GORDON BROWN MP is the Prime Minister.
Or more correctly he is Her Majesty’s Prime Minister of the UK and Gt Britain and Northern Ireland and 1st Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service.
(Jersey is not part of the UK or Gt Britain, has its own Treasury and separate Civil Service.)
Gordon Brown is Labour MP for the Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and was elected by 24,000 voters in 2005.
He is the Leader of the Labour Party and was invited to form a government by the Queen in accordance with constitutional convention, as leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. He chooses his principal ministers (the Chancellor of the Exchequer is 2nd Lord of the Treasury) and the Sovereign confirms their appointment.
His Prime Minister’s salary is £127,000 and he receives a MP’s salary too of £60,000 and officially occupies No 10 Downing Street as the office of the 1st Lord of the Treasury.
(Jersey residents pay nothing towards UK Government (including PM) expenses.)
The Prime Minister appears on Facebook and has a blogsite; number 10.gov.uk
BUT WHAT HAS ALL THIS TO DO WITH JERSEY?
If you live in Jersey is he YOUR Prime Minister? If not, who is your Prime Minister?
In fact the title Prime Minister has a vague origin in British constitutional history and was originally used to describe Sir Robert Walpole’s role after he attempted to rescue the national economy following the great South Sea Company collapse in 1721- so no change there.
And even in 1904 Balfour observed that “the Prime Minister has no salary as Prime Minister, no statutory duties as Prime Minister, his name occurs in no Acts of Parliament and though he holds the most important place in the constitutional hierarchy, he has no place which is recognized by the laws of this country.”
By the Ministers of the Crown Act (1937) a joint salary became payable to the 1st Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister but the former was recognized as “an office” whereas the latter was “a position”.
Of course, nobody actually elects the British Prime Minister. The 24,000 Scots elected Brown as their MP and “English people” generally have grounds for feeling resentment at the overwhelming dominance of Scottish voices in UK government during the Blair/Brown reign.
Residents of Jersey do not generally vote in UK or EU elections although recent residents of the UK retain their franchise and it is possible that a few might even have voted for Gordon Brown as their MP – but Jersey is not an electoral constituency for the purposes of UK/EU elections.
(This was tested re Protocol 1 ECHR under Application 8873/80 before the European Commission of Human Rights 1980/82 and declared inadmissible)
YET, in theory, the UK Parliament could legislate for Jersey on any matter – subject only to the constraints of historical convention - and if Gordon Brown decides to declare war on France, with or without the approval of Parliament, then Jersey would be at war too.
In practice there are many international matters where the UK legislates for Jersey and all Jersey laws have to receive the approval of the “Crown” before they can be enacted.
The British government - with the Prime Minister at its head - scrutinizes all Jersey laws prior to their approval.
Jersey was ordered to send “MPs” to Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries – but declined to do so.
Traditionally, the people of Jersey are fed a diet of misleading pro-Royalist anti-Parliamentary historical/constitutional propaganda to support the prevailing vague and confusing status quo. The “official line” promotes the notion that historical and constitutional development ceased in the year 1204 and that Jersey is somehow frozen in a medieval relationship with the Duke of Normandy in which King John was a good guy, Charles 1st was not executed, James 2nd was not sent into exile, William and Mary did not embrace the Bill of Rights, Edward did not abdicate in 1936, the countries of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England were not variously united and then devolved, the Empire was not conquered and relinquished and anti-discrimination legislation is still an undiscovered world.
The concept that the various people of Britain might too have their own histories and have determined their own ever evolving relationships with government and the Sovereign and all sorts of institutions such as the EU or the UN – does not seem to enter the official Jersey political mind.
SO, where does the UK Prime Minister fit into the Jersey arrangements?
If you contact him does he have any powers to solve your problems? Can he influence the way in which you are governed? Can he veto or promote Jersey legislation or policies? What part does he play in the appointment of the Bailiff and the other Crown Officers or the Lt Governor? Can he discipline the Royal appointees or was the removal of Deputy Bailiff Vernon Tomes just a Jersey matter?
A couple of weeks ago, the peoples of the UK and Gibraltar voted in EU elections. Soon there will be a “national election” and almost certainly a new PRIME MINISTER will occupy No 10 – but what does it mean for Jersey? Are we sure that we understand how the existing system operates and should it be reformed in a changing world?
