President Donald J. Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson continue to talk at the conclusion of their working breakfast meeting Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019, at Hotel du Palais Biarritz in Biarritz, France, site of the G7 Summit. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
At The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan applauds Boris Johnson’s decision to shut down the UK parliament in order to make it more difficult for his opposition to challenge “no-deal Brexit.” The maneuver not only gives Johnson the upper-hand at home but shows EU leaders that he’s willing to take the UK into Brexit without a deal if they won’t meet his terms. Pat notes that Johnson “has shown himself as a man of action, a risk taker, a doer, like Trump.” He writes (abridged):
Facing a parliamentary majority opposed to a hard Brexit—a crashing out of the European Union if Britain is not offered a deal she can live with—Boris Johnson took matters into his own hands.
He went to the Queen at Balmoral and got Parliament “prorogued,” suspended, from September 12 to October 14. That’s two weeks before the October 31 deadline Johnson has set for Britain’s departure.
The time his opposition in Parliament has to prevent a crash out of the European Union has just been sliced in half. His adversaries are incensed.
The speaker of the House of Commons called Johnson’s action “a constitutional outrage.” Johnson’s Tory Party leader in Scotland resigned. Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn said Parliament will start legislating Tuesday to block Johnson. There is talk of a no-confidence vote in the Tory government.
One recalls the counsel that Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol, gave his students: never retract, never explain, just do it and let them howl! For Johnson has done what he was chosen, and what he pledged, to do.
Though he lacks a majority for a “no-deal Brexit,” his suspension of Parliament keeps faith with the hardline Tories who put their trust in him—that he would honor his commitment to get done by October’s end what the British people voted to do in 2016.
Whatever may be said of him, Johnson has shown himself as a man of action, a risk taker, a doer, like Trump, who has hailed Johnson for the suspension. And leaders like Johnson are today shouldering aside the cookie-cutter politicians to dominate the world stage.
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