Corbyn’s Brexit ploy
After threat to involve Queen, now he drags in top mandarin
JEREMY Corbyn last night called on the country’s most senior civil servant to stop Boris Johnson from forcing through a No Deal Brexit.
The UK Labour leader appealed directly to Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, insisting Mr Johnson should be blocked from taking Britain out of the EU during a general election campaign.
Allies of the Prime Minister have confirmed that if he loses a confidence vote in the runup to Brexit day on October 31, he will simply use his powers to schedule an election for early November – and allow Brexit to happen automatically in the meantime.
In his letter to Sir Mark, Mr Corbyn said that would be an ‘unprecedented, unconstitutional and anti-democratic abuse of power’. He said the Cabinet Office’s election rules made it clear that policy decisions on which a new government ‘might be expected to want to take a different view’ should be postponed until after polling day.
Mr Corbyn also said he wanted to delay Brexit by extending Article 50. There are fears of a constitutional crisis if Mr Johnson loses a confidence vote and refuses to quit, allowing him to take Britain out of the EU without a deal. This week, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said that under those circumstances, he would put Mr Corbyn in a taxi to tell the Queen: ‘We’re taking over.’
Yesterday, the Prime Minister tried to play down the prospects of No Deal. Speaking to the BBC, he warned accepting the Irish backstop would turn the country into a ‘satellite state’. But he left the door open to a compromise by saying once the backstop was changed, talks would be ‘at the races’. Crucially, he refused to rule out calling an election and forcing No Deal in the meantime.
In his letter to Sir Mark, Mr Corbyn asked him to confirm that if the UK is due to leave the EU without a deal while an election is under way, the Government should seek another time-limited extension to Article 50 to allow voters to decide.
He wrote: ‘Forcing through No Deal against a decision of Parliament, and denying the choice to the voters in a general election already under way, would be an unprecedented, unconstitutional and anti-democratic abuse of power by a Prime Minister elected not by the public but by a small number of unrepresentative Conservative Party members.’
The letter will be seen as an attempt to flush out official advice from Sir Mark to Mr Johnson about whether it would be appropriate to allow Brexit to happen ahead of an election.
A senior Tory source said: ‘No amount of letter-writing political stunts will change the fact that politicians don’t get to choose which public votes they respect.’
Asked about the issue yesterday, Mr Johnson refused to comment directly. But speaking of the backstop, he said: ‘There’s every possibility for the EU to show flexibility. There’s bags of time for them to do it.’ He said the backstop would turn us into a ‘satellite state,’ adding: ‘Once we get change on that, we’re at the races.’
Rebel Tory MPs are planning to scrap the autumn recess to leave time for their anti-No Deal plot. This would mean the end of the party conference season.