Submitted by Thomas Wellard.
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8 comments:
That's not news!
Please stick to the journalism and leave the opinions at home!!
Yep, that's the trouble when you are fed on a diet of "official" Press Releases. It becomes. very difficult to know what is news at all.
When an opinion becomes a discussion and a discussion becomes a proposal to change the law -does that become news?
By the way - is Gordon Brown Jersey's Prime Minister?
Jersey is not part of the UK however it is part of Great Britain.
Wrong. Jersey is not part of Gt Britain.
It is officially within the "British Islands".
"British Isles" might be ok too.
as a Jersey born person whose family have been here since records began, whatever claims the UK may have over our island are simply the remains of the English colonial bullying of the world. Jersey was not in a position to continually defend itself from the French or the English invasions and so our so called leaders settled for British rule, as the British claimed they would afford us protection from invading forces. I understand our government still pays them liberal sums for this "protection" since that time, which didn’t do us any good when the Nazis invaded they simply left us to it and like many other locals my grandparents almost starved to death, thanks to the British.
We are not classed as UK citizens and now we have no right to NHS treatment without payment and no right to further education in the UK without paying foreign student fees, despite holding a British passport.
Our own government of course is sadly lacking, we have a chief minister who was not elected by the people but by his own cronies and as we know even if all the people of Jersey turned up tomorrow and voted we would not be able to vote the current out of touch members out of the states. which is essentially just an old boys club with a majority of members who live in an archaic world akin to 1950`s Britain as far as the amount of class and racial prejudice that goes on here. Hence why less than 50% of the population of Jersey vote because they know there’s no point, which makes us a non democracy, as we are ruled by the minority vote and not the majority.
Jersey needs to stand on its own two feet, and cut its colonial ties with the UK which serve us no benefit whatsoever, and open its own hospital with proper medical care facilities as they have in the UK seeing as we are unable to get medical help without paying and haven’t expanded our own hospital in years despite the massive population increase.
Girls college could have been used to open the islands first university, as again due to class prejudice in the island only the wealthy and well educated can attend university, and mixed race or children of a non white background in jersey do not have access to the same education as white children. I know people who have had to move their children through several schools here due to the racial discrimination not only from pupils and parents but teachers too, and its not something the education dept. are prepared to address. I attended a meeting with states members discussing yet again bringing in laws to prevent racial discrimination, ( which of course still 16 years after the first discussions are not applicable in law ) who decided in their wisdom that the only time it would be allowed to racially discriminate against people who be in an instance such as picking the Jersey murratti team, and who looked shocked when I pointed out to them that we also have black, Chinese and Asian Jersey men… they couldn’t quite seem to grasp the fact that your place of birth determines nationality and not your race.
In short this island is a mess, our states members kid themselves into thinking we have something to offer the world, when apart from milk and potatoes, we have nothing to offer the everyday "lower classes" of this island, never mind the rest of the world. As far as I`m concerned Gordon Brown means about as much to me as our own so called “first minister” they have a lot in common too, neither of them were elected by their people, to represent their people, and they’re both totally out of touch with the needs of their people.
Oh poor sad downtrodden Jersey person. You and your ancestors have been in Jersey since records began but it's all somebody else's fault!!
You must be joking.
At least you should know by now - who is your Prime Minister?
"We ... have no right to NHS treatment without payment and no right to further education in the UK without paying foreign student fees, despite holding a British passport."
Why would you expect to? If you are living and working in Jersey, you are not paying UK taxes to fund the NHS and to subsidise British universities.
For all those who couldn't grasp the point of Gene`s post with their tiny minds, let me spell it out for you. Jersey is not part of the UK. therefore the prime minister G.B is not our prime minister. Jersey people should not have to travel out of the island to get further education or proper medical care, if our own politicians cared about their people, these things would have been in place years ago.As we can see from the replies from the British here, Britain still holds a superiority complex and just loves to hold onto its colonies, so it can still think itself "great" well my boy i`ve got news for you, we beans don't rate the British at all.They're a Bunch of marauding,land thieving warmongers. Always have been, still are, and probably always will be.
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