Boris
Johnson inches closer to a Brexit election gamble
The British
prime minister will do everything he can to push for an early ballot.
By CHARLIE
COOPER AND EMILIO CASALICCHIO 9/5/19, 12:34 AM CET Updated 9/5/19, 2:54 PM CET
An
anti-Brexit protester with a composite Union and EU flag is seen on Parliament
Square outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on September 4, 2019
| Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images
LONDON —
British MPs may have refused to back an election at first time of asking — but
for Boris Johnson all roads lead to the ballot box.
The prime
minister, who on Monday said he did not want an election, is now out and proud
and demanding one on October 15. Opposition parties want one too — but not
quite yet.
Several
more days of parliamentary game-playing lie ahead, but with his majority now
shot to pieces by defections and his own sacking of 21 Conservative MPs who
voted against him Tuesday, Johnson is out of options.
Whereas his
predecessor Theresa May endured repeated humiliations in search of a
compromise, Johnson's combative attempt to force a resolution has so far left
him with a bloody nose. After losing key votes that saw MPs launch a bid to
change the law in order to force the prime minister to ask Brussels for a
Brexit delay, Johnson risks being unable to deliver on his promise to quit the
EU by the end of October without a high-stakes move.
Downing
Street has calculated that an election on a Brexit "do or die" ticket
will regain a House of Commons majority and enable the prime minister to take
the U.K. out of the European Union on whatever terms he wants, including no deal
if necessary. They are confident they will get their vote, even if the precise
parliamentary route still looks tenuous.
A
two-thirds majority is needed in the House of Commons for an early election.
“If
parliament is unwilling to put Brexit through, an election is the only way to
do it … [but if he loses] we will find a way to deliver on what the British
people want, which is to deliver Brexit by October 31," a No. 10 spokesman
said.
Johnson,
who like David Cameron and Theresa May before him wants to settle the EU
question once and for all, could still be remembered as the prime minister who
— by gambling it all at the ballot box — lost Brexit.
It's a
high-risk strategy with no guarantees. Any election could result in a majority
government determined to take the U.K. out of the EU on October 31 with or
without a deal; it could produce a government determined to hold a second
referendum, potentially keeping the U.K. in the EU after all. Or it could mean
yet more deadlock.
What is
certain is that the campaign would be defined from first to last by Brexit and
the deep divisions it has opened up in British society. As one of its key
actors, Nigel Farage, told emboldened supporters at a rally Wednesday night —
far from the debates of Westminster — that the old British party system has
become "old hat."
“We are now
Leavers or Remainers — they are the divisions in British politics," he
said.
Election
sooner or later
As
expected, MPs on Wednesday rejected Johnson's first attempt at calling an early
election, which he is now openly backing after parliament initiated legislation
that would force him to delay Brexit if he has not secured a deal by October
19.
A
two-thirds majority is needed in the House of Commons for an early election and
the opposition Labour Party will not give their backing until a legal change
blocking a no-deal Brexit has gone through, leader Jeremy Corbyn said
Wednesday.
Opposition
MPs — who have done nothing to hide their contempt for Johnson during two
dramatic first days of the new parliamentary term — do not trust him not to fix
the date of the election for after the current Brexit date, thereby dragging
the U.K. out of the EU with no deal, despite Johnson's insistence he would go
to the polls two weeks before Britain is scheduled to leave. “I have absolutely
no faith in anything the current prime minister says," the Labour MP Jess
Phillips said in one of Wednesday's most impassioned speeches in the House of
Commons.
Corbyn's
team is clear he wants an election as soon as no-deal Brexit is taken off the
table. Whether that happens this week depends on whether a government attempt
to filibuster in the second chamber, the House of Lords, succeeds. Some in
Labour are pushing for the party to hold out for longer, until after the Brexit
extension mandating a delay until January 2020 has come into force. But one way
or another Johnson indicated he would ask Corbyn again soon, calling on Labour
to “reflect on what I think is the unsustainability of this position overnight
and in the course of the next few days.”
