Section:GDN 1J PaGe:3 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 19:17 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Thursday 29 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •
3
Owen
Jones
C
all the suspension of parliament what it
is: a coup d’état by an unelected prime
minister. Brexit, we were promised,
was about restoring the sovereignty of
the House of Commons and taking back
control of our laws. That institution is
now to be shut down, its ability to pass
legislation neutered. Just days now
remain for elected representatives to have any say over
the greatest upheaval since the guns fell silent in the
second world war. It must be, and will be, resisted.
Let us nail this perverse lie that forcing through
no deal is honouring the referendum result. The offi cial
leave campaigns made it abundantly clear that Brexit
would mean a deal, and an easily negotiated one too.
Don’t believe me? Listen to the co-convenor of Vote
Leave, Michael Gove himself : “But we didn’t vote to
leave without a deal. That wasn’t the message of the
campaign I helped lead. ”
During that referendum campaign, Nigel Farage
extolled the virtues of Norway as a nation prosper ing
outside the stultifying confi nes of the EU ; yet emulating
that shining Nordic example is now dismissed as Brexit
In Name Only. A year after the referendum, the British
people had their democratic say once again. Some
54% of them voted for parties ruling out no deal. A
majority of the elected representatives they voted for
oppose no deal. Parliament is being shut down to drive
through an extreme proposition for which there is zero
democratic mandate.
Consider this thought experiment. Jeremy Corbyn
is prime minister, despite never winning a general
election. His party lacks a majority, and is dependent
on the support of the Scottish National party, support
he secured in exchange for bunging them a legal bribe.
He wishes to impose a radical proposal which, by any
objective measure, will result in a self-infl icted economic
shock, damage the country’s social fabric and leave us
internationally weakened. Knowing that parliament
opposes such a measure, he simply suspends it. Imagine
the hysteria, the cries of Venezuela, of communist
tyranny. Where Johnson’s assault on democracy is
normalised, if a Prime Minister Corbyn attempted it, the
forces of the establishment would intervene to thwart it,
whatever it took.Protesters at the
gates of No 10
yesterday
PHOTOGRAPH:
WILL OLIVER/EPATo prorogue is to “suspend parliamentary
democracy”, and that “goes against everything that
those men who waded on to those beaches fought and
died for ”. Dramatic words , you might think: they were
uttered by Matt Hancock , now in Johnson’s cabinet,
who – as a supine careerist devoid of principle – will
likely now cheerfully champion this anti-democratic
disgrace. But he was right. This is an attack on a
democracy fought for through the blood and sacrifi ce
of our ancestors. To allow a cabal of pampered public
school hacks, whose only interest is the survival of
the Conservative party and their own careers, and for
whom this is all a rather drol l and amusing game, to
trash democracy like their Bullingdon Club once trashed
restaurants in their tops and tails – it is intolerable.
Writing to the Queen is not going to save you , no
matter how many letters are sen t her way. Petitions
may show strength of feeling but can be ignored. Witty
placards featuring crude innuendos about the prime
minister will raise a smile and brighten up a protest, but
they will not topple governments. Our existing rights
and freedoms were not given as acts of charity from
benefi cent elites – they were secured through relentless,
determined struggle. Democracy is menaced, and it is
th is tradition which must be relied on to defend it.
The British people must now take to the streets, and
deploy the tactic used by their ancestors to secure the
rights of women, of workers, of minorities, of LGBTQ
people: peaceful civil disobedience. If parliament is
to be shut down, MPs must refuse to leave it. It should
be occupied by the citizens it exists to serve. Other
acts of peaceful civil disobedience – including the
occupation of government offi ces across the country –
should follow. If a general strike is necessary to defend
democracy, then so be it.T
he prime minister – a self-professed
champion of bankers who wishes
to shower the rich with tax cuts,
deregulat e and attack workers’ rights- is farcically trying to portray himself
as a tribune of the people against the
elites. His latest manoeuvre must
be exposed as an act of hubris by
an unaccountable political elite with contempt for
democracy. The protest movement that must now
emerge must draw the true battle-lines ahead of an
impending general election. It must not be simply be
a contest defi ned by how we voted one summer’s day
in 2016. It will be a fi ght between those who create the
wealth and the elites who hoard it; between those who
paid for the crash and those who caused it; between
those who pay their taxes and those who dodge them.
However much the Conservative establishment dress
themselves in revolutionary garb , they are the political
representatives of those who fund them – not those who
sleeplessly stare at ceilings in the early hours, panicking
over unopened energy bills on kitchen tables, but the
hedge fund managers, poverty-paying bosses and
bankers who plunged Britain into the abyss, for whom
this country is a playground in which to run riot, while
others pick up the bill. If no deal happens, the Tories
will look after their own – they always do – while the
ex-mining and steel and industrial communities trashed
by their predecessors will suff er a renewed kicking.
But none of this is inevitable: and, just as our ancestors
fought with determination and courage to win our
rights, it now falls to us to defend them.
It now falls to
us to defend
our parliament
from this abuse
Opinion
The PM – a
champion of
bankers – is farcically
trying to portray
himself as a tribune
of the people against
the elites
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