Boris Johnson has succeeded in breaking the logjam in British Parliament on the deal by presenting a solution which has now much greater traction than ever before. However, that’s just not enough in overseeing Brexit.
How do you solve a problem like Brexit? No one seems to know — not the British Prime Minister, not the British Parliament and not the European Union (EU) of course, on whom this entire process has been an imposition. The British Parliament has rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s effort to get his Brexit legislation signed off in three days. Johnson has indicated that he would be willing to call a general election if the EU would decide in favour of extending the deadline till January.
So, ironically, now the ball in the court of the EU as to whether it would grant extension to the 31 October Brexit deadline and if so for how long. On that decision hangs the future prospects of the UK-EU relationship.
In a matter of minutes, the House of Commons underscored the conflicting signals the British polity has been sending on Brexit, by first backing Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill and then defeating his agenda of a fast-tracked timetable for the Bill. Johnson continues to maintain that it was still his policy that the UK should leave the EU on 31 October, but will await the EU’s decision before taking a final call on his future course of action.
Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has said that his party was prepared to work with the government to agree “a reasonable timetable” to enable the Commons to debate and scrutinise the Brexit legislation. The EU Council President Donald Tusk has suggested that he would recommend European leaders backed an extension to the Brexit deadline though France has signalled it was not on board with granting the British request for a delay until 31 January.
The EU deliberations would be based on a letter Johnson was forced to send by law to Brussels requesting another extension for the UK’s long-awaited departure from the EU after he did not get the backing for his deal. This was due to the so-called Benn Act, which required the PM to ask the EU for an extension to the 31 October deadline to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Despite Johnson’s assertion that he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than delay Brexit, it is highly unlikely now that he would be able to stick to 31 October deadline for Brexit as things stand today.
While the central challenge for British polity remains one of preventing a Brexit that is disorderly, thereby imposing huge costs on an already fragile economic environment, other issues including the Irish border have tested the negotiating skills on all sides.
What has agitated British parliamentarians is the Johnson government’s attempt to ram through the Brexit Bill without much scrutiny. They want to take their time to amend a very complex piece of legislation, which will define future British engagement with the EU. This despite the fact that Johnson’s deal has been better received both within and outside Westminster compared to his predecessor’s pact. According to some surveys, where only 16 per cent voters backed Theresa May’s deal and 30 per cent opposed it, Johnson’s deal is supported by 31 per cent with 25 per cent opposing it.
The governor of the Bank of England has also welcomed the Brexit deal struck by the Johnson government as it “takes away the tail risk of a disorderly Brexit.” He has, however, warned that the Johnson deal might not boost the economy to the same extent as the deal put forward by May.
Johnson clearly has succeeded in breaking the logjam on the deal by presenting a solution which has now much greater traction than ever before. He now has a Bill which a majority in British Parliament approve of and that’s a major shift from the imbroglio of the past; but he is a man in a hurry. He looks at a potential delay and sees more deadlock. As Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has underlined that it was "undeniably frustrating" to have lost the "programme motion" and that his government wants “to crack on. And if we can't crack on, regrettably it does seem that a general election is the only way to sort this impasse out.”
So as the EU decides its response to the British parliamentary impasse, Britons must be wondering if in the end the decision would come back to them in a general election. As for Brexit, in the words of Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg: “Theologically speaking, Benedict XVI abolished limbo, so I do wonder whether the Bill is not in the heaven of having been passed, not in the hell of having failed, but it is in purgatory, where it is suffering the pains of those in purgatory.” When that suffering might end is anyone’s guess at the moment.
This commentary originally appeared in Money Control.
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Professor Harsh V. Pant is Vice President – Studies and Foreign Policy at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He is a Professor of International Relations ...
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