The politics of anger

At the beginning of last week - before the announcement about prorogation of parliament - a journalist whose name and precise identity has escaped my memory tweeted that he or she had attended two political meetings that day, and people at each meeting were accusing the other of plotting a "coup."

The tweet added that "Both sides meant it."

Given that this was already the political climate, it is perhaps not as surprising as one would have liked it to be that the announcement that the PM was asking the Queen to "prorogue," e.g. temporarily shut down, parliament from the second week in September to the second week in October, was taken as confirmation of their worst fears in the minds of those who thought that the government was already plotting to abolish democratic accountability, of that the plans were promptly denounced in the most extreme language as an "outrage against democracy."

I discussed what I think was actually going on in the immediately preceding post. What is immensely depressing is not that people disagreed with or criticised the decision but the shocking lack of proportion in a great many responses from people who really should have known better.

It would have been depressing enough if comments like

“This is Britain’s Reichstag Fire Decree moment.”

had been coming from teenage scribblers on social media. The fact that such a ludicrous and, frankly, dangerous comparison could be made by Richard J Evans, a serious historian of Nazi Germany, is evidence that British political debate is rapidly losing anything resembling restraint or any sense of proportion.

Let's remind ourselves what the Reichstag Fire Decrees actually did. In the words of the American Holocaust Memorial,

"The Reichstag Fire Decree permitted the regime to arrest and incarcerate political opponents without specific charge, dissolve political organizations, and to suppress publications. It also gave the central government the authority to overrule state and local laws and overthrow state and local governments."

If Boris Johnson had taken powers to lock up Dominic Grieve in the Tower of  London without charge, dissolve the Lib/Dems, close down the Guardian, sack Sadiq Khan and Nicola Sturgeon and put his appointees in their places, comparing his actions to the Reichstag fire decree would have been proportionate.

Even accepting that there are significant differences between proroguing parliament and a recess, any reasonable person who is thinking with their cerebral cortex rather than their adrenal gland should be able to see that comparing a temporary prerogation of parliament for a five week period, during most of which it would normally have been in recess anyway, with the Reichstag Fire Degree is just a teeny-weeny bit over the top.

Also this week a prominent author of children's books had to delete a tweet about hanging the prime minister and apologise for the "tactical error" of its "intemperate language,"  Philip Pullman wrote

"Recent events have aroused my anger to the point where I temporarily lost my judgement."

Meanwhile a self-styled "award winning radio and TV presenter" not only suggested that "Brexiteers" should have to wait behind "normal people" in the queue for flu vaccines but added "let's hope it's a good virulent strain this year."

I've given some examples above of the politics of anger from extreme "Remain" supporters but there have been plenty of equally intemperate comments from Leave supporters as well.

This sort of anger, intemperate language, and the polarisation that they represent is a far greater threat to democracy than anything the government did last week.

All sides need to step back, take a deep breath, stop to think about what they are doing, and above all calm down a bit.