No Hope for the Queen's Courage Against Brexit (w/ Update)

Update 12:45 PM EDT: Queen Elizabeth approved Johnson's request for the Prorogation of Parliament. This is not good. She's essentially allowing Johnson to do whatever he wants at this point. Disaster. Disaster and madness.

Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future. - Queen Elizabeth II, 1957


When last we left Brexit, the Conservatives promoted Boris "trump's Mini-Me" Johnson to the seat of Prime Minister... and then broke on a month-long vacation because corrupt conservatives love nothing more than to let government crises melt on the stove while they're away on vacays.

So now that the vacations are over and the Members of Parliament are coming back to work, what is Johnson's solution to the Brexit crisis?

Oh, I see. He wants to shut down Parliament so that nobody can stop him push a No-Deal Brexit through. Via Jessica Elgot and Heather Stewart at the Guardian:

Boris Johnson has confirmed he has asked the Queen for permission to suspend Parliament for five weeks from early September.

The prime minister claimed MPs would have “ample time” to debate Brexit, as he wrote to MPs on Wednesday, saying he had spoken to the Queen and asked her to suspend parliament from “the second sitting week in September”. (personal Note: this is bullshit)

MPs will then return to Westminster on 14 October, when he said there would be a new Queen’s speech, setting out what he called a “bold and ambitious domestic legislative agenda for the renewal of our country after Brexit”.

The effect of the decision will be to curtail dramatically the time MPs have to introduce legislation or other measures aimed at preventing a no-deal Brexit. Parliament is expected to sit for little more than a week from 3 September...

What Johnson is legally asking for is a "prorogue," a normal Parliamentary practice of closing down government whenever there's new Parliament leadership put in place so that things can get organized around a planned platform of policy initiatives (symbolized by a new "Queen's Speech" - like the U.S. State of the Union).

However, the timing is obviously NOT to create a new platform but to end an ongoing one with Brexit, which has consumed the British government for the past three years and is basically down to "Leave or Remain." Johnson is doing this less to get a new government up and running and more doing this to obstruct/block any opposition to the "Leave" he is intent on pulling off... which is a No-Deal Brexit that a vast majority of Brits (as well as enough members of his own Tory party) do not want.

This particular prorogue is - in short - a ministerial coup d'etat to prevent real democracy from rising up in anger against a widely disliked and self-destructive agenda.

What this will do is effectively prevent any opposition vote from getting a chance on the floor, stymie a likely vote of no-confidence against Johnson's No-Deal obsession (unless enough Tories can force one before Parliament is shut down), and expose the Leave effort as a straight-up dictatorial move instead of the "public referendum" that the pro-Brexit people have been lying about all this time.

I honestly hope Queen Elizabeth II takes her time to think this through, to think of the reality that the United Kingdom she has ruled - she has served and sworn to protect - for her entire life is now about to get pulled apart by this grinning buffoonish nightmare of a Prime Minister. That of all the PM's she's ever had to deal with (and My God she's dealt with so many), Johnson is the one most likely to destroy everything her reign had kept together evolving from Empire to Commonwealth.

I hope Ma'am realizes that if she agrees to shut down Parliament - effectively guaranteeing a No-Deal Brexit - she is destroying her legacy, her nation, her home. I hope the next thing she does after that is publicly kick Johnson in his balls for five straight minutes before firing his ass and calling for a new election (if that is within her powers).

If the Queen approves this prorogue, then that's it. She's presiding over the internal destruction of her own kingdom, a bonfire to her legacy.

Brexit became a problem because men like Boris and Farage lied, backed by Far Right media eager to spread fear and confusion, aided by Putin, and now the British people from England to Wales to Scotland to Northern Ireland are going to have to pay the price.

A good Queen would recognize that she shouldn't agree to a Brexit that will hurt her own people. And this is more about her being a Queen: She's a Briton as much as the rest of her people. This affects her and her family as much as it affects everyone else.

I hope she chooses wisely, for her fellow Britons, I hope she chooses to keep HER democracy open for business. No, she did not choose wisely. The United Kingdom is now screwed.