Brexiteers should be careful about setting fire to the British constitution

Revolutions, once started, are hard to stop. The fire that David Cameron so casually lit in 2016 has burned through many things that seemed like fixtures of British national life. Judicial independence; the Civil Service and the Bank of England; the Union; the Conservative party’s faith in institutions; basic standards of journalism; and parliament itself: all have been pushed towards the the flames by chanting members of the Brexit death-cult.

So it should be no great surprise that we’ve reached the stage where it is said that the Prime Minister of the day is prepared to set aside pretty much the most fundamental principle of representative democracy in the name of the precious Brexit.

To recap: the Times today reports – and has not, to my knowledge been contradicted – that in the event that the government loses a confidence vote in parliament before Britain has left the EU, Boris Johnson would simply refuse to resign as Prime Minister and cling to office until the automatic conveyor-belt of law had carried Britain out of the EU on October 31^st.