Boris Johnson’s Brexit: A summary

Boris Johnson's decision to suspend parliament has been ruled unlawful by Scotland's highestcourt, which Johnson plans to appeal next week. The UK's Supreme Court will be debating theappeal, on which the opening of parliament rides— and on that rides the deal that the UK will beleaving the EU on. The last week has been dramatic and eventful, with Johnson losing hismajority, an MP crossing the floor, two failed attempts at a calling a general election and anentire, debatably-illegal government suspension.Since Johnson was elected Prime Minister by the UK Conservative Party, the Britishgovernment has been thrown into an increasing state of chaos. Keeping up with thedevelopments of Brexit in its current state is difficult, so here's the approximate timeline ofJohnson's tenure, leading up to his parliament dissolution.Theresa May resigns, and after a contentious leadership contest, Boris Johnson is elected PMby the Conservative party as her replacement. He swears to deliver a swift Brexit by the 31st ofOctober, deal or no deal. Johnson’s parliamentary majority is fairly slim; his Conservative partyhas many “rebel” tories who greatly dislike the idea of the impending no-deal Brexit and won’tback him up. There are murmurs of Johnson calling a snap general election to strengthen hismajority in parliament, but that doesn’t go through— yet. He’s paying for advertisements andmaking promises that sound an awful lot like election rhetoric.Johnson doesn’t have a deal together, and by now, parliament is incredibly shaky about it. Ano-deal spells economic disaster for Britain, no matter how much Johnson wants it. An allianceof rebel Tories and opposition poltiicians manage to get in a bill that will force Johnson to pushback the Brexit deadline and give the government more time to negotiate, a crushing defeat thatJohnson deeply resents. He expels the 21 rebel Tory MPs that backed the new ‘Benn Bill’, buthis hands are now tied by law to ask for a three-month extension.Johnson tries to call a general election, which could get him a majority, but Labour abstainfrom the vote and he fails to get the majority needed to call one. The government has to stay asit is for now, despite Johnson’s determination for an election. He calls for a second vote acouple of days later and suffers a similar defeat— the government now has no way out of theBenn Bill.Johnson responds by suspending parliament for five weeks, allegedly because thegovernment needs more time to set out a new legislative programme. Skeptics, though, haveaccused Johnson of suspending parliament in order to avoid the Brexit negotiations in thehopes of getting a no-deal through anyway; a five-week suspension would be the longestsuspension since 1945.The Scottish High Court deems his suspension illegal, saying that the reasons he gave theQueen— who needs to formally instigate the suspension— were false. This has since causedJohnson to be bombarded with accusations of lying to the Queen, which he denies. Thedecision is to be appealed by the government in the Supreme Court next week.The Operation Yellowhammer documents are released. A Commons motion forces thegovernment’s no-deal preparation documents to be released, dubbed “OperationYellowhammer”. The papers warn of food and medicine shortages, trade delays and generaleconomic disasters. MPs are already angry about the parliament shutdown and begin protestingeven harder that it needs to be re-opened in the face of the documents being released.And now, as of 13th September, the international community is anxiously awaiting the result ofnext week’s appeal. Johnson’s career, the state of the UK, and the integrity of the EU are all setto be put to the test in the following weeks; what the next development will be nobody can say.The British Government may stay in suspension, Johnson may lose his position, a secondreferendum may be held, and for all we know Corbyn could be the PM by this time next month.What all this means for Northern Ireland, international trade, and the European economy is yetto be seen, but opinions are overwhelmingly that it’s not going to be good.