Complacency in the Face of Outrage

I'm still on my holidays, so I could tell you about the fabulous day on the beach I enjoyed on Tuesday, the bracing walk around a hill fort yesterday or my invigorating forest walks today.  But the only topic worthy of discussion right now is Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament, his opening gambit in a political coup.  Or so you would think.  Sure, yesterday we had mass demonstrations outside parliament and in other cities up and down the country, not to mention such things as #stopthecoup and #abolishthemonarchy trending on Twitter.  Oh, and Hugh Grant being rude about Boris Johnson.  But by today the hashtags had gone, with football related topics trending instead and, if the protests were still going, the media seemed to have stopped reporting on them.  Instead we got a sycophantic interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg on Radio 4's Today programme, in which John Humphries billed and cooed over the smarmy Victorian relic, presumably in order to ensure he would be on the right side of our new masters.  Rees-Mogg was even allowed to get away with telling us this outrage - expressed through mass protests - was 'confected': a 'candy floss' outrage.  If it had been a Labour politician deploying such a meaningless phrase in connection with the gravest constitutional crisis in living memory, would surely have been torn to shreds by Humphries.

But it's all so typical of this country - utter complacency in the face of impending disaster.  I mean, the average person in the UK seems to be an utter cock with regard to politics if the recent vox pops I've seen on the news are anything to go by.  They just don't seem to grasp exactly how dangerous a precedent the government is setting with its suspension of parliament.  There was one pillock who even claimed to have voted remain explaining earnestly how we had to 'respect democracy', which meant that as parliament was 'acting undemocratically', it was only right that Johnson should suspend in order to force through the 'will of the people' that the EU referendum supposedly represents.  Now, I know that he was trying to appear clever and demonstrate his grasp of the constitution, but all he did was expose his ignorance.  Constitutionally, only parliament, not the government or monarch, is sovereign and only parliament, as our supreme elected body, can represent the will of the people.  It therefore cannot act 'undemocratically'.  By trying to block a 'No Deal' Brexit it is merely fulfilling its mandate to act in the people's best interest and hold the government to account.  It has a duty to try and prevent legislation which would not be in the nation's best interests.  And, let's face it, Brexit is a form of self harm - it will inevitably cause serious long-term economic damage to the UK - and if we knew a friend or relative was self-harming, we would surely be morally obligated to stop them.  Which was what parliament is trying to do: if not prevent the UK from self harming completely, to at least minimise the damage by preventing a 'No Deal'scenarion.  By trying to hamper this process by suspending parliament for five weeks, its is the government that is 'acting undemocratically'.

Still, despite the attempts to stifle the , entirely legitimate, outrage, at least I got to see 'abolish the monarchy' trending on Twitter in the UK.  That's something I never thought that I'd see.  Maybe there's hope for the UK yet...