If our gangster government starts picking which laws it respects, the fight could switch to the streets

Imagine if some hoodlum decided he’d have to have a bit of think about obeying the laws on knife crime, or, heaven forbid, if some referendum campaign officials decided the laws on election funding were simply just so much red tape

Before Dominic Cummings was forbidden from opening his trap in public he observed that politicians “don't get to choose which votes they respect”. Acerbic, clever, distorting and subtly demeaning its intended victims – typical Cummings.

No matter that the mandate of 2016 cannot be necessarily interpreted as one for a no-deal Brexit, or any other type of Brexit for that matter. Nor does Cummings mind that MPs, the common name for elected politicians, have a job to do as our representatives and we do not rule by plebiscite or orders-in-council promulgated by the Queen on the advice of her prime minister (not yet anyway).

If you like, put it like this: We do not want haughty, arrogant unelected officials in Brussels simply replaced by unelected officials in Downing Street, unaccountable even to the PM, and already in contempt of parliament.

The Cummings coup is not complete. But this is where we are, the supposed democratic imperative of the 2016 referendum constantly used as a trump card in any debate, when it is nothing of the sort. Any dissent is dismissed as mere elitist snobbery, and the uncertain verdict of 2016, still not challenged head-on anywhere nearly often enough.

Now, however, it is time for Cummings and those he controls – notably the prime minister – to be told that that politicians also don’t get to choose which laws to obey.

If the will of parliament is that Brexit should be delayed and no-deal Brexit avoided, and that is enacted in legislation, then ministers do not have a right to ignore or delay it unduly or to thwart it.

Very shortly, the House of Commons will speak its manifest will through legislation – a wish to delay Brexit and prevent the dreaded no deal. This cuts across the negotiating strategy of the government, and, in effect, deprives the Johnson administration of its raison d’etre.

The whole £100m “Get Ready” propaganda campaign will be rendered redundant. The attempt at yet another renegotiation with the EU would be cut off at the knee. There will be no no-deal Brexit, nor the threat of a no-deal Brexit, negotiating ploy or not. There will be nothing left of Boris Johnson’s government than a mop of blond hair atop a smouldering political car crash.

So what? That’s politics in a minority administration and hung parliament.

The stakes for Johnson could not be higher, and that is why his ministers are gaming the constitution for all it is worth. They are delving into every nook and cranny of the machinery, including the harmless ceremonial bits, for ways to thwart the will of parliament. They are weaponising flummery. Hence the absurd abuse of the power to prorogue, or suspend, parliament.

Now it is suggested that the new No No-Deal Brexit Act, or whatever it will be called, will be delayed unavoidably before it can reach the Palace and the Queen can graciously grant it her assent – La Reyne le veult, to give it its quaint Norman French expression. But the Queen can only will it if her ministers deign to send it to her. They should not plead that it got lost in the post, left on the Brexit bus, or they’re still thinking about things, or maybe that the dog ate it (probably the first task to be assigned to the Jack Russell pup joining Dominic Cummings in the Downing Street attack dog kennels).

This then, is what we have come to. Ministers such as Michael Gove are asked if they will obey a law, and the reply is that they don’t want to “buy a pig in a poke” and will have to take a look at this legal thingy before they decide, maybe, to do as it says. And to think the Conservative Party used to be big on “law and order”.

Imagine if some hoodlum decided he’d have to have a bit of think about obeying the laws on knife crime, or if some banker decided that the laws on fraud didn’t suit his present negotiating stance, and just let them slide. Or if, heaven forbid, some referendum campaign officials decided that the laws on election funding and the like were simply just so much red tape.

So obviously central is the no-deal Brexit scenario to the gangsters in Downing Street that they will do anything to get their way. Soon we will have, in effect, a giveaway budget from a patsy of a chancellor – huge spending boosts for all the best causes and tax cuts too, all to be paid for after the election – the traditional pre-election gambit, buying the voters with their own money.

And we have had the twisting and politicisation of the previously "dignified” bits of the constitution, those routine bits of administration carried out by men in tailcoats and tights. They are pushing the Queen and the institution of the monarchy onto places she really ought not to be pushed. And all in the name of a “deal” that the EU cannot in any case ever agree to, because of their desire to protect the single market and Good Friday Agreement. And also because it is simply illogical to be inside and outside a customs union at the same time.

What, then, do we expect people to do when they feel that their representative institutions – parliament – are being undermined and demeaned? When their voice cannot be heard because their MPs have been sent away on holiday? When MPs pass laws the government ignores? When Scotland and Northern Ireland and London are dismissed?

It seems obvious that the impulse towards mass direct action, as peaceful as it can be, will grow, and things could turn nasty. As Extinction Rebellion shows, this can be extremely effective and unpredictable with it. British history is full of such examples. Momentum have spoken about blockading the Queen’s speech already. Like the poll tax in 1990, you can only push the British so far before they kick up. Yes, it is perfectly possible to predict a riot. “Get ready” for those, Michael Gove.

As Tony Blair argues, even a general election would not defuse the tensions and solve the Brexit issue, and would merely give Johnson and his gang a chance to escape their responsibilities to win the specific consent of the people for the no-deal Brexit they are pursuing. Although it would be fractious and often bitter, the only way to solve a democratic impasse such as this is to hold a vote with the choice as it stands now: No Deal or No Brexit? Then we can get this thing done, one way or another.