Boris Coup: Day 59 (yawn)

He came in with a roar, and is going out with a whimper.

Benito: an autocrat who kept Parliament and judges under control
But, in the end, it didn’t work out for him either

Boris Johnson, in his autocratic ambition, wanted to dominate British politics like Mussolini dominated the politics of Italy. He gaily suspended parliament, and only discovered afterwards that he didn’t have the judges on his side (Benito was much more careful in ensuring he could count on the judiciary), so his bold and splendid Trumpian act was ruled illegal by the courts.

No sooner had the suspension been overturned than it became clear how necessary it had been to him. He has yet to win a substantive vote in the Commons. Every time he pushes for something, the MPs push right back…

This has enabled him to present himself as the people’s representative blocked at every time by those pesky MPs trying to flout the people’s will. A latter-day David taking on the Goliath of the Establishment.

This is amusing. What can be more British establishment than a man who was educated at Eton and Oxford and has lived the life of an entitled grandee ever since?

There are, however, people sad enough to fall for this tale. But then there are people out there sad enough to believe that Britain will be better off outside the EU than in. Basically, there are a lot of sad people.

They’re also misled. By blocking Boris, MPs are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. They’re holding government to account. Those who feel they should let Boris do just what he wants are endangering the very basis of our democracy. I hope we never see governments that can do what they want whether our representatives like it or not.

Now Boris has come up with a new Brexit arrangement rather worse than the one Theresa May agreed. He tried to force it through in just a few days (coup habits die hard) and was told by Parliament that they weren’t having that. So now he’s proposing a deal to MPs themselves: if they’ll let him have a General Election on 12 December, he’ll give them more time to scrutinise his bill.

This is a curious and interesting approach to compromise.

MPs are taking the extra time anyway, whether or not he concedes it to them. So it’s hard to see how Boris is offering them anything they couldn’t take for themselves. In return, he wants them to do him a favour. Poor Boris. He needs to take a few more classes on the art of the deal, which usually involves both sides offering the other something they couldn’t get any other way.

He should certainly take those classes from someone other than Donald Trump, who, like Boris, seems much better at claiming he’s made deals than actually concluding them. As he’s shown with North Korea.

Why does Boris want a general election? Well, he’s tired of being defeated in the Commons. He thinks an election would give him a majority. With a ten-point lead in the polls, that makes sense. Unfortunately, plenty of people even in his own party aren’t so sure. Boris has always liked to play the buffoon, but unfortunately a lot of voters now seem him as a buffoon. That lead might vanish in the campaign.

To get an election, Boris needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament. For that, he needs Labour MPs to agree. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been demanding an election, long, loud and frequently, pretty much since the last one. Why? He thinks voters love him and he can win. A ten-point poll deficit? He reckons he can turn that around.

His supporters agree, because last time he came from even further behind and came a far better second than anyone had expected. They seem to forget that coming second is of no value. There are no silver medals in parliamentary elections. Come second, and you’ve lost.

A lot of Labour MPs are beginning to wonder whether a general election right now’s such a good idea. After all, Corbyn did better than expected when he was barely known to the electorate. He was also up against a dismal campaigner, in Theresa May. This time, voters have had plenty of chance to see how he dodges the difficult questions, how he dithers in reaching a decision – why he’s even dithering now, over an election – and he’s up against a far better campaigner in Boris.

The net result of all this? We have no idea of how things will turn out. Will Boris get his deal through Parliament? Will he get his election? Will he win or will he lose?

Looks like we have further exciting times ahead. Rather like the last three and a half years since the referendum. Yawn.

Brexit started as a spectacular catastrophe. It’s morphing into a boring disaster. Alas, poor Britons.

Boris Coup: Day 30

It’s facing a crisis that most truly brings out the character of a politician. For better in some cases. For far worse in others.

Lincoln became a man for the ages in the American Civil War, and spoke of the battle he was leading to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”.

Churchill won his stature in the world, and his place in history, by the way he faced the threat of Nazi invasion. My mother, who lived through the period, told me how, at a time when voices were being raised to talk peace terms with the Germans, it built the morale of the nation, and personally sent a tingle down her spine, to hear him declare, “we shall never surrender”.

Then there’s Boris Johnson, following his defeat by the Supreme Court, and facing hostile MPs. In particular, he faced criticism from women MPs worried about the threats to their safety that flow from just the kind of inflammatory language Johnson uses, and just the kind of far-right fanatics he encourages. He gave us, “I have never heard so much humbug in my life”.

