What will happen if Boris Johnson loses the Queen’s Speech vote

Politics Explained: A prime minister staying in office having lost such a major vote would be unprecedented, but there is no prospect of Johnson resigning

You have to wonder what the Queen thinks of her current government. First, she was dragged into a constitutional crisis after being asked to order what turned out to be an unlawful suspension of parliament, then the debate on last week’s Queen’s Speech was shoved way down the parliamentary agenda to make time for MPs to discuss Boris Johnson’s unexpected new Brexit deal.

Now that the latest crisis appears to have been averted, with the government seeking an extension from the EU and having “paused” the legislation that implements the deal, MPs will finally vote on the Queen’s Speech on Thursday.

As has become the norm in recent months, it is far from clear that the government will win the vote.

To do so, it will need the support of the DUP, which has voted against the government in recent days and is furious at what it sees as Johnson’s betrayal over the impact of his deal on Northern Ireland.

In normal times, losing a vote on the Queen’s Speech, which lays out the government’s legislative plan for the coming months, would trigger a major political crisis. A defeat would suggest that the government no longer commanded a majority in the Commons and cast doubts over its right to stay in power.

In normal times, the prime minister would be expected to resign and either call a general election or allow someone else to assume office. That is what happened the last time a government lost such a vote, in 1924, when Stanley Baldwin stepped down and the opposition formed a government.

It barely needs saying, though, that these are not normal times, and it is all but certain that Johnson will not resign as prime minister even if he loses the vote on the Queen’s Speech.

If this happens, opposition parties would be expected to try to prove that the government no longer commands a majority in the House of Commons and has, therefore, forfeited its right to remain in power.

The most obvious way to do this would be to table a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. However, Labour has been reluctant to take such a step until a no-deal Brexit has definitely been averted and, more to the point, until it is more confident that it has the numbers needed to win such a vote.

It is highly likely, then, that Johnson will stay in office.

But what will he do? The government would be in power but would have had all of its proposals for new laws rejected by parliament.

Because this situation is unprecedented, it is not clear what happens next. Defeat on the Queen’s Speech could trigger a legislative vacuum in which ministers are unable to introduce any new legislation.

Downing Street insists this is not the case, and that ministers would push ahead with their plans. On Wednesday, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “The bills would be introduced individually and taken through the House of Commons in the usual way.”

Whatever happens, Johnson is likely to try again to force an early general election. In the past, that would have been an obvious move for a prime minister who had just had their control of the Commons thrown into doubt by losing a major vote.

Since the introduction of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA) in 2011, though, the prime minister no longer has the power to trigger an election.

For an early poll to take place, either a two-thirds majority of MPs must approve a motion proposing one or the government must have been defeated in a confidence vote.

Given Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance to force a confidence vote, Johnson’s best chance of securing an early election may be to table a motion of no confidence in himself and order his MPs to vote for it. Under the terms of the FTPA, an election would then be triggered after 14 days unless another MP somehow proved they were able to form a new government.

A prime minister calling a no-confidence vote in themself to force a general election because the official opposition refuses to do so? It may sound absurd, but that truly may be the next stop in the journey down the bewildering Brexit rabbit hole.