Knavish
Tricks
Johnson's
Brexit Gambit Puts Queen in a Tight Spot
Boris
Johnson is putting all his eggs in one basket in the final run-up to Brexit.
But by sending parliament on forced leave, he is damaging democracy and also
one of the last intact pillars of the United Kingdom: Queen Elizabeth II.
By Jörg
Schindler in London
© By Jörg Schindler in London
August 30,
2019
This summer
has been anything but fun for Queen Elizabeth II, with her sprawling family
affairs refusing to disappear from the headlines. First, the monarch had to
read that the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex, better known as Harry and Meghan,
don't appear to be taking their roles as environmental activists seriously
enough. In the span of only 11 days, the couple flew across Europe on private
jets four times. After that, the news made the rounds of six-figure
contributions to the royal family from a sketchy Hong Kong businessman.
The most
serious, however, were reports that Prince Andrew, Elizabeth's second son, not
only cultivated a precariously close friendship with recently deceased
multimillionaire and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but also allowed himself to
be introduced by Epstein to an underage girl. Buckingham Palace his
vociferously denied the accusation.
An Autumn
of Horror Looms
It's been
quite some time since the 93-year-old monarch, who is currently staying at her
Scottish country estate Balmoral, has had to deal with so much negative
attention focused on her family. Yet even though the summer of displeasure
still hasn't quite finished, an autumn of horror is already looming.
This time,
it will be the queen herself who is at the center of a confrontation unlike any
the United Kingdom has ever seen. Elizabeth has spent 67 years dutifully and
successfully fulfilling her non-partisan role, only to now be dragged into the
middle of a messy bout of political mud-wrestling. And Brexit -- surprise,
surprise -- is to blame.
Political
Vandalism
Boris
Johnson, the prime minister chosen by fewer than 100,000 Conservative Party
members, only slightly more than 0.1 percent of the British population, has
announced that at the end of July, he will lead the UK out of the EU on Oct.
31, come what may and by any means necessary. Since this week, it has been
clear that this will also include, if necessary, denting the throne of
Elizabeth II, an act of political vandalism no prime minister has dared to
commit before him.
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On
Wednesday morning, Johnson, paler than usual, announced he would ask the queen
for permission to suspend the British parliament for five weeks -- a request
that the largely powerless head of state agreed to.
Johnson
says the step of proroguing parliament is necessary in order to work out a
political agenda for the post-Brexit period in peace. By tradition, every new
parliamentary session is opened with the pompously staged "Queen's
Speech," the government program presented by the monarch. But the House of
Commons generally interrupts its work for several days, not for five weeks.
A Wave of
Outrage
With his
democratically questionable act of arbitrariness, Johnson appears to be
pursuing a primary goal: He wants to ensure that elected members of the House
of Commons have very little time to try to prevent his government from carrying
out Brexit, even if it ultimately does so without an agreement with the EU, a
so-called no-deal scenario.
Within
minutes of Johnson's announcement on Wednesday, a wave of outrage swept across
the country. Several public figures, including former Prime Minister John
Major, announced hasty legal challenges, and a petition aimed at stopping
Johnson was signed by more than a million British people within hours.
In London
and several other cities, hectic planning began for large-scale protests and
all manner of civil disobedience. Members of Johnson's own Conservative Party
threatened to create an exile parliament if government actually goes through
with its plans to prorogue the legislative body. The opposition even brought
the notion of a general strike into play.
But the
anger of the masses isn't being directed solely at the man in Downing Street.
One of the last taboos for many Brits has also been broken: blatant criticism
of the queen. "The. Queen. Did. Not. Save. Us," tweeted Labour Party
politician Kate Osamor, and hinted at the abolition of the monarchy. Her party
leader Jeremy Corbyn asked the queen in writing for a personal meeting to
protest against Johnson's coup. Jo Swinson, the head of the EU-friendly Liberal
Democrats, also wrote to the queen asking for an "urgent meeting."
The Last
Round
After three
years of the country beating itself up in the Brexit debate, Johnson is now
leading Britain into the last round of the ordeal -- an unprecedented showdown
between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, which, incidentally,
threatens to damage the last intact pillar of the United Kingdom: its queen.
It's
impossible to predict what will ensue in the coming weeks -- aside from chaos.
But there
is much to suggest Johnson wants precisely that, and at any cost, in order to
deliver the main promise he made to become British prime minister -- to lead
his country out of the EU on Oct. 31, with or without an agreement. After the
G-7 summit in Biarritz, Johnson may have praised the EU's willingness to
compromise, he may have put the chances of no deal at "one in a
million," and the majority of Brits and their elected representatives may
be against leaving the EU without a deal, but no one in the betting crazy UK is
now likely to bet on there being any agreement between London and Brussels in
the end.
