The Daily Telegraph - 29.08.2019

Sept 21
Labour party conference
begins in Brighton. Jeremy
Corbyn likely to give speech on
Sept 25.

Sept 29

Conservative party conference

begins in Manchester.

Oct 2

Boris Johnson expected to

address the Tory conference.

Oct 14

State Opening of Parliament,

including Queen’s Speech, left.

Oct 17-

EU summit in Brussels.

Oct 21-

Parliament likely to hold series

of votes on Queen’s Speech.

Oct 31

Britain due to leave the EU.

Anti-democratic Remainers

will be the culpable ones if

we end up with a hard Brexit

June 12

At the launch of

his leadership

campaign, Boris

Johnson told

MPs he was

“strongly not

attracted to”

proroguing

Parliament.

June 27

During the

leadership

campaign

hustings event

in Bournemouth,

Mr Johnson said:

“I don’t envisage

circumstances in

which it will be

necessary to

prorogue

Parliament, nor

am I attracted to

that expedient.”

June 28

At a hustings

event in Exeter

he said: “When

it comes to

weird devices

such as

prorogation I

am certainly not

attracted. There

are all sorts of

things that

remain on

the table but

it’s a big and

conspicuous

table. But I am

not remotely

attracted to that

kind of device,

that kind of fiat

by executive.”

July 9

When the

possibility of

suspending

parliament was

raised during a

televised debate

with Jeremy

Hunt, his

leadership rival,

Mr Johnson said:

“I’m not going to

take anything off

the table, any

more than I’m

going to take

no-deal off the

table.”

August 26

Asked at the

G7 summit

in Biarritz

whether he

could prorogue

Parliament,

Mr Johnson

said: “I rely on

[our Members

of Parliament]

to do the right

thing and

honour the

pledge that

they made

to the people

of this

country.”

A different

tune How the

PM changed

his mind

Nikki

da Costa

If Mr Cummings

is Downing

Street’s bad cop,

Nikki da Costa

fulfils the good

cop role.

After serving as

Theresa May’s

director of

legislative

affairs, Ms Da

Costa quit in

protest at her

Brexit plan.

After spending

eight months

outside

Westminster,

she returned to

help the new

regime.

An expert on

parliamentary

procedure, Ms

Da Costa will

no doubt work

with Mr

Cummings to

craft a series

of procedural

snakes and

ladders to

ensure Brexit

goes through

on Oct 31.

Jacob

Rees-Mogg

The former head

of the European

Research Group

of Brexiteer

Conservative

MPs is a stickler

for tradition

and

convention,

and is

relishing his

role at the

centre of

these

constitutional

manoeuvrings.

He was

dispatched to

Balmoral to meet

the Queen to

request

Parliament be

prorogued,

underlining his

importance to

Mr Johnson’s

regime. He said

the shutdown

was the “normal

functioning of

our constitution”.

Mr Rees-Mogg

will be under

pressure from

angry Remain-

backing MPs,

and an extremely

perturbed John

Bercow, the

Commons

Speaker, next

time he is at the

Dispatch Box,

but his calm

style should see

him sail through

any storms. His

grasp of

parliamentary

history will no

doubt be

exhibited with

gentle, but

effective, venom.

F

inally we know that Parliament is

to be prorogued with a new

Queen’s Speech under our new

Prime Minister to be held on Oct 14.

This should surprise no one. Not only

is it normal practice for a new premier

to set out a new parliamentary

programme but this current session

has been the longest since the English

Civil War.

The reaction from the hardcore

Remainers will be predictable and

voluble, despite the fact that the

timetable is little different from that

already proposed to make room for the

party conferences. Expect lots of

hyperbole about a democratic crisis

from the usual suspects.

They have been in denial about the

referendum result from the start.

Rather than admitting defeat, they

have retreated into the ultimate echo

chamber of self-justification, egged on

by the metropolitan liberal elite, their

media allies and the chatterati.

Their recent talk about a

government of national unity

registered on the pathological scale of

political self-delusion. In their parallel

universe it does not seem odd to

imagine a so-called unity government

that is specifically designed to exclude

representatives of the majority who

won the referendum.

None of this should come as a

surprise, for their stunning hypocrisy,

opportunism and sheer undemocratic

bias has been visible for the past three

years. While some of them persist

with their rhetoric about “wanting

the right deal”, in reality they will

never agree to any deal as their real

aim is to try to thwart Brexit itself.

Jeremy Corbyn may be no fan of the

EU, and many suspect he voted Leave,

but the current debate allows him to

castigate capitalism, the corporate

world and the US with total abandon.

Labour have always tried to be

Remainers in the South and Leavers in

the North. In throwing in their lot with

the southern metropolitans, they run

the risk of permanently alienating

many of those who have been their

most loyal supporters. Their new

friends just cannot accept that voters,

like me, were stupid enough and

audacious enough to disregard their

advice.

