The EconomistAugust 31st 2019 231T
he pressureis rising in the battle be-
tween Boris Johnson, who is deter-
mined to lead Britain out of the European
Union with or without a deal on October
31st, and Parliament, where a majority of
mps want to stop a no-deal Brexit. This
week opposition parties agreed that, when
the Commons returns on September 3rd,
they will try to hijack its agenda to pass a
law calling for another extension of the
Brexit deadline. But a day later Mr Johnson
trumped them by announcing a long sus-
pension of Parliament, from September
11th to October 14th, when a Queen’s Speech
will start a new session.
The prime minister claimed this was a
normal way for a new government to set
out its plans on crime, health and so on. Yet
his main goal is the cynical one of shorten-
ing the time for mps to stop no-deal. At al-
most five weeks, it will be Parliament’s lon-
gest suspension before a Queen’s Speech
since 1945. The response was apoplectic. Je-
remy Corbyn, Labour’s leader, labelled the
move a “smash and grab on our democra-
cy”. The Commons Speaker, John Bercow,
called it a “constitutional outrage”. Even
many Tories were unhappy. Ruth David-
son, the party’s popular leader in Scotland
and a long-standing critic of Mr Johnson,
quit the next day.
The oddity is that a week earlier Mr
Johnson was speaking of progress towards
a Brexit deal. He had junked his vow not
even to talk to fellow Europeans until they
dropped the Irish backstop, an insurance
policy to avert a hard border in Ireland by
keeping the entire United Kingdom in acustoms union with the eu. Instead, after
meeting Germany’s Angela Merkel and
France’s Emmanuel Macron, he offered to
propose an alternative to the backstop
within 30 days. Upsetting hardline Brexi-
teers, he also said he would not seek other
changes to the withdrawal agreement ne-
gotiated by Theresa May, his predecessor.
eu leaders listened politely. Mujtaba
Rahman of the Eurasia Group consultancy
says that, though sceptical of Mr Johnson’s
unspecified alternatives, they may be
ready to make small changes to the back-
stop to reduce its scope or limit it, as first
planned, to Northern Ireland. But they also
stand behind Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, who
insists on keeping the backstop. They be-
lieve the withdrawal agreement struck
with Mrs May goes as far as feasible to meet
British interests without damaging the
eu’s single market. And they are not about
to surrender to Mr Johnson’s threats of no-
deal, any more than they were in 2015 when
Greece threatened to quit the euro.
One conclusion from these events must
be that the risk of no-deal is rising fast. Two
months ago Mr Johnson talked of it being
“a-million-to-one against”. Now he says it
is “touch and go”. In political terms, no-
deal has appeal to Mr Johnson, as the best
chance of fending off Nigel Farage’s Brexit
Party while trying to blame Brussels and
Remainer “collaborators” for the mess. On
the continent, resignation to no-deal is dri-
ven not just by an unwillingness to sacri-
fice Ireland but also by the belief that it willBrexit tactics
Prime minister v Parliament
As mps plan to block a no-deal Brexit, the government plans to send them home
Britain
24 Governments of national unity
25 Free i Pads for Scottish pupils
25 The football business
26 Deadline day for PPI
26 Tim Bell, 1941-2019
27 Restricted company names
28 Bagehot: The new Tory rebelsAlso in this section