by ARGeezer
Fri Sep 27th, 2019 at 03:59:44 AM EST
Boris Johnson could bypass key law blocking no-deal Brexit by issuing order to suspend it, John Major warns Independent
Boris Johnson may be planning to bypass a law blocking a no-deal Brexit by issuing an order to suspend it until after the scheduled date of Britain's EU withdrawal on 31 October, former prime minister Sir John Major has warned.
The order could be passed by ministers acting in the Privy Council without the involvement of parliament or the Queen, said Sir John, who denounced the tactic as "a piece of political chicanery that no one should ever forgive or forget".
In a speech to the Centre for European Reform, the former PM said he suspects that Mr Johnson is eager for an early election because he has seen the unedited version of government impact assessments and wants the vote out of the way before the public is aware of the full scale of the damage no deal will do to the country.
Never underestimate the ingenuity of a sociopathic maniac.
Denouncing Mr Johnson's administration as a "Brexit Party tribute band", Major urged moderate Tories to take action rein them in, warning that the PM's "profoundly un-Conservative" Brexit strategy is doing permanent damage to the party's reputation.
Johnson was deliberately whipping up public anger and grievance against parliament and the courts - "the most important bulwarks of our state and its freedom" - in his "reckless and divisive" attempt to win re-election, he said.
Sir John's speech, at the Spanish embassy in London, was described by his former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine as "the most devastating critique of an existing Conservative prime minister by one of their predecessors I have ever read".
"His call for the House of Commons to reunite against a faction of the party to which he and I have given our political lives is the clearest possible signpost of the danger to this country and to the Conservative Party if present strategy continues," said Lord Heseltine, a leading supporter of the campaign for a People's Vote referendum.
The best defense is likely a strong offense. Remove Boris from his office by joint action between Parliament and the Queen and replace him with someone who will discharge everyone in his cabinet. Who knows what tricks Boris might have in mind in addition to issuing an order to suspend the act in Privy Council.