|
The saga goes on. Tonight Johnson won the vote in the House of Commons on his new deal by 30 votes. The vote was saying they supported it in principle but it was only the second reading and in it's third reading would be subject to amendments. However, the sting in the tail was minutes later MP's defeated the government on it's timetable to get the bill through parliament. Johnson was trying to railroad it through in 3 days. The bill was over 500 pages long and only published a couple of days ago, something like this would normally take eight weeks. MP's quite rightly wanted more time to scrutinise the bill. Johnson has now thrown the toys out of the pram and pulled the bill. It now seems very unlikely that we will leave on the 31st October as Johnson promised. It looks like the only way we will leave by then is if the EU fail to give another extension. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has said he will recommend to the other EU countries that a further extension is agreed.
Johnson was forced by an act of parliament to send a letter to the EU on Saturday asking for an extension. After Johnson lost a vote on Saturday in his churlish style he sent a photocopied letter which was unsigned and followed it up with a second letter which he signed arguing against an extension.
What happens next? My guess is there will be an extension until the end of January and we will likely have a general election before then.
|
