Allister Heath:
It would be risky, but the alternative is to give the Remainers free rein to keep sabotaging Brexit
There are no perfect solutions, no easy answers, no guarantees that Armageddon will be avoided. But for Boris Johnson, and for all Brexiteers, an election in the run-up to Christmas is now the least risky way forward. It would represent yet another roll of the dice, of course, but the odds of ultimate triumph would be greater than for any other course of action. And the most likely mechanism to achieve this timetable, paradoxically, is if the EU agrees to extend the Brexit deadline all the way to January 31.
Hold on a second. Why would any Brexiteer want Johnson to be forced into breaking his “do or die”, leave by Oct 31 promise? The answer, simply, is that this has now become the least bad option, given this broken Parliament’s intransigence. A lengthy delay was the point of the destructive, anti-constitutional Benn Act, but it could well end up finishing off the Remainers who supported it, in a beautiful twist of fate. It’s not just that they will be blamed for failing to vote Boris’s deal through – a three-month extension is also the only way to bulldoze them out of the way.
Consider the following: Labour, the SNP and possibly other opposition parties might be able to say that they’ve succeeded in ruling out no deal for now, and would thus vote for a general election. Johnson would campaign on a series of simple messages: he delivered a genuine Brexit deal against the odds, yet was shot down by Labour and the Lib Dems; he represents the people versus Parliament and the establishment. It’s a case of: “Get Brexit finished with Boris or spend 2020 on referendums on Brexit and Scotland with Corbyn.”
And what of the alternative? Those Brexiteers who would like a shorter extension in order to pass the deal are probably miscalculating. Whatever Macron might threaten, would a 15-day extension genuinely be a credible final offer from the EU? I doubt it. Would the UK be able to leave without a deal if Parliament fails to back Boris’s agreement during that period? I doubt it again. The Speaker, John Bercow, would sabotage the Brexiteers, perhaps as his final act; and MPS would wreck Boris’s deal.
Yes, amendments to the Government’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill (as opposed to the Treaty, which is now closed) would only be meaningful in UK law, and could all be reversed by a future Tory government. But they would ruin Johnson’s narrative, lead to massive rifts among the Conservatives and make it harder for him to appeal to Brexit Party supporters. Better, on balance, to go for an election now, with the original Johnson deal at the centre of his manifesto.
The reality is that, for all the psychological importance of the PM’S Tuesday night victory at second reading, it didn’t mean much. The only reason why so many Labour and pro-remain MPS temporarily lent
Boris’s agreement their support is that it gave them a perfect opportunity to virtue-signal. It was, as far as they were concerned, a free hit: they could pretend to be pro-brexit while still doing everything in their power to thwart a meaningful departure.
Barely a few minutes later, they effectively cancelled their earlier vote by rejecting the PM’S all-important timing device, giving themselves the power to amend everything into oblivion. Just five Labour MPS backed Johnson’s programme motion: they were the only serious democrats on Jeremy Corbyn’s benches. As matters stand, there is no actual, workable majority for pushing through Johnson’s deal intact. This Parliament has come to the end of its useful life.
How could the logjam be smashed? A two-thirds majority of MPS is required to trigger a general election. The first big question is whether Labour will go for this, or stall again. If the latter, the Tories might be able to find a majority of one to override the Fixed-term Parliaments Act itself. The SNP wants an election before Alex Salmond’s trial early next year.
The problem is that, apart from taking more time, this route requires legislation that could be amended. There probably isn’t a majority of MPS in favour of a second referendum. Extending the franchise to 16-yearolds isn’t much of an issue either: time would be too short for them to register. The real crisis would arise if they succeeded in granting European citizens the vote at general elections for the first time: they are entitled to take part in local and European elections, so large numbers are already registered. It would be a scandalous attempt at gerrymandering: countries rarely allow non-citizens to vote in general elections, and such a change ought to require extensive debate. The Tories could lose several seats.
If it doesn’t believe that this is a risk worth taking, the Government would have to gang up with the SNP to engineer a motion of no confidence in itself, and try to push through an election that way. Given that this scenario would take place in the face of a deal having being struck and our departure delayed, it is unlikely that an alternative parliamentary majority would suddenly coalesce around Jeremy Corbyn or some senior Remainer such as Ken Clarke. It would be game-on after 14 days.
But even if they manage to pull off an election without severe collateral damage, the Tories face another danger. Voters – or, more precisely, Leave voters – might blame Johnson for the delay to Brexit. I suspect – and the early polling evidence confirms this – that this won’t happen: they will pin the blame squarely on Remainer MPS, and will be encouraged to do so by clever social media campaigning from CCHQ.
The Brexit Party, meanwhile, is continuing to slowly lose support, and some of its MEPS back Johnson’s deal; the Tories hope that a robust election campaign would further substantially squeeze its support, playing on fears that splitting the Eurosceptic side might let in the Remainers. Some psephologists believe there is a group worth 7-8 per cent of the electorate that currently backs Nigel Farage’s party but would never vote Tory. A Brexit Party vote of 15 per cent would destroy Johnson; but at half that level it would actually help him by keeping down the Labour share.
This is no time for cowardice. The Tories could lose the election, of course, but they are deluding themselves if they think they can win without one.