The
opposition was caught completely off guard by Johnson's sudden move. On
Tuesday, Labour Party boss Jeremy Corbyn had gathered together the leaders of
smaller parties to discuss plans to stop a no-deal scenario from happening. But
the group chose to reject the strongest instrument available to it -- a no
confidence vote against Johnson. Why? Because if such a vote were to succeed,
the divided opposition likely wouldn't be able to agree on a candidate to
replace him.
Concerted
Action
Instead,
Corbyn and others have announced that they will seek legislation to prevent the
government from moving forward with hard Brexit. It won't be an easy
undertaking, though, because the government sets the agenda for legislative
acts in parliament.
In order to
vote on legislation to prevent a no-deal Brexit, the opposition would, for
example, have to wrest control over the agenda from Johnson for a day. They
managed to do that twice under former Prime Minister Theresa May. But even if
they managed to do so this time, there is no guarantee that such a law would
pass in the House of Commons, where the conservative government still has a
single-vote majority.
No one
quite knows what the next several weeks hold for Britain.
Nonetheless,
concerted action on the part of the opposition still presents a great risk to
Johnson, who in Biarritz played down the situation, saying Britain could
"easily cope with a no-deal scenario." His closest advisers believe
the only thing that could still prevent him from completing Brexit on Oct. 31
would be a law signed by the queen. The less time that is available for such
legislation to take shape, the greater Johnson's chances are of success.
Fewer than 24
hours after the opposition meeting, he thus announced his intention to go to
the queen and make his request to suspend parliament, knowing full well that
she has little room for maneuver in such cases. Johnson's plan now calls for
parliament to carry on "business as usual" for a maximum of seven
days starting on Tuesday before adjourning until Oct. 14, when the
"Queen's Speech" is to be given, two weeks before the Brexit
deadline. He said this would give parliamentarians "ample time" to
debate any Brexit plan he has negotiated with Brussels by then.
Speaker of
the House of Commons John Bercow described the development as a
"constitutional outrage," and the hopes of many supporters of the EU
in Britain now rest on his spirit of resistance and inventiveness. An
"emergency debate" is now slated to be held in parliament next week.
There are usually no legally binding votes at the end of such debates, but many
believe Bercow will allow them this time to facilitate emergency legislation
against Johnson. Within the government, though, sources say that if that
legislation is passed, the government may not request the queen's mandatory
signature. It would be an extraordinary affront to the royal house, but
parliament would be largely powerless to do anything about it.
As a last
resort, members of parliament would then only be left with a vote of no
confidence. So far, opposition leader Corbyn has shied away from such a step
because he has doubts that he would be able to attract enough Tory rebels to
his side. But the situation has shifted since Wednesday. Some Conservatives in
parliament, including former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, have responded
coolly to Johnson's move, saying the time may come very soon when they join
forces with the opposition to topple the government.
An
Unabashed Bet
The only
problem is that this may be precisely what Boris Johnson is after. The
55-year-old did his legal homework several weeks ago, with quite astonishing
results. Under current law, after a successful vote of no confidence, any
member of parliament can attempt within 14 days to cobble together a government
majority in order to be officially appointed by the queen as the new prime
minister. Amazingly, however, the law does not forbid a prime minister who has
been voted out from refusing to resign. From all appearances, that is precisely
Johnson's plan.
It appears
that Johnson is unabashedly betting that the opposition won't be able to find
an interim candidate for prime minister in the time available to it. And that
even if it does, the queen will follow his advice and not formally appoint the
opposing candidate, meaning Johnson would remain in office until new elections.
He could then set the date for snap elections himself -- in November. Brexit
will have happened by then and Johnson could campaign on that success as he
seeks to be elected.
There's
almost nothing and nobody who can prevent him from doing so. Except Queen
Elizabeth II, who would be forced to make one of the most far-reaching
political decisions for her country since World War II. And whatever she does:
Some of her subjects will hate her for it.
'An Abuse
of Her Majesty'
Anna
Soubry, a former Tory colleague of Johnson's before she bolted the party,
railed that the prime minister "abuses our queen." And Soubry
announced that she and her colleagues in parliament would use "whatever
mechanism possible" to outmaneuver the gambler inside 10 Downing Street.
Constitutional
expert Vernon Bogdanor recently made it clear in the Times of London that even
if Johnson were to actually go through with this daring plan, the madness still
wouldn't be over. Johnson's actions might be legal, he said. But it would be
just as legal for a parliament newly elected in November to declare the Oct. 31
date of Britain's withdrawal from the EU as null and void, with retroactive
effect -- provided, of course, the EU went along with it.
The tumult
is unlikely to go away quickly. Meanwhile, in a castle located in the kingdom's
far north sits an elderly lady who had a premonition of the current situation
long ago. That, at least, is suggested by a quote from Queen Elizabeth that was
recently leaked to the Times, words she reportedly uttered a short time after
the Brexit referendum. The current political class, she lamented at the time,
is characterized by its "inability to govern."
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