It’s become a truism that, following the 2016 EU referendum, the UK has been split essentially in half. The “Leave” half – if half is what it is – is “led” now by an Etonian felon. It seems very possible, even likely, that – post-Brexit – the country will fragment yet further, from small ship to flotilla of dinghies.
And all this splitting has arisen from an argument over whether or not to split from the EU.
Maybe the EU has never really been the point. Maybe we’ve just grown addicted to splitting and being led and misled by people unfit.
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” and”Divide and Rule” are obvious references here.
The Parrot has dropped by at Number 10 once before, and quite recently. But this stanza probably belongs more with the previous stanza below this one, than with his first visit.
It’s a matter of perching carefully on a window still, out of sight. The parrot does not request entry at the front door. He is no twisted advisor in a track suit. He is an exuberant listening bug.
The Tories were holding their annual conference. The “Get Brexit Done” slogan was everywhere and government sponsored adverts supporting Brexit were apparently going up in primary schools. The toad was leaping about to toadie applause, the beetle was sidling about to toadie terror. The rain was lashing down. The climate crisis was being fought over…
Things were happening very fast when this was written, many of them carrying a sense of threat and chaos and ill-intent on the part of the perpetrators. It was hard work just to absorb what was going on, harder still to think creatively, or reflectively.
This stanza is partly concerned just with that thought. But partly too with a sort of catch-up thought, as it gradually sank in : John Major had combined with Gina Miller to take legal action that eventually resulted in the Supreme Court finding Johnson’s prorogation of parliament unlawful. Was that not utterly extraordinary ? For one thing, here was an ex-Prime Minister, a Tory, going to the law to challenge and thwart and call to order a/ another Tory and b/ another Prime Minister…
These two stanzas were suggested in the first place by an actual incident. Mr Johnson’s main advisor Dominic Cummings was making himself surprisingly available for stray encounters around Westminster. See here, for instance : https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=752395791889320
The reference to Cox in the second stanza is to Geoffrey Cox, the Tory Party’s Attorney General. He performed theatrically in the House of Commons, following the re-call of Parliament, helping to drown out the true implications of the Supreme Court’s recent decision (and presumably its judgement on his earlier advice to the government that prorogation would pass muster), by raising his voice and shouting “chicken” at the Labour MP’s opposite.
This is one of a rapid succession of these rhyming commentaries, written during a sequence of events even more furious, momentous and disturbing than usual. I composed it quite early on Thursday 26th September. The previous night., in the House of Commons, only just back from America, following the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling, Mr Toad was wholly unrepentant. He simply said that the judgement that he had acted illegally in proroguing parliament and essentially that he lied to the Queen, was wrong. Clearly he knew the law better than they did. And then he just carried on lying. But at least he was there in that assembly, required by law to present himself for all to see and hear.
And what we saw and heard was disgraceful but also clearly premeditated. Elements in the country would like this defiance, this “standing up to,” this rejection of the norms, this green light to bigotry.
Was it possible that Britain could become even more divided and worked up ? It would seem so. But to whose benefit ?
On September 24th, the UK Supreme Court ruled against our Prime Minister’s prorogation of Parliament, finding unanimously that the prorogation was unlawful and that Johnson had misled the Queens on his reasons for implementing it. Effectively, Johnson was being named a plain liar by the highest court in the country and Parliament’s position in the nation’s constitution was confirmed and actually strengthened, as befits.
Thanks were due to Gina Miller (again) and to John Major for bringing the case. Also to the Justices concerned, above all to Lady Hale, at their head. Something redemptive had taken place, something of largeness, something to respect.
Might this signify the turning of the tide ? Might the example set by the Justices – in defiance of lawlessness and mayhem – be followed in other places of this country ?
This stanza was written just one day after the event it describes – the Labour Conference vote on campaigning for Remain. That event seemed significant for at least a few hours.
But the following day’s judgement by the Supreme Court was so much more significant and – still finishing this stanza – I felt that it was already out of date and I’d been left behind. Tumultuous events were piling up on each other. How to keep up – emotionally, intellectually, in any way at all ?
The conference was in many ways disastrous for Labour and revealed (yet again) the Corbyn inner circle as mean-spirited, spiteful, inept, and largely taken up with in-Party feuds, whatever the effect that might have on the Party’s electoral chances. Despite all the talk and posturing, maybe Corbyn would always be more comfortable in Opposition, indignant without responsibility, being nasty to family members…
The last lines here offer a direct reproduction of some of the words used during the announcement of Labour’s chaotic “decision” to make itself electorally irrelevant (or so it seemed then – but had things now changed ?). See the short video at the head of the article : https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-brexit-labour-remain-rejected-conference-brighton-a9117431.html