Farage
factor
The key
"wildcard" looming over any early election is Nigel Farage's Brexit
Party, according to one Johnson-supporting former Cabinet minister.
Farage
could yet prove Johnson's best friend or his worst enemy.
At a rally
in Doncaster, in the north of England, on Wednesday night — held as MPs were
debating Johnson's election motion — Farage said he believes an election is
inching closer, and laid out what must be a tempting offer for the prime
minister, predicting a "massive, massive majority" for a
Conservative-Brexit Party pact — but only if Johnson were to commit to a
no-deal Brexit as "the only way."
He heaped
praise on Johnson for "having the guts" to sack the 21 Conservative
no-deal rebels, to rapturous applause from supporters.
"Politics
is changing: An audience in Doncaster clapped Boris Johnson, it’s remarkable!”
Farage observed of the crowd in resolutely Labour-voting Doncaster.
If,
however, Johnson continues to pursue a deal with the EU — still his public
position — Farage has pledged to stand candidates in "every single seat in
the country" against him. While Farage — and many Tory MPs — think the
Brexit Party could be as damaging to the Labour vote in Leave-voting areas as
it is to the Tory vote, the outcome of the European election, where May's
Conservatives fell to fifth place, with Farage topping the poll, looms very
large in Johnson's thinking.
Swinson to
the left of me, Farage to the right
But joining
with Farage by going hard for no deal is not a fail-safe election strategy for
the prime minister.
Doing so
could drive potential Conservative voters worried about the impact of no deal
into the hands of other parties.
The
pro-Remain Liberal Democrats, who are eyeing some key marginal Conservative
seats in the southwest of England and elsewhere, are especially bullish, after
improved poll performances in May's local elections and then a second-placed
finish behind the Brexit Party in the European election the same month.
The arrival
of new leader Jo Swinson has coincided with a membership surge of more than
35,000 since the local elections, and millions of pounds of new funding pledged
to party coffers, a Lib Dem official said. The party has gained three MPs in as
many months through defections from Labour and the Conservatives, and
represents a serious threat to Johnson's majority.
For
pollster Joe Twyman, director of Deltapoll, the Brexit Party and the Lib Dems
would be "two sides of the same coin" for Johnson in a battle defined
by Brexit.
"The
threat to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives is that if he goes too far in one
direction or the other on Brexit it alienates voters on the other side ... An
election is such a gamble because there is no obvious way to please enough of
the people enough of the time."
Labour
hopes for 2017 repeat
Labour,
lagging well behind the Tories in the polls, also has reason to be nervous
about an election. Nevertheless, party officials remain confident that, as in
2017, a campaign focused on policy priorities other than Brexit would enable
them to win votes by highlighting years of Conservative austerity, a
redistribution of wealth from top earners, and promises of higher funding for
public services.
"Ultimately
it will be a choice between Boris and [senior adviser Dominic] Cummings with
their elitism and total disregard for public services, which stands against
everything Leave voters expressed, or Labour Party with a strong detailed
manifesto," one Labour official said.
Johnson's
spending priorities — more money for police, schools, the NHS and social care —
set out by Chancellor Sajid Javid in a spending round on Wednesday — is a very
deliberate attempt to nix Labour's case.
Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn | Peter Summers/Getty Images
The
Conservative vote is also extremely vulnerable in Scotland. YouGov polling this
week predicted Johnson could lose 10 of the party's 13 seats north of the
border, with Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish National Party set to gain from concern
about no deal in a country that voted 62 to 38 to Remain in 2016.
"There
are certain areas of the country that are Remain-leaning. London, Scotland,
large metropolitan cities, university towns ...
If the Conservatives don’t pick up enough of those seats it’s really
difficult to see where the majority comes from," Twyman said.
Crucially
Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats all back a second referendum on
Brexit. If an election is held in October, by the new year the U.K. could be
gearing up for such a vote.
Or, if just
a few key marginal seats go in a different direction, by then the U.K. could
have left the EU, with or without a deal.
For Johnson
and for the U.K., it is the ultimate roll of the dice.
This
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