BoJo lashing out in parliament
Not a pretty sight

Yes. Perhaps not quite so impressive as the other two. Not his finest hour. Hardly a display of self-control and nobility of character. But that’s Boris, on day 30 of his coup attempt, now painfully unravelling before his eyes. He’s starting to sound ever nastier, more willing than ever to lash out at anyone who stands in his way.

A lot of that is calculation. He knows that there are voters out there who value just that kind of brutality. They like to convince themselves that this is strength, not understanding that real strength wins its arguments by winning supporters, and doesn’t need to humiliate or crush its opponents.

Playing to that audience, however, has its dangers too. Trump’s playing that game in the US. It may not work there: although his antics strengthen his standing with his most convinced supporters, they’re not attracting voters from the centre. With an intelligent campaign, and the right kind of candidate, the Democrats can win those votes, leaving Trump with only his core, and defeated.

Unfortunately, things are not that straightforward in Britain. If Johnson can hold a core vote similar to Trump’s, of around 40%, that will probably be enough under the UK system to win him a parliamentary majority. If the election is delayed, he may have enough time to discredit himself, as the consequences of Brexit sink in. But for now, both the weak leadership of the Labour Party, and its apparent readiness to allow an election early, are setting up the conditions for a BoJo win.

So he remains unrepentant, refusing to apologise for his intemperate outbursts, partly no doubt because he’s angry at what happened to him in the Supreme Court, partly because he thinks it prepares the ground for him to win an election.

Another principle attributed to Lincoln, probably incorrectly, is that you can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Words that could have been written for BoJo. Who does, indeed, seem to be intent on fooling just enough of the people, just enough time to get himself into Downing Street with a majority to back him.

However unpleasant he reveals himself to be on the way.

Boris Coup: Day 28

Isn’t it great? 

Today, on day 28 of his coup, we have official confirmation, from the highest court in the land, that Boris Johnson broke the law. Which means trying to avoid scrutiny by proroguing parliament wasn’t just a naked power grab, it was illegal.

The UK Supreme Court on its way to the ruling that
outlaws Boris and his coup

To those who’ve claimed that my use of the word ‘coup’ is over the top for what Boris has done, let me just say that an illegal power grab seems to be the textbook definition of a coup. No tanks on the streets, sure, but a coup all the same.

For the moment, the UK remains, however, a state ruled by law. This decision ought therefore to be obeyed. Johnson says he will respect it, but who knows? He broke the law with the prorogation itself, so no one can say with any certainty that he won’t try to break it again. One can only hope, but watch him carefully.

If Parliament holds its nerve, it can even bring him down now. If enough Tories, or more to the point ex-Tories kicked out by Boris, join with enough Opposition MPs, they can pass a no-confidence vote.

Then things would get really interesting. There would be an opportunity to form what many are calling for, a government of national unity. That’s when we’d come up against another hitch. Jeremy Corbyn, leader in name of the Labour Party, has said he would not support anyone other than himself to lead such a government. Few MPs – indeed few voters – would have any more confidence in him than in BoJo.

After all, why should they? Who led the fight back against BoJo’s coup, the one that led to today’s Supreme Court Decision against him? The Scottish and Welsh governments, and a series of individuals, most notably Gina Miller who has now won two major decisions against the government (the other one was to force a parliamentary vote on Brexit at all).

But where was Corbyn?

Why, he was plotting against his Deputy Tom Watson. He confirmed as much to Andrew Marr on BBC TV on Sunday, when he said that, while he knew there were conversations “about the role of deputy leader”, he “did not know that that particular motion was going to be put at that time.”

A non-denial denial. In other words, he knew about the plot. And to all those who say that Owen Smith mounted a coup against Corbyn when he ran for leader, I would reply that it was a legitimate political action, respecting the Labour Party Constitution, open, transparent, followed by debate, and with a result accepted by the loser.

What happened in the move against Watson was that a motion to abolish his position was brought in, without notice, at the end of a meeting, to try to nod it through with minimal debate. Now that’s a coup attempt.

So Corbyn played a minimal role in the fight against the Boris coup. And he showed himself capable of being as nasty and underhand as any machine politician. Indeed, rather like Boris himself.

So why would anyone want him to take over?

If a unity government is to be formed, therefore, there will be a lot of obstacles to overcome. We’d need both Labour and Tory MPs to rebel. In short, we’d need MPs to stand up to the deplorable leaders both main parties have inflicted on themselves.

