Shock of the coup

I’d been wondering what it would take to shake me out of my late-summer torpor and reignite my blogging impulse, and now I know; the country lurching towards dictatorship as Boris Johnson deals with democratic opposition by suspending parliament.

This seems like a high-risk strategy, since it will almost certainly unite his foes and precipitate an election. That may well be Johnson’s plan; he has probably calculated that his best shot at winning such a vote is to mobilise his base around a narrative of betrayal by metropolitan elites, and get the election over with before the scale of the Brexit disaster hits home.

He may have underestimated just how angry the population will get about his assault on democracy; I expect there will be some big demonstrations over the weekend. Or perhaps he has got it all worked out, and I’m overestimating how bothered people will be. I guess we’ll find out soon.