Thursday, August 29, 2019

Feeling sorry for the Queen

I bet the Queen is hating the position she is in at the moment.

I see that Axios suggests the possible outcomes of tosspot Johnson's seeking of Brexit advantage by limiting Parliament are:
What's next? Parliament will return from recess to sit for a short session next week, during which lawmakers are expected to take steps to block a no-deal Brexit in the limited time they have.
  • Option 1 is a legislative fix forcing the government to seek another extension from the EU, but there are no binding Brexit bills currently on the agenda.
  • Option 2 is a vote of no-confidence, which would give MPs a window of 14 days to form a caretaker unity government with the express purpose of blocking no-deal.
  • Option 3 is a general election, assuming anti-no-deal lawmakers can't gather enough support to form a government. But Downing Street officials have already said that Johnson would likely hold any snap election after Brexit has been completed on Oct. 31.
But if no-confidence passes, who gets to tell the Queen what to do?   Does Johnson tell her to just call an election, and one after 31 October?   Does a caretaker unity government enter after him and say "no, we are governing and we will just pass this Act delaying Brexit and then go to an election"?   Does Scotland knock at her door and say "we'll be leaving the kingdom, thanks very much.  And Balmoral is going to become an upmarket spa and holiday resort." 

I don't quite understand... 

Update:  The BBC provides some much needed explanation of the technicalities here.  I understand the options a bit better now.

4 comments:

TimT said...

I think Johnson's move is a good one. Constitutional crisis, schmonstitutional crisis: the whole UK has been in crisis for years now because of the unresolved Brexit issues. The parliament needs absolute focus if they want to achieve good results in negotiations with the EU. I doubt Theresa May would either have had the courage or commitment to go through with something like this.

GMB said...

How did you come up with such a non-problem?

Steve said...

Tim, I don't know that there is much of a meaningful sense in which the EU is "negotiating" - I thought they were just saying "come back with something we can work with, and we might consider it" and that's it.

Also, Parliament has voted against no deal Brexit before.

I suspect the caretaker government idea might get up, with a further Brexit delay.

TimT said...

Hard to tell, really. But I’m sure they don’t want to make too many concessions to the UK, or they risk other countries trying to leave on similar terms.