LONDON (AP) – Queen Elizabeth II will formally open a new session of Britain’s Parliament on Thursday, with a speech giving the first concrete details of what Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to do with his commanding House of Commons majority.
Johnson’s Conservative Party won an 80-strong majority in the 650-seat house in last week’s election on a pledge to “get Brexit done” by leaving the European Union on Jan. 31, and a broad promise to end years of public spending austerity.
Now Johnson has to turn his election pledges into political reality.
The Queen’s Speech — written by the government but read out by the monarch from atop a golden throne in the House of Lords — is set to include several dozen bills that the government plans to pass in the coming year.
They range from a Brexit bill to take Britain out of the EU to commitments on healthcare, crime, and infrastructure.
The speech is the centrepiece of the State Opening of Parliament, a blend of politics and pageantry that usually takes place about once a year. Britain saw its last state opening just two months ago, soon after Johnson took over as prime minister from Theresa May through a Conservative Party leadership contest and shortly before the early election that returned him to power.
For the Queen’s second visit this year, the pomp is being toned down. There will still be officials with titles like Black Rod and lords in ermine-trimmed robes. But the 93-year-old monarch will travel to Parliament in a car, rather than a horse-drawn carriage, and will wear a hat rather than a diamond-studded crown.
A central piece of legislation will be Johnson´s Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law needed to make Brexit a reality. It must become law before Jan. 31 if Johnson is to stick to his timetable, and the government plans to hold the first significant vote on it Friday.
The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays — a vow that has set off alarm bells among businesses, who fear that means the country will face a “no-deal” Brexit at the start of 2021.
Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday called the timetable “extremely challenging.”
Thursday’s speech is also set to include a bill to overhaul Britain’s immigration system after Brexit, when EU citizens will lose the automatic right to live and work in the UK.
Beyond Brexit, there will be a law committing the government to spend more on the National Health Service, which has struggled to keep up with growing demand during a decade-long funding squeeze by previous Conservative governments.
Johnson loves big infrastructure projects, and in the past has floated everything from a “Boris Island” airport in the River Thames to a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Improving dire train services in Northern England is a more likely priority for his government.
There are also expected to be tough-sounding announcements on law and order. After two people were killed last month in London by an attacker who had served a prison sentence for terrorist crimes, Johnson said he would end early prison releases for serious offenders.
Johnson will make his mark on the government more decisively in the new year. He´s expected to shake up his Cabinet and merge or even eliminate some ministries – all under the guiding eye of chief adviser Dominic Cummings, a self-styled political disruptor.
Johnson will also have to wait to see how Brexit affects the British economy. A downturn could hamper the government’s plans to spend more on public services.
Thursday’s speech will give the British public some idea of what drives Johnson, a politician whose core beliefs remain a mystery, even to his allies.
He sometimes acts like a Donald Trump-style populist — dubbing his administration a “People’s Government” and banning his ministers from attending the elitist World Economic Forum next month in Davos, Switzerland. But he also claims to be a socially liberal “One Nation” Tory who welcomes immigration and wants Britain to be a leader in tackling climate change.
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said Conservative prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Theresa May all took office promising, like Johnson, to “heal the nation” and tackle social injustice.
“But actually in the end … they don’t want to spend too much money, they don’t want to raise taxes too high, they don’t want to regulate the economy — and actually nothing much happens,” he said. “So don’t hold your breath.”