Daily Mail, Thursday, August 29, 2019 Page 11
QQQ
ment. Well, they now know how
the rest of us feels about the
undemocratic shenanigans to try
to block the referendum decision.
The people made a decision and
it’s the politicians’ job to enact it.
JILL McGARRY,
Nantwich, Cheshire.
BY SUSPENDING Parliament, Boris
Johnson is attempting to
preserve democracy. MPs have
used every trick in the book to
try to stop our country severing
ties with the corrupt EU. It’s
farcical to think there are two
different types of democracy: a
parliamentary one and one
designed for the rest of us.
KEITH DUNWELL,
Aberford, W. Yorks.
AT LAST we have a decisive Prime
Minister who has pledged to
respect the people’s vote. Parlia-
ment has had plenty of time to
thrash out an exit policy. They
have failed for three years and no
matter how many extensions they
ask for they will never agree.
M. R. GRIBBLE, Bristol.
AND THOSE
WHO DISAGREE...
BORIS is showing his true
colours. He is not a democratic
leader, but a despot.
VALERIE CREWS,
Beckenham, Kent.
MISGUIDED as the 17.4 million
lemmings were, they did not vote
for No Deal or for Boris Johnson to
suspend Parliament. He is trying
to force a No Deal while parlia-
mentary power is subverted.
The situation we are in has edged
us towards a second referendum.
Then the sensible and intelligent
will smile as Article 50 is revoked
and we bring this folly to an end.
Name supplied, Manchester.
THE outrageous hypocrisy of
Boris Johnson in claiming
opposition by Remain MPs is
undemocratic. He is utilising the
same tactics that Hitler used in
the Thirties to gain power.
B. H. COLE,
Market Bosworth, Leics.
under existing law to leave the
EU — that would have been a
bad thing, as I suggested in these
pages not long ago.
B
UT it is ridiculous to
represent yesterday’s
announcement as an
assault on the British
constitution and the rule of law.
In more ways than one, this
Brexit business is driving the
whole country bonkers.
I do admit to registering a qualm
or two that Boris Johnson is leav-
ing the Commons less scope to
exercise its democratic rights and
come up with alternative propos-
als. But only a qualm or two. No
more. Let me explain why.
In the first place, MPs have had
three years to agree a plan and
have not yet done so. They’ve
debated and voted and argued
for thousands of hours without
being able to settle on a
resolution which commands
majority support.
The second reason I’m not
going to join a march in favour of
MPs’ rights is that under the
new arrangements they will still
have plenty of opportunity to
upset Mr Johnson’s applecart —
if they are able to come up with
a common strategy, which
remains somewhat doubtful.
When the Commons reassem-
bles next Tuesday, the outraged
Mr Bercow and the distraught
Mr Grieve and the disgruntled
Philip Hammond (until recently
Chancellor of the Exchequer)
will re-double their efforts to
force the Prime Minister to post-
pone, or reverse, Brexit.
Whether they will succeed is
another matter because they
may not have the numbers, and
there are as many shades of
Remainer opinion as there used
to be varieties of Heinz. But
they’ll have their chance next
week and the beginning of the
following week, and after
October 14.
And Jeremy Corbyn (who
disgracefully attempted to drag
the poor Queen into this mess by
demanding a meeting with her)
can also have a shot and call a
motion of No Confidence in the
Government next week, or when
the Commons returns.
I wonder whether he will,
though, because Labour is
floundering in the polls, and would
be unlikely to flourish in the elec-
tion that would inevitably follow
such a motion being passed.
By the way, let me point out in
a spirit of even-handedness that
Remainers howling about the
Prime Minister’s unconstitu-
tional behaviour are often the
same people who have been
preparing to bend, twist and
otherwise ignore constitutional
precedent by seizing power from
the Government so that they
can pack Boris Johnson off to
Brussels to beg an extension.
It was the spectacle of scheming
Remainers on Tuesday, brewing
up their latest plans to trip
him up, that must have finally
made up his mind to undertake
some modest proroguing.
So for all these reasons, I am
keeping my qualms about this
alleged democratic ‘outrage’ — a
word as overused by Remainers
as is ‘catastrophic’ in relation
to No Deal — very firmly
under control.
