April Fool’s day is the day to tell a story that seems real but is in fact a joke. Yesterday was the day when a joke became astonishingly real for me.
Sunday morning, I was casually shown this picture on a friend’s phone. On a brexitter’s blog, it would be no surprise. On that friend’s phone, sent her by her children, it told me the joke was going viral. I laughed appreciatively – and reflected that whatever diminishes the respect anyone still feels for “Parliament knows best what to do on Brexit” was good.
Just what her majesty has told James Bond 007 (licensed to kill) to do with all members of parliament is not explicitly stated – appeal to their (very) latent honesty as regards keeping promises, perhaps? But I saw that it was of course a joke, utterly unreal – the Queen is portrayed uttering a swearword!
That afternoon I saw the Sunday Times. The Times is the ultimate establishment remainer newspaper. It is Sir Humphrey Appleby’s newspaper. Imagine my shock when I read on the front page, illustrated with a picture of her, that
“The Queen has a constitutional role to play in Brexit … The Queen may block a soft Brexit …”
Were parliament to seize control of Brexit, then (this establishment remainer paper stated – in more or less the words I am writing here) Mrs May could well advise the Queen to withhold assent. As the private chats between her majesty and her prime minister are confidential, it did not say – nor would we perhaps know – whether that would be the result of Mrs May begging the use of every lever at her disposal or of the Queen pointedly advising Mrs May to advise her so. Far more important to me was this explicit statement that, in our current state, when Parliament cannot or will not act, or not within the rules, the Queen can – not by invoking any extraordinary prerogative power but as an ordinary constitutional act. I saw that last week but I was very surprised to see an establishment endorsement of it over the weekend.
Like everyone else – like Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Etc. Etc. – like everyone in the UK and the EU, with the possible exception of Elizabeth R – I don’t know what is going to happen next. But beware making a joke. The papers may report it for real that afternoon.
In other news, while many marched in London, some acquaintances marked the absence-of-Brexit day by climbing the Cumbrian hill called ‘Great Cockup’. It is next to ‘Little Cockup’ but they felt the latter summit was not so appropriate a destination.