A number of constituents have understandably been in touch with me in respect of the much talked about end of the previous parliamentary session - referred to as ‘prorogation’ - which has now begun. I therefore thought it might be useful to set out the position.
Far from there being any great conspiracy, the reason behind this prorogation is that the current parliamentary session has been the longest for centuries and needs to be brought to a close, enabling the new Government to refresh its legislative programme and announce its policy ambitions for the forthcoming year. This conventional process is something routinely done when there is a change of Government and a normal procedure in our constitution, which ends the existing session of Parliament and brings about the start of a new session, culminating in the State Opening of Parliament, which includes the ‘Queen’s Speech’. Here, the Government’s proposed agenda for policies and legislation is outlined.
In this case, the Government will hold a Queen’s Speech on the 14th October, with prorogation having started on the 10th September. Prorogation is not a “parliamentary shutdown”, nor a “constitutional outrage”, nor a “coup”. It is a legitimate constitutional event, which, more often than not, occurs each year. As I say, this current session of Parliament is the longest since the seventeenth century. Not since Oliver Cromwell did away with the services of the ‘Long Parliament’, which lasted from 1640 to 1653, has a session lasted longer.
There are multiple reasons why the Government wanted to prorogue at this point in time.
First, to set out its legislative priorities for its ambitious domestic agenda, including how it intends to support the NHS, tackle violent crime, invest in infrastructure and cut the cost of living. The existing legislative programme has arguably been exhausted - unsurprising given that this has been the longest session in centuries - and rightly, people want us to deliver on these key priority areas as quickly as possible and without needless delay. Interestingly, the Opposition have been requesting the Government to do this in Parliament for months - now we have a new Prime Minister in post, it is the right time to do so.
Second, this is a logical point in the parliamentary calendar to do this. The Government is using time when Parliament would be in recess - as it has been every year over the party conference season for around the past eighty years - and this therefore means we are losing a very small handful of sitting days during this period, relative to past prorogations.
Unfortunately, however, some politicians have inevitably - as we have come to so predictably expect - jumped on the bandwagon, throwing around all sorts of claims about a “coup” and Parliament being “shut down” in an abnormal way. Frankly, this is nonsense in a descriptive, historical and practical sense, and what was actually horrifying was the behaviour we saw in the chamber on Monday night, with unedifying mob protest.
With that in mind, it is also highly ironic that those in Parliament complaining about this the loudest are those who have been at the forefront of consistently riding roughshod over convention and the way things are done for many months - indicative votes, taking control of the order paper and thus controlling the legislative agenda by ramming major constitutional Bills through in a day, and threatening to install an unelected alternative Government, being just three examples. So I am afraid I have little sympathy for their highly emotive indignation and deliberately misleading “outrage”.
Many of those individuals, I am afraid, have been masquerading under various pretence for many months - legal, procedural, and technical - when actually, all they really want to do is to cancel Brexit altogether and think they know better than the British people. In the end, when MPs voted to hold a referendum in the first place, they voted to respect the result of it - whatever the outcome - by virtue of their actions in voting to delegate this decision to the public. Respecting and upholding the democratic decisions of elections and referendums is how we do things in this country, and with good reason.
But you do also have to ask yourself why don’t they just come out and be honest about their intentions, rather than hiding behind a false prospectus? I would certainly have far more respect for that position - much as I would disagree with it - because it is very frustrating to see some of the biggest critics of ‘no-deal’ for example, refusing to vote for the single best solution to that problem - voting for a deal, exactly as I did, despite my being willing for us to leave without an agreement. But of course, they simply will not do that, because, despite their protestations about ‘no-deal’, they have no intention whatsoever of respecting the result and voting for a deal either. Sadly, they do not have the courage to just say so and be straight with voters. Instead, they cynically want to face both ways.
Ultimately, I would caution those individuals that tampering with the cornerstone democratic principle that we respect the outcome of elections and referendums and subsequently implement the results of them, is not a sensible thing to do; not least because it undoubtedly blurs the lines of our democracy more generally. I have to say I am sad that through their refusal to accept the referendum result, they have reduced our politics to the state it is in, and it is no surprise when in that climate, normal parliamentary practice gives rise to profound concern and suspicion, given the heightened sense of confusion, frustration and uncertainty their actions have generated.
The reality is that Parliament has debated Brexit on countless occasions over the past three years and there have been numerous opportunities for the various arguments to be made - and there will be so again. In fact, I cannot think of a single day that Parliament has not debated Brexit in one form or another since the 23rd June 2016. Indeed, following the House returning after prorogation concludes on the 14th October, there remains plenty of time and opportunity for MPs to hold the Government to account, as their number one legislative priority will be to introduce a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, should we be able to reach an agreement with the EU - the Prime Minister’s preferred course. Quite rightly, this legislation will have the appropriate amount of time allocated to debate it.
Personally, I believe the Prime Minister is right to say that this has gone on long enough, there has been too much dither and delay, and the result must now be enacted; not least to end the uncertainty for people and businesses alike. In contrast, some would much prefer to string this out and keep going round and round the same loop, with all the uncertainty that brings, but with the simple objective of eventually quashing the result. Given that 64% of people in Corby voted to ‘Leave’ and 58% in East Northamptonshire, and whilst I accept not exclusively, I do suspect the vast majority of local people, regardless of how they voted, will share his determination to get this done, so that the democratic referendum decision is delivered on and so that as a country we can move on.
Alongside this, I think it is also understandable for people to expect that their Government should be getting on with delivering an ambitious domestic agenda too, focused on the issues that affect their day-to-day lives, and this is exactly what the opportunity of a new parliamentary session allows.