Britain’s newly-appointed Conservative party Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to have lost his game of “chicken” with members of Parliament, as the deadline for a decision on Brexit approaches on Oct. 31. In the past week, Johnson, who was elected by fewer than 100,000 conservative party members in late July, moved to suspend Parliament for five weeks, cutting short the time legislators will have to craft an alternative to a no-deal Brexit from the European Union. The suspension of Parliament provoked passionate opposition and massive protests, that charged Johnson’s move was a coup d‘état against democracy.
Johnson has publicly embraced a no-deal Brexit plan as a way to pressure the EU to re-negotiate the terms of Britain’s exit from the 28-nation block. But on Sept. 3, The UK’s House of Commons voted 328 to 301 to take control of the agenda, a vote that included 21 rebellious members of Johnson’s own party. A coalition of the Labour Party and other government opponents will soon try to pass legislation to prevent the prime minister from taking the UK out of the EU without a deal, and request an extension of the BRexit deadline if necessary. Responding to his defeat, Johnson said he would expel rebellious members from his Conservative party, and call for an early general election in October.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Kenneth Surin, professor emeritus of critical theory at Duke University, who examines the consequences of a no-deal Brexit for the United Kingdom, and the likely outcome of a snap general election.
KENNETH SURIN: What has happened recently is that Boris Johnson went to the Queen and obtained a prorogation of Parliament, which is basically fancy speak for the suspension of Parliament. Now the reason why this step has been called a coup in anything but name is that suspending Parliament would allow people like him who support a no-deal Brexit to run out the clock on any deal to Brexit, leaving the no-deal option as the only one on the table. So that’s the context in which events have been happening. Now, what has happened since then of course, is this: There’s fury on the part of parliamentarians at what they perceive to be an underhanded ploy on the part of Boris Johnson. Parliament is due to reconvene from its summer recess. And what is going to happen there is that parliamentarians opposed to Boris Johnson will try and get enacted a bill aimed at stopping a no-deal Brexit. And basically what this bill seeks to do is to say that if Boris Johnson has not passed a new Brexit agreement by Oct. 19 – now the reason why Oct. 19 is significant is that it comes the day after a key European Council meeting. So what the rebels in the House of Commons have done is to say that if Boris Johnson does not get a deal through to the European Council by the day after its meeting Oct. 19, they will immediately seek to have an extension of the Brexit timeline to Jan. 31.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Professor Surin, what is the position of the leader of the main opposition party – the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, in this crisis as it moves to a new stage. And if there are general elections as could be possible in the coming months, how would the Labour Party fare?
KENNETH SURIN: Well, you know, I’m a member of the Labour party because I’m a British citizen and of course I expected to win, if not an outright majority, at least a form of government with the support of the Greens and the Scottish Nationalist Party. Now Corbyn’s position of course was rather tricky to begin with. Although the EU referendum in 2016 was simply done counting votes across the country – and not in district or constituencies as they’re called – in Britain, 61 percent of the voters who supported Leave in the referendum actually came from Labor districts. So this put Corbyn in (between) a rock and a hard place because he could not immediately oppose the Conservative Party and say, well we are going to back Remain because 61 percent of his voting base voting for Brexit, he needed to tread very carefully and in fact that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s been slowly edging towards the Remain position, but that’s taken him two years to do that.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Professor Surin, what in your view are the economic and political consequences of a no-deal Brexit where Britain walks out the door and has no soft landing?
KENNETH SURIN: Basically, the consequences are going to be catastrophic. Boris Johnson has engaged in an exercise in smoke and mirrors here by duping the British electorate, or at least those members of the electorate who are susceptible to the kind of message that he is communicating. He is saying, well, this is not going to be a problem because first of all, Donald Trump across the Atlantic is going to give us a nice bilateral trade deal. And secondly, we have been hamstrung by the EU in making trade treaties with a whole range of other countries in the world. He’s not specified a single one of these. And the UK economy has been teetering on the verge of a recession for the past several months. A no-deal Brexit will almost certainly tip it over into a recession. The UK economy is going to be very adversely affected by a no-deal Brexit.
For more of Kenneth Surin’s articles, visit Counterpunch.org.
