If PM Boris Forced Into Another Brexit Delay, UK Will Have to Select EU Commissioner

The United Kingdom faces another humiliating symbol of its political class having failed — by accident or design — to deliver the Brexit decision made by the British people in 2016 as it faces being forced to nominate a new European Commissioner.

The new Commission was assembled Monday without a British member, working on the assumption Brexit would shortly be taking place. But Britain’s Parliament remains apparently set against the British people’s decision and has passed a law that would force the Prime Minister to go cap in hand to the European Union to request that Brexit be delayed yet again.

Should that delay take place the European Union would insist as a continuing member of the bloc Britain would be forced to nominate a new commission, just the latest obvious symbol of the level of success enjoyed by anti-Brexit activists and politicians to frustrate the will of the British people.

Newly installed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s controversial former defence boss, said of the decision to require Britain to contribute to the commission in remarks reported by The Times: “If the UK were to ask for an extension and if that were granted, then according to the rules of the treaty, yes a commissioner would have to be appointed and then yes, that person would receive a portfolio.”

Despite having voted to leave the European Union in 2016, and with a long negotiating period arranged with an eventual departure date of March 2019 agreed, the United Kingdom still participated in the May European Union Parliament elections. The British electorate reacted to fact the United Kingdom should obviously have not been taking part in those elections at all by punishing the government severely. Theresa May’s Conservatives were left with just four MEPs, while voters make Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party the largest in Europe with 29.

The symbolism of a new British EU commissioner being appointed could be equally if not more damaging to Boris Johnson, who had vowed to take the country out of the European Union by October 31st “do or die”, and that he’d rather “die in a ditch” than ask for an extension.

While Parliament refused a general election before Brexit day when asked by the Prime Minister it remains likely one will still come later this year. Having failed to keep his promise to the British people, Mr Johnson leaves himself open to the British people punishing the Conservatives with the Brexit party once again.

The Times also reports the remarks of an unnamed European official who recognises the damage asking for an extension would do to Mr Johnson’s electoral prospects, saying: “It makes an extension even more unpalatable and unlikely for him.”