Quote:
Originally Posted by atltechdude
Can there even be a no deal exit without a new election?
Or is it Mr Johnson’s plan to avoid going back to Parliament and try to do the whole thing himself?
There doesn’t seem to be a majority for no deal in the current Parliament.
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No additional votes are required by the UK Parliament. They already voted in favor of triggering the Article 50 notification process with the EU to notify them that the UK is leaving. The only way to permanently change that is to revoke the Article 50 notification, which there is not any significant discussion of doing by members of the UK Parliament. This declaration is in no way dependent on whether a "deal" is negotiated with the EU beforehand. The UK is legally required to exit the EU under law, with or without a deal.
It is not that many of the MP's (Members of Parliament) do not want to see Article 50 and Brexit revoked. It is that they do not want to be seen to be the ones doing it, because they know that this would be absolutely devastating to the credibility of their democratic system of government, and they know it would be forever on them for having done that to their country. So not even the Labour party discusses the option of Parliament voting to revoke Article 50 to any significant degree. It is not an option that is really even on the table right now.
The only other apparent way to get Brexit overturned is to try to hold a second referendum. This generates many of the same problems regarding the destruction of the credibility of the UK's democracy, since they have already voted on this once and everyone was told in vivid, loud and no uncertain terms that the outcome of that referendum would be adhered to, guaranteed, no question, 'Cross their hearts and hope to die, stick a needle in their eyes'. It was the absolute final verdict on this question.
Of course the UK establishment types said all of that because their "experts" assured them and everyone else who wasn't deaf and blind that Remain was CERTAIN to win this vote and they wanted to make sure there would be no calls for any challenges to this outcome or any basis for any second guessing afterwards.
Well of course the UK voted to leave and all of the so-called "experts" were wrong, yet again. And the establishment globalist Remain supporters would now very much like to call a second referendum, even though they are not sure they could win it. But Parliament would have to vote on that, on the record. In fact, Parliament has voted on this question several times and have voted decisively against a second referendum on every occasion, because the MP's know they will be politically eviscerated if they do it.
The Labour Party, which is the second largest party in the UK and the leader of the opposition, is a lot closer to supporting the holding of a second referendum than they are to supporting the revocation of Article 50. In fact, there are stories in the UK political press virtually every day about the huge pressure Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is under to come out and support the holding of a second referendum.
A large portion of their MP's are like red state moderate Democrats here, and their constituents support leaving and absolutely do not support a second referendum. So Jeremy Corbyn is just being smart by realizing that the Labour party would be gutted by the embrace of such a policy, and its support would be eviscerated in the next general election. It is kind of like Nancy Pelosi's current position in not supporting the calls to impeach President Trump, even though there is a very loud and extremely passionate faction of her party that supports this, in fact it does not have the broader public support that it would need to have to make this a viable option for the Labour party. So there is not sufficient support for a second referendum in the UK Parliament.
The last option is where we are at. MP's have been kicking the can down the road, asking for temporary delays, hoping that the more time goes by, somehow something will happen that enables Brexit to be revoked without them actually having to revoke Brexit. However, it should be noted that the can has been kicked twice now (two delays) and the vote to request the second extension passed by only a one vote margin. So, the support for even that is incredibly thin.
And since then we have seen the EU elections, where the Conservative party was truly eviscerated in epic and historical fashion, and the Labour Party was only suffered devastating losses, with the Brexit Party coming in first and the Liberal Democrat party coming in second. It was a really nasty election for both of the main parties, and it is pretty clear that both of these parties are very concerned about the possibility of suffering similar results in a general election, which would be called if the MP's pass a motion of no confidence in the government.
Like English Dave noted above, Labour is not feeling very frisky about its chances just now and it is not clear that they are really ready to bring the government down at a time when they are not at all confident that they will be punished at the polls for doing so - because everyone knows this is all about Brexit.
If the Labour party does not support a motion of no confidence, then it appears that all that Boris Johnson would have to do is run out the clock and the UK leaves the EU on October 31. Of course we will get to see the full range of parliamentary proceeduring and the sort. But it appears that if the Johnson government refuses to bring up anything to vote on before October 31, the way that the UK Parliamentary procedure works, the opposition will not be able to bring up another extension request - which very well might not pass anyway.
So unless Parliament Speaker John Bercow invents some sort of new procedure just for the purpose of thwarting Brexit, the UK may well be down to a choice between running out the clock in Parliament and the Parliament voting no confidence in the Johnson government.
But even a general election will not automatically stop the UK from leaving the EU on October 31, because unless an extension request is submitted to them before that date, then by law the UK is out on that date. And even if such a request is submitted in time, the heads of all 28 countries would have to agree to it unanimously - including the head of the UK Boris Johnson. However, there are other EU countries that appear to be growing quite weary of all of this, so it could be that they refuse to support it as well.
So, to answer your question, yes the UK can absolutely leave the EU without any further elections or votes by Parliament. In fact, their default course under the law is that they will do just that if nothing else is done to stop that from happening before October 31, 2019.
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Ann was an MP for many years, and was never afraid to give her opinion. She retired, and did plenty of reality telly, including a spot dancing in 'Strictly Come Dancing.'