[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

<snip>

The proposed Internal Market Bill enables this to happen which undermines any attack the UK makes on China for breaking a treaty with the UK.

You are right, of course, to the extent of the way much of the rest of the world will see matters.

However, the ill-timed move by the government isn't likely to become law for a long time if I've understood the Commons/Lords ping-pong process.

https://www.instituteforgovernment.o...tary-ping-pong

In theory, if the Lords disagreed fundamentally with a bill, it could deliberately cause it to be lost by insisting on an amendment until a stalemate was reached or ‘double insistence’ took place. In this unlikely circumstance, the Government could use the Parliament Act (passed in 1911, updated in 1949) to pass the bill in the following session.

Resorting to the Parliament Act would delay the passage of the legislation, therefore the Government normally works with the Lords to find compromises where there are disagreements.

I suspect the government deliberately deployed this foil in full knowledge of what the Lords would do. A bluff, in other words and a very bad one at that.