New Delhi: Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suspended the British parliament for five weeks in a dramatic move to protect his Brexit plans, drawing criticism from all over.
The parliament is now set to meet on 3 September before going on a five-week recess. It will resume proceedings only on 14 October — just a couple of weeks before the 31 October Brexit deadline.
Effectively, this leaves the parliamentarians with little time to discuss United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (EU) and heightening the chance of the UK leaving without a deal.
While it is normal practice for the UK parliament — known as the Mecca of parliamentary democracy — to go on a short autumn recess, critics argue that a five-week suspension is “unconstitutional” and meant to “silence” the parliament on UK crashing out of the EU without a deal.
‘Constitutional outrage’
The process to suspend a parliamentary session without dissolving it is known as proroguing. While in theory the British Queen has the final say over proroguing, in practice her authority mimics a mere rubber stamp. The last time this provision was used by a British executive was in 1945.
Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow has reportedly termed Johnson’s decision to prorogue as a “constitutional outrage”.
The speaker of the House is technically supposed to maintain a non-partisan position, but Bercow remarked about how he had no prior information of the suspension.
He went on to say that it is “blindingly obvious that the purpose of prorogation now would be to stop parliament debating Brexit”.
Several other Members of Parliament (MPs), including Johnson’s fellow Conservative MPs have also criticised the move.
What it means to British democracy
In a rare event, leading British newspapers are using phrases like “constitutional coup” and a “civil war state of mind” to describe the government decision.
The editorial by the Financial Times opens with: “Boris Johnson has detonated a bomb under the constitutional apparatus of the United Kingdom.”
It adds, “The seat of British democracy, long admired worldwide, is being denied a say on the most consequential decision facing the country in more than four decades.”
It even goes on to ask for the suspension of the Johnson government through a parliamentary no-confidence motion. “It is time for parliamentarians to bring down his government in a no-confidence vote, paving the way for an election in which the people can express their will,” notes the editorial.
The Times, leading right-of-centre newspaper, has called Johnson’s move as “bold”, but it argues that he needs to win the election to “prove his mettle as a leader”.
The prominent left-of-centre daily, The Guardian, chided Johnson but put his move into perspective.
“This is a cynical, premeditated blow against the principle of parliamentary democracy but it is not a total subversion of the constitutional order on a par with a military putsch,” read its editorial.
With the suspension getting a nod from the Queen, the future of the Johnson government as well UK’s exit from the EU now looks set to be decided in the next few weeks.
And these British guys talk about suppression of democracy in India. Still under Monarch, they call they are democracy. I would rate American system far better than British. They can be truly called as democracy apart from India.