Boris Johnson’s bid for early election fails

The prorogation ceremony is now complete – and Britain’s Parliament has been suspended until October 14.

It brings to an end one of the longest sessions in Parliament’s history, which has still failed to produce a path forward for Brexit.

MPs will return for a Queen’s Speech in mid-October, but you can expect plenty of twists and turns in British politics before then.

For now, though, we’re closing our live coverage. Thanks for following along with us on a dramatic day in Westminster.

Read our full report here.

An extraordinary scene has broken out in the middle of a traditionally polite prorogation ceremony.

Black Rod, the traditional gatekeeper of the House of Lords, walked into the House of Commons to request the presence of MPs in the upper chamber for the pomp – as is tradition.

But a group of opposition lawmakers held up sheets of paper with “Silenced” written on them, and outgoing Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow was not in the mood to entertain the traditional theatricality of the event.

In a remarkable show of dissent, Bercow sat slumped in his chair and made his anger with Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament clear.

He said he would “play (his) part” in the ceremony, before adding, “this is not, however, a normal prorogation. It is not typical, it is not standard, it is one of the longest for decades”

Eventually he reluctantly rose, and was joined with Conservative MPs to make the walk to the House of Lords. Chants of “Shame on you!” reigned down in the chamber from MPs as the ceremony got back underway.

It’s just gone 1 a.m. in London, and a mammoth day in Parliament is coming to an end.

MPs and Lords are putting on their wigs and gowns to get ready for the prorogation ceremony, and no, that isn’t a joke.

The ceremony will officially bring to an end a historically long session of Parliament, which has seen two prime ministers and years of debate over Brexit.

Watch Boris Johnson’s response after he lost an attempt to secure a snap general election for the second time in a matter of days.

In a brief response to the vote rejecting Boris Johnson’s call for a snap election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “I hope the Prime Minster will reflect on the issue of prorogation, and shutting down Parliament to avoid a government being held to account, because that is exactly what he has done today and proposes to do to this country” Jeremy Corbyn says in his response to the vote.”

“At least he’s been consistent,” SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford adds of Johnson. “He’s lost every vote he’s brought to this House since he became Prime Minister.”

“Perhaps that’s the reason that he’s tried to shut down democracy this evening,” Blackford added.

“I earlier urged the House to trust the people but once again the opposition think they know better,” Boris Johnson said after losing his early election appeal a second time.

“They want to delay Brexit yet again … not only have they refused to choose the way ahead, they have now twice denied the British people their say in an election.”

“Now the House will be suspended until mid-October,” he said and added that he hoped the opposition uses that time “to reflect.”

“No matter how many devices this Parliament invents to tie my hands, I will strive to get an agreement in the national interest … this government will not delay Brexit any further,” he said.

“They cannot hide forever,” Johnson told Corbyn. “The moment will come when the people will finally get their chance to deliver their verdict.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lost a second attempt in the House of Commons to force an early general election. The motion, which needed a majority of two thirds to pass, fell far short of that threshold.

Only 293 MPs voted for the motion, with 46 against. Johnson needed the support of two-thirds of MPs (at least 434) to trigger an early election.

After a lengthy debate, MPs are now filing into the voting lobbies to have their say on Boris Johnson’s motion.

He’s asking to be granted an early general election – but a united front from opposition parties is set to hand him another parliamentary defeat.

Voting will take about 15 minutes.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s motion for an early general election is getting a predictably frosty reception from opposition lawmakers during the House of Commons debate.

“Any general election must be undertaken in a period of calm, with an orderly approach, not in a period of national crisis,” Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson said.

“The Prime Minster is playing at this. In his speech tonight, he made it sound like this was sport, like this was a game. This is not a student debating society. This is about the national interest,” she added.

Earlier, the SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford told Johnson “we’ve had enough of this dictatorship,” and warned him “his days in office are numbered.”

The vote on Boris Johnson’s snap election motion has yet to take place, but as anyone who’s ever worked on a newspaper knows, deadlines are deadlines.

Tomorrow’s front pages tell the story of a divided nation.

The Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph, of which Johnson was recently the highest-paid columnist, has focussed on Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow’s decision to stand down on the same day Brexit is delivered. The paper has been a long-term critic of the Speaker for what it sees as his anti-Brexit bias.

The Daily Mail goes a step further, with one of its highest-profile columnists calling Bercow a “partisan pipsqueak who disgraced his office.”

However, the Financial Times takes a more nuanced view, saying that the Speaker has stood up for the House of Commons and given it teeth during difficult times. This is the view of many remain-supporting lawmakers.

