So Boris the Muppet is going to prorogue Parliament ahead of a Queen’s Speech. This is normal. What is not normal is that the speech is planned for October 14, two weeks before the Brexit deadline, and the prorogue is five weeks long – when normally it’s seven days or so at most.
This is two things at once. One is an attempt to force a no-deal Brexit, which is now the only option palatable to the UKIP types that banged the drum for ages to bring this about. The majority of the public is opposed to no-deal, and it’s entirely possible that if the only options are no deal or no Brexit, a majority of the public (and of Parliament) could be easily found for “no Brexit.” But right now, the legally mandated result is a no-deal Brexit unless something happens to alter that, so all they have to do is prevent anything being done. Shutting off Parliament until two weeks before doomsday forces the issue.
Or it could lead to a general election, which is what Boris really wants – the opportunity to be validated as a fully elected PM rather than one thrust onto the scene by a handful of the electorate and the misbegotten Fixed Term Parliaments Act. And given that he currently commands a coalition majority of 1 in a house of 650, a general election is long since overdue. In every way that matters, a general election would be the much-debated second referendum – essentially a yes or no on a no-deal Brexit, because it’s readily apparent that a Tory government (aided and abetted by the yahoos of the Brexit Party, especially if their numbers are crucial to the coalition) is fixated on no-deal as the only true Brexit.
The truly ironic thing is that in their first post-Brexit-referendum election, the Tories got absolutely dishragged and had to cut a deal with the DUP just to stay in power. Yet a no-deal Brexit, which was not part of anyone’s campaign in 2016, is now apparently the only legitimate voice of the pubic – not the results in 2017, not the actions of the duly elected Parliament since then, and one presumes not the actions that Parliament might take in an attempt to stave off the economic and political crises that would arise from crashing out.
Basically, Boris is bent on destroying democracy in order to save it. One hopes the British public is brighter than to allow it. But on current form, I’m more convinced than ever that in my lifetime I’ll see Scotland independence and Ireland whole.
Wouldn’t that be something.