On the Record | Brexit: What Would Odysseus Do?

Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit: What Would Odysseus Do?’:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Classical scholar while a student at Oxford, may be thinking of Odysseus and his men who, homeward bound after their exploits at Troy, must navigate their ship between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis — a six-headed sea monster and whirlpool, respectively — that threaten their destruction.

Even more gruesomely, Mr. Johnson, at the helm of the ship of state, must extricate his ministry from a constitutional dilemma, on Britain’s course for independence from the European Union.

Mere weeks before the UK is legislated to leave the EU, Brexit opponents have devised a Greek tragedy to stymie the Government. Remainers passed a motion allowing them to take over the “order paper,” effectively giving them control of parliamentary business. Their objective? To bring a bill before the Prime Minister, forbidding Britain to leave the EU on WTO terms, if he is unable to negotiate a successful trade deal before the October deadline.

Such is only the official rationale to stop “No Deal,” though. Don’t be fooled. The ultimate goal is to keep Britain ensnared in Brussels’ grip, through a withdrawal agreement that keeps it bound to regulatory and judicial fiat. Better yet, to annul Article 50 altogether and keep the UK within the EU, voiding the 2016 referendum to exit.

Adding insult to injury, Mr. Johnson cannot call for a general election to give him a fresh mandate. Never mind that he is leading in the polls. Legislation enacted in 2011, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, requires a two-thirds vote in the Commons for the prime minister to request the Crown to “drop the writs.” So the Government faces the prospect of being legally mandated to go to Brussels to request an extension without being able to call for an election to avoid this humiliation.

Boris confronts the Brexit version of Scylla and Charybdis.

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My thanks to editor Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun.