Parliament should not assume the prerogative of the harlot – The Times, Thetimes.co.uk

Battle lines are drawn, swords unsheathed and it’s once more unto the breach, dear friends, over Brexit. The game’s afoot, as Henry V urged his troops at Agincourt. Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s chief adviser, is overly fond of martial talk but the hand of history hangs over this parliament. Boris Johnson has said he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than ask the European Union for an extension. The forces of the opposition are being strengthened by a growing band of prominent Tory rebels. Casualties are strewn over the field as the government and parliament struggle for supremacy.

The nation should not be surprised by this furious clash. MPs who voted with near unanimity in 2017 to invoke article 50 and begin the…