Unless the Queen wants to leave the UK a withered stump, she should stop the PM’s plan to prorogue parliament now

Last night, I dreamed about an audience with the Queen. I ma’amed away with flawless sycophancy and avoided the delicate matter of Prince Andrew and his late friend Jeffrey Epstein.

The topic under discussion was Brexit, though in truth it was a monologue. “Respectfully, ma’am,” I slimed, “I beg you to consider the implications of leaving the EU without a deal. Ma’am? Ma’am?”

She glanced up, smiled that frostily enigmatic smile, and returned her gaze to the Racing Post. “You see, ma’am, you are our last hope. If the prime minister continues on this path, there is every chance that in five years your realm will be reduced from four nations to two.”

She murmured something about fancying a monkey on a 3-1 shot in the 4.20 at Haydock, and pressed the bell embedded in the arm of her chair. I was forcibly, though gently, removed by a pair of equerries.

In the light of day, it strikes me I was petitioning the wrong monarch. The current one, gawd bless her, is 93. The chances of her being around when the Scots go independent and Northern Ireland leaves the union to rejoin the republic are roughly the same as those against that horse. About 25 per cent.

So I find myself typing words I never expected to write about the future monarch. I want to hear more from Prince Charles.

On reflection, that “more” is redundant. Bizarrely, given Prince Charles’s well known penchant for sharing his thoughts about pretty much everything with pretty much anyone who will listen, he hasn’t communicated a dickie bird about the defining issue of this age and the next.

Considering the likelihood that he’ll be the monarch who presides over the UK’s disintegration if Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings realise their threat to sideline parliament to ram no deal through, this would seem the ideal time to end his omerta.

Johnson is preparing to shut down the House of Commons for five weeks, it is reported, for an election campaign lasting from mid-September until after the Halloween deadline. The word of the day is “prorogue”.

It isn’t clear whether he can do this (apparently he is taking legal advice, though in the absence of any relevant law what does that mean?). It isn’t clear if the threat is just a negotiating ploy designed to scare the EU27, and/or to goad Jeremy Corbyn into a vote of no confidence Johnson would probably win.

If the threat is serious, it isn’t clear if a mechanism to prevent it is available to John Bercow and/or the parties of opposition. This is the special thrill of not having a written constitution, though here the redundant word is “written”. A country this close to catastrophe in which so little is clear has no constitution at all. In democratic terms, it is a failed state.

The notion of sidestepping parliament in the quest to restore “parliamentary sovereignty” is as stale an irony as even Brexit can regurgitate. It’s all very well Keir Starmer calling such a plan outrageous. But when he adds “MPs must take the earliest opportunity to thwart this plan”, you want to grab him by the lapels, give him a shake, and yell, “Yeah, mate, we can all dream – but how?”

One thing which does seem clear is that Johnson isn’t the shambolic buffoon we expected. In no way does he resemble the bumbling amateur of his own self-creation. He is as much a rascal as ever he was, but no longer an amateur rascal. He’s finally turned professional. He’s a pro rogue.

The seriousness of his threat to silence the Commons may soon be less unclear. A rumour reaches me from sources close to No 10 (though it may by now be public) that he intends to convent the Privy Council – a prerequisite to dissolving parliament and calling a general election – on Wednesday.

If so, only one person can save us. The Queen has the power to refuse a request to prorogue. Her Maj, so an “expert” in this field of staggering vagueness tells me, can do whatever she likes.

In that light, and admitting that what follows is even less connected to reality than my dream, I address the following to the next monarch.

Charles, Your Royal Highness, have a word in mummy’s shell-like. Tell the old girl what I tell every Brexiteer ancient who crosses my path, with slightly less tact than I showed by not mentioning Prince Andrew: that they won’t be around for long, and really need to think about their children and grandchildren.

If she is content to leave a withered stump of a country – little more than an outsize US aircraft carrier – to her son and his son, she should stay hidden behind the canard that she is duty-bound to be above politics.

If she’s unworried by the consequences of gagging the Commons at a moment of maximum historical import, if she isn’t alarmed by where that precedent might lead, she should meekly acquiesce in the proroguing of parliament.

But if she has any care for the democratic precepts of a parliamentary democracy, if she wishes to bequeath the country she inherited to her descendants, she will let it be known without delay that she will refuse to be the enabler of the first coup d’etat executed by a sitting government against its people in recorded British history.

And if she is fretful about that refusal provoking a constitutional crisis, Charles could reassure her with this. We already have a crisis like no other because there is no constitution.