Could Boris Johnson ignore the law and refuse to ask for a Brexit extension?

The act of parliament that will receive the royal assent today requires him to make such a request to the EU, says John Rentoul

The prime minister's way out of this bind should not be through such defiance (EPA)

The prime minister is in a difficult position. When the bill to block a no-deal Brexit becomes law today, he will be required to ask for an extension if a deal hasn’t been agreed by 19 October. The opposition parties won’t let him have an election. So what can he do?

One suggestion is that he should simply ignore the law and refuse to sign the letter to Donald Tusk, the EU president, daring his opponents to do their worst. Commentators have conjured up visions of Boris Johnson being escorted out of Downing Street by the Metropolitan Police; of court injunctions being sought; or of parliament reviving the ancient law of impeachment.

None of those is very likely. If parliament failed to approve a withdrawal agreement, and Johnson refused to send the letter, Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, would have to intervene, possibly by withdrawing civil service support for ministers.

But, more importantly, parliament will be sitting on 19 October, and the Commons would presumably pass a motion of no confidence in the government if the prime minister were trying to defy the law. Many loyal Conservatives would not support him.

It could be complicated for the Commons to then pass a motion of confidence in a government led by someone else. Disaffected Conservatives, independents and Liberal Democrats would want a temporary prime minister such as Kenneth Clarke, while Jeremy Corbyn would no doubt insist that if anyone should be prime minister it should be him, as leader of the second largest party.

We would then be in the same scenario as if Johnson resigned – which is what defying the law would be, in effect. Eventually, the House of Commons would have to accept someone as a prime minister to replace Johnson, even if it is impossible to predict how such an unprecedented situation might play out.

But the one thing it is possible to predict is that a prime minister would be unable simply to carry on regardless if they ignored a law passed by parliament.

The same goes for the idea that Johnson could advise the Queen today not to give the royal assent to the Hilary Benn bill, now that it has been passed by both houses of parliament. That process is as close to automatic as such things can be. As the saying goes, the monarch is “just a pen” in British legislation.

For Johnson to try to interfere with it would be unconstitutional – that really would be “dragging the Queen into politics” – and he would probably simply be ignored.

If Johnson is to find a way out of his bind, it has to be by politics, not by defying the law or the constitution.