Back to the politics, and the left-leaning Guardian gives its lead story to Johnson’s defeat in the Commons, which will force his senior aides to hand over private communication on the government’s decision to suspend Parliament.

Leading left-wing tabloid, the Daily Mirror, calls Johnson “Britain’s worst prime minister,” and goads him for his numerous losses.

And finally, The Times reflects on a marathon sitting in Parliament, reflecting on the fact the the longest sitting of Parliament yet resulted in yet another humiliation for the new Prime Minister.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the “only conclusion” that can be reached on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy “is that the government’s pretensions to negotiate are nothing but a sham.”

“The Prime Minister knows full well there is no mandate for no-deal, no majority support for it in the country, and no majority support for it in this House,” he said, speaking during a debate in the House of Commons about calling an early election.

“This is a very serious issue – the Prime Minister is running away from scrutiny with his blather and his shouting,” he said to laughs from the government benches.

Corbyn quoted Michael Gove in March of this year saying the British people didn’t vote to leave with no deal, and notes Gove is now in charge of no-deal Brexit planning.

“I want to turf out this reckless government,” Corbyn said. But added: “A general election isn’t something for the Prime Minster to play about with for propaganda points, or even his very poor quality posts on social media.”

In his response to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech calling for an early election, Jeremy Corbyn said his Labour Party want an election – but not if it involves risking a no-deal Brexit.

“The only point of any importance that the Prime Minister has just included in his speech is his clear indication that he does not intend to follow the law that has just been passed that requires him to ask for an extension in certain circumstances,” Corbyn said.

“No deal has been taken off the table.”

“I want an election, as the Prime Minster pointed out … I don’t retreat from that at all. We are eager for an election,” he added.

“But as keen as we are, we are not prepared to risk inflicting the disaster of no deal on our communities our jobs, our services, or indeed our rights.”

“No deal would not be a clean break. It would not mean just getting on with it. It would start a whole new period of confusion and delay.”

“The leader of the opposition cannot lead, he cannot make a decision. He cannot work out whether he is for Brexit or against it,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the House of Commons during a debate on holding an early general election.

“Perhaps their next policy will be whether to have a referendum on whether to have a referendum.”

“If you really want to delay Brexit beyond October 31… then vote for an election and let the people decide if they want a delay or not,” he said to Corbyn.

“If you refuse to do that tonight I will go to Brussels on October 17 and negotiate our party … hopefully with a deal, but without one if necessary,” he said.

“I will not ask for another delay,” he insisted, again signalling his desire to ignore the law that he must ask for an extension if he cannot achieve a deal.

“We know the real reason why Labour don’t want a general election” under Corbyn’s leadership, Boris Johnson tells the House of Commons. “Most of the don’t want a general election because they fear that their party will lose.”

Then, in a jibe at internal divisions within Corbyn’s party over his leadership, he adds: “But there is small, terrified minority of Labour MPs who don’t want an election because they actually think he might win.”

“The common thread joining all these parties is their extraordinary belief that the national interest requires them preemptively to protect the British people from the consequences of their own democratic decisions,” Johnson says.

“They only believe in democracy when it delivers the response that they want.”

Then, when Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow interjects to ask lawmakers to keep it down, Johnson responds with a bit of trademark theatricality, lifting up the microphone behind the dispatch box to cheers from his backbenchers.

MPs in Westminster may be debating into the early hours, but Brussels isn’t losing any sleep over Brexit. 

Tuesday is a big day for the European Union as its executive arm, the European Commission, is set to announce its new line up of commissioners.

The make up of the body – the EU’s de-facto cabinet – will say a lot about Europe’s post-Brexit landscape. The new commissioners will take up their roles on November 1st, a day after the UK is set to leave the bloc. The UK has not fielded a candidate.

This, as Downing St continues to pursue a policy of dialogue but disengagement with Europe.

Among EU circles, there is a sense Boris Johnson is running down the clock until the very last moment.

And an extension – whether he is willing to follow parliament’s instruction and ask for one – isn’t guaranteed either, with France’s foreign minister suggesting his country could play hard ball at the EU Council Summit on October 17.

Opening the debate on an early election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn “the first Leader of the Opposition in the history of our country to show his confidence in her Majesty’s government, by declining the opportunity to have an election with a view to removing the government.”

He notes that Corbyn previously said he would back an election once the bill blocking a no-deal has achieved royal assent. “By his own logic, he must now back an election,” Johnson says.