Of course, we shouldn’t write off BoJo yet. There’s a chance he may just brave his opponents, even in defiance of the law. Or then again he may play on Corbyn’s obsessive ambition to get to Downing Street: Jeremy may not be able to resist the temptation of an election, even though he’s fifteen points behind in the polls.

Then Boris might get back with a Parliamentary majority. Which would mean he could exercise personal rule even within the law. Giving us hard Brexit, subservience to the US and an assault on basic rights.

Then we’ll really know what “taking back control” means.

Boris Coup: Day 13

The face of day 13: John Bercow.
One of the great Commons speakers. We shall learn to miss him.

After several days of having Parliament inflict defeat after defeat on him, day 13 is when Boris’s coup at last enters into full effect (not enough happened on day 12, which is why I had a break and didn’t dignify it with its own post). The hated Parliamentarians who have been tormenting him are to be suspended. 

I mean, not suspended as individuals, though I wouldn’t put it past him to wish he could. For now, he’s merely suspending the whole institution. That’s the measure known as prorogation.

Attentive followers of this series of posts will remember that this is was the coup act his junta first thought of. Now they’re moving into implementation. Parliament will have no voice for the next five weeks at least.

Executive authority with no scrutiny. Power without responsibility. As another Tory Prime Minister put it, the prerogative of the harlot down the ages.

Above all, it’s the autocrat’s dream.

And, boy, does he need it. I mean, look what’s been happening to him. He’s living proof of the falsehood of the old saying that the truth never hurts. Only the truth hurts, and MPs, from the Opposition but even from his own party (though he then kicks them out, so I suppose they’re the new Opposition) have been exposing the truth about BoJo.

Look at the high-profile defections. It’s pretty desperate when even your own brother finds the atmosphere you’ve created so toxic he can’t work with you. But his resignation was followed by an even more damaging one: that of Amber Rudd, the most senior of the handful of old-style, one-nation Tories (relatively moderate pragmatists as opposed to hard-right ideologues) that had managed to hang on in his government in increasing despair at his antics.

Among other reasons she cited for leaving, was “I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the government's main objective”.

Curiously, this runs counter to BoJo’s own repeated claims that he’s making progress with his negotiations. To which, it has to be said, the people on the other side of the table, the EU’s negotiators, all reply that he has made no progress whatever. You’d have to concede, wouldn’t you, that one side or the other must be lying.

So you choose. Given what we all know about Boris, which side do you think is more likely to be playing fast and loose with the truth?

And once you’ve answered that question, you can also ask yourself, is it really the case that the truth never hurts? Just look at BoJo’s face.

BoJo in disarray. As well he should be

Meanwhile, just before going into its state of suspension, the House of Commons passed one more measure, demanding publication of government documents concerning no-deal preparations, and messages from its advisers (by which I think it means principally the backroom manipulator in Number 10, Dominic Cummings).

The cheek of it! Parliament thinks the public should know what the government really believes. If that happens, how can ministers be duplicitous enough to sustain the self-delusion of Brexiters?

And then came the final sad announcement of this difficult day. John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, announced that he would be resigning, either at the next election or on 31 October, whichever came first.

Many dislike him. I think historians will see him, once the dust has settled, as one of the great speakers. And, above all, as exactly what he said of himself: a man who sought to increase the power of Parliament, a backbenchers’ speaker, indeed, turning to his advantage an expression from the Brexit debate as he did himself, the backbenchers’ backstop.

As Parliament enters its period of suspension, it’s sad to see it lose such a man, such a champion of its rights against an overweening executive.

An executive which, for the next five weeks at least, will feel itself free to run amok. Truly the Boris coup. Unless a new way can be found to stop him.

Boris Coup: Day 11

Day 11 of the Boris coup and Brexiters are in a terrible flap. 

They’re shocked. Appalled. Flabbergasted.

It seems that before voting to block a hard Brexit, the cross-party group of MPs opposing no-deal – the people I like to think of as the resistance – spoke to EU officials to check whether a request for a further delay would be granted if Britain requested one. The Brexiters are horrified. David Jones, a Tory MP, and one of BoJo’s accomplices – apologies, supporters – said that this:

... confirms the level of EU interference in our internal affairs and makes the need for Brexit all the more pressing.

I changed the word ‘accomplices’ back there because I’ve been warned about the importance of words. But more of that later.

