OK friends, buckle up: It’s time for me to figure out what those zany Brits are up to, and you’re cordially invited to come along for the ride.

Now, as we all know, if a story doesn’t begin with the big bang, then it’s not the full story. However, for the sake of brevity we’ll begin from the British 2015 election campaign (important note: the UK elections use first-past-the-post voting, as opposed to our Single Transferable Vote)

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron decides that with things looking pretty dire for his continued electoral prospects, he will try to appeal to supporters of eurosceptic parties like the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (and also shore up his personal support from within the eurosceptic wing of his own Conservative Party) by promising to hold a referendum of the UK’s continued membership in the European Union by the end of 2017.

This electoral strategy paid off majorly, with the Conservatives returned to majority government - gaining an additional 24 seats. Their Pro-Europe coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, were all but wiped out for supporting the Conservatives and lost 49 of their 57 seats (a rather humbling performance after their best election result since the 1920s). The other major winner at the election was the Scottish National Party which won 56 of the 59 Scottish constituencies to take the Lib Dems’ place as the third-largest party in parliament (Fun Fact: following this election, there were more Pandas in Edinburgh Zoo than Scottish MPs from either of the UK’s two main political parties.)

And so the European Union Referendum Act 2015 was passed, and the date of 23 June 2016 set down for the referendum. In Australia, we would have called it a plebiscite as the result themselves didn’t actually mean anything and the government was technically free to ignore them, or to implement them in whatever timeframe they saw fit. In the end, the results were 51.89% to leave vs 48.11% to remain, with a voter turnout of a mere 72% (which to me seems insanely low for a vote that has such far-ranging consequences.)

I don’t think that anyone really expected that the victory of the leave campaign would be the final result. Certainly Mr Cameron didn’t think so when he came up with his brilliant plan. Mr Cameron, who, in a staggering display of political cowardice - the likes of which haven’t been seen since the the Third Republic handed it’s power over to Marshal Pétain, in the shadows of that famous Belgian railway carriage - an effort which will no doubt see him one of the first up against the wall when the revolution comes, decided that instead of making the best of the situation he’d so cunningly crafted crafted for his country and ensuring a soft Brexit with strong ties to Europe, he promptly announced his resignation as Prime Minster. After a few short weeks on the backbench, he was appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead and thereby disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons (it’s illegal to quit the House of Commons, but even more illegal to be appointed to this office - a handy workaround that dates back centuries)

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union states that a member state can decide to withdraw from the EU in accordance with its own constitutional requirements… the problem with this is that the UK constitution isn’t written down in one handy place like ours, but instead spread out through almost ten centuries of legislation, proclamations, court cases, treaties, conventions and prerogatives. So when Her Majesty’s Government, now headed by Theresa May, proposed to invoke this part of the treaty using the usual Royal Prerogative power over foreign affairs, several court cases were filed by members of the public, as well the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland saying “hold your horses, that’s not how things work here.” Unsurprisingly, the case made its way to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, where the Justices decided 8-3 that “The Secretary of State does not have power under the Crown’s prerogative to give notice pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union.”

So then Her Majesty’s Government introduced the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, specifically to give the Prime Minster the authority to give notice pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union. And eventually it gets passed, Mrs May writes up the formal notification letter, and the negotiations on what the future relationship between the UK and the EU were able to begin.

Quick Sidebar: One of the guiding principles of the EU is the “Four Freedoms”, the unimpeded movement of Goods, Services, Money and People across national borders. They’re quite big on this, and the varying levels of EU affiliation all require at least one of them. Most also require that countries accept at least some level of oversight from the European Court of Human Rights in addition.

The UK seems to be taking the position that since they’re not a part of Europe proper, they’re just a humble island, they ought to be free from the free movement of people - at least from the mainland. They recognise that a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic means rolling back the Good Friday Agreement and the almost-certain return of “The Troubles”. Without getting into a discussion on Anglo-Irish relations, let’s just say that redeploying the British Army back to keep the peace in Northern Ireland is not what anyone wants. To prevent this, they came up with the “Irish Backstop” that you may have heard about.

Basically, the Irish Backstop prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland by instead running it through the Irish Sea - Northern Ireland would remain in the EU Customs Area, and the border checks would only take place as people/things come into Great Britain. This is of course unacceptable to the people who bellow “Brexit means Brexit!” (conveniently overlooking the fact that no one actually knows what Brexit actually means yet.) It is also unacceptable to the Democratic Unionist Party, the conservative Irish party on whose support the Conservative Government now depends - there was another election because Mrs May thought that her small parliamentary majority was undercutting her authority to negotiate. The public didn’t seem to agree, because the Conservative party lost a bunch of seats and control of the House of Commons. Opps.