Like many MPs, my postbag is

currently full of letters that generally

begin “I want to express my concern

about the Government’s willingness to

implement a no-deal Brexit” before

going on to set out a range of

difficulties that might be encountered.

I reply to them that I voted to leave the

European Union with a deal on three

occasions in the House of Commons

alongside 90 per cent of the

Conservative parliamentary party,

including, in the last vote, the current

Prime Minister.

I believe that leaving the EU with a

fair deal that involves an element of

compromise and adjustment makes

sense. I hope that Boris Johnson is able

to achieve this, even at this late hour.

But let us be crystal clear.

If the alternative to a no-deal Brexit

is an attempt to undermine the

result of a democratic referendum

and have no Brexit at all, then a

no-deal it will have to be. I cannot

countenance any attempt to block the

referendum result, for to do so would

be a historic betrayal.

I have advised my correspondents

that there is no point writing to those

of us who have already voted for a

deal. It makes much more sense to

write to the leaders and MPs of the

Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats

and the SNP, who have consistently

voted against leaving with a deal, thus

making leaving without one more

likely. The prorogation of Parliament

will make it more difficult to block

Brexit itself but they will be the ones

who are culpable for any disruptions

resulting from their anti-democratic

tendencies.

Some of us voted for Theresa May’s

deal with a large number of

reservations and a heavy heart but

believed that in doing so it served the

national interest, however imperfectly.

We will not stand by and let the

humbug and cant of the hardcore

Remainers detract from their own

responsibility if, as they themselves

describe it, we end up in a “hard

Brexit” with unwanted economic

impacts. Choices have consequences,

even in the parallel Remainers

universe.

Liam Fox is MP for North Somerset and

a former international trade secretary

Wednesday morning, and even the
ministers who knew about it in ad-
vance only told their most senior staff
about it on Tuesday night.”
Mr Johnson’s decision to bring in Mr
Gove, the man who scuppered his lead-
ership ambitions in 2016 and ran
against him again this year, will be seen
as a final redemption for the man
whose loyalty had been called into
question.
Mr Javid, meanwhile, had been in on
the discussions for some time and
when he was told on Tuesday to cancel
his first major speech as Chancellor –
due to have happened yesterday – he
was aware that Aug 28 had been nailed
down as D-Day for the prorogation an-
nouncement.
The Government had claimed the
speech had been cancelled because a
major spending review next week
would take its place – a classic diver-
sionary tactic by No 10.
Mr Rees-Mogg, as Leader of the
Commons, along with Baroness Evans
and Mr Spencer in their roles, had been
earmarked from an early stage as the
privy counsellors who would meet the
Queen to make the formal request that

she end the current parliamentary ses-

sion, which began in June 2017.

Mr Rees-Mogg, who is in charge of

setting out parliamentary business,

was a natural choice, not only because

of his role, but because he is fiercely

loyal to Mr Johnson and a pivotal link

between the Government and back-

bench Brexiteers, as a former chairman

of the European Research Group of

Tory Eurosceptics.

So it was that Mr Rees-Mogg boarded

a flight at Heathrow yesterday morn-

ing, making sure he was not seen with

his cohorts.

One government source said: “If an-

yone had seen all three of them getting

on a plane together, it might have been

a bit obvious. It was like Napoleon hav-

ing La Grande Armée going in different

sections to confuse the enemy.”

But hours earlier, news of a Privy

Council meeting had started to reach

the ears of Remain-supporting MPs.

One senior SNP figure described get-

ting a phone call at 2am and staying up

for the rest of the night to alert as many

people as possible. The Scottish MP

claimed the leak “came out from No 10”.

By 8.30am, news had reached Nick

Liam Fox

‘The current debate

allows Jeremy

Corbyn to castigate

capitalism, the

corporate world

and the US with

total abandon’

Robinson, the presenter of the Today

programme on BBC Radio 4, who

tweeted the rumour that an announce-

ment on prorogation was coming.

Just half an hour later, with other

journalists getting similar tip-offs,

Downing Street was forced to confirm

the story was true.

A government source said: “The an-

nouncement was supposed to have

been in the afternoon, after Jacob and

the other ministers had sat down with

the Queen.

“But everything had to be brought

forward after it became obvious the

news was going to break much sooner

than that.

“The Prime Minister spoke to the

Queen before anything was made pub-

lic, then he held a 25-minute confer-

ence call with the Cabinet to tell them

what was happening.”

Mr Rees-Mogg had boarded the

flight to Scotland carrying a copy of

Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben

Schott, featuring the celebrated crea-

tions of PG Wodehouse. By the time he

landed in Aberdeen, his mission had

more of the air of Bertie Wooster than

of the unflappable Jeeves.

The Daily Telegraph Thursday 29 August 2019 *** 5

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