It’s interesting that British MPs approaching EU officials amounts to unwarranted interference by the EU in our internal affairs. Does that mean that when Boris chatted to Trump at the Biarritz G7 meeting, that was similar interference by the US? Is it now a political sin to talk to our foreign partners before deciding how we should approach our partnership with them? Or is it simply that David Jones wants us only to consult and be guided by Boris?

Meanwhile, the bill to force BoJo to ask for a Brexit delay is due to receive royal assent on Monday. All eyes are on what Boris does next. Will he refuse to send the bill for assent? Will he refuse to abide by it when it becomes law? Is someone who suspended Parliament because he couldn’t get his way prepared to respect the law?

That we have to ask the question at all shows just how far we have sunk in this febrile coup atmosphere in which we live.

Tom Watson.
So annoying that his political antennae are better than his leader’s

It’s an atmosphere that affects Labour as well as the Tories. Mark Serwotka, President of the Trades Union Congress, was insisting on Thursday – or, as I like to think of it, on day 9 of the coup – that “the actions of some of the parliamentary Labour party such as Tom Watson and others have been really unacceptable”. 

Watson, deputy leader of the Labour Party, should it seems now get in line and stop acting against the will of his leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Whose will, according to Corbynists like Serwotka, should be religiously followed in all circumstances. Just like Boris feels all Conservatives should jump to his every whim.

Tom Watson is annoying to people like Serwotka because he has political instincts. Right at the start of the coup, Corbyn rushed off to Glasgow to do some election campaigning. Business as usual, for him. Tom Watson, on the other hand, got stuck in with the resistance, working immediately with the ‘Stop the Coup’ campaign in London. Corbyn only woke up to the importance of what was happening at the end of the week, when he also belatedly joined the movement.

No wonder Serwotka wants Watson silenced. Who’d want a deputy leader who so eloquently demonstrates how far off the pace his leader is? Especially when he shows it in practice and not just words.

Which takes me back to the subject of words.

I’ve had complaints about my use of the word ‘coup’. What Boris has done, my critics claim, is not a coup. It’s true that if a coup means tanks on the streets, military occupation of the TV stations and political opponents arrested, then it wasn’t a coup.

But there are far more insidious ways of seizing power illegitimately. What Boris did was even legal, as several judges have confirmed, but that only makes it more difficult to obstruct his power grab. The only defence we have in Britain to abusive executive power is Parliamentary oversight, an annoyance to would-be autocrats anywhere, so Boris decided to do away with it.

He would have established a precedent, and precedent is everything in a system governed by an unwritten constitution. It would have allowed the executive illicitly to take whatever power it wished, if it couldn’t bend Parliament to its will.

That is a coup.

It has to be resisted, as any coup should be resisted. Parliament deserves congratulations, and thanks, for having so resisted BoJo, so far with success.

While we’re on the subject of words, let’s look at this one too: conservative.

Generally, it means someone who wants to conserve things. In particular, that would include our conventions and political processes. It’s clear that BoJo has no intention of doing so. That makes him a radical, seeking to change Britain radically, though from the right rather than the left. A radical, not a conservative, with a small c, even though he leads the Conservative Party, with a capital C.

David Gauke
Expelled for opposing his leader’s attack on democratic values

That’s why David Gauke, former Justice Minister but one of the 21 Conservative rebels BoJo expelled from his Party for voting against him, says that Boris, to placate Brexiters, has “had to rebadge the Conservative party as the Brexit party”.

That’s the party of Nigel Farage. BoJo’s behaviour is turning him, in Gauke’s words, into “Farage-lite”.

Powerful words. As words can be when you deploy them to maximise their impact. Gauke did it, and I apologise to no one for attempting to do the same.

Boris Coup: Day 10

Day 10. And Boris keeps giving the lie to Karl Marx, who talked about history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. With Boris, it happens only once, is a farce throughout but is perfectly likely to end as tragedy.

A tragedy for him perhaps. At least, we should hope so. Otherwise it could be one for the rest of us.

BoJo: not so happy these days

Let’s see what he’s been up to.

Well, he’s had to contend with more resistance to his high-handed behaviour, in particular his expelling of Conservative MPs for voting against him. The worst resistance came from his brother Jo, who will stand down as an MP as well as a minister, because of the “unresolvable tension” between loyalty to his family (i.e. his brother) and the national interest. How tough it must be to have your own brother declare your actions not in the national interest...

