Boris Johnson as Mr Hyde

Can I, first of all, say that I agree with my boss?

No, that’s not Jacob Rees-Mogg talking. It’s me in reference to the founder and editor of this website, reaction.life. I don’t always agree with Iain Martin. That’s why he employs me – I think. But we do agree on the essentials, and what came out, essentially, from Wednesday’s Return of the King was that Boris Johnson wiped the floor with Jeremy Corbyn and the entire Opposition, with the sole exception of the SNP.

(By the by, am I the only one to have felt that at least one third of the voices raised in the Commons yesterday, from the Tory and Labour benches as well as from those occupied by the Nats, were Scottish? It seems to me that Westminster, not Holyrood, remains the principle forum in which those of a tartan persuasion pursue serious politics.)

But I digress. Yes, Boris was a raging bull. He was a maniac – the Hulk – biffing and bashing at will as his opponents fell over like ninepins. Corbyn, by contrast, was pathetic. Could anything be more lame than his attempt to lump the collapse of Thomas Cook in with the Prime Minister’s illegal prorogation of Parliament, as if they were of equal moment and Boris was responsible for both. The leader of the Opposition should have been a matador, elegantly goading the bull before him while leading him ineluctably to his death in the middle of the ring. Instead, having said precisely nothing even remotely equal to the challenge confronting him, he made a face, then sat down for the next three hours, lost in his own world.

As for Jo Swinson. Lame with extra lame, as my wife would say. The Lib Dem leader must have said something during her 45 seconds or so on her feet. But if she did, I can’t remember a word of it – probably something about Boris being a very naughty boy who would soon get his come-uppance – though not, we can safely assume, from her. The idea that this erstwhile head girl might end up in Number Ten has never looked less likely.

But the leaders were not alone. MPs from both major parties were almost uniformly useless. The Tories toadied up to Boris, urging him on to ever greater excess. They cheered, clapped and stamped their feet. The Labour benches, smothered in wrath and indignation, totally lost the run of themselves and barely landed a glove.

The SNP, meanwhile, stuck to their task and at least appeared coherent, making the point over and over that if this was how the English wanted to behave then the sooner Scotland gains its independence, the better.

But while acknowledging that Johnson as Mr Hyde had a good day and that Dr Jekyll had – as is increasingly the case – taken the day off, we should not forget the warm-up act provided by the Attorney-General, Geoffrey Cox.

Is this how eminent QCs behave in court? Surely not. Bellowing and waving his arms around, Cox was like one of those divas out of grand opera who in their late careers play the comedy roles for all they are worth, milking the applause before they are forced to leave the stage. Abandoning his own version of the dead parrot sketch, he denounced the Opposition as cowards and Parliament as both dead and disgraceful. How, I wonder, would such a histrionic, out-of-control performance have gone down in the high court. How long before the judge ordered him to sit down and behave himself? But, of course, Cox – more usually Igor to Johnson’s Monster – would never have behaved like that in court. He would have known better than to risk being held in contempt and condemned to a night in the cells.

One other point cries out to be made before we consign Yesterday in Parliament to the archives. If we had listened only to Johnson and Cox, there would have been no reason to assume that anything much out of the ordinary had happened on the legal or political front this week. Just 24 hours previously, the Supreme Court had ruled unanimously that the prime minister, acting on the advice of the attorney-general, had unlawfully shut down Parliament and prevented it from going about its business. Yet, as far as Box & Cox were concerned, such legalistic folderoll was water off a duck’s back, hardly worth mentioning.

If you or I, as ordinary citizens, had been found to have broken the law in such a cavalier fashion, punishment would routinely have followed. We would have been obliged to accept our guilt and pay the price. If we were to be dragged from the dock shouting out that the judge had got it wrong, we would still be taken down. That night, we would be dressed in prison garb unable to take our eyes off the lidless shared toilet.

Not so Box & Cox. In the Commons yesterday, neither man expressed any apology or contrition for their unlawful prorogation. The word “sorry” did not pass either of their lips. On the contrary, they exulted in the opportunity their continued liberty gave them to mock and insult their fellow MPs. Paying only lip-service, if that, to the validity of the court’s landmark ruling, they made it clear what they thought of the judgment. With one bound, apparently, they were free.

That was the true disgrace we witnessed in the House of Commons on Wednesday. It had nothing to do with Brexit, which, to aggravation of all concerned, remains to be resolved and is no further forward today than it was before Parliament was unlawfully shut down.

The question now is, if he cannot negotiate a deal with Brussels before October 31, will the prime minister break the law again by trying to take the UK out of the EU in open defiance of the Withdrawal Act passed by the House on September 4 and given royal assent on September 9? And if he does, how long before he is ordered to appear before the Supreme Court in person to face a charge of treason?

In that event, Dr Jekyll would be well advised to rise from his slumber. Mr Hyde is not a good look in court and politics is not a game.

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