taxi industry is not as vulnerable than the book industry ever was.

The freedom of two parties to voluntarily enter into a labor contract has nothing to do with the profitability of the enterprise.

[Grey Fox]

Yi, I'm impressed that you still defend the gig-economy value sucking middleman after being proven over & over that they do not make money.

Uber & the others all think they are Amazon but the taxi industry is not as vulnerable than the book industry ever was.

The freedom of two parties to voluntarily enter into a labor contract has nothing to do with the profitability of the enterprise.

I don't know how to react to this. Uber management is cheating out of their money both sides of the labor equation that sometimes I think it is nothing more than a very elaborate money laundering endeavour.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't know how to react to this. Uber management is cheating out of their money both sides of the labor equation that sometimes I think it is nothing more than a very elaborate money laundering endeavour.

Don't understand what "cheating out of their money both sides of the labor equation" means.

[Zanza]

@Sheilbh: The idea that the notification under Article 50 that could be unilaterally withdrawn by the UK or prolonged by consensus would be the the constitutional "moment" as opposed to the act that actually ended supremacy of European legislation and jurisdiction in the United Kingdom irrevocably after half a century is a bit unconvincing. But then I do not actually know anything about British law.

[Sheilbh]

@Sheilbh: The idea that the notification under Article 50 that could be unilaterally withdrawn by the UK or prolonged by consensus would be the the constitutional "moment" as opposed to the act that actually ended supremacy of European legislation and jurisdiction in the United Kingdom irrevocably after half a century is a bit unconvincing. But then I do not actually know anything about British law.

That's a fair comment.

But in that case I think it would be the 2018 Withdrawal Act because that's the legislation that repeals the European Communities Act, that repeals and incoporates large chunks of European law into domestic law, that amends legislation like the Human Rights Act etc. I think there's an argument that the legal instrument by which we leave the EU is quasi-constitutional, I'm not sure that the terms of the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement or the TCA necessarily would be.