Outrage is not hard to come by. Sometimes justified outrage, sometimes faux outrage, sometimes misplaced outrage. We had plenty of all of those on June 23rd 2016, when the UK voted to leave the EU, and we’ve had several acute episodes of outrage since.
Yesterday, however, the nation’s collective temperature rose to a new high with the Government’s request to the Queen that she prorogue Parliament for the purposes of it then bringing forward a Queen’s Speech.
Queen’s Speeches are normal. Prorogation ahead of Queen’s Speeches is normal. A risen House of Commons during party conference season is normal.
But, of course, the background is not normal. And the timing is not normal. So, is yesterday’s outrage justified? Yes and no; or more particularly yes, if you are a Remainer, and no, if you are a Leaver. And let us be in no doubt that there are vanishingly few public figures inbetween.
The Remainer sees a Government trying to push through a no-deal Brexit. The Remainer sees a no-deal Brexit as undemocratic because the 52 per cent did not vote for that particular flavour. The Remainer sees petitions and opinion polls indicating that people have changed their minds as a proxy for a renewed democratic exercise.
These points are arguable.
What is not arguable is that there are anomalies in the way that the Government has gone about its prorogation. Its reasoning that we need a new Queen’s Speech for a new Prime Minister to indicate what he will legislate for, citing violent crime, public service funding and so on, is clearly bogus. This could happen two weeks after Brexit, instead of two weeks before, with no practical difference.
By doing it now, therefore, the Government is deliberately limiting the time and opportunities for the opposition parties to stop Brexit.
But what about the Leaver? The Leaver sees a group of elite politicians in a London bubble who want to overturn the nation’s biggest ever democratic order. The Leaver sees a Government which is trying to ensure that, by any means necessary, the democratically expressed will is fulfilled.
Again, these points are arguable.
But what is inarguable is that the prorogation does not prevent opposition MPs from taking anti-Brexit action in the form of legislation or a vote of no confidence, either next week, or in the lead-up to 31st October.
And it is inarguable that a period of time in October where Parliament does not sit is normal.
This frenzied hysteria where large numbers of people, on both sides, suddenly become constitutional experts and pronounce the death of democracy, will dissipate after a couple of days.
What we will then be left with is the crux of this: tactics.
This is a high-stakes game of political chess. The Government is banking on two things.
The first is that the population will see prorogation as a piece of Parliamentary procedure that they’re not particularly interested in.
The second, and here is the big one, is that a no-deal Brexit (in the event a new deal cannot be agreed) is not as much of a short-term political or economic risk as the political, media and academic classes are presuming it would be.
If my friend Iain Anderson – who is very well connected in the corridors of Westminster – is correct, the Government is looking at a possible general election on 7th November.
This, to me, is an astonishing show of confidence that, seven days after a no-deal outcome, the country will be in good enough shape to vote in massive numbers for the party which delivered it.
For the Remain side, much less has changed than is being claimed. They can still prevent a no-deal Brexit by various Parliamentary means, including passing legislation or requesting a vote of no confidence. What their outrage masks is in-fighting and disorganisation.
Only a few days ago, a vote of no confidence was the only show in town; now, suddenly, it’s a non-starter and legislation is everything.
Indeed, the Remainers are so disorganised that they have not noticed what may possibly emerge as the hidden truth here: that Boris Johnson knows exactly what he’s doing.
Andy Maciver is director of Message Matters, and a former Scottish Conservative head of communications.
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