This is not a constitutional outrage, let alone a coup d’état
Each of us as a private citizen must make our own judgment on Boris Johnson’s thunderbolt. We must filter out the noise and “candy floss” indignation to decide what is legitimate in the unique circumstances of Brexit, where the supremacy of Parliament is trumped by the higher legitimacy of a constitutional referendum.
Do not forget that Parliament’s rejection of the Withdrawal Agreement is the first time since 1864 that it has refused to accept a treaty. It
‘Whatever you think of Brexit, you cannot with a straight face call it anti-democratic’
is on thin constitutional ice itself. In my view prorogation – for so long, in this climate – is sharp practice and a political step too far. But it is not a constitutional outrage, let alone a coup d’état.
As my colleague Asa Bennett has written, Boris has given the antibrexiteers a taste of their own medicine. They have been rustling up every arcane precedent to bend the rules. Boris has hit back in the same spirit. They have lost six working days of parliamentary time. That is all.
The headlines across the European media have been predictably Gothic, echoing one side of the internal UK debate without a Fingerspitzengefühl for what is just pantomime and what is not. “Thus end democracies,” led Die Zeit. It accused Boris of resorting to the method of “despots”. Deutsche Welle called him a “dictator”.
I would certainly agree that democracy is at risk – and can die – but not particularly in Britain. For whatever you think of Brexit, you cannot with a straight face call it anti-democratic, unless of course it is ultimately thwarted by those aiming to lock us back inside the cage.
Can the same be said so confidently of Europe? The EU is composed of democracies (some more deeply rooted than others). It has democratic elements, such as the European Parliament. But it is not a democracy.
It is a supranational regime guided by a commission with quasi-executive powers that operates as an ideological priesthood. Belgian and French historians compare it to the European imperial systems of the early 20th century with their hybrid structures and showpiece native assemblies. The insidious effect of this centralised power is to bleed the lifeblood of the national institutions. It saps their legitimacy. It infantilises the member states by usurping their functions. This changes them over time.
As I wrote at the time of the referendum, Lord Sumption (a former Supreme Court judge) gave an elegant description of how democracies die, though as an ardent Remainer he fails to see how well this fits the EU itself.
“They are slowly drained of what makes them democratic, by a gradual process of internal decay and mounting indifference, until one suddenly notices that they have become something different, like the republican constitutions of Athens or Rome, or the Italian city-states of the Renaissance”… or the once vibrant liberal democracies of Europe in the early 21st century?
This EU regime is not elected in any meaningful sense. Voters cannot remove it when it persists in error, as it
the streets as 5,000 people descended on Parliament following the announcement of Mr Johnson’s decision.
Momentum cited the clashes as inspiration for its planned protests tomorrow, and again on Tuesday, as it rallied supporters under the social media hashtag #Stopthecoup.
Ms Parker urged supporters to take “radical action” by blocking bridges and roads in London, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield and York tomorrow, with further protests in London on Tuesday.
On social media sites, supporters evoked the 1984 miners’ strike and the Poll Tax riots as they suggested the protests would not “end well” if the police tried to intervene. The Metropolitan Police said yesterday it had not been informed of any plans for a protest in the capital, despite the legal requirement for organisers to make police aware.
Paul Scully, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said: “This shows the sinister lengths Corbyn’s hard-left supporters will go to in their attempts to subvert the democratic decision of the British people to leave the EU. Labour’s repeated promises to respect the referendum result have been exposed as a sham.”
Yesterday a Labour council candidate called for a protest outside the Somerset home of Jacob Rees-mogg, while more than 100 trade union representatives broke ranks with their bosses to call for “urgent direct action” including “protests, strikes and occupations”. In Cheltenham, dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the constituency office of Alex Chalk, the Tory MP, until he came outside and tried to reason with them.
Conservative MP Mike Penning, a former policing minister, said: “This tells you all you need to know about the Labour Party. They are not interested in law and order. They are just interested in anarchy. At the end of the day the British people decided what the Government should do.
“This looks like Labour of the Seventies. It’s a massive waste of police time. It will show up the hypocrisy of the Labour Party, who go on about looking after the police.”
Mr Mcdonnell made a clear comparison between Mr Johnson and Adolf Hitler as he said: “The British people... have stood up to dictators before and they will stand up to this one as well.”
Sir Philip Pullman later apologised for a tweet in which he said that “when I hear the name ‘Boris Johnson’ for some reason the words ‘rope’ and nearest lamppost come to mind as well.”
He deleted the tweet, saying: “Recent events have aroused my anger to the point where I temporarily lost my judgment. I wouldn’t kill the Prime Minister and don’t want anyone else to.”
In Ireland, Michael D’arcy, the minister of state, described the prorogation of Parliament as “perhaps the most anti-democratic decision since the Protectorate government, which Oliver Cromwell set up, was established”.