You won’t have been able to miss that Boris Johnson had asked the Queen to suspend Parliament. As has become normal these days, the reaction has been mixed.
Around midday, after Mr Johnson had made the request, OnTheWight dropped the following couple of questions to the current Isle of Wight MP, Bob Seely.
Can you let us/readers know your views on Boris Johnson wanting to suspend Parliament.
What do you say to those, including the Speaker of the House, that say it is “an offence against the democratic process and the rights of Parliamentarians as the people’s elected representatives”?
Obv keen for a swift response.
Seely: “We have spent months debating Brexit”
A bit after 5pm he replied with the following:
“62 percent of Islanders voted to leave the European Union. We need to deliver on that promise. Boris is doing so.
“We should all be looking forward to a good Queen’s speech. We need to get on and deliver on a domestic agenda: delivering more police, improving healthcare, getting more resources for education – the things that matter to people on the Island and nationally. We are getting there – the additional £48 million for the NHS in part of that – but there is more to do.
“Proroguing Parliament is perfectly normal. It happens prior to a Queen’s Speech. This Parliament has been on the longest in our history. In reality we are effectively sitting for a few days less in October. It may, however, make it more difficult for MPs to overrule the will of the people and block Brexit. I believe that it is important that we respect the mandate of the 2016 referendum and deliver Brexit.
“We have spent months debating Brexit. We now need to get on with it, and get on with governing for the people of this country.”
Twitter action
In the five-ish hours between us asking and him answering Bob had been on Twitter proclaiming
“Powerful facts here showing lack of balance. Media need to fairly report both sides. 👍”
The original twitter account Bob was RTing was @WeBackBoris who claimed the following to their ~1,500 followers
“In the past 36 hours, broadcasters have had the following number of media appearances from second referendum supporting MPs, MEPs & Party Leaders:” then claimed the numbers of ‘Remoaners’ (their words) and Brexiteers who had appeared on BBC and Sky News were significantly different, ending with the hashtag #MainstreamMediaBiasedExposed
The numbers used in the tweet weren’t given a source.
Thumbs up from Bob
Prior to that he’d given an indication of the way he was feeling about it by Tweeting a ‘👍’ on an Iain Dale article headlined: “Calm Down, Calm Down, Prorogation is Not the End of Democracy As We Know It”
