U.K. leader asks queen to suspend Parliament as he clears way for Brexit

LONDON — The British government was accused of bringing the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis Wednesday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the queen to temporarily suspend Parliament.

Opponents see the move as an extraordinary attempt to make it harder for lawmakers who want to thwart the prime minister’s plans for Brexit, as the deadline for Britain to leave the European Union looms on Oct. 31. The news sent the pound falling.

The prime minister confirmed in a letter that he had asked the queen to close Parliament from early September until mid-October. He said the current parliamentary session had gone on too long, and claimed the move was the best way to pursue his “bold and ambitious domestic legislative agenda.”

NBC News reached out to Buckingham Palace, which declined to comment.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference at the end of the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 26, 2019.Dylan Martinez / Reuters

“It would be a constitutional outrage if Parliament were prevented from holding the government to account at a time of national crisis. Profoundly undemocratic,” tweeted Philip Hammond, the U.K.’s former finance minister and a senior member of Johnson’s own Conservative Party.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a statement that he was “appalled at the recklessness” of the move. “This is an outrage and a threat to our democracy.”

The speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, who was elected as a Conservative before taking up the impartial role, said such a move would be a “constitutional outrage.”

On the opposition benches, Labour Party lawmaker Ben Bradshaw said the move was “a coup, plain and simple, against our parliamentary democracy.” He warned it would “drag the monarch into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.”

While his colleague, David Lammy called for people to “take to the streets in peaceful protest and civil disobedience” and called Johnson a “poundshop dictator” — using the British term for a dollar store.

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, said that “today will go down in history as a dark one indeed for U.K. democracy.”

The Institute for Government think tank said in a briefing paper in June that suspending Parliament in this way, officially known as “proroguing Parliament,” would be “undemocratic” and “a deeply troubling precedent to set.”

Why is this a big deal?

Next week was already set for a showdown between the prime minister and the House of Commons, which is currently on recess. Johnson says that if he cannot negotiate a deal with the E.U. by the Oct. 31 deadline, he would be prepared to leave Europe without a deal at all.

Many lawmakers from his own Conservative Party and all opposition parties want to stop this “no-deal Brexit” scenario at all costs. Some Conservatives have even threatened to bring down their own party in government by joining the Labour Party in a vote of no-confidence against their own leader.

Others, such as former Conservative government minister and leadership candidate Rory Stewart, have even threatened to set up their own rival legislature if Johnson suspends the House.

“Every other MP will sit across the road in Methodist Central Hall and we will hold our own session of Parliament and we will bring him down,” Stewart told Sky News in June.

They fear a “no-deal Brexit” scenario, which economists, business leaders and even the government’s own leaked assessment have warned could trigger economic pain and even a shortage of food and medicine.

By suspending Parliament, Johnson is seeking reduce the amount of time that lawmakers have to stop him before Oct. 31, according to his critics.

For months, Johnson has refused to rule out the move, drawing condemnation from across the political spectrum. John Major, the former British prime minister of Johnson’s own Conservative Party, likened him to Charles I, the king who prorogued Parliament and was beheaded in 1649.

“It didn’t end well for him” and “shouldn’t end well” for Johnson either, Major told the BBC in July.

What does proroguing Parliament mean?

In and of itself, proroguing Parliament is not an unusual move. Parliament operates in cycles, starting with its opening and ending with its closing — or “proroguing.”

Under the U.K.’s constitutional monarchy, the power to do this is formally given by the queen, on advice of a small group of ministers and advisers called the Privy Council.

The Commons Chamber in the Palace of Westminster, London.Universal Images / Getty file

Because it’s usually procedural, the involvement of the apolitical queen is normally uncontroversial. Indeed, Daniel Hannan, a Conservative European lawmaker and one of the architects of Brexit, said that Johnson’s move Wednesday was nothing outside the ordinary.

“A prorogation normally happens every autumn. This parliamentary session has lasted three years — the longest since the Civil War,” he tweeted. “What kind of screwed-up mindset do you need to see the long-overdue return of constitutional normality as ‘a coup’?”

But others allege that Johnson asking the queen to step in for what they say are shady political ends puts the country in uncharted territory.

“Asking the queen to give effect to this strategy would draw her into a massive political debate,” The Institute for Government said in its June briefing paper. This is “something which Number 10 and the Palace are normally at great pains to avoid.”

Nick Bailey contributed.

source: nbcnews.com