In what way can Boris Johnson possibly
be compared to Joseph Goebbels?
Obviously, Boris Johnson is not a Nazi
in any way, shape, or form.
But the astonishing thing is that Goebbels,
in a quite well-known speech in 1933,
said that the new German state was
one in which the will of the people
could be executed by the government
without the interference, the unnecessary interference,
of parliament.
That's what made this new order, in a sense, really democratic.
It's a direct expression of the popular will.
And extraordinarily, since the referendum,
that is the way many have spoken,
and now the prime minister himself has spoken in that way.
And indeed he's acted on it.
He's tried to remove parliament's involvement
in the process of resolving Brexit.
He has rejected, or at least argued fiercely against,
the Supreme Court's intervention in that,
and he now plans an election whose campaign,
whose theme is the people as expressed in the referendum
against parliament.
And this is an extraordinary transformation
of British political discourse, and in my view very dangerous.
Well, it's happened because the referendum
has injected a new element into our constitution.
Parliament necessarily is involved
in implementing the referendum, but it
can't agree on how to do so, and there is really
no mandate for what is emerging as the fallback position, which
is a no-deal Brexit, which is what they're now fighting over.
We've unleashed demons here which
are likely to be with us for many years.