An invitation; that was swiftly rebuffed by Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has stated that he will only do so, should a no-deal departure from the EU be off the cards.
Johnson also hinted that he could attempt to suspend the House of Commons once again, in order to allow the Queen’s speech to take place.
But will the Prime Minister actually be able to achieve his goals, given the fact that parliamentary arithmetic is stacked against him?
Sputnik spoke with Brexit Party organiser Pete Durnell for more.
Sputnik: Do you think the Supreme Court’s decision was wrong? Could Johnson prorogue parliament again?
Pete Durnell: Obviously I don’t claim to know more about the law than a Supreme Court judge, but I do believe that laws are often vague, ancient and very much open to interpretation. If the judges were said to have a bit of personal bias, it would be pretty possible for that bias to be reflected in the findings of the different courts and different judges and I think that’s exactly what we’ve seen over recent weeks.
I’ve yet to read which law was broken and what the penalties for breaking it are. Normally you have a minimum and a maximum tariff, I’ve yet to hear when the sentencing will be, so it’s all a little bit strange from a non-Supreme Court judge point of view.
With regards to another prorogation; my understanding is that it’s the Prime Minister’s discretion, so in theory, I presume that he could, but I would be very surprised if he did after the events of the last week.
Sputnik: Should Labour accept Johnson’s challenge of a general election? Would it solve the ongoing political deadlock?
Pete Durnell: We are in a very strange situation at the moment. I think they call it the law of unintended consequences because they’ve got this fixed-term parliament act and what’s it’s led to, is that the opposition are now able to decide when we have a general election rather than the government, because the government is saying that they want one all the time, so it’s only when the opposition agree to it.
We are essentially in a position where the opposition actually calls the shots as to when the general election is, which I don’t think was intended originally, and the problem is a lot of Labour MPs I believe don’t want one, pretty much because they are going to lose their jobs, as they are polling nationally at around twenty percent or not much more, so why would Turkeys vote for Christmas if you like.
Would it solve the deadlock? I personally believe it comes down to whether the Tories would do a pact with the Brexit Party if they did; a Tory-Brexit Party coalition according to polls, would have a pretty solid majority of fifty to one hundred seats, so that will without a doubt break the deadlock.
If the Tory arrogance and self-entitlement wins the day; and they refuse the pact, then I would say there’s every chance of another hung parliament and further deadlock.
Sputnik: Do you think that a WTO rules Brexit can still be achieved this year? Would it be as bad as many claim.
Pete Durnell: Either Boris Johnson is going to force through Theresa May’s horrendous surrender treaty, aka non withdrawal agreement in the last couple of weeks of October, or someone on his behalf will go along and ask the EU for another extension, he’s saying he won’t do it but that doesn’t mean some sort of civil servant couldn’t perhaps go and do that.
That extension would be at least three months, but who knows how long it would be and what conditions would be attached to it, because the EU are going to think that they are in a pretty strong position, so they are going to say maybe that the UK will have to have another referendum, or who knows what they would attach to that, we shall see.
Either way; we won’t be having a WTO rules Brexit and from my point of view that’s really bad for business because we have more and more preparations supposedly going on for a no-deal, which are just going to be put on ice, money’s going to be wasted and we are in to that continuing uncertainty again which everyone agrees, is usually bad for business.
I don’t think a no-deal Brexit would be as bad as many claim. My reasons for that are quite simple; there is the option if the EU agrees, to continue trading without tariffs on both sides, and one would imagine that they would agree.
If they didn’t; the other option is we could just negotiate a temporary free-trade agreement of some kind, and I think within a few weeks they’d knock up some free trade agreement on a working basis and we would not be putting huge tariffs on each side, and all the scare stories are basically not going to happen.
