MPs in the UK are set to return from the summer recess this week and get back to work – well at least for a few days anyway… It would be utterly foolish 
to say we know what’s really going to happen this week, so we’re just going to give you our best guess.
So, what’s going to happen – chaos? Pantomime scenes? Urgent debates?
We reckon we’ll probably see most of these in UK politics this week as MPs frantically try to stop a no-deal Brexit from being allowed to take place. They’ll be facing a battle against time though, as the government announced last week that it would prorogue Parliament from mid-September.
Do what to Parliament, I here you say? Essentially, Parliament is going to be suspended/temporarily shut down – during this period, debates won’t take place in Parliament, and hence MPs won’t be able to pass new laws. You can read more about what proroguing Parliament means here. As for why it matters, MPs fear they now won’t have enough time to debate Brexit, or specifically pass new legislation to block a no-deal Brexit, which is the current legal default come October 31.
MPs from across the House of Commons are expected to support a bid to block a no-deal Brexit, including members from the government’s own party, such as Rory Stewart.
Meanwhile, multiple legal battles to try and prevent Parliament from being prorogued are due to be heard in the courts. A petition to stop the proguing of Parliament has received over 1.6 million signatures – MPs and other individuals such as Gina Miller are leading legal battles, while thousands took to the streets across the UK this weekend to protest the move by the Government to suspend Parliament so close to the Brexit deadline.
This week, Chuka Umunna tweeted that the Prime Minister is ‘is behaving like a tin-pot dictator’ – expect plenty more shouting and use of strong terms in and outside the walls of the House of Commons this week.
Away from Brexit now and a reminder that politics does exist elsewhere…
Hurricane Dorian has been upgraded to a category 5 storm. The hurricane has hit the north-west Bahamas and is expected to arrive at the US east coast on Monday and Tuesday. The US National Hurricane Center reported “catastrophic conditions” in the Northern Bahamas and it is thought the storm could be life-threatening. The governor of Florida recently said, “every Florida resident should have seven days of supplies, including food, water and medicine, and should have a plan in case of disaster.”
Elections to Moscow’s legislature are due to take place on Sunday 8 September. In recent days, ‘a few thousand Russians took to the streets of central Moscow on Saturday to demand free elections’, according to reports. At the start of August, police in Moscow conducted mass arrests of those participating in an unauthorised rally in Moscow called by opposition leaders to demand the inclusion of independent candidates in the local elections.
And finally, work is expected to continue in Italy after the country’s Populist party, Five Star and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) agreed to form a coalition. You can read more on this story here.
So, there’s a look at what can be expected as we head into another week of politics. For more previews, check out our podcast here.
Be sure to fasten your seatbelts, it’s set to be one busy week – we’ll be covering it every step of the way here and on social media at @speakerpolitics.
Photo Credit: Sam Greenhalgh via Flickr under licence (CC BY 2.0)
