U.K. Parliament authorizes December general election

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, in the boldest gamble of his high-wire political career, won backing Tuesday to hold a general election Dec. 12, throwing back to the British people the bedeviling issue of how, or even if, their country should leave the European Union.

The 438-20 vote in Parliament, which came after the opposition Labour Party dropped its resistance, provided the starting gun for one of the most momentous and unpredictable campaigns in post-World War II Britain, a sixweek race that could forever alter Britain’s relationship to Europe and its place in the world.

Much will hinge on the sentiments of a fickle British public that is not just divided into warring camps but exhausted with the whole shambolic process and hoping for something, anything, finally to be decided — as long as it is not for the other side.

The motion to hold the election must still go to the House of Lords, where it could conceivably be held up, but that was unlikely.

For Johnson, a flamboyant populist who took office in July and has presided over a period of unrelenting political upheaval but little tangible progress, the election is a bet that he and his Conservative Party can win a parliamentary majority by selling to the public a Brexit plan that Parliament has held up.

But it comes with extraordinary risks, not least that Britain could end up in the same political cul-de-sac it is in today, with no party winning a clear majority and with Parliament still hopelessly divided about the way forward, more than three years after Britons voted to leave the European Union.

It is also plausible that the divided opposition camp could put aside its differences and ride a wave of public disgust with the Conservative government’s failures to an upset victory that puts the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in the prime minister’s office and leads to a softening or outright reversal of Brexit.

“The gulf between left and right is so deep, and the outcome is so uncertain,” said Anand Menon, a professor of politics at Kings College London. “It is a uniquely volatile moment in our electoral history.”

Still, after weeks of paralysis, capped by another day of byzantine maneuvering in Parliament over the date of the vote, the prospect of going to the polls provided a rare moment of clarity. As Menon put it, “You can say many things about this election, but you can’t say it is not an election about big things.”

Facing a British public that is fed up with Brexit and campaigning in the early twilight of the days before Christmas, Johnson and his opponents will seek to frame the election around competing visions of Britain’s future: Johnson’s, based on a swift exit from the European Union; and the Labour Party’s, based on holding a second referendum on whether to leave at all.

History warns, however, that other issues could intrude, from crime or the stability of Britain’s National Health Service to an external shock, like a terrorist attack or a peripheral issue that assumes symbolic importance.

Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, called a snap election in 2017, confident that she could expand her majority and strengthen her hand in negotiating a Brexit deal.

Instead, May wound up with a shrunken majority after running a desultory campaign during which she was tarred for advocating a harsh new policy on care for the elderly that critics branded a “dementia tax.”

With two smaller parties, the Liberal Democrats and the hardline Brexit Party, also contesting for votes, the choice of the next government could turn on a tiny number of Parliamentary seats. Far from securing a healthy majority, the next prime minister may have to govern with a minority, as Johnson has.

Johnson is a singular presence on the campaign trail — a politician whose celebrity has put him on a first-name basis with virtually the entire country.

“Boris is one of the very few people in British politics who can enter an ordinary shopping center on a dull Wednesday afternoon and utterly transform the atmosphere,” said Andrew Gimson, who wrote a biography of Johnson.

Johnson, 55, has not lost an election since 1997, when he stood for Parliament in Wales and was trounced by the Labour candidate. He was first elected to Parliament in 2001, in a safe Conservative district, and won two terms as mayor of London, where his antics — like getting stuck on a zip line during the Olympic Games, waving two Union Jacks — earned him further notice.

The flip side of Johnson’s devilmay-care manner, Gimson said, is that “he is tasteless and excessive and goes too far.” Those less flattering traits have been on display during the frequently toxic debate over Brexit in the House of Commons since Johnson took office. He came under fierce criticism for dismissing threats of violence made against members of Parliament as “humbug.”