But there is another powerful
reason for gently applauding
what the Prime Minister has
done. Although the financial
markets cannot see it (the pound
sagged a little yesterday), sus-
pending Parliament should make
a deal more likely. For unless
Remainer MPs succeed in their
power-grab when the Commons
briefly returns next week, the
Government will have a clear run
of just over four weeks during
which it cannot be undermined
by parliamentary shenanigans.
EU leaders and bureaucrats
will no longer be able to vest
their hopes in the idea that MPs
are going to rescue them from
the need to negotiate with No 10
over the Irish backstop.
Over the past week there have
been indications, particularly
from Angela Merkel and
Emmanuel Macron, that the
once-sacrosanct Withdrawal
Agreement can at least be
partly revisited.
A
ND yet while Brussels
believed there was a good
chance that MPs would
pull the rug from under
Mr Johnson, there was no very
strong reason for restarting
serious negotiations.
As I’ve argued, the Commons
has not been irrevocably side-
lined. But inasmuch as Remainer
MPs and their incessant and
often destructive plotting are
absent from the battlefield dur-
ing the next few weeks, so Boris
Johnson will be able to enter
unfettered talks with Brussels.
Who knows, when the Queen’s
Speech is read out on October
14 to signal the beginning of a
new session and the unveiling of
the Government’s legislative
programme, there could be the
outline of an agreement between
the Government and the EU.
At least there is a chance this
will be so. And if the price
that has to be paid is the loss of
five or six days of Commons’
sittings, I don’t think very many
people will shed copious tears,
or buy the hysterical claptrap
about our constitution being
turned upside-down.
Nor, while we are on the subject,
should they be taken in by
Remainer caterwauling about a
supposed onslaught on democ-
racy. Whatever small sliver of
democratic accountability is
being momentarily sacrificed
pales into insignificance
compared with the efforts of
some Remainer MPs to undo the
result of the referendum.
Listen, for example, to the
leader of the Lib Dems, Jo
Swinson, who recently said she
will never accept Brexit, even if
the public were to vote for it
again in a People’s Vote. That is
the voice of bigotry and
extremism, not democracy.
The truth is that Boris
Johnson’s proposal is modest
and well-judged. I believe it
edges us a little closer to a satis-
factory agreement with Brussels,
and therefore makes No Deal
less probable.
Will he succeed, or will he be
consumed in the fires of
Remainer vengeance? I obviously
hope not, but I can’t be sure.
He is taking on almost the
entire British Establishment,
bishops included, in a coura-
geous way.
What I am convinced of is that
he’s as democratic as the next
person and more democratic
than most, and that all this
talk of constitutional outrage is
no more than self-serving
Executed: Charles I duped MPs Remainer tosh.
Stephen Glover
T
O JUDGE by the reaction
to Boris Johnson’s
suspension of Parliament,
you would think he had
mounted a coup d’état,
and held a pistol to the head of
Her Majesty the Queen.
Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola
Sturgeon called him a ‘tin-pot dictator’.
Commons Speaker John Bercow inter-
rupted his holidays to declare a ‘consti-
tutional outrage’ had taken place, while
Tory backbench rebel Dominic Grieve
used the same phrase. Jeremy Corbyn
accused Boris of being ‘reckless’.
All over the country, Remainer politi-
cians are shuddering and cursing, and
dabbing their fevered brows. They are
joined by a bevy of 25 querulous
Anglican bishops, who have penned a
letter that suggests they regard
No Deal as an unchristian outcome.
The figure of Charles I is regularly
dusted off, with the Prime Minister’s
agitated critics recalling that the
unhappy King’s head was cut off in
- And he prorogued Parliament in
1629 for 11 years. Boris — be warned.
Amid all this free-wheeling hysteria I
hate to point out that Parliament is
being deprived of only five or six days of
sittings before reconvening on October - The reason is that it was anyway
not due to sit in the second half of Sep-
tember and the first part of October
because of party political conferences.
Five or six days. It doesn’t seem a lot.
If the PM had prorogued Parliament
for a lengthy period until after October
31 — the day when we are supposed
SUSPENDING our
Parliament is
the only way to
allow the Prime
Minister to go into
negotiations without
his hands being tied.
MPs are spouting
about democracy,
but they have
blocked every move
to carry out the
result of the
referendum.
DAVE CROUCHER,
Doncaster, S. Yorks
CALM DOWN
DEARS, THIS
ISN’T A COUP
SIR ANTHONY SELDON: PAGE 18
PM’s historic gamble