Hard Brexit undemocratic

Boris Johnson has placed himself on a perilous path of muzzling Parliament in order to push through with his agenda of a hard Brexit by October 31. The EU is against such a way of UK exiting the union without a deal and many Britons are also opposing a withdrawal being staged in a manner as may affect common life. And yet the new UK Prime Minister appears hell-bent on sending the message to EU that he is willing to suspend Parliament (up to October 14) in order to make possible the detachment, ostensibly on xenophobic grounds, from Europe. It is argued that had Mr Johnson prorogued Parliament beyond the Brexit deadline of October 31, he would have left himself open to the charge of assaulting constitutional propriety. What his current plans will do is to give less time to the Remainers and those who wish to leave the EU with a deal to create trouble for his Brexit.

What Johnson has done in declaring a holiday for Parliament for a couple of more weeks than normal may be legitimate, even if it is stretching constitutional propriety to the extent of dragging the Queen into politics, much against the traditions of a unique constitutional monarchy in a democracy.

The extreme cynicism seen in such manoeuvring of a pillar of British democracy as its Parliament and its unwritten Constitution is what is worrying. This comes at a time when model western democracies on both sides of the Atlantic seem ripe to be manipulated by extreme positions taken by leaders who have no time for the niceties of democratic principles like carrying a majority of the people along. Mr Johnson doing this to perpetuate the innocent, if democratic mistake of one of his predecessors in allowing the referendum in 2016 exacerbates the situation. His opponents, including the Speaker, must now try to outwit the Prime Minister by all means possible but, best of all, by a democratic process in Parliament.