On 14th November 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her cabinet had approved a draft Withdrawal Agreement and a draft Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the EU and the UK. This was endorsed by the leaders of the other 27 EU countries on 25th November 2018, and everything seemed to be progressing towards the UK exiting the EU on the 29th March 2019.
Under the terms of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the outcome of the negotiations with the EU needed to be approved by the UK Parliament. Prime Minister Theresa May made three attempts at getting approval by the House of Commons:
- The first was originally going to be on 11th December 2018, but Theresa May postponed it when it became clear the Government was going to be defeated. It was eventually put forward on 15th January 2019, and was then defeated by 432 against to 202 for - this was the largest Government defeat in history. 118 Conservative MPs (including Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Raab) and all 10 DUP MPs voted against the deal. Note this moment - this was where the Brexit supporting MPs, including Boris Johnson, voted against Brexit and prevented it from happening. Their reason given for voting against the Withdrawal Agreement was that they could not accept the Backstop - a temporary setup that would only be implemented if we had no adequate solution to the Irish border in place at the end of the transition period. However, it is now obvious that this was just something they picked on to justify them blocking the "people's will" - the recently revised Withdrawal Agreement, negotiated under Boris Johnson's premiership, has an even worse setup for Northern Ireland which could actually be permanent!
- The Withdrawal Agreement was put forward a second time on 12th March 2019, incorporating a few concessions from the EU, but was again defeated 391 against to 242 for. This time it was opposed by only 75 Conservative MPs (still including Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Raab) and all 10 DUP MPs.
- Theresa May was planning another attempt on 19th March 2019, but the Speaker would not let her put it forward because not enough had changed from the last time. So the Government left out the Political Declaration and resubmitted. Also, Theresa May promised to resign as Prime Minister if the agreement was passed. It was allowed to be put forward on 29th March 2019, the date the UK was supposed to exiting the EU! It was defeated for the third time by 344 against to 286 for. Now only 34 Conservative MPs voted against it (and all 10 DUP MPs). This time Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Raab voted for it, even though it still included the backstop. Maybe they were just more interested in the chance to fight for the leadership of the Conservative Party if it passed and Theresa May resigned.
There have been statements made that it was the other parties that stopped Brexit - and as you can see I have not included the figures for how Labour, the Liberal Democrats, etc. voted. However, they are not there to implement Government policy. It is part of their role to oppose what the Government is putting forward - that is why the largest party not in power is called the Opposition. This is how Parliament maintains the required "checks and balances" that are part of our constitution. The responsibility for delivery of policies is firmly in the hands of the Government. As we have seen previously, the Government's White Paper "The Process for Withdrawing from the European Union" said "The Government would have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision." This is the Government, not Parliament. Of course, this will not prevent Boris Johnson blaming everyone else but himself.
There were various other Brexit-related votes during March and April. The UK's exit date was extended to 31st October 2019 to give the UK more time to approve the Withdrawal Agreement; and various options for the model for Brexit were proposed and all rejected - there was no form of Brexit that had the support of the majority of MPs.
On 24th May 2019, Theresa May announced that she would resign as Conservative Party leader on 7th June. She continued to serve as Prime Minister while her replacement was selected, resigning to the Queen on 24th July 2019 to be replaced by Boris Johnson.
Until recently, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has had a pretty torrid time in Parliament, losing vote after vote in the House of Commons. After becoming Prime Minister, he made the statement that the UK would leave the EU on the 31st October 2019, with or without a deal. Before Parliament returned from its summer recess, he advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament from the 2nd week of September until 14th October 2019 - allegedly to prepare for the Queen's Speech to launch his Government's new programme of work. However, most people saw this as an attempt to reduce the time Parliament had to scrutinise the Government's Brexit plans. When Parliament resumed from the Summer recess on 3rd September 2019, a bill was put forward by opposition and backbench MPs to force the Prime Minister to ask the EU for an extension to Article 50 if Parliament had not approved a Withdrawal Agreement or approved departure without a deal by 19th October 2019. This passed through Parliament and was given Royal Assent on 9th September 2019, becoming the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019, more commonly referred to as the Benn Act. Boris Johnson referred to it as the "Surrender Act" as he claimed it weakened his negotiating position with the EU. He also famously said he would rather be "dead in a ditch than ask the EU for an extension". He attempted to call a General Election before the Brexit deadline of 31st October, but failed as under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act he needed two thirds of MPs to vote for it, and Labour MPs mostly abstained preventing him from achieving this.
