Things Are Not Looking Up for Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson is having such a miserable run as the U.K. Prime Minister that I’d almost feel sorry for him if he weren’t so fucking awful. But he is, and life is life, and Brexit is Brexit, and so I feel perfectly fine reporting that Johnson is in the midst of another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Indeed, NBC reports that for a second time, Parliament rejected Johnson’s call for a snap election ahead of the Brexit deadline. Johnson likely wants the election to populate Parliament with legislators who back to his Brexit plan, which is essentially to leave the European Union by the end of next month, with or without a deal (no deal is…not great).

Parties in opposition to that plan don’t want that, of course, and so they keep shooting him down. On Monday, only 293 of the 650 members of the House of Commons voted for the election, falling quite short of the two-thirds majority needed.

He seems upset:

Johnson also fucked himself with this one—Parliament is on a five-week break starting Tuesday, thanks to *Johnson’s* request that the Queen approve the suspension of the government, so he can’t even ask for another election vote until mid-October. Even if Parliament votes in his favor, it could take several weeks to set up an election, which runs afoul of the October 31 Brexit deadline.

But there’s good news for Johnson, at least according to the New York Times (emphasis mine):

From Mr. Johnson’s perspective, the suspension of Parliament at least provides some relief by removing the possibility of further embarrassments and defeats at the hands of lawmakers after a week of tumultuous setbacks.

No government means less public humiliation! Maybe everything’s coming up Boris, after all.