Britain heads to the polls... again
Britain will head to the polls for its first December general election since 1923, after MPs this week voted to go to the country. Boris Johnson’s plan to hold Britain’s third election in four years was approved by 438 to 20 on Tuesday; the vote will be held on 12 December. Johnson had tried and failed three times to get Parliament’s backing for an early election: a two-thirds majority was needed under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. But Labour leader Jeremy Corybn finally agreed to drop his opposition, after confirmation from Brussels of a Brexit extension until 31 January meant there was no longer any prospect of a no-deal exit.
The Liberal Democrats and the SNP had already promised to give their support, arguing that an election was the best way of stopping Brexit. The PM, for his part, said he would campaign to “get Brexit done”, because delays were “seriously damaging the national interest”. Johnson told the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers that it would be a “tough election”, and gave the Tory whip back to ten of the 21 MPs that he had expelled from the party for helping to delay Brexit last month.
What the editorials said
“Voters can be excused if they have ballot fatigue,” said The Daily Telegraph. We are all “Brendas from Bristol” now. But “this election is necessary”. Brexit Day should have been this week and, though Johnson has failed to meet the deadline, “he tried his best to get it over the line, but was thwarted at every turn”. An election means “the coffin lid can at last be nailed down on this clueless zombie Parliament”, said the Daily Mail. And with a choice between Johnson’s Brexit and Corbyn’s socialism, this will be the most crucial election in 40 years ( see page 53). “The result will define our country’s destiny for a generation.”
“There have been many points in the Brexit process when the UK needed an election,” said the Financial Times. “Ironically, this is not one of them.” Johnson returned from Brussels with a deal to which MPs have, in principle, given their approval. Britain’s voters “should be under no illusion”: the timing of the election “has been set for the Conservative Party’s advantage”. Even so, it will be a close and unpredictable contest, said The Times. The Tories go into the campaign with a healthy poll lead – but so did Theresa May in 2017. “The risk is that Mr Johnson’s gamble will resolve nothing and return yet another hung Parliament.”
What the commentators said
“Turkeys voting for Christmas,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. It’s a cliché, but it’s hard to improve on: Corbyn, the Lib Dems and the SNP “have condemned us to five years of Boris’s Britain, and they are not going to enjoy it”. It’s obvious that Labour only voted for a snap election because, thanks to the Lib Dems and the SNP, it was going to happen anyway, so they had a choice between “looking cowardly or pretending they are ‘up for it’”. Still, it was a terrible mistake by the opposition. The single salient fact now is the 10- or 12-point opinion poll lead that the Tories have over Labour. “British general elections are still basically won and lost in Labour-Conservative marginal seats, many in the Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire.” Johnson will mop up. “By Christmas Day, Britain will be well on the way to a hard Brexit.”
Not necessarily, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. The British electorate is increasingly volatile. There are five parties in play, including the revived Lib Dems, the SNP in Scotland and the Brexit Party threatening the Tories from the right. It will be a “long, long” six-week campaign, and the weather could be “decisive”: an NHS crisis could push things Corbyn’s way. “It is essentially impossible to predict how the election will play out.” Johnson can win a decent majority, said Matthew Goodwin in The Daily Telegraph. But to do so, he needs to stop marginal Tory seats that voted Remain falling to Labour; hold out against the Lib Dems in the southwest and pro-Europe areas like Cheltenham and Richmond Park; and not do too badly in Scotland. Most of all, he needs to make inroads into Labour Leave seats in the Midlands and the North. There is a path to a big majority for Johnson, but it is “both narrow and complex”.
Corbyn’s route to a majority is “even harder, which is why many Labour MPs resisted the election”, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. Indeed, hopes that the election could bring about a decisive result, let alone some kind of national “reconciliation”, look forlorn. “Johnson’s Britain and Corbyn’s Britain are vastly different countries, on starkly divergent paths.” The fear is that “British politics will be even angrier and more divided after an election than it is now”.
What next?
As well as campaigning to “get Brexit done”, Johnson will focus on the NHS, education and crime, says The Times. He will present it as the “people vs. Parliament” election – in an effort to pass his withdrawal bill ( see page 11) by January. Corbyn will campaign against what he calls Johnson’s “Trump Brexit”, which he says will undermine workers’ rights. The Lib Dems hope to frame the election as the “last chance to stop Brexit”.
The Brexit Party, according to its MEP John Longworth, will not target all 600 UK seats, but will focus its efforts on 20 mostly pro-Leave Labour constituencies. Nigel Farage has suggested that the party could make an electoral pact with the Tories.