Section:GDN 1J PaGe:2 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 19:28 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Thursday 29 Aug ust 2019
2
indeed consider the democratic validity
of any instruction to facilitate a no-deal
Brexit without parliamentary assent. A
no-deal Brexit was never proposed in the referendum,
three-quarters of the public are against it, along with the
overwhelming majority of MPs. Johnson has not been
elected, commands no majority, avoids interviews and
now sends parliament away. Consider, in her favour,
how many times Theresa May was willing to stand in
parliament taking the pain on Brexit statements for hour
after hour, out of respect for parliament.
What prompted Johnson was Jeremy Corbyn
convening opposition parties to agree a strategy against
a no-deal Brexit. Their unwanted amicable solidarity
looked suddenly threatening: they would agree a
legislative procedure and call a vote of no confi dence
- which only the leader of the opposition can do – only
if all else fail ed. That was the trigger. Johnson was
hoping for a vote of no confi dence so he could call an
instant election. He could present himself as the martyr,
forced to go the country by MPs hostile to the will of the
people. All is ready to go for his election campaign. Next
Wednesday brings the chancellor’s spending review , a
cornucopia of promises on all those things the public
notice, and none to repay the decade-long stripping out
of benefi ts or to repair the services unseen by voters,
where people suff er silently and the social fabric frays.
Expect spending of an unmatched electoral cynicism.
Dominic Cummings , who runs Johnson as an
iron puppet master, has a grid of people-pleasers to
announce every day until election day. He told last
Friday’s weekly advisers’ meeting that “ there will be
billions and billions and billions of pounds ” for the
Treasury to splash, reported the Sunday Times. He
imitated Donald Trump: “It’s going to be the most
beautiful spending round you’ve ever seen.” Then he
boasted : “After this meeting I’m going to go and meet
billionaire hedge fund managers and get a giant pot
of cash from them ” to build an election war chest of
unfathomable depth.
Presumably these “private” briefi ngs are leaked
weekly to terrify the enemy, perhaps to warn off Corbyn
from precipitating an election with a no-confi dence
vote. But insiders say that in the war room there is
no such arrogant certainty that Johnson would win.
Electoral calculations fl ash danger from the Brexit
party if they take no more than 10% of the vote. But any
electoral pact with hard-right Nigel Farage pledging a
no-deal Brexit would risk horrifying moderate Tories,
driving remaining anti-Brexiters into Liberal Democrat
arms. Squeezed on two sides, seats may not fall
according to the polls’ modest Boris bounce.
This aggressive provocation of parliament widens the
great Brexit divide into a civil war state of mind. This is
the battleground Johnson seeks – himself as roguish,
freewheeling representative of the people’s will,
defender of the referendum versus the Westminster
establishment and the elite, as represented by
MPs elected to parliament. Explosive, dangerous,
unresolvable, David Cameron’s reckless, Tory-pleasing
referendum cut right through the constitution, and
now it lies badly damaged.
This assault on parliament is galvanising those soft
Tory opponents who were prevaricating, the ones who
preferred to wait until late October to give Johnson
a chance to strike a new EU deal. Now, say Dominic
Grieve and others, they all realise the one week before
prorogation must be used to legislate against a no-deal
Brexit. There is just time, there are manoeuvres, from
seizing the timetable to a humble address and other
ingenious devices murmured sotto voce lest the
government hear their plans. It can be done, must be
done, it’s too late to wait until they return in October.
The war for public hearts and minds has hardly
begun. Which side will people lean, towards a sense
their constitution and their parliament has been
outraged by a revolutionary right winger? Or will they go
with Johnson as the true representative of the people,
leading angry Brexiters to their hearts’ desire? He has
the advantage of the great claque of the 80% Tory
press urging him on. This is only step one of Johnson’s
“ by any means necessary” threat. Expect more such
“means” yet to come.
Boris Johnson has written many dishonest things in
his life, but few as consequential as the letter sent
yesterday to MPs explaining his decision to seek a
prorogation of parliament. The prime minister says
that a new Commons session is needed to enact a “bold
and ambitious legislative agenda”. To that end the
current session must be closed. His plan envisages a
Queen’s speech in the middle of October
No one is fooled, although government ministers
make fools of themselves by parroting their leader’s
line. Prorogation is a device to silence parliament
during a critical period approaching the 31 October
Brexit deadline. Mr Johnson cannot be sure of majority
support in the Commons for a withdrawal agreement
and he would certainly not have the numbers for
leaving the EU without one. So he wants to dispense
with legislative scrutiny altogether.
The chosen method for pursuing that goal observes
the letter of the law, but in spirit it is revolutionary and
dangerous. John Bercow, the Commons speaker, calls
it a “constitutional outrage” and opposition MPs have
decried what they see as a full-frontal assault on British
democracy. At the intemperate end of the rhetorical
spectrum (amplifi ed on social media), Mr Johnson’s
move is decried as a “coup” and a step down the
slippery slope towards dictatorship.
Hyperbole is inevitable at times of political stress
and it is true that Mr Johnson is pushing the UK into a
constitutional crisis. But to properly assess the gravity
of the situation it helps also to keep it in perspective.
