The reaction I got was amazing on every level. At first, writing that letter was really an exercise to clarify my own thoughts. I must admit, I was shocked and outraged when a second prorogation was announced in the space of one year. I wanted to explain my reaction to myself—I am a philosopher, after all—to find out whether it was just an unjustified outburst or, on the contrary, whether there was something I could put into words, which would justify why I felt that something fundamental and not just transient had happened. I sent the letter to two or three people. It was during the holidays, a time when people do not necessarily read their e-mails right away, but there was a snowball effect that really took me by surprise. Without wanting to organize any sort of campaign myself, I gathered almost 300 signatures from professors. But beyond that, when the letter was published, I was really pleasantly surprised by the e-mail responses and the invitations I received to speak publicly not only in university settings but also in community settings.
It is certain that we did not expect the topic of prorogation to trump reasonable accommodation or more sexier topics and to mobilize the people. To my surprise, there was a real interest, a real willingness to understand the rules—that should please our chair, here. I heard people asking me repeatedly, for example, why those things were not taught in school and how could kids get out of school without understanding the basics of how our parliamentary institutions work. We should teach that to our children so that they will be more vigilant than we were.
So, up to five months after the publication of the letter, and especially in January and February, the reaction was very strong, both from the media and the so-called chattering classes, but also from the general public. I was very encouraged to see that the people were listening and they were ready to tackle really technical questions. I think they perceived danger. Sometimes, we can disagree with one government or another on policies it might bring forward, but we will not put up a fight because of that. In this case, we perceived, perhaps initially not very well expressed, that this went beyond a disagreement on policies. It was something that had to do with the fundamental way in which our institutions operate, and the reaction was very encouraging.