It is not illegal or mad, but that doesn’t make it right or wise

housands of demonstrators descended on Parliament Square and brought traffic to a standstill as they marched to Downing Street yesterday. Picture: AFP

Is this a constitutional crisis? No. Might there be one? Yes. Is this a democratic and political crisis? Absolutely.

The government is not acting unconstitutionally. A large part of the power of the executive is its control of parliamentary time, including the ability to choose the timing of a Queen’s Speech.

The government is simply using its legitimate power to make life more difficult for those who oppose its policy.

It is also not acting incomprehensibly. Boris Johnson believes that he can get the EU to shift its position and offer a new deal — but only if it seriously believes that there is a prospect of no deal.

This may be thought unrealistic by some people (me included) but it is vital to understand that Mr Johnson and his government do not think so. They are, whether with reason or not, optimistic.

This has made them determined to signal to Europe that the House of Commons will find it hard to stop them. This view about a deal is central to all their actions, this latest manoeuvre included.

The government is also entitled to point out that parliament has had at least a year to come forward with a policy. While everyone is keen that the Commons should assert itself, the truth is that the more it has asserted itself, the worse things have got. How much more time do they need?

Yet while the Queen’s Speech move may be comprehensible and constitutional, that doesn’t make it right or wise.

We now have, effectively, a new government with a new policy. It is trying to reduce the amount of time parliament has to rule on whether it supports this new policy, when it is overwhelmingly likely that it does not. So of course this is a democratic and political crisis. Parliament will struggle even harder to assert control, perhaps through a confidence vote or legal ways of forcing the government to act. The government may try to frustrate this and this would turn the political crisis into a constitutional one.

It is rarely a good political idea to unite your opponents in righteous indignation. The fury might, for instance, produce an election, and one in which the Conservatives lose more through tactical voting than they gain from Leave voters defecting from Labour.

It would also be one in which two central messages against ­Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — that he isn’t a proper parliamentary democrat and is excessively ideological — are instead turned against Mr Johnson. Opposition unity might also make it easier for a non-Tory coalition to be assembled after an election and one that decides on a policy of joining the Customs union and the single market, making the no-deal ­pointless.

It is also rarely a good idea to use parliamentary tactics in power that you would not wish to see used against you. So the Conser­vatives may regret later what they are doing now, especially if no-deal does not go as well as some Tories expect. But such regret may take a while.

Daniel Finkelstein is a Conservative member of the House of Lords