Johnson’s
decision to silence parliament may be slightly more sophisticated than Guy
Fawkes’ attempt. But his attempt to
constrain parliament’s ability to his government under review reflects his
complete lack of legitimacy, as prime minister, and as champion of a no-deal Brexit.
He presides over a minority government, support reduced by his hypocritical decision
to remove the whip from his opponents. That he is only prime minister thanks to
the votes of some 90,000 members of the Conservative Party hardly bestows great
legitimacy.
He’s
attacked those seeking to rule out a no-deal departure for thwarting democracy
by preventing the fulfilment of the ‘will of the people’. But even setting aside the imperfections of
the referendum (excess expenditure, the interference by a foreign power, lies
on the bus etc), its result does not really represent the ‘will of the people’
in the way he suggests. It certainly
provides no mandate for a no-deal departure: Gove, Farage, Fox and others spent
the campaign telling us how easy it would be to leave the EU with a terrific
trade deal in place. But it’s worse than
that: despite a reasonably high turnout (72%) only 37% voted to leave – meaning
therefore that 63% didn’t. At best, the
referendum offered a snapshot of the views of 72% of the electorate over three and
a half years ago: and it’s a very different electorate today. Since then almost two million people have died,
and more importantly almost 2.3 million young people have attained voting age. These now form part of ‘the people’ whose ‘will’
needs to be respected. But since the
polls suggest that there’s a substantial majority of remain voters among this
group, Johnson is of course reluctant to seek their views, or indeed the views
of any who oppose his no-deal Brexit obsession.
He’s
now belatedly pursuing an election as the only feasible way to secure his
no-deal departure. Meanwhile he and his
government continue to show contempt for parliament through the action to
prorogue, contempt symbolically demonstrated by the arrogance of Rees Smug during
the recent debate, arrogance of which I’m sure Nanny would have disapproved.
