Quote Originally Posted by noel View Post
It seems like a no-brainer to me. If the PM can shut down parliament whenever he/she wants, this is a route to effectively remove them from the process of running the country. I don't think that should be allowed.

It's interesting that people are seeing this through largely partisan brexit-or not eyes. I can only imagine how offended you would be WP if Jeremy Corbyn were trying to remove parliament from the process while trying to achieve some aims with which you didn't approve.
Actually Noel I'm not looking at it in a partisan way. I think it's made little or no difference to the process.

However, one of the reasons why legal and constitutional experts didn't expect this to go the way it was is that Parliament has already had the ability at anytime previously to control the prorogation process.

For example, Major prorogued to block (although he denies it was the common perception) the publishing of a report in 1997 and extended the period to the General Election, none of the successive Governments have EVER tried to put forward an Act that for example said

"A Government is only allowed to prorogue for a maximum 14 day period in any calendar year, without requesting specific permission by a vote in the House."

The reason is quite simple. Most Governments have a majority and do not want to water down the options available to them.

Minority Governments are rare and are usually don't last long without a no-confidence vote.

We may now see a future Government look at this and actually put in to law a procedure and parameters for prorogation.