Following the decision by the UK parliament to instruct prime minister Boris Johnson to request a Brexit extension until 31 January 2020 if a deal isn’t agreed and approved by parliament by 19 October, the risk of a crash-out Brexit on 31 October is greatly reduced.

By refusing the prime minister's request to hold a general election, a further reason why a default no-deal Brexit could have happened has been avoided.

Numbers

ADVERTISEMENT

This has all happened because the prime minister has lost the support of parliament and, like his predecessor with the withdrawal agreement, simply doesn’t have the numbers to get his policies passed.

This means that it is now effectively the opposition that is in charge, but that involves many parties with no coherent strategy other than a common purpose of wanting to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

What next?

It is difficult to predict what will happen next.

There is little sense that the prime minister will succeed in negotiating something different with Brussels in the time that remains before 31 October.

He could try to present again the failed Theresa May withdrawal agreement, perhaps with some political tweaks on the future relationship, but she failed three times with it, so it is unlikely to get the broad support it needs.

General election

Normally, when a prime minister fails to get major policy approved by parliament, they call a general election.

However, this requires two-thirds support because of the fixed-term parliament act and he also failed to secure this, so an election isn’t possible until the opposition are in agreement.

This may happen once the legislation on no-deal Brexit is approved by the House of Lords, as well as the House of Commons, which completed its stage late on Wednesday night.

For Irish farmers, there will be some comfort in that a no-deal Brexit is less likely than it was at the start of this week.

However, the legislation only pushes the date back 31 January and the best this achieves is to prolong the uncertainty.

It could be summed up as Brexit being delayed again; not solved.