The Brexit years have been rich drama; part soap opera, part tragicomedy. Boris Johnson, the new British prime minister, is playing his part by triggering a semi-nuclear option. He has suspended, or prorogued, Parliament.
In normal times — that is prior to 2016 — prorogation is a typical parliamentary procedure closing one session and setting the date for a new one. But this is no ordinary move. It was designed, as the defense secretary admitted off-air, to reduce the parliamentary time available to scotch a no-deal Brexit. It is not the full nuclear option, as Johnson had threatened to suspend Parliament for even longer by setting a date for a general election.
Johnson has upped the ante. Many portray this as a blow for democracy, the moment when an anti-democratic government unshackles itself from the oversight of Parliament. In a non-Western country, this would be met by howls of outrage. The government deploys the populist nonsense that this is the people versus Parliament, where anti-democratic legislators are defying the will of the electorate.
Is this the final few episodes of the Brexit saga? Is it the endgame? Are we facing the last great battle of this political war? Well, only this phase. The fight is between Brussels and London, the UK and the EU, but also within Britain itself.
No-dealers, dealers and remainers are all squaring up to each other.
Chris Doyle
It is also no longer a contest between strictly out-and-out leavers and remainers. No-dealers, dealers and remainers are all squaring up to each other. The government is under the aegis of the no-dealers. Johnson declares he still wants a deal but, instead of the no-deal option being a million to one as it was according to him in June, it is now just “touch and go.”
The dealers are the remnants of the May government loyalists alongside other MPs who believe in the need to respect the 2016 referendum result without a crash. At present, they are at the back of the grid. With barely a voice in government, they command too few votes in Parliament. They are disunited, with no clear vision or strategy for what a deal looks like. Their aim will be to force the government to request an extension to the Oct. 31 deadline from Brussels, allowing more time to secure a deal or perhaps have a referendum or an election.
Remainers and dealers could, in theory, unite and force a vote of no-confidence in the government. Yet this triggers questionable scenarios. Johnson could set the election date for Nov. 1, removing all parliamentary avenues to stop a no-deal scenario. The law has to be changed to stop Britain leaving. If it was accepted that a government of national unity could be formed, who would lead it? The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn proposed that it should be him, as the leader of the opposition. Other parties have insisted it should be a consensus figure. Johnson is happy to terrify Tory naysayers with the line of, “It’s me or Corbyn.”
The government has the whip hand, for now. It controls the parliamentary timetable. The unelected House of Lords can be relied upon to hold up any attempt to alter the timetable. If Parliament does force the government to seek an extension, the UK can veto this in Brussels as one of the 28 members of the EU.
Johnson has suspended Parliament for five weeks, when the average prorogation is about eight days. It is the longest since the Second World War. In effect, this wipes a week in September off the parliamentary timetable and it will be nigh impossible for opponents to challenge this. What, one wonders, could stop Johnson extending the suspension of Parliament until Nov. 1? He has threatened any Conservative MPs who thwart his plans with deselection, meaning they cannot stand as Conservatives in any general election. This could include up to 20 former ministers, who may have to become independents.
Opponents have also gone for a judicial review. Many have backed this, including the former Conservative Prime Minister John Major. Yet again, the legal system will in all likelihood not move fast enough.
The EU remains frustrated. Publicly it maintains the line that it will not budge, but this did weaken a trifle. In the EU contest, Johnson has also narrowed down the terrain of dispute to the Northern Irish backstop alone. Get that replaced and he would not seek to alter the remainder of the existing withdrawal agreement. Many look to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. She, however, never rescued David Cameron in talks or his successor Theresa May. She might be less inflexible than President Emmanuel Macron of France but evidence that she will tear up the united EU line is thin. European leaders still believe that it is they who have the whip hand against an isolated and desperate Britain.
Johnson, egged on by his main adviser Dominic Cummings, is exhibiting a hard, ruthless exterior. All opposition to his plans is met with immediate consequences, and no option, however constitutionally questionable, is ruled out. It has the hallmarks of an increasingly semi-authoritarian government, quite something when one considers that Brexit was advertised as a push for independence and true parliamentary sovereignty. For anyone in any doubt, a senior Cabinet minister, when asked if the government would respect a law Parliament passed to delay Brexit, refused multiple times to say that it would. The power grab is from Downing Street, by a government who no longer has a functioning majority. The British Parliament is in a fight for its life.
- Chris Doyle is director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding. Twitter: @Doylech
