On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy talked to One America News Network’s Neil McCabe about the recent supreme court ruling in Great Britain and whether Brexit will crash out. The supreme court ruling, which went against the Monarchy, was possibly the first time in almost 100 years according to McCabe.
During the show, McCabe explained how the judiciary works in Britain versus the judiciary in the United States. He states, ‘These judges are basically taking over the way they take over things in this country.’
Leahy: We are joined now on the line by our good friend Neil McCabe. Good morning Neil. How are you?
McCabe: Phenomenal Michael. We’re all very excited. In fact, I know there’s a lot of things going on in the United States we can talk about but I the supreme court in England just overruled the Queen with the proroguing of parliament for Brexit. But things are hopping today.
Leahy: Yeah, what’s going on with that?
McCabe: Well, the proroguing of parliament is that basically, it’s kind of like a parol where they say they are going to go into a long recess. Usually, they do this at the end of the summer beginning of the fall so that they can do what the party conferences. The different parliamentary parties will have a two or three or four-day convention where they talk about what their plans are for the next legislative season.
And then the Queen gives her speech before parliament where she opens the new session and the prime minister writes this speech but the Queen just sort of reads this script that says, these are the priorities for the next session. Meaning that the old session is over and a new session begins. Typically they do it for a week or two but Boris Johnson, I think he’s actually, was attempting to close parliament for maybe five weeks?
Leahy: Yeah.
McCabe: Somewhere around there. What that would mean basically parliament because it was out of session would be unable to block the crash out of Brexit. As the law stands now in the UK, if they do nothing they crash out of Brexit without any kind of modifying the deal.
Boris Johnson was attempting to use this as leverage to get a better deal than Theresa May got. But really the establishment in England is pulling out all the stops to basically stop the Brexit altogether. So people voted for Brexit three years ago and there is no Brexit.
And we now have the spectacle of 11 judges on the supreme court in England in effect overruling the Queen. Now, this is the first time I can think of where the judges have actually overruled the Monarch in maybe a few 100 years. So it’s interesting.
Leahy: So it’s being portrayed as the judges overruling the prime minister. But what you’re saying is it was unanimous that the supreme court there overruled the basically they overruled the Queen is what you’re saying?
McCabe: Because the prime minister is the minister acting in the name of the Monarch right? Her majesties government. And so it’s like this Kabuki theatre where everyone knows its the prime minister and the government doing everything. But it’s always in the name in the Queen and the Queen has to sign off on it.
She had the right to tell Boris Johnson, ‘No, you’re not going to suspend parliament.’ But she went along with her minister. The queen has been overruled. But then the question is, because they are in the European Union, could Boris Johnson appeal to a European Union court in order to facilitate his exit from the European Union?
Leahy: Do you think that’s likely to happen? It seems a little improbable to me.
McCabe: It would be great fun. But I don’t think they’re going to go along. (Chuckles) A lot of things in the world seem to happen for my amusement but I don’t think they are going to go to this extent. So by law, parliament opens tomorrow morning as if it was never closed. You know the truth is the labor party is at their party conference.
They are right in the middle of their party conference. And another reason for this break, which I thought was legitimate to some extent is the United Nations meetings are going on. Boris Johnson is in New York attending the United Nations meetings. These judges are basically taking over the way they take over things in this country.
Leahy: So does the judiciary in England, the United Kingdom operates the same way as a judiciary in the United States? Is their supreme court similar to ours? Because you don’t hear a lot about the United Kingdom’s supreme court.
McCabe: There’s a lot more, I don’t want to say pressure, but there was a culture they’re not getting involved with political things. The supreme court in the US was not supposed to get involved with political things either. It’s more so in England and so this really outrageous. I mean, I follow English politics as closely as anybody I know and I just don’t remember this happening.
Basically it’s a court of appeal. It’s a court resolution between two courts come up. And in this case, you had a Scottish court saying Boris Johnson and the Queen were wrong. Then you had an English court saying they were right. And so to resolve these to two different. What they’re really doing is overturning a decision by the Monarch. And we’ll see how that plays out.
Leahy: What do you think the next step is here? Because obviously it’s the will of the people to leave the European Union. I think it’s in the United States best interest for Britain to be independent of the European Union so we would have a natural alliance with the United Kingdom and Great Britain. What happens next?
McCabe: Boris Johnson hasn’t spoken yet, but the speaker of the parliament who was against Brexit used his completely bent and twisted rules at every turn to prevent Brexit from happening. So he said parliament opens tomorrow morning. There’s not enough notification time for prime ministers questions but they will have ministerial questions. So we should have that spectacle of people yelling at each other and people cheering.
Leahy: So you think the House of Commons in Britain will meet tomorrow and they’ll be hectoring shall we say the ministers who serve under Boris Johnson the prime minister. After that hectoring what happens? Can he prologue parliament that has shut him down again in the next couple weeks?
McCabe: He can do it again. He can do it every day but he has to have the Queen sign off on it. So he’s in New York for the UN so he basically has to fly back so what will happen is someone will have to represent the government instead and we’re basically waiting for Boris Johnson to sort of react to what’s going in England right now.
Leahy: This just was reported about an hour ago right?
McCabe: Yeah. And so the speaker of parliament who is resigning after pressure from Boris Johnson and the Brexit chairs. So he’s going to open parliament and unlock the doors tomorrow morning and there will be a session.
And who knows what to do. Who knows if even the conservative conceivably could not sit and there would be no court. There are other ways of frustrating parliament. But remember, Boris Johnson fired 21 of his own, he had a majority of one and fired 21 of them basically saying that in the next election you can’t run as a nominee of a party.
And then his one-vote margin as he was giving his speech one of those guys crossed the aisle and took away his majority. So there’s a rebellion inside his ranks also.
Leahy: There’s a deadline October 31st right?
McCabe: Yes. If nothing happens England crashes out of Brexit. And at least a third of the population wants to crash out no matter what. And then you’ll have the other spectacle. You have a lot of people who had voted for Brexit who have now changed their minds.
There’s a lot of people who voted against Brexit but are now absolutely for Brexit because they feel we voted for it. If the people voted for it three years ago it should have happened because if we voted for something three years ago and it has not happened we’re a Banana Republic. We’re not a Democracy.
Leahy: Well if you put on your prognosticator cap, October 31st comes, doesn’t Britain crash out of Brexit?
McCabe: Yes. I think they crash out.
Leahy: I kind of think you’re right and I hope they do.
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