Name: Brexit: Boris Johnson's plan to suspend parliament explained | FT
Uploaded: 2020-03-27T17:32:24.000Z
Duration: 2 min 54 s
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Boris Johnson has taken the remarkable step

of announcing plans to suspend parliament for five weeks

in order to limit the time that opponents of his Brexit

The announcement has provoked an extraordinary reaction

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow,

Many of the opponents of Brexit have also done the same thing.

They see this as a deliberate strategy to run down the clock

and prevent parliament from asserting its will in blocking

The first is that he senses weakness among his opponents.

for putting in place a caretaker government, which

would ask for a Brexit extension and seek an election.

That's the only surefire way to stop this government.

They're looking for a legislative approach

and Boris Johnson still thinks he can work around that.

He also thinks that perhaps a people versus parliament

as upholding the will of the people and goes in a dash

to the polls, could work to his advantage.

Finally, he also wants to show the European Union

that there is no parliamentary rescue squad coming to stop

All things considered, he is raising the stakes enormously

and saying to people, if you want to stop me

you're going to have to destroy my government

and you're going to have to do it quickly.

What this means is that there will be absolutely ferocious

fighting when parliament returns next week.

MPs are going to have to work flat out to devise a strategy

to the unpalatable reality for some of them

that they have to bring Boris Johnson down and put somebody

else, probably Jeremy Corbyn, in place for at least a very brief

His opponents are trying to work out their strategy now.

They still think the legislative approach is the right one,

but they've now got far fewer days in which to act,

but they've got to coalesce around a strategy that works.

The principle of suspending parliament so that you cannot

be frustrated by a majority of MPs may sound like a good idea

It's not something you'd find very attractive if you

were in opposition and it was being done to you.

And let's not forget, this is an unelected leader

have often talked about being prepared to do whatever it

What Boris Johnson is showing by this gambit

is that he also is prepared to do whatever

and he is daring his opponents to live up