Laura Kuenssberg: PM's suspension move decisive and intensely risky
- Published
If you follow politics and were lucky enough to have been enjoying a summer break (and I hope so, I was!), it's over.
In the next few hours, after formal calls and a Privy Council meeting at Balmoral, No 10's plan that puts them on a full collision course with Parliament will be in train.
The prime minister says 14 October will be the day when he sets out his plans for the NHS, for tackling crime, and for aggressive tax cuts.
This has been an extraordinarily long parliamentary session, and governments have the right to shut up shop and return to announce their proposals in a new one with all the golden carriages, fancy Westminster costumes, banging of doors and splendour that goes with it.
But that new timetable means Parliament will be suspended for longer than had been expected - likely now to be prorogued, to use the technical term, around 10 September, instead of going into recess on 14 September ahead of conference season.
It's only a matter of days. But those are days that might matter enormously, because the crucial and controversial political side effect is that MPs will have less time to try to change the law to stop Boris Johnson taking the UK out of the EU if he can't agree a new deal with Brussels by the end of October.
'Intensely risky'
MPs, including many senior Tories, have already been trying to find a way to take that option off the table, fearing the turmoil.
Mr Johnson's move to reduce the time Parliament has to make its moves has been described by some of his opponents as a constitutional outrage.
And it might embolden those who were trying to stiffen the spines of former Remain MPs looking for ways to block it - maybe by trying to rush through emergency laws next week or maybe even by a rapid vote of no confidence that could bring down the government.
But Mr Johnson secured his place in No 10 by promising he'd do whatever it takes to leave the EU on Halloween.
This decisive and intensely risky plan will satisfy many of those who backed him.
But some others in his government are worried - moving now, even with the accompanying controversy, he sets the stage and the terms for an epic fight with MPs on all sides.