Britain’s Political Chaos Shows Everything Is Okay
Boris Johnson has been defeated in Parliament, the first loss of his brief premiership—on his first vote. His government has no majority, members of Parliament are trying to legally stop the government from carrying out its stated agenda, and Johnson is shutting down the legislature for five weeks at the very moment of Britain’s gravest postwar political crisis. All the while, legal challenges are being lodged against the government, and Conservatives are being thrown out of the ruling party en masse or literally crossing the House of Commons floor to defect.
It is political chaos. And yet, this is precisely how it is supposed to work.
Yes, it is messy and uncertain—and baffling to most casual onlookers. But stand back and a different picture emerges, one that makes more sense, in which the constitution and conventions governing Britain’s archaic political system are holding, and pushing the country toward a decision, even if they are being taken to their limits in the heat of the crisis.
