Oh my prophetic
soul! Two and a half years ago, I warned that MPs’ fierce determination to be
incurious, to resolutely avoid inquiring into important matters, was
threatening to destroy democracy in the UK (see my post of 21 January 2018).
This week things got worse.
Back in 2018, MPs
were busily voting against making the government publish studies on the impact
Brexit would have on the UK: ‘Our constituents don’t need to know how their
lives are going to be messed up by leaving the EU, and we certainly don’t want
to hear about it!’
Now our MPs’
determination to be irrelevant has landed a double whammy in the last few days.
First they voted to deny themselves any say on future trade deals. No fewer
than 326 MPs decided: ‘not the kind of thing we want to be involved with, old
boy.’
Even by the
catastrophically low standards of today’s House of Commons, this is
mind-boggling. Why would any MP with a scintilla of concern for the national
interest deny themselves this right? After all, if you think a given trade deal
is good, you just vote for it, don’t you? So what are you afraid of? That the
deal’s bad, and then maybe your constituents will put you under pressure to
vote against it, and if you do, Dominic Cummings or the extreme right-wing
tabloids will be nasty to you? ‘No, please just let me be irrelevant and have a
quiet life!’
MPs also
determinedly looked the other way on Russian meddling in British politics and
especially the Brexit referendum. Having tolerated Boris Johnson’s suppression
of the cross-party report on this for nine months, they batted scarcely an
eyelid when, after considering its demand for a proper inquiry into
Russian interference for at least one second, Johnson dismissed it.
Now they’re off on
their hols!
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