Boris Coup: Day 5

Day 5 of the Boris coup coincides with the eightieth anniversary of the day German tanks rolled across the Polish border, on 1 September 1939, and the Second World War broke out in Europe.

It’s perhaps appropriate since the battle lines within Britain have also hardened.

Stop the Coup protestors

Tens of thousands of protestors yesterday gathered in towns and cities across Britain and, indeed, onto continental Europe where Brits demonstrated outside their embassies. They gave voice to the growing demand to stop the coup. And, at last, Jeremy Corbyn, the official leader of the official opposition, joined in. Not from in front, sadly, where the leader should be, but at least he made an appearance in a crowd in Glasgow.

It’s surprising that a man who claims to be a radical of the left took so long to recognise a popular movement resisting the far right. A radical worthy of the name wouldn’t simply be joining it, he’d be taking the leadership. Indeed, he might have been in the leadership from the outside.

That, however, isn’t Corbyn’s style. The Guardian inadvertently expressed it well: it wrote that Corbyn was putting his weight “behind the movement”. That struck me as fully summing up his approach to leadership: from behind.

Corbyn (in a pale blue suit) makes an appearance
at a Stop the Coup rally in Glasgow

Meanwhile, on the other side the ranks are closing too. Within the junta, not a word is being spoken in opposition.

Sajid Javid who, as I mentioned yesterday, had been the target of a thoroughly despicable move by the real power in Downing Street, Dominic Cummings, has since described his relationship with BoJo as excellent.

Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who said on 6 June that “proroguing parliament is clearly a mad suggestion”, now has nothing to say against it.

Matt Hancock, Health Secretary who, also on 6 June, said “prorogation would mean the end of the Conservative Party”, has equally dropped all objections.

And why?

The Conservative Party isn’t like a party of the left. It doesn’t exist in order to achieve any particular societal or economic goal, like redistribution of wealth, collectivisation of industry or social justice. It exists for one and only one reason: to win and hold power.

Millions of voters have decided that, far from being an illustration of how a representative body divides over a question that divides society, parliament’s inability to decide on Brexit is a failure of that body. More specifically, it is a failure of the supposedly corrupt and self-serving politicians who form it. Those voters have a strictly limited grasp of democratic notions. Essentially, they believine that what they want is what should happen, since they speak for all of the people. They therefore see a Prime Minister confronting parliament as a champion of their rights and beliefs.

In other words, to them the coup is a blow for freedom. Only when it is complete, and their freedom has gone, will they at last dimly understand that they may not have been acting in their best interest.

But for now, it means prorogation is a vote winner. And that’s why so many leading Conservatives are rallying round BoJo. They seem in him, at last, the chance of re-election which had spectacularly evaporated under May.

Sadly, they’re probably right.