Parliament was prorogued on 10th September 2019, but this was being challenged in court and it eventually came before the Supreme Court, which ruled on 24th September that Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen that parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful. The proroguing was to be treated as if it never happened, and Parliament was resumed. Boris Johnson did not resign over this, or even make an apology. Parliament was eventually legally prorogued on 8th October 2019 until 14th October for the Queen's Speech for the new session of Parliament.
Progress on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's renegotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement had been very slow, but after he could no longer crash the UK out of the EU without a deal, he seemed to make more effort to achieve an agreement with the EU, and was successful in revising the terms relating to the Irish border such that he could say the backstop had been removed. He replaced the temporary setup in Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement, which would have meant that the whole of the UK remained in the Customs Union until a proper border solution was found, with a potentially permanent solution where Northern Ireland would remain subject to the EU customs regime, even if officially not in the Customs Union. Many regard this as no better than Theresa May's agreement, maybe even worse, and it was totally unacceptable to the DUP as it would mean some sort of customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK; but it was agreed with the EU on 17th October 2019. The revised Withdrawal Agreement was put before Parliament on 19th October 2019 for approval. However, an amendment was added which meant it would not be approved until the legislation required to implement it was also approved in Parliament, so preventing any possibility of a no-deal exit on 31st October 2019. This meant that the Prime Minister had to send the letter to the EU asking for an extension of the exit date to 31st January 2020, though we would still be able to exit on 31st October if the implementation legislation was approved in time. So Boris Johnson grudgingly sent the letter to the EU on 19th October, unsigned, and followed by another letter from him saying the first letter was from Parliament and he still wanted to exit on 31st October.
On 21st October 2019 the Government put forward the legislation to implement the Withdrawal Agreement: the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. This had a very aggressive timetable for approval of only 3 days, with the objective of still meeting the Brexit deadline of 31st October. It achieved a successful second reading on 22nd October, but then the subsequent Programme Motion was not passed, meaning its aggressive timetable was rejected as MPs felt that they needed much more time to review such important legislation. So there was no chance it would make the 31st October 2019 deadline, but potentially could still have made it through Parliament during November, achieving Brexit with a deal in place. However, at this point, Boris Johnson decided to once again push for a General Election, and raised a bill in Parliament to hold one on 12th December 2019. This required only a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds of MPs required if he had followed the process in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. There were attempts to raise amendments to this bill, extending the mandate to 16- and 17-year olds, but the Speaker would not allow them to be considered. The main opposition parties decided to support the bill, and so it was passed, and Parliament will be dissolved on 6th November so that we can have a General Election on 12th December 2019. The EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has been cast aside, so it appears that Boris Johnson did not even want the Withdrawal Agreement he had negotiated.
The consequence of this is that Brexit is now mixed up with all the other differences between the parties that are usual considerations for a General Election. Whoever "wins" will claim it is a mandate for whatever Brexit offering they put forward during their election campaigns. This seems likely to be: Conservative = exit in any way possible (so probably still a no deal exit), Labour = second referendum (including option to remain), Liberal Democrats = stop Brexit immediately and remain in the EU, Brexit Party = no deal exit. Though Brexit is a key issue, people should be voting on so much more in a General Election. If we wanted a people's vote on Brexit, it should have been another Referendum, not a General Election. However, this is what we now have, so let us see what happens during the forthcoming campaigns. Hopefully, we will have much better information than we did for the Referendum; and hopefully the date the result will be announced (Friday the 13th) will not be significant.
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