Boris’s move no less than a coup d’état
The UK is in turmoil. An unelected prime minister, Boris Johnson, has moved to suspend the country’s parliament, thus robbing lawmakers of time to debate or try to stop a no-deal Brexit, as the country’s exit from the EU is called.
He has a solid reason for this utterly undemocratic decision: the past three years have demonstrated parliament opposes the UK’s withdrawal from the EU without an agreement.
So what do you do when you don’t like democracy? You suspend its institutions.
Take a guy like Adolf Hitler, for example.
Back in 1933, Hitler passed what was called the Enabling Act, giving himself the power to enact laws without the involvement of the German parliament.
The rest is history.
It’s a good thing Johnson is not former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe or the leader of a country that his friend Donald Trump, president of the US, refers to as a “shithole country”. He would be in deep trouble in all sorts of international forums by now.
You see, they have a name for this sort of thing when it happens in the developing world. It’s called a coup d’état.
The will of the people, through the institutions of democracy, have been suspended in the UK to allow one man and his ego to ram through the decisions he wants.
You might want to ask about that old chestnut: rule by the people, for the people? Well, in simple terms, you don’t have a democracy when the people’s representatives are shunted aside by the likes of Johnson.
As the website Truthout put it: “The democratic political process in the UK is under siege . . . and the prime minister is betting the house on a relationship with an erratic US president. It is a Shakespearean tragedy that could do untold damage both to Britain and to the EU over the coming years.”
Why are we surprised, though, by this patently undemocratic move by Johnson?
The truth of the matter is that this is the way the world has been going lately.
We are in a post-democracy world, with the countries that have for ages been the poster boys for democratic norms and values, now villains of the world on this front.
It’s topsy-turvy: the US and the UK, which used to play global policeman, are now in the grip of two egotists who despise the idea that democracy means rule of the people by the people.
Why are we surprised when, for the past 10 years, we have seen one country after another fall into the hands of populists and right-wing nationalists whose stock in trade is hollowing out state and civil institutions (pretty much the way Jacob Zuma and his cronies did in SA), attacking the free press, delegitimising the official opposition and civil society voices while installing their own foot soldiers at the top of state security organs with the express purpose of turning them into private persecution and prosecution armies.
This is the dictators’ playbook now. Villains have become heroes. Saudi Arabia’s leader allegedly oversaw the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in the country’s consulate in Turkey. Yet, at the G20 summit in June 2019, Trump praised Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“You have done a spectacular job,” Trump said, calling him “a friend of mine”. He went on to say: “It’s an honour to be with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia – a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia. It’s like a revolution in a very positive way.”
Trump has also praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s “great and beautiful vision for his country” and suggested that he could help “make that vision come true”. North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Any citizen who dares veer an inch from the strict rules laid down by the dictator, faces murder, disappearance or a lengthy stay in the country’s notorious prison camps.
These are the people who are now the world’s leading democracies’ friends. Johnson’s extraordinary move of suspending parliament to push through his own agenda will probably get him a congratulatory high five from Trump.
There are consequences, of course. The next time a tin-pot dictator like Rodrigo Duterte of the Phillipines arrests journalists and sidelines and silences his own constitution, the US and the UK can’t say a word. How can they?
Trump calls the media “the enemy of the people” on a weekly basis. And the UK suspends its parliament so its leader can bypass lawmakers and ram through his own decisions despite the will of the people.
Dictators everywhere are rejoicing. This is their time.
In theory and in practice, they have the backing of the White House and No 10 Downing Street. What a time to be a dictator, indeed.
This is the dictators’ playbook now. Villains have become heroes