I could not agree more with the headline of your editorial (The PM is pouring arsenic into the water supply of national conversation, 26 September). Boris Johnson turned up with not a smidgen of contrition or apology in his speech and then ratcheted up the war rhetoric to unbelievable heights, with female Labour MPs in tears with frustration and anger about how they are being portrayed in the country.
I watched BBC Parliament with my mouth open and my brain refusing to compute such dreadful and incensed speeches. As you rightly state, this must end; as one of seemingly few vocal remainers in my area, I am engaged on a daily basis in heightened polarised discussions and this unfortunately is being mirrored all over the country. Dullness, which did infuse our parliamentary dealings, should be reinstated immediately along with pragmatism and a committed desire to do what is best for the country.
Judith A Daniels
Cobholm, Norfolk
• I have felt many emotions while following politics through the decades. Disdain, frustration, anger and incredulity are just a few. I have never felt fear; I feel it now.
Mr Johnson’s reaction to the supreme court ruling, branding the unanimous judiciary as just “wrong”, his accusations of cowardice and surrender, his divisive language deepening the fractures in our country, are nothing less than deliberately inflammatory, feeding the ever burgeoning right.
The worst of tribal behaviour in the Commons was there for all to see. Does anyone else hear echoes of the rise of fascism?
Robert W Simpson
Shelf, West Yorkshire
• Rabble-rousing using cheap and abusive rhetoric, with little to no substance, is no way for our sovereign parliament to conduct its important business of holding the government to account. The incisive questioning of ministerial statements in the House of Commons on Wednesday perhaps illustrated why the prime minister wanted to shut down parliament.
The attorney general’s hysterical performance was more redolent of Oliver Cromwell’s ability to dispose of parliament entirely and rule with his model army.
As well as debasing our language and polite respect in the conduct of business, subsequent to the judgment of the supreme court, the use of such words as “surrender”, “traitor” and “betrayal” runs the risk of giving permission to possible violence towards those who represent the people in our representative democracy, and from which it might not be possible to move back from. The history of the 1930s still has warning lessons to teach.
Canon David Jennings
Nuneaton, Warwickshire
• The prime minister has lost the argument in the country, lost his majority in parliament, lost his case in the courts, and lost his grip on power by his own mistakes at the moment he finally acquired it (Johnson’s gambit now is to turn his humiliation into rocket fuel, Journal, 26 September). We saw in the Commons the ugly fury of frustrated entitlement, directed at all those who refuse to conform to his will. It has become imperative to stop this dangerous man and his craven party in their tracks.
Alan Carling
Keighley, West Yorkshire
• The polarisation in British politics serves interests that are not our own, and this seems to have been intended. Trump’s US has an interest in a no-deal Brexit, delivering up the UK for a disadvantageous trade deal with America. Russian intervention on social media in the referendum campaign aggravated differences between people in Britain. Sharpening antagonism is now a tactic in itself and subverts any democratic process (such as an election or new referendum) by making debate and argument impossible.
Gill Westcott
Cheriton Bishop, Devon
• Aren’t prisons full of people who believe that the court got it wrong?
Dr Quentin Burrell
Ballabeg, Isle of Man
• On Wednesday the attorney general said in the House of Commons that “this parliament is dead” and has “no moral right to sit”. He adopted calculated and inflammatory language which brings shame upon his great office.
If this is his view, then the objectivity of his legal advice about prorogation is questionable. He is ex officio head of the Bar of England and Wales and himself a barrister. He has lost all credibility to lead our great profession, which is committed to the protection of democracy and the rule of law. He should resign immediately.
Patrick O’Connor QC
London
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