Boris laughed at Ed Miliband’s victory over his brother David for the Labour leadership back in 2013:

...only a socialist could do that to his brother, only a socialist could regard familial ties as being so trivial as to shaft his own brother

It seems that fraternal shafting isn’t restricted only to the left after all.

What else has Boris been doing? 

He attended a police training academy in Wakefield, in the North of England. The understanding was that it would be a celebration of his decision to recruit another 20,000 police officers, without a word of politics being breathed. But Boris treated that as a firm commitment, so he broke it.

First he kept the police officers and trainees waiting an hour, standing around in the sun. A fine illustration of how deeply he cares about ordinary people. Then he made a wholly political speech, part of his campaign for an election which, much to his frustration, he hasn’t yet been able to call.

In true Trump style, he took advantage of having police as a backdrop to make the speech. Something the police themselves resented, since they value their reputation, or at least the appearance, of being politically neutral. But Boris doesn’t pay much attention to protocol and procedure. If the regulations get in his way, he simply ignores them.

It was the same when he was an undergraduate in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University: if he felt like trashing a restaurant, he just did it. Mere conventions suggesting that kind of behaviour was unacceptable were never going to deter him then. They don’t deter him now.

It’s interesting that he’s campaigning for an election, given that one of the votes he lost in Parliament, as I mentioned yesterday, was a motion to call a poll. The latest news is that the Opposition parties don’t intend to give him that election until after the Brexit date.

That’s more bad news for poor Boris. A new poll by ICM for Represent Us, a group campaigning for a second referendum, suggests that the Brexit Party’s vote would double from 9 to 18% if an election were held after 31 October and Britain still hadn’t left the EU. That would leave Corbyn and Johnson level pegging on 28%, whereas in an earlier election BoJo would be ahead by 37 to 30% (according to the Financial Times, which has a paywall).

No wonder the Opposition parties want the vote in November.

Especially as the Lords have now ratified the bill requiring BoJo to delay Brexit if he hasn’t negotiated a new deal by Halloween. “I’d rather be dead in a ditch,” he told the Guardian when asked whether he’d request a delay in Brexit.

He keeps claiming he’s making good progress towards a deal, but since the EU says there’s been no progress at all, like the boy who cried wolf, Boris finds few who believe him.

So he could be heading for 31 October with no deal. Then his choice would be to ask the EU for a delay to Brexit, and comply with the new law. Or he could break the law, which would be a serious extension to his coup and might have some difficult consequences. Or of course he could die in a ditch.

By happy chance, it seems that Parliament may well be digging one for him.

Boris Coup: Day 9

Day 9 of BoJo’s coup, and the wheels have really come off the Borismobile.

His first three parliamentary votes as Prime Minister all went against him. His first Prime Minister’s Questions were a disaster where even Jeremy Corbyn, generally pretty wooden, came across as not just more honest but a lot quicker than Boris. Even though arguably he’s neither.

It looks as though the combative style Boris chose to adopt turned out to be thoroughly counter-productive. Threatening to expel Conservative Members of Parliament (members of his own party) if they presumed to vote against his wishes worked entirely against him. It seems to have strengthened their will to resist his rule. Certainly, without that band joining the Opposition, he would not have lost his three votes.

Nor has carrying out his threat and sacking those recalcitrant members done him any favours. Nick Soames had been a Conservative MP for 36 years, as well as being Winston Churchill’s grandson. Ken Clarke sat in Parliament as a Tory for even longer, 49 years. Phil Hammond was Chancellor of the Exchequer until a few weeks ago, when Theresa May’s government fell.

Sacking figures of such stature from the Conservative Party has excited a great deal of criticism and protest from those who remain.

Phillip Lee literally crossing the House, while Boris is speaking,
to join the Lib Dems and wipe out the Tory majority of one

It also means that his voting strength in the House of Commons is reduced still further. He had, indeed, already lost his tiny majority – of one – when Philip Lee decided to cross the House, voluntarily leaving the Conservative Party to join the Liberal Democrats, choosing a moment of maximum drama and harm to make the gesture: in the middle of BoJo’s report to Parliament on the G7 meeting.

No. Boris’s strongest moves all seem to have backfired. One wonders how long Dominic Cummings, the shadowy figure who seems to be controlling all the doings of Downing Street, will survive. After all, this highly combative, not to say confrontational style, is very much his. BoJo may just have to throw him to the wolves to try to win back some sympathy from his fellow MPs.

