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Britain's Johnson Accused of Mounting a Brexit Coup

Jamie Dettmer

   British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was accused Wednesday of
   committing a "constitutional outrage" by asking the country's monarch,
   Queen Elizabeth II, to suspend Parliament for a month, complicating
   attempts by opposition parties and rebel Conservative lawmakers to
   thwart his Brexit plans to break away from the European Union.

   The queen approved the request after a delegation of ministers sat with
   her.

   The hardball gambit, which adds yet another twist in a long-running
   Brexit saga that all along has risked fraying the country's
   constitutional order, triggered outrage from pro-EU and opposition
   party leaders. They accused Johnson of mounting a "coup against
   Parliament" by seeking to curtail its power of oversight and debate.

   The suspension of Parliament, known as prorogation, is normally a
   constitutional formality in which the legislature is suspended for a
   few days, generally every British autumn, ahead of the government
   setting out a fresh parliamentary agenda in a speech delivered by the
   monarch.

   Prorogation is in the gift of the sovereign but is undertaken on the
   advice of the government.

   In words not heard for centuries from a speaker of the House of
   Commons, John Bercow, the current occupant of the speaker's chair,
   mounted a furious attack on Johnson.

   "Shutting down Parliament would be an offense against the democratic
   process and the rights of parliamentarians as the people's elected
   representatives," he said.

   He added, "However it is dressed up, it is blindingly obvious that the
   purpose of prorogation now would be to stop Parliament debating Brexit
   and performing its duty in shaping a course for the country."

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