In another defeat for Johnson, U.K.'s Parliament votes against a snap election

(Image credit: Peter Summers/Getty Images)

published 10 September 2019

Britain's Parliament has once again rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson's call for early elections, giving him his second major defeat in a week.

The vote took place early Tuesday morning, a few hours after a law went into effect blocking Johnson from going through with a no-deal Brexit. Right now, the deadline to leave the European Union is Oct. 31, and under the new law, if Johnson is unable to reach a divorce deal by Oct. 19, he must request an extension.

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Parliament will now be suspended until Oct. 14. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said his side is "keen" to hold elections, but "we are not prepared to risk inflicting the disaster of no-deal on our communities." Johnson wants early elections because he lost his legislative majority last week, after a Conservative MP defected to another party and he ejected more than a dozen others, as he was angry that they supported the opposition.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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