UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ploy to bastardize the 2016 Brexit referendum has further unraveled, as his fallback – the House of Lords – approved to push through a bill preventing a no-deal.
The unelected members of the House of Lords declined favour, early Thursday morning, to their unelected complement, Mr. Johnson, by making sure the Benn bill would be returned to the lower house, the House of Commons, to be debated by Friday.
The bill, supported by opposition parties and Tory rebels to block a no-deal Brexit, easily cleared its second and third readings.
Baroness Angela Smith, Labour’s leader in the House of Lords, confirmed that the opposition supported the move, saying there would be “no further frustrations” of the bill on Friday.
The Benn bill would then be voted on again by MPs on Monday. The peers are set to debate the bill and amendments on Thursday.
The Lords’ late-night agreement came after Mr. Johnson’s ploy to trigger an October general election failed.
Former Labour minister Hilary Benn’s bill could force Mr. Johnson to seek a three-month Brexit extension from the EU should he fail to secure a deal by the 31 October deadline.
If successful, the Benn bill would require the Government to either reach a deal with the EU by 19 October, or gain Parliament’s approval for a no-deal Brexit by 19 October.
The British Prime Minister has literally resorted to every legal trick in the book to deliver his much touted-pledge: delivering Brexit with or without a deal. But that has not gone down well with UK lawmakers – from both the elected Commons as well as the unelected Lords.
Mr. Johnson suffered a humiliating defeat on Tuesday as parliament, including 21 members of his own party, voted to seize control of the parliamentary agenda.
The 328-301 vote, the first of Johnson's term as Prime Minister, gives lawmakers the opportunity to advance legislation blocking a no-deal Brexit and push back the Brexit deadline once again.
Britons have now understood that the economic and political freedoms they had hoped for during the 2016 Brexit vote has been bastardized into a future of uncertainty under Mr. Johnson’s push for a no-deal Brexit.