Top laffs all round in the first two days of Boris Johnson's government: yesterday morning, at the start of his rule, his government had a majority of one person in parliament. So if all his MPs, plus the DUP who made that deal with him, all vote for his laws, and all opposition MPs vote against him, he would manage to pass laws by the narrowest margin possible. And then, yesterday,
Phillip Lee defected to the Liberal Democrats. So that's that; anything Boris Johnson proposes is now expected to be defeated.
Then, there was a vote put forward by the opposition to seize control of the running of parliament, so they'd talk about what they wanted rather than what the government wanted (so they can remove any threat of a no-deal Brexit, which is now a distinct possibility given Boris Johnson's earlier decision to prorogue parliament in a couple of weeks). The Conservatives busted out the three-line whip: their MPs
had to vote against this motion, thereby keeping no-deal available, or they would be deselected, AKA expelled from the party. But 21 MPs voted against their own party anyway, including numerous big names like former Chancellor Philip Hammond, and indeed, out they went.
So the Conservatives, as I write this, are trying to run the country with a parliamentary majority of -43. For them to pass any laws at all, they will need to hope that vast numbers of opposition MPs decide to vote for them too. This won't happen, to be clear.
You can't run a country with a minority government. And Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to ask for a further Brexit extension, which is what he will be compelled to do by the now-dominant opposition. There's only one thing for it: call a general election, and hope that it delivers a parliamentary majority for a party which can then govern effectively.
But: to have an election, you need to dissolve parliament first. And this would make it impossible to stop a no-deal Brexit on the 31st of October. So the opposition, who traditionally always want a general election so they can have a chance to be in charge, voted against it or abstained. And the Conservatives voted for the election, effectively voting for the possibility that they would lose power.
This motion was defeated just now.
So now we're in the utterly comical position that the government wants to no longer be in power, but the opposition don't want to be in power either. Nobody wants to preside over this shitshow right now. This has led to some fabulous speculation about the weird things that might now happen. For example, Boris might be able to get an election if he submits a motion of no confidence in himself. Alternatively, he could refuse to obey the law that demands he ask for an extension, and then be a criminal. I don't know what would happen then. Thirdly, he could go to the EU and ask for the extension, as he is now going to be legally compelled to do. But for a Brexit extension to be granted, it must be agreed to by the heads of government of every EU country...including the UK. So Boris Johnson could ask for the extension, and then
veto himself.
Isn't politics wonderful?
Here's the laughing Thunderbirds gif.