Lord Hayward Condemns Boris Johnson For Proroguing Parliament
30 August 2019, 17:11 | Updated: 30 August 2019, 17:19
Lord Hayward criticised Boris Johnson for shutting down parliament, while castigating MPs for refusing to come to an agreement ahead of a no-deal Brexit.
Speaking to Shelagh Forgerty, the peer launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament earlier this week, calling it “a device” to “stop debate”.
“I believe in a parliamentary democracy, and I’ve espoused that in other parts of the world, countries that don’t follow it.” “You should stand up, have your debates, negotiate, and that’s not what’s been happening.”
He went on to criticise Johnson’s team for refusing to negotiate with the Irish government and European Union leaders “very forcibly”, in order to reach a deal that could pass through the House of Commons.
Instead, he said, the government have spent the summer investigating how to suspend parliament, rather than finding a passable deal.
Lord Hayward understood, yet remained “unconvinced” by the argument that proroguing parliament was necessary in order to reduce time for MPs to undemocratically stop Brexit.
He also rejected No. 10’s reasoning that parliament was being suspended in order to set out a new domestic agenda.
Lord Hayward then went on to castigate members of parliament that have, in his opinion, up until now, merely voted against different propositions and Withdrawal Agreements, as opposed to constructively trying to find a way forward.
“As Ruth Davidson said yesterday; there are a lot of MPs of all different political parties who spent more time saying ‘no’, and not enough time trying to find a solution.”
“What this government should have been doing for the last few weeks was negotiating very hard with the Irish and the EU, and not spending any more time preparing to prorogue parliament”.
