The Queen: Will she have to use her constitutional role to rid us of Boris Johnson, if he refuses to honour the threatened vote of ‘no confidence’ over his ‘no deal’ Brexit.

That didn’t take long! The Conservative Party appears to be falling apart over Boris Johnson’s plan for a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

Some are siding with Dominic Grieve and threatening to support Jeremy Corbyn in an early vote of ‘no confidence’ against Mr Johnson if ‘no deal’ seems the most likely outcome when Parliament re-convenes in September.

But Dominic Cummings, BoJob’s senior advisor, has apparently claimed that Mr Johnson will simply ignore the result of such a vote if it goes against him.

This is unconstitutional – dictatorial, in fact.

If a confidence vote goes against Mr Johnson, Parliament will have 14 days to form an alternative government, according to the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, with a cross-party “government of national unity” strongly suggested.

But Mr Cummings apparently reckons BoJob would call a general election, framing it in populist terms as being “people v politicians”.

He wants to put us on a slippery slide towards fascism, it seems.

One of the so-called 14 early warning signs of fascism is the identification of enemies as a unifying cause. In this case, with the enemies being politicians opposing Mr Johnson, it seems he would set us on a path to totalitarianism.

The obsession with Brexit would tick off another entry on that list – “powerful and continuing nationalism”.

It has been suggested that Mr Johnson would not be required to step down after losing a confidence vote, and the timetable of anything that follows would be set by him.

But others have claimed that refusal to honour the result of such a vote would require the Queen to step in and dispense of his services herself.

That would be ironic – a man who is asserting the ‘divine right of kings’ to do what he wants being removed by the person who actually has that right.

Source: Dominic Cummings takes swipe at Grieve over confidence vote plan | Politics | The Guardian