Among the multiple masks under which populism hides its claims to end representative democracy is that which parliamentarism itself offers with embarrassing spectacles such as those offered for years by the British House of Commons . Since an irresponsible David Cameron convened the referendum on the permanence of the United Kingdom in the EU, the political class has become entangled in a spiral of absurdity that has only deepened the division that already existed in British society and has generated a profound disaffection of citizens towards their representatives. The resignation of Theresa May , the conservative prime minister who during three years of management proposed to carry out the result of the referendum - despite having defended the permanence in the EU while at the head of the Ministry of Interior -, came only after having lost all possible votes in the Westminster Parliament. His Brexit Law, which included an agreement with Brussels and an orderly calendar to execute a smooth disconnection, was rejected three times, in tumultuous votes preceded by resignations in his own Government and defections of his co-religionists.

But May's failure was not only parliamentary. He failed to call on the support of the business and financial sectors, the unions, the Scottish nationalists or, of course, the Labor opposition, which rejected the call for a second referendum. Finally, having delayed the departure of the initial date from March 29 to October 31, he left his post to make way for one of his former ministers who most contributed to his downfall with the defense of a hard Brexit .

But Boris Johnson has met the same parliamentary wall as his predecessor. Despite having tried an argument of doubtful democratic legitimacy - although endorsed by Queen Elizabeth II herself - to dissolve Parliament in advance, new defections in the conservative ranks and the overwhelming action of the Labor opposition have made it lose the parliamentary majority and They have put down their claim to apply a hard and unilateral Brexit. In a double-turn vote, the Commons and Lords yesterday knocked down Johnson's project and ordered him to seek an agreement with the EU before October 19 or, failing that, request a new postponement until next January , time in which that will have to reach an agreement agreed with Brussels.

However, Johnson consumed his failure by not getting the support of the House to call early elections . It will be difficult for the prime minister to leave the labyrinth in which the British political class has been trapped, affected by a pathological vertigo in the face of the precipice that is one of the decisions that will condition the lives of several generations of Britons.

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EditorialJohnson challenges democracy

Thoroughly the United Kingdom has already changed

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