Brexit happened at 11 p.m. GMT on 31/1/2020 after a delay of nine months and two days. Boris Johnson had contested the election on the slogan Get Brexit Done. He won.
After Brexiteers won the referendum in 2016 Remainers tried various tricks to stop Brexit from happening. Courts mostly sided with them. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow was a Remainer and he tried to prevent Brexit. Some people wanted another referendum calling it will be People’s Vote as if animals had voted in 2016 referendum. Theresa May who succeeded David Cameron as PM could not get Brexit done which was set for 29/3/2019. It was first postponed by two weeks, then to 31/10/2019. She resigned and Boris Johnson succeeded her in July 2019.
Boris Johnson said Brexit will take place on 31/10/2019, no ifs and no buts. But Speaker sided with Remainers in his rulings and Supreme Court ruled prorogation of House of Commons was invalid. Things did not go as Boris Johnson had planned and House of Commons voted that PM should write to EU for extension. To comply with that he sent an unsigned letter to EU asking for extension and two other letters mentioning he did not wanted extension. Though an unsigned letter is not valid EU granted extension to UK.
There were around 20 members of Conservative Party who had opposed Brexit. Boris Johnson threw them out of the party. As Labour Party said Conservative Party did not have majority Boris Johnson challenged them for election. They agreed. Election took place on 12/12/2019.
House of Commons strength is 630. Conservative Party got 365 seats, a gain of 47 seats. Labour Party got 203 seats, a loss of 59 seats. It lost many seats which it held for around hundred years. Many voters of Labour Party were in favour of Brexit. They were angry at Labour Party’s hostility to Brexit and voted for Conservative Party. Way for Brexit was clear.
In Scotland SNP won 48 seats out of 59. In referendum on 18/9/2014 Scotland’s majority had voted to remain in UK. In 2016 June 62% in Scotland had to remain in EU. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon wants another referendum on Scottish Independence. Boris Johnson has denied it saying 2014 referendum was once in a lifetime opportunity. Nicola Sturgeon wants to go ahead with referendum. However it is said that Scotland will not get EU membership even if it gets independence because EU rules require deficit to be within 3% of GDP while Scotland’s deficit is 7% of GDP and growing. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said real reason for demand for Scottish independence is to distract from SNP’s failure in education and taxation.
UK had 73 members out of 751 in European Parliament. One UK MEP was of Pakistani origin. He was behind resolutions against CAA and NRC in European Parliament. With UK out of EU he will not be part of European Parliament.
