It's hard to get an angle on what's going on at the moment, so let's start with the version that's least likely to be true, the gospel according to Saint Boris, and work out from there.
in July, two days before the Commons was due to close down for summer holiday. Before that, however, they fitted in a pantomime of three acts:
At this point Johnson had been prime minister (being generous) for two days, and he had not demonstrated a majority.
And so everybody went off on holiday or, as whispers to the media and some later revelations made clear, plotting. Brexit was 99 days away and No Deal was looming large. And prorogation was still in the air, with sinister variants floated probably by the Downing St Misdirection Unit. Amendments had been made to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 to require reports to be presented to the Commons at regular intervals. These were intended to prevent what was probably the worst prorogation option - suspension of Parliament through the end of October with No Deal happening automatically - by requiring the Commons to be sitting and, as we'll see later, that part did work. You can find the amendments by working through the
top two documents here.
There was much talk of votes of no confidence and caretaker governments. To begin with this was mostly within and between opposition parties other than Labour, and names like Ken Clarke and Harriet Harman were mentioned as possible Prime Ministers of a government of national unity. What such a government would do was problematic. A referendum on Brexit was a popular idea, which seemed to be pushing it - what combination of parties and rebels could possibly hold together for long enough to call and run a referendum and run the country alongside it?
Labour was thinking differently - when asked, it reminded the world that Corbyn would be the only legitimate prime minister after a vote of no confidence. (The FT's legal commentator
David Allen Green agreed:
"Corbyn is Leader of the Opposition and so should have first dibs on forming a government if this one falls".) Eventually Corbyn published a letter with a simpler plan - himself as Prime Minister in a
"strictly time-limited temporary government with the aim of calling a General Election, and securing the necessary extension of article 50 to do so".
Meanwhile, another, quieter group was exploring a different avenue - to pass a special law to prevent No Deal - and government occasionally assured us that they were not thinking of proroguing Parliament, and definitely didn't want a quick election.
Then suddenly prorogation was on every news bulletin, presented as a fait accompli, though it had had to battle with
leaks and dramatic sackings. On 28 August, Big Jake Mogg, Lords leader Baroness Evans and government chief whip Mark Spencer travelled to the queen's summer retreat at Balmoral for a hastily arranged meeting of "the Privy Council" (one of the many undemocratic parts of our "unwritten" constitution I'd dearly love to reform out of existence). They took with them "advice" from Johnson which she couldn't ignore, and came away with a proclamation of prorogation. Parliament was still on holiday, and was about to be informed that its services would not be needed again for a while.
At this point Johnson had been prime minister for 36 days, with Parliament sitting for all of two of them, and he had not demonstrated a majority.
3 September - Parliament resumes for four days
At last, the following Tuesday, MPs were allowed back into the Commons, and some of them decided there was not a moment to lose. Parliament could be suspended as early as the next Monday, and something had to be done quickly. The quieter inter-party group had their draft law ready, so the back benches were going to have to take over again.
Johnson had been at a G7 event the previous week, and held meetings with Macron and Merkel, who were studiously polite to him, in the hope that something could be retrieved from the apparent vacuum of his thinking on the subject of a Brexit plan.
Downing St reports of these meetings (as has happened again and again) told us how positive they had been and that Macron opened up to the idea of changes to the Withdrawal Agreement, but the main prize was Merkel's "30 day deadline", which was
nothing of the sort. She had observed exasperatedly that British ministers had previously proposed developments to avoid the Irish backstop during the agreed transition period (two or three years), so why not do it all in 30 days if it was as easy as Johnson kept claiming? He grabbed the idea of a deadline gleefully as a way to block out a whole month (from little more than two remaining before 31 October) and a way to confuse daily demands for progress reports.
A prime minister's duties include reports on such events to the Commons, but shortly after Johnson began, Philip Lee, Conservative MP for Bracknell, walked up the aisle and joined the Liberal Democrats on the other side of the house.
Hansard records Johnson's response as follows:
"...Britain is on the verge of taking back control of our trade policy and restoring our independent seat in the WTO for the first time in 46 years. Our exports to the United States—[Interruption.] I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) all the best".
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| Oliver Letwin |
That was the government's majority gone, and it was to get worse. Three hours later, Oliver Letwin stood up to propose an emergency debate and the Speaker agreed. The details of the proposal can been seen in
Hansard, but the effect of it was that the back benches would take the house over for much of the following day to process the bill which had by then been published.
The next day (after the small matter of the Speaker announcing his resignation) the short Benn bill went through all its stages in the Commons, supported by a larger vote than expected, as 21 Conservatives voted with the assembled opposition parties. They later lost the Conservative whip. Having already announced a prorogation which wasn't going to happen, Johnson now proceeded to request a general election that he had told us he didn't want (and which would prevent the agreement of the Brexit deal he tells us he does want by halting negotiations during purdah).
His tenuous working majority had had a great hole knocked in it on the only policy which mattered, and he lost. A vote of 434 MPs was required, and opposition parties abstained (
my explanation on Twitter:
"The opposition parties all want an election as soon as possible. They will obviously be 'competitors' in an election, but they're united - for a short time - only - on tying Johnson down to avoid No Deal if they can".). By the weekend, the government having given up fighting it, the Benn bill had passed through the Lords.
Royal assent then made it the Benn Act on Monday 9 September, and government lost control again, in an emergency vote to require ministers to hand over documents detailing its prorogation decision and Operation Yellowhammer, then yet another emergency vote on "Ministers’ obligation to comply with the law". Oh, and another attempt to call an election also failed.