If nothing else, the behaviour of those MPs makes clear, if anyone needed it clarifying, just why Boris launched his coup. Parliament is a major annoyance to him. It acts to block the arbitrary decisions of a man who feels his will should be sufficient to set national policy.

For those of us who believe that Britain should be a democracy, that is exactly what we believe its role should be: to prevent arbitrary rule, to stop anyone else setting himself up as some kind of latter-day satrap ruling with virtually monarchical power.

Unfortunately, a great many others take a wholly different view. They mouth the word democracy, but it’s rather like a child denouncing an action as unfair: children don’t usually find it unfair to be given a sweet denied to a sibling, and these pseudo-democrats only complain about undemocratic behaviour when it fails to yield them what they want.

Sadly, there are a lot of people like that. And they weren’t defeated in those parliamentary votes. Indeed, they will certainly resent them, as the papers which reflect their views already do. Indeed, many of them are particularly incensed because one of the votes Boris lost was to call a General Election. Labour abstained and so the motion fell short of the two-thirds majority needed.

Corbyn, say the right-wing papers, chickened out.

The Tory Press whipping up fury over BoJo's defeats

He was entirely right. Because for once he looked at political reality with a clear eye, instead of believing it to be as he might wish it. Labour would lose an election called now. And, if anything, the three defeats suffered by Boris only make that more likely. Those who back him will regard them as instances of Parliament denying them their entitlement, and doing so for self-serving or even corrupt reasons.

Astonishingly, given that no one belongs so entirely to the Establishment as BoJo, they will see him even more than ever as their champion against the established parties in Parliament. They will rally to his cause.

Labour needs to wait. Boris is on a rapid downward slope. The sheen is coming off his premiership. In time, even his supporters will begin to see that.

Corbyn still talks of agreeing to an election soon. That may just be spin, to try to cover his change of position, from forever calling for a vote. If he has any sense, he certainly won’t agree to one in the next few weeks.

A few months from now would be a far more favourable moment. Although I doubt BoJo, or whoever takes over from him, will be half as enthusiastic about holding an election then than they are now. 

Who then will the Conservative press call chicken?

Boris Coup: Day 8

It’s day 8 of the Boris coup, and our hero, chief of the Downing Street junta, has suffered his first setback.

A fine setback, too. The very first vote he’s faced since becoming Prime Minister. And he lost it.

Even more toxic than BoJo: Jacob Rees-Mogg, his Brexit sidekick
Showing the full extent of his respect for the Parliament to which he belongs

John le Carré tells us in Smiley’s People that ‘burning’ (blackmail) is a powerful tool for breaking an adversary, but sadly it can have exactly the opposite effect and stiffen resistance rather than overthrowing it.

The idea of cowing Conservative MPs tempted to rebel against the junta’s diktats, by threatening them with losing the whip and effectively ending their careers, probably came from Dominic Cummings, the PM’s hitman, rather than from BoJo himself. Cummings, it will be remembered, is the man whose management style boils down to, “you don’t like my style? There’s the door”.

Sadly, for him and his boss at least, that approach seems to have had the stiffening rather than overpowering effect. Or so we’re told by some of the Conservative MPs who voted again the Conservative government last night. One of them, Sam Gyimah told the Guardian:

For MPs like myself, Downing Street has framed the choice as: speak your mind or keep your job.

It seems 21 Tory MPs had their opposition strengthened, rather than weakened, by the threats. Or, to put it another way, decided that speaking their mind was more important than keeping the job. Some, indeed, might say that a politician’s job isn’t worth having if you can’t speak your mind.

The cause was helped by the behaviour of BoJo’s sidekick, Jacob Rees-Smogg, who has somehow pulled off the trick of being even more obnoxious than his boss. He lay sprawled across the government front bench during much of yesterday’s debate, showing exactly the respect in which he holds the Parliament to which he belongs.

The vote, however, only meant that Parliament wrested control of its own agenda away from government.

Ironically, it was a wonderful application of the principle Cummings has made his own: ‘taking back control’.

That step was necessary for a bill to go forward blocking a no-deal Brexit. The debate on the bill itself will only start today and it has to be completed fast, before Parliament is prorogued (suspended) on Monday.

Prorogation was the central act in the coup, after all. And it was designed to avoid precisely what MPs are trying to do now. One defeat doesn’t mean BoJo’s authoritarian drive is over. Not by a long stretch. As well as being adopted by the Commons, any move to block a hard Brexit also has to get through the Lords by Monday, and it’s clear that BoJo loyalists in the upper House are going to do all they can to delay it there.

