The U.K. parliament was supposed to return to work next week, when it seemed more than possible that the conservative government under Boris Johnson might fall. But that possibility has been all but eliminated, or at least postponed, because Johnson has gone to the queen and had parliament “prorogued” until mid-October. With Brexit slated for Halloween, that’s a formula that makes the U.K. crashing out of the European Union with no deal in place a near certainty.
Proroguing parliament, that is, suspending a session of the body without dissolving it, is not on the face of it something unusual. It usually happens for about a week each year as the new session is getting underway. But Johnson’s request expands that to a length that hasn’t happened since the English Civil Wars. It’s generating calls for everything from a general election to marching in the streets. And it’s testing the extreme limits of the kingdom’s “unwritten constitution.” Can the prime minister really suspend parliament to prevent anyone from taking action until it’s too late to act? Can he suspend parliament when that parliament is considering a vote of no confidence? Apparently … yes.
The Guardian is keeping up a running list as MPs and officials respond to this extraordinary action.
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon described Johnson’s action as “that of a dictatorship” and told the BBC, “I think today will go down in history as the day UK democracy died.”
MP John McDonnell was equally blunt, saying of Johnson’s act, “Make no mistake, this is a very British coup. Whatever one’s views on Brexit, once you allow a Prime Minister to prevent the full and free operation of our democratic institutions you are on a very precarious path.”
The first minister of Wales joined several others in calling for a second, emergency EU referendum to stop the nation from crashing out of the union before it’s too late. But with no parliament in place, there seems to be no mechanism to make this happen.
A petition to stop the proroguing of parliament has gained over 60,000 signatures in its first hour online, but that also seems to mean nothing. Johnson may not have an Article II to back him up, but it seems that he also can do anything he wants.
Until this happened, odds had been increasing that Johnson’s government could be forced from office in the next month, giving someone other than the author of Brexit a chance to take a swing at softening its impact. However, there was no agreement on who that someone should be. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was insisting on getting his shot at forming a government, but absolutely no one, not even other Labour members, wanted Corbyn in charge. All of which meant that the chances that anyone else could wrangle control of an ad hoc national unity government before the false-advertising bus ran off the cliff was nearly impossible.
Now it would seem to be completely impossible. Parliament will briefly sit next week to handle the steps of opening a new session, then be dismissed from the capital until after the queen speaks on Oct. 14. Then the members will finally take their seats again with a bare two weeks remaining before a no-deal Brexit hits them broadside.
Internal documents prepared by Johnson’s government show that, in addition to economic disruptions and innumerable delays in travel, with a no-deal Brexit, parts of the U.K. could be looking at shortages of medications.