PM to ask for Brexit extension ‘in case of no-deal by Oct.19’
Boris Johnson. File
Last month, opposition lawmakers and rebels from Johnson’s Conservative Party forced through the “Benn Act” requiring him to delay Britain’s departure from the EU if he has not agreed a withdrawal treaty in the next two weeks, to prevent what they say will be a calamitous no-deal Brexit.
Johnson has promised he will abide by that law, which he has called “the surrender act,” but also vowed that he would not ask for any delay and that Britain will leave the EU, “do or die,” on Oct.31, failing to explain the apparent contradiction.
Opponents suspect he will seek some kind of legal escape route or seek to pressure the EU into refusing to agree to an extension request.
Anti-Brexit campaigners began legal action in Scottish courts on Friday to order him to comply with the Benn Act or have judges write to the EU on his behalf asking for the extension.
The legal challenge also says if Johnson fails to comply, the courts could impose penalties “including fine and imprisonment.”
In submissions to the Scottish court, the government said that Johnson accepted that he was obliged to send a letter to the EU asking for a delay and that if an extension was granted, Britain would also agree to it.
“In the event that neither of the conditions set out ... is satisfied he will send a letter in the form set out in the schedule by no later than Oct.19, 2019,” said the document posted on Twitter by Jo Maugham, a lawyer involved in the case against Johnson.
The current case is taking place just over a week after Johnson was humiliated by a landmark Supreme Court ruling that he had suspended parliament unlawfully.
A spokesman for Johnson said they would not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
Meanwhile, a British politician who took Twitter by storm with walking tours and viral clips during his leadership challenge against Johnson said he was quitting parliament to run for London mayor.
Rory Stewart used the social media platform to announce that he would not stand for re-election when a likely early general election rolls around in the coming months.
“It is with sadness that I am announcing that I will be standing down at the next election, and that I have also resigned from the Conservative Party,” Stewart wrote.
He added he would be an independent candidate, arguing that the way to a less divisive, kinder politics was not in the “Gothic shouting chamber” of Britain’s Westminster parliament.
“I’m getting away from the politics that makes it feel that (US President Donald) Trump has never left London,” he added.
“I want to walk through every borough of this great city, to get back to us, on the ground, making change local and showing that the way we do it is not through division but through love.”
The 46-year-old Stewart turned into an unlikely social media star by ignoring UK conventions and challenging just about every passerby he met to debate him about Britain’s place in the world.
He feared Johnson’s threats to take the country out of the EU without a negotiated agreement and voted against Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.
Stewart would record the conversations on his mobile phone — he later admitted that an assistant helped him out — and then post them from various spots around the country.
The #WhereisRory hashtag soon went viral and Stewart survived round after round of party votes to qualify for TV debates against grandees like Johnson and now-foreign minister Dominic Raab.
But he appeared to melt under the pressure on stage and his campaign ended in June.
Johnson rose to power the following month and soon stripped Stewart and 20 other rebel Conservative MPs of their parliamentary party rights for opposing his “no-deal Brexit” threat.
Agencies
