Reminder: UK parliament reconvenes this week

Lawmakers will officially return to Westminster tomorrow

UK

Though many are likely to already stick around starting from today before the official sessions begin again tomorrow on 3 September.

So, what can we expect?

The parliamentary agenda doesn't offer much but don't expect things to follow the schedule this week. Opposition lawmakers will surely request an emergency debate and speaker John Bercow is almost certainly going to grant that (he has labelled Boris Johnson's prorogation of parliament as a constitutional outrage).

The next thing to look out for is to see if lawmakers can table a business motion and then vote on it - similar to Brexit amendment votes in the past - in order to try and stop a no-deal outcome or try and force Johnson to extend the Brexit deadline.

However, once again the issue here is that such a motion may not necessarily be legally binding - there's still a lot of complications on this - and there may not be enough time for lawmakers to achieve that before the prorogation begins next week.

Parliament doesn't sit on Friday and Johnson can prorogue parliament as early as next Monday so the key issue here is time. Essentially, if lawmakers can't pass a vote before the prorogation, it is game over in trying to stop Johnson.

On the sidelines, just be wary of other potential issues.

The Tories currently hold a majority of just one and if Johnson threatens to expel any lawmaker from voting against the government, they will go into a minority government. As such, the situation is very much fluid.

If Johnson is willing enough to sacrifice his working majority, we could potentially be staring at an early election before 31 October as well.

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