Tory MP and renowned Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg is so determined to leave the European Union that he is willing to go to all sorts of lengths to do so.
Reports on Wednesday suggested that the 49-year-old believed that Theresa May could 'prorogue' - or suspend - parliament if a backbench bill to prevent a no-deal exit was passed.
Rees-Mogg is said to have told a meeting of the Bruges Group of Brexiteers in Westminster that the efforts of his fellow MPs to stop the UK from crashing out of the EU were a "constitutional outrage". He is reported to have said:
If the House of Commons undermines our basic constitutional conventions then the executive is entitled to use other vestigial constitutional means to stop it.
By which I basically mean prorogation... And I think that would be the government’s answer, that is the government’s backstop, to use a choice phrase.
This could be interpreted as a challenge to May to stand up to the government's opponents who are urging her to rule out a no-deal, or he will seek the assistance of The Queen to shut down the Commons.
Rees Mogg now not expecting all necessary laws/SIs to have been passed before Brexit Day... https://t.co/U7jN2Ivwp5— Faisal Islam (@Faisal Islam) 1548256804
However, Rees-Mogg's words have provided fuel for his critics, who have been pointing out the hypocrisy of his statement as seeking help from elsewhere to stop a no-deal is hardly the act of a sovereign government, which Brexit was supposed to 'restore'.
You literally couldn’t make it up! Jacob Rees-Mogg, who says Brexit is all about Parliamentary sovereignty, urges T… https://t.co/1UmMUMq7Kr— Peter Stefanovic (@Peter Stefanovic) 1548259681
Others felt that his words were spelling out something far more worrying.
A thing of dictators https://t.co/pJ2vTEzoSi— richard evans (@richard evans) 1548256736