Prorogue.
verb
discontinue a session of (a parliament or other legislative assembly) without dissolving it.
“James prorogued this Parliament, never to call another one”
It’s one of those words that people have never heard of until, one day, it’s all everybody is talking about. What’s happened is that the Pro Rogue in Number 10 Downing Street, our unelected Prime Minister, has got the Queen to agree to shut down Parliament so that anti-Brexit and anti-No Deal legislation will be much more difficult, if not impossible, for opposition MPs to pass.
Many of us have wished that Parliament would re-open early from its summer recess to deal with the Brexit fiasco but this prorogation means that it will start later, extending the MPs’ summer jollies even longer, right when we need them to be in the Houses of Parliament, taking action and doing what they are paid to do. Honestly, people who complain about teachers getting long holidays should glance over an MP’s typical annual schedule. It’s obscene. (And it has to be said that teachers warrant every last second of their holidays, thanks to their tireless dedication to educating young people who mostly don’t want to be educated, managing to inspire minds and help kids pass exams regardless.)
So, Boris Johnson has hit the pause button on the democratic process, with the assistance of the monarchy. Twitter is full of the hashtag #StopTheCoup. But is that too strong a word? Perhaps not.
On BBC’s Newsnight this week, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said, “It’s certainly a coup. If we were a Latin American country it would be called a coup, complete with an American president supporting it”.
The Financial Times, of all places, condemned Johnson for this move. David Allen Green said, “Nothing good can come of this. It is a divisive act when consensus is needed. It is a gross abuse of the constitutional powers of the prime minister. And it breaches a principle far deeper than any constitutional norm — that of fair play.”
While the Editorial Board of the publication concluded, “If Mr Johnson’s prorogation ploy succeeds, Britain will forfeit any right to lecture other countries on their democratic shortcomings. The UK’s constitutional arrangements have long relied on conventions. The danger existed that an unscrupulous leader could trample on such conventions. That has not happened, in the modern era, until now”.
If the FT – not exactly a bastion of the many rather than the few – can come out so strongly against this move, it clearly demonstrates that the controversy over this move by Johnson is not limited to the left, or to Remainers. People on every side of every debate are outraged, even some of those keen on a No Deal. A petition whose numbers are still flying up has an impressive number of signatories.
Ironically, even those who are Tory MPs or who are in the Cabinet and implicitly support this move have objected to the idea of it as recently as a few weeks ago:
- Nicky Morgan said that proroguing Parliament would lead to a “constitutional crisis”
- Amber Rudd described it as a “ridiculous suggestion”
- Sajid Javid said, “you don’t deliver democracy by trashing democracy”
- Matt Hancock said, “But [proroguing Parliament] goes against everything that those men who waded onto those beaches fought and died for. And I will not have it”
- Jeremy Hunt said, “But to [prorogue Parliament] because you wanted to force through a no-deal Brexit seems to be something that would be pretty impossible to imagine ever working”
And guess who else opposed the idea of proroguing Parliament when seeking election? Hypocrite extraordinaire Boris Johnson himself.
Just a quick reminder of what Boris Johnson said to Conservative 1 Nation MPs when he was seeking their support #Prorogation pic.twitter.com/vCqzVgWcKl
— Antoinette Sandbach (@Sandbach) August 28, 2019
The Speaker of the House of Commons has called the prorogation a “constitutional outrage”, while Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has resigned from her post. The Tories who are supporting Johnson’s outrageous move are making themselves look ridiculous, as most widely agreed, very recently, that it would be an egregious action to take.
Boris Johnson has promised that he will bash the UK out of the EU by any means necessary. Threats of a No Deal have scared many of us, but proroguing Parliament takes it even further. It gives us a fear for our very democracy.
Image credit: Misko