At this point Johnson had been prime minister for 48 days, with Parliament sitting for just six of them, and he had not demonstrated a majority. In fact he had lost every vote he had gone for.
10 September - Parliament suspended for five weeks
While all of this was going on, a variety of cases had been heard by the lower courts of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, all in one way or another to challenge the suspension of Parliament. All were eventually referred to an expedited hearing in the Supreme Court on 17, 18 and 19 September (with an issue related to the Good Friday Agreement retained for the appeal court in Northern Ireland).
The case was that the prime minister's "advice" to the Queen, as conveyed by that impromptu Privy Council meeting, was unlawful and that, by extension, the Prime Minister had lied to the Queen, an accusation which had
led the news all day on 12 September when the higher Scottish court ruled that prorogation was illegal (not a good look, as Johnson answered the accusation on TV again and again).
Documents provided to the Scottish courts, then made public, showed two simple things:
- Despite many protests that they weren't considering prorogation at all, Johnson's inner circle had it in hand as early as 14 August.
- The length of the suspension was determined according to the requirements of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act - everything they could get away with.
The claim that prorogation was simply to prepare for a Queen's speech and to open a new Parliamentary session therefore seemed untenable (the conference recess, used to argue that only a handful of days in Parliament would actually be lost, had never been approved, as we saw above). The Supreme Court had to consider two questions:
- Was this a purely political question and therefore outside the purview of the court, or was it justiciable under the rules of judicial review?
- Assuming justiciability, was the decision lawful, or was its purpose to "stymie parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, which [is] a central pillar of the good governance principle enshrined in the constitution".
We might hear by Monday. Will suspension be judged unlawful? Will the court order the government to open Parliament up again? Will Johnson comply with the law (as he constantly tells us he will)? Will he try to prorogue again?
At that point Johnson will have been prime minister for 62 days, with Parliament sitting for six of them, and he will still not have demonstrated a majority or won a vote in the Commons. Will he have won a court case? We'll see.
Leaving that there, how does the Johnson gospel see the next few weeks at the moment?
14 October - Queen's speech
Arrangements for the Queen's speech in 2017
didn't go smoothly - May sprang it on the Palace and it had to be fitted in with other events, from an award ceremony at Windsor Castle which had to be cancelled, to attendance at Royal Ascot. Also, the usual horses wouldn't be available because they hadn't been rehearsed thanks to a near clash with the Queen's birthday and Trooping the Colour. May also hadn't quite delivered the DUP, despite her promises.
Has Johnson done any better? We can only assume that he intends to stick to the nominated day whatever happens at the Supreme Court, but he has bigger problems with his majority than she had. He's certainly not in a strong position on the Conservative-DUP agreement which has to be reviewed at the end of each Parliamentary session. It's fair to say that most if not all of the suspended Conservative MPs would probably vote with the government on most issues, but does that extend to a Queen's speech?
15 October - Debate on Queen's speech
The debate is normally four or five days, and that time has been allowed. If we've got this far, and if there's no plan for a further prorogation, he'd be hoping for a lively debate on his sparkling array of new bills to finally kick off his time as Prime Minister. But it isn't that simple.
17-18 - EU Council meeting
According to Johnson's plans, this is where his spiffing new agreement will finally be negotiated, but that's not what the meeting is for. The Council will only consider a completed draft agreement produced by the negotiations which are stutteringly under way at the moment. We should know well in advance if there's anything to discuss.
19 October - Decision day for the Benn Act
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| Hilary Benn |
This is a Saturday, so I'm not sure how it's supposed to go. Johnson tells us he will return triumphant, brandishing his deal, on Friday night, but the act requires Parliament's agreement on a deal or on No Deal
"no later than 19 October 2019" so Parliament - both Houses - would have to be sitting. Agreement of a No Deal Brexit must be by a simple Commons vote. Agreement of a deal must be by one of the famous "meaningful votes" as specified in the
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
If neither agreement is forthcoming, Johnson is required to send a letter to Donald Tusk to request an extension of the Article 50 period, which he has said he won't do. He's also said he will obey the law, which looks like a contradiction.
There might be a
sneaky way round this requirement, and moves are afoot to close that loophole too, which would have to be done during the first three days allocated to the Queen's speech debate.
21-22 October - Votes on Queen's speech
Not knowing the full list of bills, I don't know how this will go. In particular, will the promised Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill be such that the suspended Tories will support it? If not, Johnson is nowhere near a majority. Losing these votes would pile crisis on crisis, but if they somehow passed there would be ten days to go until Halloween. Does Johnson then ask Parliament to
switch to 24/7 working to make it even half way possible to ratify his baby?
Of course, he might have requested an extension and had it confirmed, which would change everything.
Or he could have resigned rather than do that.
Or he could have resigned when the Supreme Court told him he was a liar.
23 October - It depends
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| EU Parliament calendar 2019 |
Either this will be the first day of what Johnson insists on calling "ample time to debate Brexit".
With a "meaningful vote" out of the way, all that's required is to pass a large, contentious Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill which nobody outside the inner circle has yet seen, but which has to get through all stages in both houses of Parliament.
Oh, and the EU Parliament has to debate and agree the draft agreement. They've been waiting for the Commons so far, but they'd have to do this in parallel. And they could reject it.
Or everybody will have to start improvising madly.
31 October - Brexit
This, as far as possible, has been Johnson's vision of the timetable. There are holes, distractions and detours all the way through. I wish I was studying it and not having to live it.
By Halloween, assuming he survives that long, Johnson will have been prime minister for 100 days. I'm not going to guess what small number of them Parliament has been sitting by then, but I will ask: Will he have won a vote in the Commons?
