Queen Can Call Boris Johnson’s Latest Brexit Bluff
A precedent from Australia shows that the British monarch doesn’t have to sit by meekly.
In July, Queen Elizabeth II welcomed her new prime minister. Now, he’s effectively daring her to fire him.
Photographer: Victoria Jones - WPA Pool/Getty Images
Boris Johnson has spent the past week hinting that he’d be prepared to defy an Act of Parliament that would force him to request a third extension to the U.K.’s exit from the European Union. Now, he’s challenging the queen to a constitutional duel. The fate of an Australian prime minister 44 years ago suggests that could be a fatal mistake.
The British prime minister will refuse to leave office if he loses a vote of no confidence in Parliament, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported at the weekend. His office is preparing legal advice that the monarch’s constitutional powers wouldn’t permit her to sack him, the Sun newspaper reported Wednesday.