“I have accepted the reality that an election is the only way to break the deadlock in the House.”

“Why are they conniving to delay Brexit, in defiance of the referendum?” Johnson asks of Labour. “The only possible explanation is that they fear that we will win it,” he says.

We’ve made it – the main event of the night is beginning.

MPs are debating Boris Johnson’s second request for an early election. It will last for around 90 minutes, before a vote takes place. Johnson is not expected to come near the two-thirds majority needed to secure a snap election.

Boris Johnson has “no choice” but to ask for a delay to Brexit, the Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips has told CNN.

Phillips lamented the outrage from opposition benches to Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament, noting that the suspension amounts only to a handful of extra days that Parliament would otherwise have been sitting.

“What are they going to do in three days that they haven’t done in three years?,” she told CNN. “We’re talking actually a matter of days.”

And she said the bill blocking a no-deal Brexit has damaged the UK’s standing.

“Any country that says to a bloc, you must decide our future … that to me is absolutely bizarre. That doesn’t seem like representative democracy at all,” she said.

But Phillips accepted that Johnson’s hands are tied by the law.

“He has no choice … If it’s a choice between go to prison or have to do what is now the law of this law, then I suppose he has to do what is law of this land. Do I agree with it? Absolutely not.”

“But does Boris Johnson have a choice? No, I think Downing Street has been outsmarted by the Remain Alliance in Parliament on this,” Phillips said.

Given the urgency of Brexit – particularly acute now that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opted so suspend Parliament at the end of today – you’d be forgiven for asking why the House of Commons is currently engaged in a lengthy debate about Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland, the smallest country that makes up the United Kingdom, has not had a sitting parliament since 2017. The history of Northern Ireland requires that power is shared between unionists, whose loyalty lies with the United Kingdom, and republicans, who historically identified as wishing to be part of the Republic of Ireland.

That power-sharing agreement collapsed in early 2017 over a scandal thought to have cost the taxpayer millions.

Stormont in Belfast.

In theory, the debate taking place in Parliament now is part of what is supposed to be a fortnightly update on the formation of a power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. However, the reason these debates are beholden on the government was part of a move by anti-no-deal MPs to block a no-deal. It’s quite complicated, but also quite important.

After Northern Ireland has been discussed, MPs will move onto debating the ongoing restoration works of the Houses of Parliament. The gothic palace has been crumbling for some time and the restoration works are ongoing. However, in order to keep those works ticking over, legislation needs to be passed.

Why is this all happening today?

Parliament only returned from its summer recess last week and has since then had the risk of prorogation hanging over it. So while Brexit is front and center, all this other business must be taken care of.

Isn’t democracy fun.

Black Rod (center, right) carrying his black rod.

Fast forward a few hours. It’s approaching midnight (or maybe even later), everyone is tired of talking about Brexit, and Parliament is about to be closed for business for five weeks.

But, since this is the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland we’re talking about, they’re not just going to lock up shop and head to bed.

Oh no. Instead, we get the time-honored Prorogation Ceremony. Yes, there is a ceremony.

What does it involve, you definitely didn’t ask? Well, the ceremony begins with an announcement read on behalf of the Queen.

Her statement, read by the Leader of the House of Lords in that chamber, says: “My Lords, it not being convenient for Her Majesty personally to be present here this day, she has been pleased to cause a Commission under the Great Seal to be prepared for proroguing this present Parliament.”

Then Black Rod gets involved. Black Rod is not actually a black rod, but a person referred to as Black Rod who carries a black rod. Black Rod has been around since the 14th century, and the current Black Rod – whose real-life name is Sarah Clarke – has been in the post since 2018.

The current Black Rod, Sarah Clarke.

Anyway, as I was saying, Black Rod carries a black rod at the opening and closing of Parliament, to help fulfil her or his duty to maintain the House of Lords.

At tonight’s ceremony, Black Rod will summon the House of Commons to the House of Lords. When the Commons arrive, representatives from each house greet each other – the Lords by doffing their hat, which is British for “hello,” and the Commons by bowing.

Then the government gets to read out their achievements from the past year, and then there is some speaking in Norman French.

Once that’s completed, Parliament is officially prorogued. But it’s not over. Lawmakers must then file out of the chamber, shaking hands with the Speaker as they go.

At this point, in accordance with tradition, the Spice Girls perform a medley of their hits.

Wait, no, that was the Olympics closing ceremony. Ah yes – at this point everyone goes to party conference for a month to argue some more about Brexit.