UK Parliament opens with pomp, problems for Boris Johnson

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Parliament opens a new year-long session on Tuesday with a mix of royal pomp and raw politics, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson tries to re-energize his scandal-tarnished administration and address the U.K.’s worsening cost-of-living crisis.

Johnson’s Conservative government will set out the laws it plans to pass in the coming year at the tradition-steeped State Opening of Parliament. The ceremony will take place without 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, who has pulled out of the ceremony because of her mobility issues.

Instead her son and heir, Prince Charles, will read the Queen’s Speech, which is written by the government but traditionally read out by the monarch. Prince William, who is second in line to the throne, will also attend.

The queen has only missed two previous state openings during her 70-year reign, in 1959 and 1963, when she was pregnant with sons Andrew and Edward, respectively.

The speech will contain 38 pieces of legislation, including bills on education, animal welfare and “levelling up” economic opportunity to poorer regions.

The speech will promise to cut red tape for business and overhaul regulation in the wake of Britain’s exit from the European Union. It may also contain measures to alter post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland agreed with the EU, a move that would worsen already tense relations between Britain and the bloc.

There will also be a contentious new law to outlaw disruptive protest tactics favored by groups such as Extinction Rebellion. Civil liberties organizations worry the government also plans to press on with much-discussed plans to change Britain’s human rights laws in the wake of Brexit.

Johnson said the measures outlined in the speech will “get our country back on track” and press on...