Mrs May tried three times at the start of this year to get parliamentary backing for her proposed solution to Brexit, but was rejected each time. The first vote was lost by 230 votes, the largest defeat of a government bill in modern times (i.e. since 1911) - and while they did claw back a little ground in the second attempt, it was defeated on the floor of the house again. After that, Speaker John Bercow refused to allow a third attempt to approve the agreement, citing a convention that dates back to 1604 to send the government back to the drawing board.

This brings us to March, and the clock was winding down on the two-year Brexit negotiation timeline. So what else do you do aside but extend the timeline?

In this case, you announce your resignation. While Mrs May had survived a vote of no confidence by Conservative Party MPs, she announced in May that she would be retiring as Prime Minister once the Conservatives elected themselves a new leader. This process took a number of weeks, but eventually Borris Johnson, a leader of the Brexit campaign, emerged victorious and was commissioned as the UK’s third Prime Minister in four years.

Mr Johnson has publicly promised that there will be no further extensions to Brexit, claiming that the British people have been kept in the EU against their wishes for too long! He announced his plan to prorogue parliament and start a new legislative session before parliament returned from its summer recess. This was widely denounced as an unconstitutional muzzling of Parliament by the Government, and led to renewed efforts by parliament to take control of the Brexit process when it returned - a new law was passed requiring the Prime Minister to request a second extension to the Brexit process if there was still no deal by mid-October, and steps were taken to prevent parliament from being prorogued past the middle of October as well. During this time, Mr Johnson lost every vote he tried to and kicked out 44 members of his own party, including former Chancellors and the grandson of party grandee Sir Winston Churchill, reducing his parliamentary majority to negative 43.

At 2am on September 10th, a Royal Commission prorogued the parliament (The Queen delegates the authority to do things like assent to new laws and prorogue parliament to a panel of Lords on her behalf. The old dear needs her rest - also, it’s been done like that for centuries.) I actually watched the video of this in the course of my research - it’s a fascinating display of formality and pettiness, with the opposition parties boycotting one part of the ceremony and the government boycott the other. Even two of the Royal Commissioners took part in the boycott, which is incredibly rare. And so, again, court cases were filed, and court cases made their way to the Supreme Court. The damning verdict was issued by a full panel of 11 Supreme Court Justices, led by their President, Lady Hale last night our time: the Justices unanimously declared that the prorogation was an unlawful attempt to prevent Parliament from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities as the legislature and as supervisor of Her Majesty’s Government. The court held that Mr Johnson’s advice to the Queen to was unlawful, void and of no effect and it quashed the Order in Council authorising the prorogation, as it was based on this advice. The court further held that this meant the parliament had never been prorogued and that the Speaker and the Lord Speaker were free to continue parliamentary business at their convenience.

Where to from here? Well for starters, this court decision will also now become part of the tangled mess of the UK constitution; but more immediately, the House of Commons will sit again today at 11.30am GMT. There’s been respect, at least grudgingly, for the independence of the judiciary - although I’m sure that in a dingy back room of Number 10, there’s an elite special taskforce of lawyers combing through the judgement to find ways to have another bite of the apple. There’s been outcry that a Prime Minister would do something so mind-bogglingly dumb, and he has been invited to “consider his position” - that’s how the brits pronounce “Hey, champ. You need to resign” by many, including Jeremy Corbyn, Ian Blackford, Mark Drakeford, and Nicola Sturgeon. Of course, there’s also been some quibbling around the margins (and no doubt, the right-wing press) that unelected judges should keep their greedy little noses out, but that’s to be expected.

Who knows what is going to happen next? Find out in a few hours on the next exciting episode of “Brexit”!

Dramatis Personae

• The Rt Hon David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2010-2016)
• Marshal Philippe Pétain, Vichy French Chief of State (1940-1944) and convicted traitor
• The Rt Hon Theresa May MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2016-2019)
• The Rt Hon John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons
• The Rt Hon Borris Johnson MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Her Majesty The Queen, the Queen.
• The Rt Hon Sir Winston Churchill KG OM CH TD DL FRS RA, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945, 1951-1955)
• The Royal Commission: the Lord Speaker; Baroness Evans, the Leader of the House of Lords; and Lord Hope of Craighead, Convenor of the Crossbench Lords. They should have been joined by the leaders of the Liberal Democrats and Labour Party in the Lords, Lord Newby, and Baroness Smith of Basildon, but they joined the boycott instead.
• The Baroness Hale of Richmond, President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
• The Baron Fowler of Sutton Coldfield, Lord Speaker of the House of Lords
• The Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition
• The Rt Hon Ian Blackford MP, Leader of the Scottish National Party in the House of Commons
• The Rt Hon Mark Drakeford AM, First Minister of Wales
• The Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland