So, we’ve just agreed we’ll be demonstrating against #prorogation on Saturday. It's years since H & I have been on a demonstration; our kids have never chosen to do it themselves (they were with us at Make Poverty History and others, but too young to be there by choice.) 1/10
We live in a parliamentary democracy; sovereignty in our system resides in the Queen in parliament. #proroguing parliament for a lengthy season at a critical juncture is an attempt to undermine the basis of our system of government. 2/10
This seems clear to me, but I have been very struck by the serious commentators sounding klaxons of alarm yesterday and today. Not those who are professionally outraged, left or right, but when those who are professionally cautious express outrage, sensible people listen. 3/10
Ruth Fox, director of the Hansard Society, describes the #prorogation as ‘unnecessary’, ‘unprecedented’, and as ‘help[ing] the government to evade parliamentary scrutiny’: 4/10
The UCL Constitution Unit describe it as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘arguably unconstitutional’: () 5/10
Richard J. Evans, an eminent historian of the Weimar Republic, has drawn extensive parallels—and he really gets a pass on Godwin’s law: prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/brita… 6/10
Sir Tom Devine, Scotland's most eminent historian at present, went so far as to call for mass protests on GMS this morning, describing the situation as ‘a crisis and an emergency’. 7/10
The most senior former civil servants, who rarely comment on anything, expressed huge alarm, Robert Kerslake suggesting—extraordinarily—that current civil servants might consider disobeying the government out of a greater loyalty to the nation. 8/10
When eminent historians, our best constitutional experts, and those who are most able to express the view of the civil service, all express profound concern that the government of the day is acting unconstitutionally, we just have to listen, and to react. 9/10
So, we'll be protesting on Saturday, and I would encourage all of you to be protesting too. In public, not at anyone's private house, and legally. Lots of lists of venues if you google it. Democracy actually matters, and is worth protecting. 10/10
Oh, and if you haven't, sign this? petition.parliament.uk/petitions/2691… It takes ten seconds, and can't hurt. 11/10
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