Johnson's new Brexit vote blocked

Reuters

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to lead Britain out of the European Union at the end of this month hit another roadblock on Monday when the speaker of the House of Commons rejected his attempt to hold a new vote of lawmakers on his Brexit divorce deal.

With the UK due to leave the bloc on October 31, Johnson’s government planned to ask for a “straight up-and-down vote” on the agreement he struck last week with the 27 other EU nations.

The request came just two days after lawmakers voted to delay approving the Brexit deal. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow could refuse to allow such a vote because parliamentary rules generally bar the same measure from being considered a second time during the same session of Parliament unless something has changed.

Bercow says the vote sought by the government was “in substance the same” as one on Saturday and it would be “repetitive and disorderly” to allow a new vote.

Johnson’s Conservative government will now go to its Plan B: get Parliament’s backing for the deal by passing the legislation necessary to implement it. The government was due to publish the bill late yesterday and hopes to have it become law by October 31.

But it’s unclear whether the bill can win majority backing in Parliament and opposition lawmakers will try to seek amendments that could alter or scuttle it.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay urged lawmakers to back the bill and — more than three years after British voters narrowly voted to leave the EU — “enable us to move onto the people’s priorities like health, education and crime.”

“This is the chance to leave the EU with a deal on October 31,” he said. “If Parliament wants to respect the referendum, it must back the bill.”

With the Brexit deadline looming and British politicians still squabbling over the country’s departure terms, Johnson has been forced to ask the EU for a three-month delay to Britain’s departure date.

He did that, grudgingly, to comply with a law passed by Parliament ordering the government to postpone Brexit rather than risk the economic damage that could come from a no-deal exit. But Johnson accompanied the unsigned letter to the EU late Saturday with a second note saying that he personally opposed delaying the UK’s October 31 exit.

Pro-EU activists, who took the government to court in Scotland to ensure that it complied with the law, said the second letter might amount to an attempt to frustrate the legislation. Scotland’s highest court said yesterday it would keep the case open, retaining the power to censure Johnson’s government until its obligations under the law have been complied with “in full.”

The claimants’ lawyer Elaine Motion said the ruling meant “the sword of Damocles remains hanging” over the government.