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This has to stop — before it’s too late
House of Commons Speaker John Bercow was unable to stop Boris Johnson’s inflammatory language on the day, confining his “advice” on restraint to “all colleagues”. It wasn’t “all colleagues” that needed a lecture. It was the prime minister. And the Attorney-General. A double act to end all double acts, promoting division and hatred and provoking violence. Apparently the rules on appropriate parliamentary language allow this. I wrote the following to my Labour MP:
“I watched Boris Johnson’s performance in parliament yesterday with growing horror. His language and, when challenged, his insistence on continuing to use it (and even make it worse) is becoming more frightening. The “Surrender Act” is used to provoke anger and it will in the end provoke violence. From the time of Enoch Powell (and before, of course, but I’m talking about within my memory) whenever provocative language is used the result is an outbreak of violence. The parallel with Powell seems to me appropriate, given their shared racism. When challenged, Johnson simply repeats the insult (in this case going from “the Surrender Act” to “the Intimidation Act” to “the Capitulation Act”. Both Johnson and Geoffrey Cox set up a “Parliament versus the People” narrative, which is really a fascist narrative. I realise that we shouldn’t use that word carelessly, but I agree with the Labour MP (I can’t remember who it was) who did use it yesterday. As people said yesterday, another horror like the murder of Jo Cox could happen as a result of all this.
What can be done? Bercow’s semi-rebukes to Johnson (conveyed through admonitions “to all colleagues”) have no effect. A friend of mine has written to his Tory MP to protest, which seems an excellent idea, particularly if the practice spreads. Can you and others who share the disgust at Johnson’s language and attitude use Urgent Questions to keep up the pressure on Johnson, debates, quoting from constituents’ concerns (you’re welcome to use anything in this email that might be useful) …”
If you have a Tory MP, please write to them. Another friend of mine has signed a petition to his Tory MP. But write to your Labour or LibDem MP too. If you can, start a petition, organise a protest.
Good luck to Bercow’s meeting. But it must point the finger where it has to be pointed—at Johnson.
“It rests on injustice”
Forgive me, but there’s no end to quoting Tony Benn. These are taken more or less at random.
He always had confidence in the people he represented. When he won the battle for the right to get rid of his inherited peerage and sit in the House of Commons again he knew that without the support of his Bristol constituents he wouldn’t have won at all. On the night he was finally re-elected, he congratulated them and thanked them:
“You have defeated the Tory cabinet, you have defeated the House of Lords, you have defeated the courts. You have changed the constitution of this country by your own power.”
When MPs take up their elected seats they have to swear an oath of allegiance to “Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors”. In earlier times, if anyone refused, they went to jail. Today, if they refuse, they get fined £500 a day until they agree. So they don’t refuse! Benn got round it by adding an explanation and the words “under protest” to the oath: So it was:
“As a committed republican, under protest, I take the oath required of me by law under the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866 to allow me to represent my constituency: I, Tony Benn, under protest, do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm, etc., etc.”
There’s a brilliant video somewhere of him doing that! No surprise, then, that when describing the opening of parliament for a BBC television documentary he pointed out:
“When the Queen came that day and sat on the red carpet she was sitting just above the spot where Charles I stood trial and was condemned to death by the Commons.”
And even when he was being mischievous, there was a political point to be made:
“There’s an absolute hierarchy of lavatories in the Houses of Parliament: the bishops have their own lavatory, so do the peers, and the peeresses. There are separate lavatories for members and others for lady members. There are male and female staff lavatories. They even have lavatories for gentlemen. But it all ends up in the same place.”
But he wasn’t being mischievous when, in 1981, at the height of his inspirational powers, he passionately urged the Labour Party conference to face the truth:
“We tried to make capitalism work with good and humane Labour governments and we haven’t succeeded. Because it can’t work. Because it rests on injustice.”
When Thatcher resigned he didn’t see why there should be any difficulty repealing Thatcherite laws, although Thatcherite ideas in people’s heads, he thought, would take longer to erase. So he told the House of Commons he had “a little Bill” to bring forward: “It’s called the Margaret Thatcher Global Repeal Bill.” Well, it didn’t pass, and Blair took the ideas of Thatcherism and ran with them, imposing them on his own party in the process.
It is this we’re left to deal with, to reverse. And how we’re going to do it – and how we’re going to do it without Tony Benn – I don’t know. But we will have to try.
Sycophancy is not new
The words quoted below are from Shakespeare’s Henry V. It simply struck me that their equivalent can be heard on a regular basis in today’s House of Commons, as lowly backbench MPs intent on promotion suck up to the prime minister in the hope of being given their just reward. The two sycophants are the Earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Grey, and they are talking to Henry:
“Cambridge: Never was monarch better feared and loved
Than is your majesty. There’s not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.
“Grey: True. Those that were your father’s enemies
Have steeped their galls in honey, and do serve you
With hearts create of duty and of zeal.”
Unlike today’s politicians, Henry didn’t swallow this sickening stuff. He already knew the two were traitors. After spelling that out for 3 pages he told them at the end of the audience:
“Get ye therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death;
The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences. – Bear them hence.”
“Bear them hence.” Wouldn’t we just love to hear someone speak those words (who could do it?) to today’s entire tribe of politicians, sycophants and hangers-on. Not to their deaths, of course – perish the thought. But hence. Far, far hence.
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