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 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.