Boris Johnson, our People’s PM, is right to call a general election if stupidity rules over Brexit – Bernard Ingham

OUR Prime Minister believes in living dangerously. First, he prorogues Parliament. Now he tells his rebels to back me or I’ll sack you – and call an election. Splendid fellow. He has right on his side – and no option but to go to the country if stupidity rules.

He faces four immediate tests. Can he avoid an election? Can he make prorogation stick? If he can, will he see off the machinations of a thoroughly hypocritical Parliament if it returns for the Queen’s Speech on October 14?

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Having done all that, will the European Union at last see Brexit sense when its leaders foregather? Or will their irresponsibility mean that we shall leave without as deal on October 31?

Boris Johnson's handling of Brexit has been defended by Bernard Ingham.Boris Johnson's handling of Brexit has been defended by Bernard Ingham.
Boris Johnson's handling of Brexit has been defended by Bernard Ingham.

To get to Halloween, the People’s PM will have to defeat the deranged, the shameless, the vacant and at best seriously misguided, otherwise known as our political elite and the bureaucrats of Brussels.

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In one sense it is hilarious to see Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbyn (and his Momentum mob) and Nicola Sturgeon et al in a lather over what they regard as a “constitutional outrage” – Boris drawing a long clapped-out Parliament mercifully to a close.

Anti-Brexit protesters gather in Parliament Square.Anti-Brexit protesters gather in Parliament Square.
Anti-Brexit protesters gather in Parliament Square.

It also lifts the spirits to see that diminutive thespian, Mr Speaker Bercow, in a by-now familiar fit of biased spleen. He would be well advised to retire before his pomposity brings about a messy explosion.

In another sense it only induces despair. How on earth did we fall into this debilitated political condition where so-called Parliamentary luminaries conspire to keep us in a failing EU that prevents them from governing their own country?

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What is it about the EU that drives men and women to worship an unreconstructed and undemocratic Brussels, despise their own nation and very own Parliament and expose their lack of principle? After all, they signed up to laws and manifestos promising Brexit after the 2016 referendum.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation in 10 Downing Street on Monday.Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation in 10 Downing Street on Monday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation in 10 Downing Street on Monday.

There are, I fear, no easy answers to these questions. If there were, a pathetic, sneering Jeremy Paxman would have discovered them on Channel 5 on Monday. But that means it is all the more urgent that we depart the EU.

Let us not kid ourselves that it will then be plain sailing. Those gripped by EU hysteria will not suddenly fall silent. That would be too much to hope. But it is only when we are out that we can really turn our attention to building a new, resurgent Britain.

That seems unlikely to be achieved unless we improve the quality of our Parliamentarians who, over the last three years, have frankly exhibited a contempt for principle. They cannot expect to be looked up to when they promise one thing in an election – Brexit – and then do everything to frustrate it.

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Not to put too fine a point on it, that is treachery – and all the more treacherous for putting the interests of the EU before their own country’s.

If there is any justice in this world, the next election will bring a clearout of the rogues and vagabonds now sitting on the green benches of the Commons. If not then the voters themselves will be complicit in the deceptions of this Parliament.

But who will succeed them? We have had enough of the inferior product produced by the professional politician conveyor belt. The last thing we need is apparatchiks who have reduced the Labour Party to Corbynited rubble or cravenly sat on their hands while the Marxists have applied the wrecking ball; or a breed that has turned the Tories into a conspiratorial rabble.

We need less sense of entitlement and more of public duty. There was something to be said for the old Tory knights of the shires – and Labour’s sons of toil – who did not seek office; only to serve the public good.

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But where do you find this elusive quality these days when so much of our national life is apparently driven only by money and a political correctness that is in itself expensive and demonstrates only too clearly the extent to which we have lost our marbles?

Just think what it would do for public sentiment – not to mention the doctors themselves – if all those who have walked out because of tax penalties were to volunteer a day’s unpaid NHS service a week.

If Boris, the erstwhile playboy of the Western world, can negotiate the rapids of the next two months and then re-equip Britain, the hour really will have found the man.