Brexit: It is far from over

United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum

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In the end, the lack of confidence in this prime minister was too great. In a prime minister who has built much of his journalistic and political career on lies and half-truths. And the last one had even dropped his only remaining ally in the British Parliament to somehow steer a hastily negotiated Brexit deal across the finish line.

In the end, the vote in the House this Saturday afternoon was not the long-awaited one about Brexit, but a capped vote of no confidence against Boris Johnson. He lost it with 322 to 306 votes. How and how long the madness will continue, nobody knows.

Johnson planned it differently. Back home with the unlikely success of Thursday - when he had actually negotiated a new exit agreement with the EU in Brussels - he wanted to secure Parliament's final approval at home in London. This had rejected the Brexit deal won by Johnsons predecessor Theresa May three times in January and March.

Johnson's hope

But the newcomer to Downing Street was confident that it would be different this time. After all, he had managed to negotiate away the so controversial "backstop", the emergency solution for Northern Ireland, in its present form. However, he had de facto agreed to a customs border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland - something he and several of his ministers had described as unthinkable weeks ago. The ten members of the Northern Irish Unionist Party DUP in the British Parliament had then stated that this deal could not be made with them.

And yet, Johnson hoped. The hardliners in his own party, who he lured with the prospect of great trade deals with the rest of the world. On dissenters in the opposition Labor Party, to whom he promised wonderful laws for the protection of workers and the environment. And for the fact that many of the exhausted MPs, who were wounded in a three-and-a-half-year Brexit battle, might only say yes to his deal to make it finally over.

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That's also why Johnson joked this Saturday for "Super Saturday" and the 650 MPs not home, but ordered to the lower house. This happened only three times in recent British history: 1939, the day before the declaration of war against Germany, the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the Falklands War in 1982. Johnson's message: This October 19, 2019, is nothing less than the fate of Kingdom. But before the parliamentarians could decide whether to agree to his Brexit deal, Johnson once again intervened with a backbencher.

Once again it was Oliver Letwin, a veteran Tory, who thwarted the plans of his own government. A repeat offender who had repeatedly driven Theresa May to despair and in the last consequence from the office in interaction with Labor and other deputies. But Letwin is not even against Johnson's deal - he and the others, however, want to ensure at all costs that it will not come to a breach with the EU, the so-called No Deal.

And so, from the very beginning, the all-important question hovered over this Super Saturday: Can you trust Johnson to really want a deal with the EU? Or was the whole unity show last week with the grand finale in Brussels possibly only camouflage? A trick to lull EU friends to safety, and then crashing contractually out of the confederation on 31 October? Never, Johnson had confidently assured. But who ever lies ...

"I will not negotiate a delay with the EU"

And indeed, agreeing to his deal would have left him with this nuclear option. The no-no-deal law, which obliges Johnson to ask the EU for a postponement of the Brexitfrist, would have been invalid with a yes to his deal. But in the remaining days until Halloween, the government would still have had to whip through the complex legislative process that legally secures the deal. And if Johnson had come to the conclusion at this stage that it was all too complicated and Parliament demanded insubordination, he could have cut off the whole process and put it on No Deal. Parliament would have been largely powerless against it.

To prevent that, Letwin stepped on the scene. His suggestion: Parliament could vote on Johnson's deal, but only conditionally. Only if the deal was legally anchored in water, would a possible yes of the lower house have legal force. For Johnson an impertinence: If Letwin's plan were to come to fruition, he would be forced to do what he had sworn in his life to avoid - to ask the EU again for a delay. He urged the parliamentarians for their trust. But he had lost it long before. Tens of thousands cheered on the streets of London for a second referendum when the decision was made in the Westminster Palace.

Speech by Theresa May in the lower house: "I have a déjà-vu"

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AFP

Early Saturday night, after Letwin's plan had worked out, there was complete confusion as to how things would go on. To everybody's surprise, immediately after his defeat, Johnson announced, "I will not negotiate a delay with the EU, and the law will not force me to do so" - an opinion he has almost exclusively. If Johnson stayed with him, he would soon find himself in court. Or did his people find a legal loophole? At the latest at 23 o'clock on Saturday evening, the last time to send a letter to Brussels, one would know it.

It was also unclear how the EU would react. The delay is not automatic, all 27 remaining EU countries must agree, and recently had French President Emmanuel Macron, in sharp contrast to Chancellor Angela Merkel, rejected a deadline extension. And if it should come to that: How long would the Brexit be postponed this time? Three months? Six? Or maybe just a few days to increase pressure on the British Parliament.

In any case, Johnson announced that he would push his deal through all means next week. Super Saturday will be followed by a dynamic Tuesday, then a manic Wednesday, etc. And you can be sure that Brexit opponents have not exhausted their creative ability to block Boris Johnson.

Only one thing is certain: it is far from over.