The Standing Orders Committee has finally reported back on the Review of Standing Orders 2026, proposing amendments to parliament's rules for the next term. In a term dominated by the constant abuse of urgency and related anti-democratic efforts to restrict public participation, people really only had one question about this review: what would it do to curb these abuses? The committee's response? Nothing. And fuck us for asking.
I'm serious. What people wanted was checks and balances to limit the use of urgency - a supermajority, a requirement that there be an actual state of national emergency to justify interference with the normal democratic process, or something similar. Some rules so that the government of the day couldn't just say "fuck you, urgency!" and ram through hugely controversial legislation overnight without scrutiny, or steamroll it over exhausted MPs at the end of a week of midnight sittings. The committee refused to consider any of that. The furtherest they will go is a default rule that a bill go to select committee after first reading, unless the member responsible moves that it go immediately to second reading, in which case there's a requirement that they "inform the House with some particularity of the reason why the omission of select committee consideration is warranted." And there's a similar requirement where select committee consideration periods are shortened.
Such a requirement already applies to urgency itself, and the record abuse of urgency this term is absolute proof of its ineffectiveness. But that's the sort of shit you get from a legislature which began as a rubberstamp for a hereditary tyranny. Unfortunately for them, some of us would like them to grow out of that and be something more.
Parliamentary apologists will no doubt point at the rest of the chapter on legislative procedures, the proposed new Legislative Scrutiny Committee and rules to allow various sorts of technical bills and revisions of the statute book to go much faster. But this is just missing the point. Because urgency overwhelmingly isn't used for those sorts of bills (if it was, it would be far less controversial). Instead, urgency is used to introduce hugely controversial legislation in secret; to ram it through quickly to prevent opposition; to shove it through its final stages again to limit the window when it is in the news. It is not used because there is any sort of "crisis" or (non-self-inflicted) time-limit - it is being used as a political management strategy by an anti-democratic regime.
Parliament claims to be the centre of our democracy. It cannot credibly make that claim so long as it retains this tyranny at its heart. Its refusal to deal with this problem further erodes its legitimacy and social licence and strengthens the perception that it is an undemocratic, out-of-touch institution, now actively ignoring the people it claims to represent.
But urgency isn't the committee's only area of failure. They've also dismissed calls to limit the use of discriminatory and unparliamentary language, saying that that's up to the Speaker. The constant racism from the regime benches, the questioning of MPs' citizenship or right to be there by racist Ministers, that's all OK apparently. Certainly nothing the House should take a stand on. As opposed to overdeclarations of pecuniary interests by MPs wanting to set a good example by being transparent, which must be stomped on lest anyone be forced to follow suit or be publicly shamed if they do not. Similarly, they view the record number of submissions this term (due to troll legislation and an increasingly active and engaged public) as a problem, rather than a positive development (the engagement, not the trolling), and so propose ways of dismissing or ignoring submissions which - in the eyes of the political class - are not focused on producing "high-quality legislation". Which also means that when the regime says "people will get to have their say at select committee" - something it does whenever it has refused to consult before legislating - it will be a lie. The regime might not care about that - they're anti-democratic scum - but you'd think that an institution which purports to be representative and to provide the people with a voice might. But it seems parliament doesn't care about that either. Instead, they're interested in insulating the political class as much as possible from what people think.
Parliament has failed here. And by failing so publicly and arrogantly, they have reduced their legitimacy, their social licence, their mana. The public deserved much more than a "fuck you" in response to our concerns about the erosion of democracy. And Parliament will have only itself to blame if we start saying "fuck you" right back at them.
