'Zombie' Parliament Amid Brexit Deadlock And A Tory Leadership Contest
“Please don’t waste this time,” Donald Tusk warned British MPs on April 11.
The President of the European Council was speaking after the EU had agreed to delay Brexit until October 31.
Fast forward six weeks and a deal seems even further away than before.
Theresa May’s talks with Jeremy Corbyn lasted six weeks - but collapsed without agreement. On May 17.
The prime minister’s last-ditch attempt at a compromise, announced on May 21, was dead on arrival as her backbenchers and then cabinet disowned it.
Her plan to ask MPs to vote on her revised Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) in the first week of June went up in smoke.
May’s resignation now sets the stage for a Tory leadership contest running until parliament rises for its summer recess in mid-July.
As Tory leadership hopefuls canvass for support in the corridors and bars of parliament, it seems unlikely MPs will be asked to vote on anything of substance.
The lack of progress in reaching an agreement on Brexit has left MPs with little to do in the chamber.
On May 7, a landmark was reached. The current parliamentary session became the longest by sitting days since the English Civil War of 1642-51.
But MPs have only voted twice in May.
Once on a non-binding Labour motion on cuts to healthcare. And once to ensure sanctions against Russia operated by the EU continued once the UK left.
On May 13, the business in the Commons began on time at 2.30pm and finished at 6.06pm - despite being scheduled to end at 10pm. On May 22, business ended at 4.30pm.
It is a pattern that has characterised this year of Brexit deadlock and paralysis.
On Wednesday February 6, the Commons began sitting at 11.30am as usual but finished at 3.27pm. It should have run until 7.30pm.
SNP frontbencher Pete Wishart said that to call the government a “zombie” would be “to show massive disrespect to the brain-eating living dead”.
“The purgatory that we will now endure in the business of the House is acquiring a semi-permanent nature,” he warned.