Daily Mail - 29.08.2019

Page ^ Daily Mail, Thursday, August 29, 2019

A howl of outrage as

protests hit the streets

BATTLE FOR BREXIT

You will not f*** with my

children’s future. You will

not destroy the freedoms

my grandfather fought two

world wars to defend. F***

off you over-promoted rubber

bath toy. Britain is revolted

by you and your little gang

of masturbatory prefects.

HIS TWEET

Hugh Grant

@HackedOffHugh

the cancellation of Brexit. All peti-
tions with more than 100,000 signa-
tures are guaranteed a debate in
the Commons.
And high-profile figures took to
Twitter to voice their anger. Hugh
Grant lashed out at Mr Johnson,
branding him an ‘over-promoted
rubber bath toy’, adding: ‘You will
not f*** with my children’s future.
You will not destroy the freedoms
my grandfather fought two World
Wars to defend.’
But as an estimated 5,000 pro-
testers gathered in Parliament

Square, Tory MPs called for calm.

Richard Benyon, Tory MP for New-

bury, said: ‘Unwelcome news for

some but on doorsteps this morn-

ing the great British public are a

lot more calm and sensible than

most in Westminster village. PM

has a window now to get a deal. I

am going to cut him some slack.’

Simon Clarke added: ‘In 400 years

we haven’t had a session of Parlia-

ment that’s lasted as long as this.

We need a Queen’s Speech to set

out a bold agenda for after we leave

the EU... There will still be time for

a withdrawal agreement if terms

are agreed.’

The Prime Minister’s announce-

ment sparked fury online. Labour’s

Mr Lewis tweeted: ‘If Boris shuts

down Parliament to carry out his

No-Deal Brexit, I and other MPs

will defend democracy.

‘The police will have to remove us

from the chamber. We will call on

people to take to the streets.’

Miss Butler added: ‘Boris cannot

be allowed to close Parliament. I

along with my colleagues will

occupy Parliament.’ Labour back-

bencher Lloyd Russell-Moyle

accused Mr Johnson of having

staged an ‘immoral and outrageous

attempted coup’. He said a general

strike was the ‘only way forward to

stop our country falling into the

hands of the undemocratic Right’.

Colleague David Lammy tweeted:

‘If Parliament is silenced on the

biggest issue of our time we must

take to the streets in peaceful pro-

test and civil disobedience.’ Lib

Dem MP Chuka Umunna said: ‘The

Prime Minister is behaving like a

tin-pot dictator, pure and simple,

and the People’s Parliament will

not stand for it.’

And Scottish First Minister

Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘Boris John-

son is acting more like a dictator

than a prime minister.’

Asked about plans by a cross-

party group of MPs to hold an

alternative parliament, Labour

leader Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘We will

do everything that we can.’

REMAINER MPs and cam-
paigners last night threatened

a Commons sit-in, street pro-

tests and even a general strike

in defiance of Boris Johnson’s

prorogation of Parliament.
As furious EU supporters accused
the Prime Minister of acting like a
‘dictator’, Labour’s Treasury
spokesman Clive Lewis challenged
police to tear him from the Cham-
ber when the Commons shuts down
in early September.
Equalities spokesman Dawn Butler
threatened to ‘occupy’ the building –

By Daniel Martin

Policy Editor MPS — AND HACKED OFF HUGH — JOIN BACKLASH

Police will have to

remove us from

the Chamber. We

will call on people

to take to streets

Labour MP

Clive Lewis

‘

’

We must take to

streets in peaceful

protest – and MPs

must refuse to

leave the Chamber

Green MP

Caroline Lucas

‘

’

Today will go

down in history as

dark indeed for

UK democracy

‘

’

SNP First Minister

Nicola Sturgeon

PM is behaving

like a tin-pot

dictator... People’s

Parliament will

not stand for it

‘

’

Lib Dem MP

Chuka Umunna

‘Immoral and

outrageous’

