Chris

Well of course he will. The problem with messing with conventions is that when one party starts doing it, they lose the moral high ground and the right to squeal if the other party starts doing it too.

Government business takes precedence in the House of Commons because of a very long-standing standing order. Corbyn and his cabal have announced their intention to set that aside. Hardly surprising then that BoJo is considering using his power and influence to prevent that happening.

Incidentally, while this will be presented by the breathless left as an appalling abuse of power and an affront to parliament, and hang-on-I-thought-you-brexiteers-believed-in-parliamentary-sovereignty, Parliament should perhaps take a moment to reflect on the consequences of voting to settle a constitutional question via an exercise in direct democracy. Quite unlike the ordinary run of affairs, in which most MPs, most of the time, vote according to the manifestos on which they were elected, this time there is one single issue, decided in a referendum, that uniquely puts parliamentary sovereignty at loggerheads with the expressed will of the people. Parliament has called its own sovereignty into question and if it continues to set itself against the result of the referendum then that question will only get louder. That’s a road I really don’t think we want to go down.

So, if Boris wants to use his entirely uncontroversial right to ask the Queen to end this parliamentary session, write a Queen’s Speech and then open a new one, in the process quietening down those who seem not to understand the contract that exists between our sovereign parliament and the people who elect its members, so be it.