I keep seeing Johnson repeating the mantra that he will comply with The European Union (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019 but will still leave the EU on 31st October even without a deal. And then he smiles the smile of a Baldrick with a cunning plan. This seems to cause puzzlement amongst politicians as it appears contradictory.
There are 650 MPs, many of them ruthless, many of them lawyers, all of them supposedly clever. If I can work out the riddle, surely most MPs have worked it out too but don’t want to say so just in case it’s not the same cunning plan and they give him another idea. He may already have done a backroom deal with Orban to veto an extension request.
So you have to read the Act. It’s online and it’s a quick read. There is a massive hole in it that I spotted in seconds, re-read several times and was still there. The PM has to write the letter. The PM has to accept the extension offered, that runs from 11pm on 31 October. The PM can terminate the extension early if they get an agreement before 31 January 2020.
Johnson sends the letter and accepts an extension. But at 11:01pm on 31st October he can terminate the extension agreement early. Nothing in the Act prevents early termination without Parliamentary consent.
At this point all hell breaks loose but it’s too late, Johnson has kept his promise, and it’s near impossible to reverse out of. Why didn’t anyone spot this and close it off? The Government cannot terminate the extension period early without Parliamentary consent. There, it’s not hard.
The only way to be sure of avoiding the cunning plan is to hold the No Confidence vote and install a temporary caretaker PM.