Jacob Rees Mogg accused those trying to block a No Deal Brexit in the Commons on Tuesday of being Parnellites. There is an excellent letter in The Guardian today underlining why such a reference was at best misplaced:
Jacob Rees-Mogg said in the Commons that the approach taken by a majority of the House to block a no-deal Brexit is “the most unconstitutional use of this house since the days of Charles Stewart Parnell when he tried to bung up parliament” (Politics live, 3 September). No doubt he was trying to imply that the Irish are always troublesome and that insistence on the backstop is in a tradition of Irish obstruction of British politics. But he should remember that if it were not for Daniel O’Connell he would be ineligible to take his seat in the House of Commons by virtue of his religion.
Felix Larkin
Dublin, Ireland
Guardian 5th September
While Rees Mogg has a History degree from Oxford his regular historical pronouncements are often questionable and sometimes just wrong. A summary is below:
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