BoJo’s bloodied but not yet defeated.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Jeremy Corbyn has let it be known that Labour won’t vote for a General Election until hard Brexit has been blocked. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act means that a snap election – and early one – can only be called with the consent of two-thirds of the House. If Labour votes against, it won’t happen.

It would be a great idea, from Labour’s point of view. It’s true that Corbyn has been calling for a General Election for years – ever since the last one, two and a half years ago – so changing his tune now won’t be easy for him. But, as I argued yesterday, he needs to. An election in the next few weeks would almost certainly return BoJo to power, with a majority. Just as his blackmail of Tory MPs only strengthened their resolve, so his defeat in Parliament will only reinforce his support among that large minority that wants a Brexit and sees him as their champion against the vile manoeuvrings of MPs.

They see strength where in reality there’s authoritarianism. They see a man taking on the establishment where in reality no one is more establishment than he is. And they’re a minority but a big enough one to give him a win.

Corbyn, and Labour generally, would be far better advised to wait, if Brexit happens, until its pain starts to bite. Then, if BoJo’s still Prime Minister and identified as Mr Brexit, Labour will stand a far better chance against him than it does now.

BoJo, however, may not cling on until then. He’s prepared the ground to weather a defeat like yesterday’s. But how many can he handle? If there are several more, he may find it more than he can bear.

Cummings would doubtless be fired first, the sacrificial lamb to save his master. And then he too would go.

That means that there are two ways to be freed of BoJo’s baleful power: an election a while after Brexit, or more defeats in the coming weeks than he can withstand.

A glimmer of hope. Because in either of those situations, he would be gone. And the coup would be over.

It’s not over yet, but at least we can be more hopeful than at any other time in these first eight days of his drive for autocratic power.

Boris coup: Day 7

Day 7 of the Boris coup already. Time flies when you’re dismantling democracy.

Boris keeps using democratic language to mask his authoritarian intentions. He keeps piling it on. First, he threatened any fellow Conservative who opposed him in parliament with expulsion, meaning they wouldn’t be able to stand as Conservative candidates in any future election, ensuring their careers end ignominiously.

Now, he’s followed up on that threat by warning MPs that if Parliament votes to block a no-deal Brexit, he’ll call an election for 14 October. That would make the end of their careers much more imminent than they imagined. He feels it would focus their minds more clearly on the need to bow to his will.

You see? There’s nothing more democratic than an election. But in his hands, it becomes a blackmail threat to cow anyone with the guts to stand up to him.

Johson (l) and Corbyn may soon face off in an election
They both think they’re election winners but only one’s a truly redoubtable campaigner

It’s not entirely up to BoJo to call an election. He needs a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons. But the Labour leader Corbyn has been calling for an election for so long that he could hardly have his party vote against one now. He should, though: no opposition party has won an election from as low a poll standing as Labour currently enjoys (if ‘enjoy’ is the right word).

Corbynists try to comfort themselves with the thought that their man performed so much better than expected last time, in 2017. They forget that then he was up against Theresa May, who surprised most of us by turning out to be not just a mediocre campaigner but an absolutely lamentable one. Wooden, uncharismatic, constantly repeating the same phrase, “strong and stable”, long after voters had lost all enthusiasm for it.

As the coup experience has shown, Boris Johnson is a campaigner in a different league. He’s building a solid base in the electorate. It seems a near-certainty that he would win an election held in the next few weeks.

In fact, his greatest threat was from his right, from Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. But Farage has said he would stand down candidates if Johnson sticks firmly to pursuing a no-deal Brexit. And Johnson certainly will.

Not that he says as much. He still claims that he’s pursuing a new deal. But he has repeatedly made clear that such a deal would have to drop the so-called backstop to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic open. However, even the people he’s commissioned to find alternative solutions have told him they can’t.

As always with BoJo, most of what he says is simply smoke screen. Get through the smoke and you find more smoke. If you get right through all the layers, what you’ll find at the end is the one solid goal he has: Britain will leave the EU on 31 October, and will do so without a deal.

It’s his ability to deploy duplicity so effectively and capture support, even among people who know he’s lying, that makes him so redoubtable an adversary. I think some in Corbynist ranks are beginning to realise that. But, sadly, too few. 

And far too late.

Boris coup: Day 6

Confidence is surging in the Downing Street junta on Day 6 of the Boris coup.

