Just How Was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Able to Suspend the British Parliament?

The New York Times explains:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Wednesday cut short the time lawmakers have to debate his Brexit plans, announcing that he had asked the queen to suspend Parliament days after lawmakers return to work from a break, and just weeks before a looming Brexit deadline.

The move, which limits legislative time before Britain’s planned Oct. 31 withdrawal from the European Union...

Most significantly, Mr. Johnson’s Wednesday move has changed the time frame for decision-making on Britain’s scheduled exit from the bloc. But members of Parliament will still return from their current summer break next week, as planned, on Tuesday.


Parliament will still meet during the first two weeks of September, and it was already expected to break for up to three weeks for annual political party conferences. Lawmakers had then been scheduled to reconvene around Oct. 9.

But now the clock has started ticking, and fast...

The new five-week suspension period — or prorogation — announced on Wednesday includes the three weeks when lawmakers already anticipated being in recess, but now they won’t return until Oct. 14, when a new parliamentary session will begin.

A new session of Parliament begins with a speech by the queen setting out the government’s proposed legislation for the period, which is then debated over several days, consuming further time that lawmakers opposed to a no-deal Brexit could have used to try to tie Mr. Johnson’s hands...

The decision to end one parliamentary session and start a new one also deprives lawmakers of the power to cut short their break, further tightening the timetable. And if rebel lawmakers don’t succeed in passing legislation by the end of the current session, they will have to start the process all over again after Oct. 14...

These all amount to the key result of Mr. Johnson’s decision: less time for lawmakers to chart their own path toward a deal for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union...

Prorogation is the period of time between when a parliamentary session ends (bringing all decision-making to an end) and when the next session begins. It requires assent from the monarch, though this has been considered a formality for more than a century, according to parliamentary officials.

In this case, Queen Elizabeth II gave her approval for Parliament to cease operation from no earlier than Sept. 9 and no later than Sept. 12 until Oct. 14...

The process usually lasts for a shorter period of time than the stretch that was just announced, and a new session begins with a speech by the queen to lawmakers.

Votes and debates halt until the new session. But unlike when Parliament is dissolved — the procedure followed before a general election — the government remains free to act and lawmakers keep their seats...

While the power to prorogue Parliament rests with the queen, who officially declares it is being suspended, the process happens on the request of the prime minister.

In modern times, when asked, the queen has always obliged. And she did again in this case. The situation is a reflection of an unwritten rule of Britain’s political system: The monarch remains removed from politics. -RW