LONDON: In a risky political gamble UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday he would suspend Parliament in September, significantly increasing the chances of the UK exiting from the EU on October 31.

Whilst Johnson claimed the dramatic step was taken “in order to bring forward a new bold and ambitious domestic legislative agenda”, Tory sources told TOI it had been done to push through Brexit whilst critics blasted it as “constitutional outrage”.

The Queen gave permission to prorogue Parliament from her Scottish residence, Balmoral, on Wednesday just hours after Johnson outlined his plans in a letter to Tory MPs and sent his request to the Queen.

Parliament was to meet during the first two weeks of September and then be suspended for the annual political party conferences. It was then to reconvene around October 9.

The House of Commons will now return from summer recess on September 3 and be suspended the following week. The second session of Parliament will open five weeks later with the Queen’s speech on October 14, when the government will set out its new legislative agenda “for the renewal of Britain after Brexit”.

The move drastically reduces the number of sitting days before October 31, the date the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, and means pro-Remain MPs only have a matter of days to pass a vote of no-confidence or get through new legislation extending the UK’s exit date. Since no deal with the EU has been agreed, it raises the prospect of a hard Brexit.

Johnson hopes to secure an exit deal with the EU at the European Council summit of EU leaders being held October 17 to 18 and then pass the bill required for ratification of the deal ahead of October 31.

“There will be ample time on both sides of that crucial October 17 summit in Parliament for MPs to debate Brexit and all the other issues. We are not going to wait until October 31 before getting on with our plans to take our country forward for decades,” Johnson said, denying he was trying to silence MPs.

“There are many Remainer MPs who want to frustrate Brexit or put through legislation to extend Article 50. By doing this Boris has made sure there cannot be a general election until after October 31 as even if he loses a no-confidence there are a fixed number of dates before an election can be held. He has said he will deliver Brexit do or die and that is what he is doing. He is trying to stop the games they are playing with the system. This is the only way he can deliver Brexit by Halloween,” a Tory source told TOI.

The move potentially scuppers a Remainer plot concocted on Tuesday at a meeting convened by leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn with leaders of a handful of pro-Remain parties. They had hoped to force legislation through Parliament to extend Article 50 beyond October 31.

There may now not be enough sitting days in Parliament to get any such legislation through.

Corbyn said the act was “an outrage and a threat to our democracy”. Scotland ’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon , described Johnson as “acting like some kind of tin-pot dictator”. “Today will go down in history as the day UK democracy died,” she said.

Labour MP for Slough Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi said: “This is an affront to British democracy. This is merely trying to shut down our sovereign Parliament to force through a no-deal.”

But Brexiteers argued it was those MPs who were trying to thwart Brexit and ignoring the EU referendum result who were being undemocratic. Conservative campaigner Amandeep Singh Bhogal said: “The truth is PM Boris is getting on with the job of delivering what the people voted for in 2016 in our biggest ever democratic vote.”

US President Donald Trump tweeted: “It would be very hard for Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, to seek a no-confidence vote against new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, especially in light of the fact that Boris is exactly what the UK has been looking for.”

