[Winniesboy]

Parliament can't force a Prime Minister to do anything. It can only fire him if he doesn't do what Parliament wants.

It's a bit more than that. The authority of a British Prime Minister derives only from the House of Commons, and he has no powers other than those granted him by Parliament, which can be withdrawn at any time.

In recent decades there's been an increasing tendency for Prime Ministers to act as if they're Presidents, with executive powers independent of Parliament. Well, if you have a 170+ seat majority like Blair (who was the prime example) you can get away with that for a time. But as May and now Johnson have found, it's not so easy if you have a majority of zero.

[Cronos]

Really? I thought this was correct.

But on reading your post I see I was wrong. Thank you

[Thud]

My point was that Parliament can't require a Prime Minister to take an action. It can only fire him if he doesn't. Brexit will happen automatically on October 31. Parliament must either enact a law affirmatively stating that Britain will not exit the EU or watch while it happens.

But Parliament does not want to enact such a law because it would then suffer the consequences, i.e., an election. Tough for them. They don't want to be accountable to their constituents. Such a conflict is so sad.