We’re not going to crash out of the EU on October 31 – unless, that is, Boris Johnson calls an early election and wins it. Otherwise, MPs will force the new prime minister to delay Brexit yet again. And then we’ll be into either a referendum or an election. This will be fought on the issue of whether to leave the EU without a deal – or not leave at all.
So, contrary to those who have written off our chances such as the FT’s Camilla Cavendish, pro-European Brits are very much in business. Johnson’s hardline Cabinet appointments and his rhetoric about wanting to tear up his predecessor’s deal mean the probability of staying in the EU has risen.
The middle ground has vanished. The EU won’t give the new prime minister what he wants and he won’t be able to revive Theresa May’s dead deal. Meanwhile, there’s a posse of angry but sensible Tory MPs determined to do whatever it takes to stop us crashing out without a deal.
The rebels, including the former Chancellor Philip Hammond, are already in talks with Labour about what to do, according to the Observer. They have two main options.
The referendum route
The first is to pass legislation forcing Johnson to ask the EU for extra time so we can hold a referendum. It’s not clear what parliamentary mechanism will be used. But where there’s a will, there is almost certainly a way. And if the UK wants to delay Brexit to hold a referendum (or indeed an election), the EU will grant it.
The rebels already foiled Johnson’s threat to suspend Parliament earlier this month by amending government legislation on Northern Ireland. So they have form. And earlier this year a slightly different band of MPs passed legislation to force Theresa May to delay Brexit. The fact that she had already decided to do so doesn’t detract from the fact that MPs grabbed control of the parliamentary calendar, contrary to the predictions of many pundits.
True, the rebels may fail to repeat the trick. Or Johnson may somehow sabotage an instruction to ask for extra time. But Parliament may be able to guard against this risk by giving the prime minister very specific instructions. Alternatively, it has even been suggested that MPs may ask the Queen, as head of state, to request a delay to Brexit instead of leaving it to the head of her government.
Vote of no confidence
If all these procedures fail, MPs can remove the prime minister by a vote of no confidence. True, Tory MPs would need guts to vote against their own prime minister. But Johnson has a wafer-thin majority. It would only take a handful of rebels to bring him down – and there are now probably enough who won’t cower at the sound of gunpowder. Even Hammond has hinted he might be one of them.
But what if the no confidence vote happened too late to hold an election before October 31? Wouldn’t we just crash out anyway? Game over for pro-Europeans, right?
Not so fast. If an election was called to determine whether we should crash out of the EU, it would be outrageous to leave before the voters had had their say. The prime minister would be under huge moral pressure to ask for an extension. The people might well punish him for such a blatant abuse of power.
Johnson might even have a constitutional duty to ask for a delay. The Cabinet secretary has presented legal advice to this effect, although the attorney-general disagrees, according to the Sunday Times.
Emergency government?
Now, of course, Johnson might press on regardless towards the abyss ignoring all wise counsel. But MPs could still then stop him. Under UK law, an election doesn’t automatically follow a vote of no confidence. There are 14 days to see if anybody can command a majority in Parliament.
We would be facing a situation where a prime minister was disregarding the will of Parliament and seeking to preempt the will of the people too. Sensible MPs from different parties might then come together to form an emergency government, whose sole purpose was to ask the EU for extra time to hold an election.
Naysayers may say the UK doesn’t do caretaker governments. But nothing in our constitution prevents them – and extreme situations call for extreme measures.
If Johnson won the ensuing election, we would still crash out. But if pro-Europeans band together in a “remain alliance”, he would probably be dethroned. It might then not even be necessary to hold a referendum. The election would have been the “people’s vote”. The new government, presumably a coalition, could then cancel Brexit and get on with the business of fixing the country’s real problems.