HENRY DEEDES

...on the hyperbolic reaction

to the PM’s gutsy strategy

Cross? You could hear

the twisted knicker

elastic twanging

all down Whitehall

A

N affront to democracy! Dis-

grace! An abom-in-ayasss-

hunn! Outrage. Everywhere

you looked in Westminster

yesterday there it was, flow-

ing through the streets like bub-

bling hot magma.
Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parlia-
ment in the second week of September
ahead of the Queen’s Speech – thus shorten-
ing the amount of time MPs have to stop a
No Deal Brexit – was a gutsy piece of consti-
tutional chicanery that will have rattled
crockery over in Brussels.
It also had the added bonus of working
shrieky Remainers into a soapy lather of
righteous indignation. ‘How dare he bend
parliamentary procedure to suit his own
ends!’, they yelled. ‘That’s our trick!’
Cross? You could almost hear the sound of
twisted knicker elastic twanging all the way
down Whitehall. No sooner had news of the
Prime Minister’s intentions broken just
before 9am than media outlets fizzed with
fury and hyperbolic rage.
Words like ‘despot’ and ‘tin-pot dictator’
were used. ‘A dark day for democracy’ was
another phrase bandied around. This from
the same bunch of EU enthusiasts who two
weeks ago wanted to install Ken Clarke as
prime minister. Dominic Grieve could hardly
have finished applying his hair oil in front of

the bathroom mirror before he was on the

blower to BBC 5 Live. ‘Outrageous,’ was the

cadaverous QC’s verdict on the PM’s tactics.

‘There will be a vote of no confidence and his

government will come down.’

Over on Sky News, Change UK leader Anna

Soubry was blowing a gasket. She was doing

her interview via webcam, never a wise move.

They’d make even Grace Kelly at her scrum-

miest look ropey. Staring into the lens

inquisitively, poor Soubers resembled a door-

to-door salesman peering into a peephole.

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson was

predictably foaming. ‘An outrageous power

grab,’ she said. Outrage, it seems, is priggish

Ms Swinson’s default setting. It doesn’t take

much to get that implacable Scottish lilt of

hers quivering. In her student days, she

probably suggested walk-outs if the union

lavs began dispensing a new brand of soap.

‘A smash and grab on democracy,’ said Jer-

emy Corbyn, so slow off the mark to react his

comments hardly registered.

Former head of the Civil Service Lord Kers-

lake, in the morose tone of a man who’d just

said a last goodbye to the family spaniel,

declared it a ‘bad day’. Quelle surprise – the

Sir Humphreys loathe bold thinking of any

sort from government.

Meanwhile, outside Parliament, an ‘emer-

gency protest’ was being hosted by Owen

Jones, a publicity-prone Corbynite agitator,

and the saturnine creatures from Momen-

tum. A few thousand people flocked into

College Green, the area usually reserved for

TV cameras. People spewed into the streets

while police held things up.

T

HE pro-EU circus folk who hang

out in these parts all day were

there, of course. And various other

stragglers, some who had simply

popped over for a look-in on their way home.

I spotted lustrously-maned intellectual AC

Grayling, who couldn’t have looked less com-

fortable among the gathered oddballs if he

were wearing a goatskin sweater. ‘This is an

unconscionable and absolutely unspeakable

insult to Parliament and our parliamentary

democracy,’ he fumed.

There were bawdy signs, witless banners,

chants of ‘Stop the Coup’. At one point, a

bus full of Japanese tourists cruised past, its

occupants looking out as though they were

witnessing some of sort of bizarre ceremony

of a religious cult.

I struggled to hear what any of the speak-

ers were saying. The PA system was so

scratchy it sounded as though it fallen off the

back of an old Radio Rentals van circa 1985.

At 6.30pm, the sun began to make its languid

descent behind Westminster Abbey. Autumn

may be around the corner but things are cer-

tainly heating up again in Westminster.

while another Labour MP called for a
general strike.
And Green MP Caroline Lucas
demanded people ‘take to the streets’
to overturn Mr Johnson’s ‘coup’.
As crowds gathered in London and
Brighton last night, more than 850,
had signed a petition on the parlia-
mentary website against prorogation
without an extension to Article 50 or