Indeed, Boris Johnson is so sure of himself that he’s decided he can simply break off any further discussion with members of his own party who oppose a no-deal Brexit. Indeed he, or more likely Dominic Cummings, Lord High Executioner in this particular Junta, has decided that any Tory MP who votes against the government will have the whip withdrawn.

That means expulsion from the party and would prevent them standing in an election as Conservative candidates. Since expelling them would wipe out BoJo’s majority – currently one, with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland – that election could happen pretty soon after so drastic a step.

BoJo (l) and Philip Hammond
Once Cabinet colleagues, now friends no more

Two of the MPs targeted by this threat were until recently cabinet ministers: Philip Hammond, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and David Gauke, former Justice Minister. That makes the threat still more remarkable. Unprecedented, even. But BoJo has shown that he’s not going to be tied by dull old traditions like consultation or fair play, at least not if they seem to be roadblocks to his unbridled ambition for his own advancement.

Indeed, it’s hard to talk about BoJo as a conservative any more. The way he systematically trashes anything like convention or protocol means he’s conserving little. A true radical, indeed, happy to change anything that irritates him, as long as it’s from a right-wing perspective.

Hard right wing, at that. Today an independent MP, Nick Boles left the Conservative Party precisely over BoJo wing’s relentless drive for a hard Brexit. He told the BBC ‘Today’ programme this morning:

The hard right has taken over the Conservative party. The Conservative party has fallen prey to an almost religious obsession with the hardest form of Brexit.

Where does BoJo draw his confidence from? Well, that’s not difficult to discover. He’s decided, as many pollsters and commentators have realised, that there are enough voters out there simple enough to confuse authoritarianism with authority. What most of us identify in BoJo and Cummings as obsession and blinkered focus on their own desires, many voters take as strength and firmness. And they like them.

That’s what BoJo’s gambling on. That there are enough of these simple souls to see them through to victory. A bold stance, but then nobody can question this coup leader’s boldness, whatever other qualities he may lack.

And it may pay off.

Boris Coup: Day 4

Day 4 of BoJo’s coup dawns bright and fair.

We find cracks appearing even in the ruling junta. Sajid Javid, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is unhappy. Javid’s nominally a key figure in Boris Johnson’s administration, but in reality he’s a cypher in a government being run by a special adviser called Dominic Cummings.

Cummings was Campaign Director of the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 Referendum. As such, he was a foremost exponent of mendacity in a campaign not unduly marked by truth-telling.

He is credited with having come up with the powerful, because beautifully simple, slogan “take back control”. Now we’re learning just what he meant by that.

Only unofficially is he BoJo’s chief of staff. Only unofficially is he running the whole Downing Street operation. Only unofficially but with great impact.

Sonia Khan, ardent Brexiter but fired by Cummings, who wasn’t her boss.
Her face didn’t fit, apparently. And one wonders why...

For instance, he took it upon himself on Friday to fire Javid’s media adviser, Sonia Khan, without even consulting her boss. It’s not clear what she was accused of, since she’s a committed Brexiter and she denies having done anything disloyal. She may simply have been the wrong gender (Cummings is clearing out women) and perhaps the wrong ethnicity (which suggests Javid is even more vulnerable than it seems).

In any case, Cummings is clear that anyone who doesn’t like his management style can simply go forth and multiply.

I write “go forth and multiply” because I don’t want to write “fuck off” here.

At any rate, if this is how the junta treats BoJo’s allies, it sends a chilling message about the fate that awaits those who oppose him.

Meanwhile, a group of 50 MPs has decided to continue meeting as an alternative Parliament, outside the House of Commons, once the prorogation comes into effect.

That’s just a gesture, but one to be applauded. It’s only a gesture, because what authority would an alternative parliament have? But it’s to be applauded because gestures matter. After all, the prorogation itself is only a gesture. It’s due to last just five weeks. But it matters because it’s BoJo’s way of saying, “if Parliament gets up my nose, I can just sweep it away”.

The alternative parliament is MPs response to that, saying “we won’t go far. And we’ll keep right on getting up your nose”.

A courageous, principled gesture. Led by courageous, principled people. David Lammy from Labour, or instance. Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Democrats. Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. A few Conservatives

Is a name conspicuous for its absence? Why, yes. Jeremy Corbyn, nominally leader of the Labour Party, isn’t with this group.

It seems that when the courageous and principled foregather, Jeremy Corbyn is otherwise engaged.