Germany Pins Hopes on Parliament to Thwart Johnson’s Brexit Plan

(Bloomberg) -- Germany doesn’t believe Boris Johnson will be able to make good on his threat to take Britain out of the European Union without a deal, according to two government officials, weakening the new prime minister’s negotiating position with the bloc.

German officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they expect Parliament to thwart any attempt to rip the country out of the bloc without an agreement to smooth the process. Irish officials take a similar view.

Johnson has vowed to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31 “do or die.” He says he wants to cut a new deal with the EU but has set an ultimatum that the other side has made clear it can’t accept -- he wants to scrap a measure designed to keep the Irish border free of checkpoints. Johnson has said his threat to walk away must be credible to the other side, and as part of that strategy has increased spending on no-deal preparations.

The credibility of his threat is undermined by the opposition he faces in Parliament. His overall working majority was reduced to just one after a special election last week and there’s long been a clear majority against a no-deal split. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Monday he would call for a vote of no-confidence at "an appropriate very early time" once Parliament gets back to work in September.

If Corbyn succeeds, then a general election would be triggered. Still, Dominic Cummings, a key adviser to Johnson and a major player in the 2016 referendum campaign, has told officials that even if Parliament forces an election, it’s already too late to stop a no-deal split, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

The government could call an election after Oct. 31 -- and allow Britain to tumble out of the bloc during the campaign -- the Telegraph reported him as saying. He said the EU is making a mistake thinking the U.K. is bluffing.

Berlin’s Hope

In Berlin, officials see elections as a safety net. They expect a general election would strengthen the pro-EU parties, raising the possibility of a new government led by a coalition of Labour and Liberal Democrats, the officials said. The Lib Dems want a second referendum and Labour also advocates putting the terms of a Brexit deal back to voters.

A poll last week by YouGov indicated that in a general election, the Conservatives would win 32% of the vote, with Labour on 22%, the Liberal Democrats on 19% and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party on 13%.

If the opposition fails to prompt an election, then lawmakers could try other methods to prevent a no-deal split -- using the tools of Parliament and the courts. Politicians are expecting a constitutional showdown in the coming months, and Johnson hasn’t ruled out suspending Parliament to push through his vision of Brexit.

Parliament forced former Prime Minister Theresa May to seek an extension to EU membership rather than crash out of the bloc earlier this year, and politicians across the House of Commons are already working on maneuvers to tie Johnson’s hands too. But a more determined prime minister might be harder to block.

To contact the reporter on this story: Birgit Jennen in Berlin at bjennen1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Emma Ross-Thomas, Caroline Alexander

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.