News broke early this morning that the British government had not scheduled any time in the next week to debate Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal and that was curious given that next week is the Brexit deadline.
We now know that no time has been scheduled for it because Johnson expects the European Union (EU) will grant his request for a delay until the end of January.
While the EU has not formally granted the request yet as of this writing, there's little doubt that they will and Johnson is using the extra time to call for an election.
The prime minister told the BBC he expected the EU to grant an extension to his 31 October deadline, even though he "really" did not want one.
He urged Labour to back an election in a vote he plans to hold next week. [...]
If, as widely expected, the EU's Brexit delay is to the end of January, Mr Johnson says he will hold a Commons vote next week on a 12 December election.
If Labour agrees to this, the government says it will try to get its deal through before Parliament is dissolved for the campaign on 6 November.
I understand that British politics are different from our own, but the idea of holding a Brexit vote just before an election rather than after is preposterous.
Shouldn't the public have a chance to reelect or replace their representatives before they vote on the most consequential legislation of the last half century?
Maybe that's the idea. Maybe Boris Johnson doesn't want to see the public have a say because he secretly believes the public will vote against pro-Brexit politicians but, in that case, why call for an election in the first place?
In any case, I'll step out on a very short limb right now and guess that the Brexit will also be delayed beyond January. Boris Johnson said he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than delay the Brexit, but it's getting delayed and he's not in a ditch yet.