LAST week Boris Johnson and his hard-right government launched an all-out assault on our already embattled democracy.

Not content with trying to force through a damaging no-deal Brexit and letting Britain crash out of the EU on October 31, last Wednesday he moved to shut down Parliament to make it harder for MPs to stop him.

Earlier that week we heard that he plans to pack the House with dozens of hard-Brexiteer peers, including Wetherspoon’s boss Tim Martin and billionaire hedge fund chief Sir Michael Hintze — both funders of right-wing Leave campaigns — in order to help him force his agenda through the Lords.

Those who are pushing for a hard Brexit will argue that MPs are trying to frustrate result of the referendum and ignore the voices of those who want to leave the EU. Shutting down Parliament or packing it with new lords, they argue, is just protecting democracy from meddling politicians.

The government itself claims it’s about delivering on its own domestic agenda and lets them set out their vision for post-Brexit Britain as a democracy free from EU control.

But we know Boris Johnson’s move is not about democracy. It’s not about delivering on the democratic will of the people and it’s certainly not about letting people “take back control.” It’s just an Establishment power grab by him and his right-wing government.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was even caught on camera explaining to a French government minister the real reason the government has shut down Parliament was because Johnson doesn’t have the majority he needs to stop it being blocked.

The fact he can do this is just the latest example of our broken political system — the result of our unwritten constitution that acts as little more than a gentlemen’s agreement that is ripe for abuse.

While Labour’s condemnation of the proroguing of Parliament as an “outrage” was correct, it should also come as little surprise. Westminster’s system is a plaything of the Bullingdon Club boys.  

In 2019 the House of Lords is still packed to the rafters with political appointees and even hereditary peers — making it more like a private members’ club than a legislature. Some 57 per cent are privately educated, according to the Sutton Trust.

Meanwhile, Westminster’s “winner takes all” electoral system continues to shut out the voices of people across the country as votes pile up in safe seats, leaving millions to people unrepresented. And the Tories plan on excluding even more people through their US-style voter suppression plans.

But throughout our history, it has been down to ordinary working people to fight for our democratic rights.

This month has marked 200 years since the Peterloo Massacre took place in Manchester. On that day 60,000 working people gathered to demand political representation — the chances for their voices to be heard and their city be represented in Parliament.

Local magistrates tried to shut down the meeting by sending in an army of 60 cavalrymen to disperse the crowd in brutal attack that left 18 people dead and more than 600 injured.

Peterloo is recognised as a key moment in the history of the reform movement, one that changed public opinion and shifted support towards the suffrage movement and helped an increasingly politicised working class find its voice.

One of the legacies of Peterloo is the reminder that our democracy is never settled. It will always be challenged and those in control will always attempt to seize more power for themselves.

Johnson’s move to shut down Parliament also shows that 200 years after Peterloo, our unwritten constitution — nothing more than a gentlemen’s agreement propped up by Jacob Rees-Mogg and co — is in desperate need of radical reform.

We need to fight with the same passion today: to battle for a better democracy.

Last weekend hundreds of campaigners, trade unionists and activists from across the left met in Manchester for “This is What Democracy Looks Like” — a major conference hosted by the trade union-backed Politics for the Many campaign.

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Paul Mason, Hilary Wainwright, James Meadway and Labour’s Jon Trickett MP addressed the conference on the desperate need for constitutional reform.

This event couldn’t have come at a more critical moment.

The movement for political equality is central to the movement for economic equality. It is the rotten system that leaves millions voiceless and excluded from politics that has put us where we are today.

We find ourselves in a political crisis in Britain — it is a pivotal moment in our history.

We’re at a fork in the road: between democracy or Old Etonian despotism. It’s time to decide which side we are on.
 
This crisis can be the start of a new movement for real democracy — and the protests we’ve seen over prorogation should give us hope. Let’s step it up: our labour movement should commit to giving working people the voice they’ve for so long felt they haven’t had.
 
For more information visit www.politicsforthemany.co.uk. Lynn Henderson, is chair of Politics for the Many steering group of trade unionists and national officer for PCS union in Scotland and Ireland.