In defence of Members of Parliament

Surprisingly I find myself moved to come to the defence of MPs. Yes, this is in response to our Prime Minister (for how long is in doubt) and her dis-graceful comments concerning her fellow Parliamentarians. I was out when she made her now infamous broadcast appeal to the nation for 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, but I did catch one of her comments in Prime Minister’s Questions at midday. Annoyed by Jeremy Corbyn, she describe the House of Commons contemplating its navel about Brexit and indulging itself in not coming to a conclusion over it. Unusually swiftly Mr Corbyn questioned the respect of Parliament shown by describing its deliberations as self-indulgence. I think Mrs May was attempting to demonstrate anger at the rejection of the deal painstakingly pulled together by UK and EU civil servants over many months, as she repeated the twin charges of navel gazing and self-indulgence as if from a script.

There was palpable anger among MPs at the idea that their honest wrestling with the Hobson’s choice with which they had been presented for the past few months was nothing more than an indulgent waste of time. However it seems that it was not a mere poorly phrased answer in the crucible of PMQs, because she compounded her contempt for her colleagues only a few hours later in her prime ministerial broadcast from Downing Street (which I gather was staged like the Kremlin). “You are tired of the infighting, you’re tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows, tired of MPs talking about nothing else but Brexit…

“So far, parliament has done everything possible to avoid making a choice.

“Motion after motion and amendment after amendment has been tabled without parliament ever deciding what it wants.

“All MPs have been willing to say is what they do not want. I passionately hope MPs will find a way to back the deal I’ve negotiated with the EU, a deal that delivers on the result of the referendum and is the very best deal negotiable.” She implied an opposition between the people, who want “her” Brexit deal, and MPs, who don’t. “I am on your side.”

No wonder MPs were alienated. It seemed to be designed to undermine the public’s relationship with their representatives. It’s little wonder either that some MPs felt – and were – physically threatened. The Prime Minister appeared to shift responsibility for her own inept negotiating skill on to the shoulders of genuinely conscientious MPs. Her disdain for her colleagues in Parliament reminded me of Brutus’ description of Julius Caesar:

“to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round.
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.” i.e. the upwardly mobile tend to treat the lower ranks through which they rose with contempt.

I recall March wasn’t a good month for Julius Caesar.

As for me, I wish the honourable Members of Parliament every success in their search for a way through to a solution advantageous to the United Kingdom as well as to the European Union.