Item — HN Reader

"...Whether this reform [Criminal Finances Bill] is adopted will tell us much about who Prime Minister Theresa May really is"

Well in theory Britain isn't a dictatorship, so it should be down to the elected representatives of the people, i.e. the Members of Parliament, rather than a single individual. Anyway, looks like the Criminal Finances Bill has got through the second reading and committee stage: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/criminalfinances...

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Unfortunately it seems that maintaining the party line is more important than the "representative" aspect of the representative democracy. If you go against the party line, you could lose your job and status as an MP, if you go with it, you could be voting against what your constituents wish.

Also, the law of England and Wales and NI make it so that you cannot possess even certain drawings. There is no line that they are afraid of crossing. Fortunately, an immoral law does not deserve to be obeyed.

"Laws that oppress people have no moral authority." -- RMS

There's also the court case at the moment where the Prime Minister is trying to use the royal prerogative to trigger Article 50 (for Brexit) without an explicit act of parliament to authorise it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller_and_Dos_Santos)_v_Se...

The question put to the British people in the referendum was: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”. A clear majority voted to leave. Was this a cynical and basically fatuous exercise in wasting everyone's time for many months prior to the ballot because whatever the British people decided could be trumped by (some) self-interested MPs (jobs, pensions, travel and other perks)? I think not.

As Jacob Rees-Moog explains:

Parliament passed the referendum bill under the clear understanding from David Cameron (a fervent Remainer) that Article 50 would be exercised immediately.

The then-PM’s view, as stated to Parliament, as stated to the country, was that he would exercise Article 50 on Friday morning.”

So that has been slightly delayed but that doesn’t change the fact that Parliament gave the responsibility to decide whether we remained in the European Union to the British people and the British people decided to go.

The advisory aspect was advice for the Queen (who else? certainly not parliament. That would have been ridiculous) to proceed with the democratic wishes of the British people.