Brexit vs Britain

As Johnson's plan suffered another humiliating defeat in the parliament

Britain’s longest nightmare is far from over. While many in Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit camp might have thought that the UK would sneak out the EU with a renegotiated deal, the prime minister’s plan suffered another humiliating defeat in the parliament. Perhaps, even the second deal and the fourth vote at Westminster wasn’t enough to end the Brexit quagmire, which has caused the premature demise of two premiers, fractured Britain’s image and its relationship with Europe. After months of back and forth and much criticism at home, Johnson finally managed to pull the political show of his career on Saturday.

A rare super session that was supposed to provide some answers about the fate of Britain’s divorce from Europe has left Brexit in a state of flux with no one sure what comes next. For the PM, this was a personal defeat that he would very much like to turn into a political victory. Immediately after the parliament delivered its verdict on the new Brexit plan, Johnson dispatched a series of letters to EU leaders. In those letters, the PM, now obliged to seek an extension, absolved himself from everything by repeating the message that Brexit had been kicked further by the parliament and not him. In doing so, he also hammered another political message: that the Brexit battle was now a showdown between the parliament and the people of the UK, who had earlier voted for it. With Brexit and Boris Johnson facing more wrangling, there is a significant chance that Britain might need another referendum on the long-awaited exit.  If that doesn’t happen any time soon, Britain will head into the most unpredictable and volatile general election campaign in decades. And team Boris, which is known for playing dirty, will make the recent parliamentary vote on the new deal a central plank of the election campaign to propel the embattled premier back into office.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2019.

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