Britain's cross-party bill seeking to prevent Prime Minister
Boris Johnson from crashing
Britain out of the
European Union without an exit deal is expected to become law Monday, following a final vote in the House of Commons and royal assent. The bill requires Johnson to submit a Parliament-drafted letter seeking a three-month
Brexit extension if he hasn't negotiated a Parliament-approved withdrawal agreement by mid-October. If you need a refresher of what happened last week,
BBC News has a 5-minute explainer.
Johnson's Cabinet huddled on Sunday to come up with ways to "sabotage" the legislation, The Daily Telegraph reports, and they hatched two plans: Send a second letter alongside the mandated one to clarify to the EU that Johnson's government doesn't really want an extension; and try to convince an EU member state to veto the request. The latter plan seems more promising — two EU officials have already suggested they are frustrated enough by Britain's Brexit chaos to consider saying no to an extension. The first plan is likely illegal."To send the letter and then try and neutralize it seems to me to be plainly a breach of the act," Lord Sumption, a former judge of the U.K.'s
Supreme Court, told BBC Radio 4. Other legal experts concurred.
The House of Commons will also vote Monday on Johnson's call for snap
elections — and once again, lawmakers are expected to reject the call. That will likely be Parliament's last action before it is prorogued (suspended) for a month, at Johnson's order. Meanwhile, a member of Johnson's Cabinet, Amber Rudd, resigned over the weekend, saying there's "very little evidence" the government is even trying to get a new Brexit deal and is instead spending up to 90 percent of its time planning for a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31.