House of Commons of the United Kingdom

• UK foreign policy has long been shaped by a particular geopolitical way of conceiving the nation’s place in the world.
• This island identity may have been forged in imperial times, but it remains hugely relevant in the post-Brexit world.
• To be an island was to be democratic, sovereign, freedom-loving, mobile and a bastion of limitless and global free trade.

Your sovereign neighbour

• The Falklands Conflict provided ample opportunity for Margaret Thatcher to restate a powerful island identity that she felt was becoming lost.
• These impulses to define the UK as a sovereign, mobile, freedom-loving island helped politicians to navigate the huge changes that occurred since 1945.
• Never more than lukewarm about Brexit, “Global Britain” was Theresa May’s attempt to name the UK’s posture after leaving the EU.
• But in many ways, Global Britain is not about the present so much as the past and the future.

What is an island in the 21st century?

• Yet there is far less unity about what it means to be an island in this fractious 21st century than there was during the imperial era.
• Many historians have argued that the empire provided the glue between the constituent parts of the UK.
• Without the empire or the EU, are we now seeing the true nature of a disunited Kingdom?

• The committee concluded that were he still an MP, he should be suspended for 90 days.
• But since Johnson resigned upon seeing a draft of the report, he will not serve the suspension.

What is the privileges committee?

The House of Commons Committee of Privileges is composed of MPs from the three largest parties in parliament. Its role is to uphold ethical conduct in the House of Commons alongside the Committee on Standards.

What was Johnson accused of and why does it matter now he is no longer prime minister?

• The principle accusation against Johnson is that he misled the House of Commons in relation to gatherings held in Downing Street while pandemic lockdowns were in place.
• Over the course of the partygate scandal, Johnson made numerous statements to the House of Commons about what he did or didn’t know and what he did and didn’t do.
• Importantly, from the outset of its investigations the committee adopted an expansive definition which did not require direct proof of Johnson having lied.

Why is misleading parliament such a serious matter?

• Misleading the house is treated exceptionally seriously because of the centrality of ministerial accountability to parliament within the uncodified British constitution.
• Privilege is the mechanism which shields debate in parliament from the restrictions on free speech that apply to ordinary citizens so that MPs can speak freely.
• It also guarantees parliament the right to determine its own processes and procedures free from interference from the judicial and executive branches of government.

Would the report have forced Johnson out of the House of Commons?

Johnson resigned before the committee even published its report, claiming he was being forced out. But the report could not have done this on its own. The committee proposed suspending Johnson from parliament for 90 days, which would have triggered the provisions of the 2015 Recall of MPs Act. This would have given people in his parliamentary constituency the right to sign a petition to oust him.

Is a 90-day suspension longer than average?

• The 90-day suspension Johnson was to serve is much longer than the most often commonly imposed sanction over the years, which has been a five-day suspension – not long enough to trigger a recall.
• However it is still lower than the six-month suspension handed to Labour MP Keith Vaz in 2019 after he admitted to buying drugs from sex workers.

• During a week of two semi-finals, 37 competing countries will be whittled down to 26.
• Around 160 million people are then expected to tune in to the grand final on Saturday May 13.
• Clarity on this point can, however, be found by understanding a little bit about the rules and practices of international politics.

A different kind of union

• The actual participants in Eurovision are the TV broadcasters who are members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an international organisation which is open to membership from across the European Broadcasting Area.
• Israel, which has won four times, has participated since 1973 on this basis.
• Broadcasters from Belarus and Russia were expelled from the EBU in 2021 and 2022 and are ineligible to complete.
• While Kosovo’s statehood is recognised by a majority of European countries, it is not a full member of the EBU.
• EBU membership requires a country to be a member of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which in turn requires UN membership (which Kosovo does not yet have).

An international rules-based system

• Eurovision is also a pretty good example of how rules operate in international partnerships.
• Rules about the staging of Eurovision entries – original song not previously released, maximum six people on stage – are strictly enforced and do change over time.
• But more than that, it helps us understand both the complexity of the international and European legal orders, the interpretation and application of rules, and the ever presence of politics.
• As France memorably sang in 1991, C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison (It’s the last to have spoken who is right).

• At Westminster, he was swiftly elevated to the shadow Cabinet, and in April 2020 he became the leader of the Labour Party.
• Starmer was the architect of Labour's second-referendum Brexit policy, which was considered a major factor in its worst electoral defeat for nearly a century.
• Is he the voice of competence and moderation who can put his party back on the political map?
• His books include Victoria Cross Heroes: Volumes I and II; Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron; White Flag?