Sorry Remainers, the Queen was never going to save you from a no-deal Brexit – but your politicians can

Instead of inveighing against parliamentarians’ incompetence, Remainers are ragging on the one person who – much as it pains me to say it – is actually doing her job

Remainers have run out of people to hate. Yesterday, having expended their ire at the people we all elected to do politics, they directed their wrath towards our unelected head of state. On Twitter, centrist dads everywhere clutched their pearls as the Pearl-Wearer-in-Chief signed off the PM’s plans to prorogue parliament.

How, they twittered, could the Queen abet the #RightWingCoup? How, after wearing that blue hat with yellow flowers, could she perform such a despicable volte-face?

“The shameful Brexit Queen,” hissed an Alan. “Queen says no. Computer says no. The people say no.” quipped a Chris. Chants of “Kill the Queen! Guillotine!” echoed down Whitehall. Nor was protesters’ treasonous demand far-fetched.

Earlier that day, the chief executive of Best for Britain—a civil society group that “campaigns to Stop Brexit by any democratic means” – warned the monarch, thuggishly: “She would do well to remember history doesn’t look too kindly on royals who aid and abet the suspension of democracy.” Regicide was in the air; #AbolishTheMonarchy was trending.

Far be it from me to poop on this republican party – and yet. The idea that the PM “put the Queen in an impossible position”, that he forced her to choose between her loyalty to him and her loyalty to parliament, is misguided. Yesterday, the Queen did exactly what she’s always done: as she’s told. According to the uncodified conventions of our constitution, the Queen acts on the advice of a prime minister in whom parliament entrusts executive authority.

But but but, I hear you say, Johnson’s authority hangs by a thread! (At least in parliamentary arithmetic – in the polls, Johnson is still the lesser of two evils). Well, good. If we want to cut the cord with Johnson, we can.

If MPs want to annul the PM’s authority and reverse the proroguing, they can bring a vote of no confidence or a one-line Act of Parliament. If Jo Swinson wants to realise her party’s raison d’etre and “Stop Brexit”, she can suck it up and get behind a Labour-led interim government.

It’s not up to the Queen to overrule Johnson – it’s up to MPs. It is political, not royal, inaction that is expediting Brexit. But instead of inveighing against parliamentarians’ incompetence, Remainers are ragging on the one person who – much as it pains me to say it – is actually doing her job.

Yet the desire for the Queen to stop Brexit is also deeply ironic. Appalled by the PM’s undermining of parliamentary sovereignty, those in uproar sought to undermine it further by having the Queen overrule the PM. Royal political neutrality was the hard-won spoil of the Civil War and one of the few protections British subjects have against royal tyranny – and centrist Remainers want to throw it out the pram with the rest of their toys. In the hopes of protecting democracy, they are appealing to an inherently antidemocratic institution. Their single-mindedness has become self-defeating.

What’s shocking is not that yesterday’s events constituted a coup, but that they didn’t. In seeking the Queen’s permission to prorogue parliament in order to rush through his Brexit plans, Johnson followed the letter of our unwritten constitution – and there’s the rub.

In the absence of a rulebook, Johnson has written one himself and ridden roughshod over democracy. Yesterday made clear that, as Aaron Bastani writes, “our system of government is at breaking point”. We should exploit this febrile atmosphere to transform our constitution – but not in the way some Remainers wanted. Though politically expedient, having the Queen block Brexit would have set a dangerous precedent for the abuse of royal prerogative and crowned her, if not the “shameful Brexit Queen”, the Royal Remainer.

Sovereignty shouldn’t lie with the sovereign, but with the people. #AbolishTheMonarchy, sure – but not because it wasn’t sufficiently monarchical.