BRITISH politics are in chaos. The country's Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the new Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson acted illegally when he suspended parliament for five weeks on the grounds that as a new administration he was entitled to do this in preparation for a "Queen's speech" in which he would set out his policies for the rest of the parliamentary term. Had British MPs not met for 24 working days until Oct. 14, there would have been only 14 more sessions before Oct. 31, the date at which parliament itself had set for the UK to leave the European Union. Johnson's opponents argued this would have been insufficient time to debate any new deal that the government might possibly have extracted from EU negotiators in Brussels and to take a view on Brexit happening with no deal at all. The Supreme Court judges emphasized that any ruling they made would have nothing to do with Brexit, purely the legality of Johnson's suspension of parliament and the crucial departure debate. Johnson's Conservatives no longer have a majority in the House of Commons, not least because the new premier fired 21 of his own MPs after they voted against the government, so frustrating the Brexit process. But when he tabled a motion to call a general election, that too was defeated. The successful argument was that a snap national vote would take place on or around the end of next month when the UK would automatically cease to be a EU member. The contention that leaving without a deal would be an economic disaster for the country has the weakness of actually itself undermining Britain's current economic position. Business leaders are tearing their hair out over what are already three years of drift and indecision. Opposition Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he will only agree to a general election once parliament has forced the government to tell Brussels that it wants the Brexit deadline extended into next year. It would seem that it has the votes to do just this. But meanwhile all the opposition parties are also talking about combining to create an interim government after forcing Johnson to resign following a vote of no-confidence. This would postpone going to the electorate. It is however very likely that Boris Johnson, who is now being subjected to the same social media vilification as President Trump, welcomes the chaos. At some point there will have to be an election. He will lead his party into it with a campaign that is likely to be a rerun of the June 2016 Brexit referendum with the added inducement of his already published plans to take the brakes off austerity and try to fund a boom after the UK's EU departure. Most UK voters, even many "remainers", feel fed up and humiliated at the failed Brexit negotiations and the EU's inflexibility. Johnson will be hoping that in this mood, they will give him an emphatic electoral victory.
