Margaret MacMillan on the State of Democracy in the UK

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Look, can you put this into democratic and constitutional context, particularly after what you just heard from John Redwood that this is standard procedure almost?

MARGARET MACMILLAN, HISTORIAN, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Yes. I think it isn’t standard procedure. It seems to me it’s a moment of crisis where Britain and other countries have been through it and Britain has been through it before with really important issues about the future of the country and the future shape of the country and its relations with other parts of the world are up. And so, I don’t think it’s just business as usual. I think what is unfortunate perhaps — I mean, I think John Redwood’s feelings and views are deeply held. But the tendency, I think, to ascribe to the other side everything wrong. Your earlier guest, General Mattis, was talking about how we have to reach across and how we have to be prepared to recognize that people who disagree with us may sometimes be right. And it seems to me that’s something that’s been lost in the current debate in Britain and has been lost in the last two years. And democracy’s only —

MARGARET MACMILLAN, HISTORY PROFESSOR EMERITUS, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: — disagree with may sometimes be right. And it seems to me that’s something that’s being lost in the current debate in Britain and has been lost in the last two years. And democracies only really work when there’s a fundamental willingness to make them work and a fundamental understanding that we may disagree but we’re somehow in it together and we — and we want in the end to work together.

AMANPOUR: Let me point out what some people are saying. I mean, you know, you’ve just pointed out that, you know, sometimes you have to reach across aisles and debate in a civil way. Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party — obviously she’s the Scottish leader, first minister — has talked about a smash and grab on democracy and she has warned about lasting damage to the British democracy. Just list to what she said.

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NICOLA STURGEON, FIRST MINISTER, SCOTLAND: Shutting down parliament in order to force through a no deal Brexit, which will do untold and lasting damage to the country, against the wishes of M.P.s is not democracy, it’s dictatorship. And if M.P.s don’t come together next week to stop Boris Johnson in his tracks, then I think today will go down in history as the day U.K. democracy died.

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AMANPOUR: And of course the Labor mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said that Boris Johnson appears to be, quote, running scared, trying to ram through his do or die Brexit deal by the end of October, even if it means suspending Parliament and — and limiting debate. What do you say about — I mean, using the word dictatorship to — to describe what’s happening?

MACMILLAN: Well I think Britain is a long way from dictatorship. I mean, it still has a free press, it still has free and fair elections. But I can understand the concern. I mean, Nicola Sturgeon is a very experienced politician. She’s bound, I think, to — to use rhetoric and go over perhaps the top a bit. But I do think it’s a concern because I think proroguing parliament is different from having a parliamentary recess. And — and a parliamentary recess, which is normal thing that often happens in the autumn when people go off to the political conferences, you have parliamentary business continuing, bills will continue through committees, they don’t suddenly get suspended.