This is a cynical, premeditated blow against the
principle of parliamentary democracy but it is not a
total subversion of the constitutional order on a par
with a military putsch. The prime minister is exhibiting
the irresponsible arrogance of which he has long been
known capable. But he is also operating within the
Football is about more than money, however much
lucre has come to shape the beautiful game. Over this
summer, English top-tier clubs had spent a total of
£1.41bn, with Manchester United shelling out a world
record fee on a defender of £80m for Leicester City’s
Harry Maguire. Yet these amounts and the teams
that spend them are symptoms of an unsentimental
business model that is indiff erent to tradition, place
and practice. It is eroding the sense that many football
clubs are a central and vital part of people’s identity.
That is why the end of Bury Football Club after
134 years is important. Before it was shut, 400
supporters had volunteered to mop and sweep the
Gigg Lane ground hoping to show that the true value
of their football club cannot be counted in pounds
and pennies. Bury FC was the town’s pride until 5pm
on Tuesday. The club disappeared after prospective
buyers said that there were “systemic failings” that
could not be overcome. With capitalism increasingly
dominating community as the driving force in modern
football, other clubs could risk a similar fate.
Bury’s mayor, David Jones, said the club’s demise
would be the last nail in the town’s coffi n. He has a
point. Since 2010, the council has suff ered cuts of £85m,
technical parameters of what the British political
system allows in all its archaic peculiarity.
That is what makes prorogation so devious. Like
any confi dence trickster, Mr Johnson knows how to
leaven a deception with fl ecks of truth. He is correct
in asserting that the current Commons session has
been unusually long, that the fl ow of legislation dried
up months ago and that a new government is entitled
to set out its stall. Under normal circumstances,
prorogation this autumn would be in order – overdue,
in fact. But nothing about the present circumstances
is normal. In a matter of weeks, the UK faces a total
overhaul in economic, diplomatic and strategic
relations with the rest of the world. The prime
minister and his cabinet have signalled explicitly
that they do not care how much damage is done in
the process. They would choose ruin over delay.
This is a time when the checks and balances of a
parliamentary democracy must operate vigorously.
When Mr Johnson asserts that there will be “ample
time” to debate Brexit before the deadline, he insults
every MP who cares about a functional relationship
between Britain and the rest of Europe. The off ence
is intentional. It is a provocation to sharpen dividing
lines between Brexit ultras and the rest. If the
prime minister’s eff orts to sideline parliament
fail, he could fi nd himself in an election. Ramping
up confrontation with “remainer” opponents –
caricatured in campaign terms as an establishment
hell-bent on subverting the “will of the people” – is
one way of anticipating that scenario.
But it is not just remainers who are appalled
by Mr Johnson’s behaviour. Prorogation is an
exercise of royal prerogative that is tolerable in a
modern democracy only insofar as it is ceremonial.
Its deployment by a prime minister without an
electoral mandate of his own, in pursuit of a
partisan agenda for which there is no Commons
majority, represents a grotesque abuse of the
country’s highest political offi ce. Mr Johnson
is hijacking powers symbolically vested in the
crown and wielding them in aggression against his
parliamentary opponents. That he does it in pursuit
of a hard Brexit is distressing for pro-Europeans. That
he is p repared to do it at all should alarm everyone
who values the traditions of British democracy.
61% of its annual budget. Several libraries, those
other cherished emblems of small-town identity,
have closed. A hard Brexit may well make matters
worse – it’s predicted to shrink the north-west of
England’s economy by 12%. Bury’s football team
has also suff ered from their proximity to two of the
world’s most famous football brands: Manchester’s
City and United. Both have been bankrolled by
foreign billionaires. How could a humble League One
team compete on that playing fi eld? Bury’s Metrolink
tram service to central Manchester, which has made
the town more attractive for young commuters,
might also have encouraged football fans to for go
Gigg Lane, and instead travel to the Etihad or Old
Traff ord to see the Premier League’s highest-paid
players , Kevin De Bruyne (£350,000 a week) at City
and Paul Pogba (£290,000) at United.
Today, football typifi es British inequality. At
Tottenham Hostpur’s new stadium, for instance, the
elite “ H Club ” pay an estimated £30,000 a season for
their seats, and are off ered carefully sourced half-
time cheeses and the chance to drink beers from the
in-stadium microbrewery. Bury, by contrast, is not a
club of big cheeses. Bury was formed from teams of
football-loving Victorian churchgoers. It was brought
low by Mammon: ending life as an asset-stripped
shell , sunk by debt and mortgaged to a company
based in Malta via the British Virgin Islands.
It’s too soon to say if Bury FC’s fanbase can bring the
club back from the dead. AFC Wimbledon ’s rise from the
ashes may off er a precedent. For now, an unfashionable
club in a small English town has been destroyed by
speculative capital while the football authorities paid
insuffi cient attention. Bury deserved better.
Continued from front
The collapse of Bury FC
shows the beautiful
game at its most ugly
Football
Brexit
Johnson’s ploy to silence
MPs undermines the
foundations of democracy
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust No 53 ,812
‘Comment is free... but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
A civil war state of mind now
threatens our democracy
Polly Toynbee
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