Brown gives up the power to declare war

[Cort Haus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/02/nbrown102.xml

Gordon Brown will this week propose surrendering historic powers delegated to previous prime ministers by the monarch as part of a wide-ranging programme of constitutional reform.

The reforms are expected to involve Mr Brown giving up royal prerogatives traditionally exercised by the prime minister, such as the power to declare war without parliamentary approval or to appoint bishops to the Church of England.

Good for Gordon if he is giving up the royal prerogative.

[BeBMan]

How will he achieve his evil neocolonialist and interventionist goals now?

[Cort Haus]

By lying to parliament and getting them to vote. Like Tony did for Iraq.

[snoopy369]

So would that mean the Queen could declare war on her own volition again?

Or the future King Charles

[Japher]

I bet the Queen could whip some arse... and I doubt Charles will ever be king.

[Drake Tungsten]

Yet another check on English aggressors.

[OzzyKP]

Now if only the United States could write something into our Constitution that would do the same thing. Oh wait....

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Yet another check on English aggressors.

Tony Blair was technically Scottish.

[BeBMan]

It's British aggressors anyway

[Drake Tungsten]

Tony Blair was technically Scottish.

The Scottish may be your leaders now, but the English are the ones with the history of aggression. I'm sure that's why Brown is doing this, to keep the English in check.

[LordShiva]

He should need approval from the Scottish parliament, too

[Drake Tungsten]

He should need approval from the Scottish parliament, too

QFT

[Elok]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Now if only the United States could write something into our Constitution that would do the same thing. Oh wait....

Yes, declaring war before you invade is rather quaint. I'm not sure if the Iraq resolution counts as a "declaration of war," but if so it's the first time a prez has bothered in decades. So much simpler to mount peacekeeping/bombdropping missions at your own discretion...

[Patroklos]

There was no declaration of war in the Falklands.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Elok


Yes, declaring war before you invade is rather quaint. I'm not sure if the Iraq resolution counts as a "declaration of war," but if so it's the first time a prez has bothered in decades. So much simpler to mount peacekeeping/bombdropping missions at your own discretion...

There was also a resolution before the first Iraq war (in 1990).

And a resolution just before the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001.

The latter was not particularly controversial. I think in part congress did it precisely to maintain the War Powers Act, and to avoid a further precedent for war without congressional authorization.

There was also a congressional resolution re Kosovo.