Debate fizzles as envoy quits
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn clashed yesterday in their last head-to-head debate before next week’s general election – an underpowered showdown that saw both men stick to well-worn phrases and promises.
During the BBC debate, Johnson tried to portray Corbyn as a waffler with no firm Brexit stance who would plunge the United Kingdom into more uncertainty. Corbyn reminded viewers about the Conservative government’s spending cuts, and claimed that Johnson was bent on striking a trade deal with the United States that might harm Britain’s interests.
Each questioned the other’s character. Johnson accused Corbyn of a ‘‘failure of leadership’’ for failing to stamp out antiSemitism in his party. Corbyn retorted that ‘‘a failure of leadership is when you use racist remarks’’, as Johnson has done with glibly offensive language.
BBC moderator Nick Robinson suggested that voters faced an ‘‘impossible choice’’ between two unpopular and untrustworthy leaders.
That impression was reinforced when two former prime ministers yesterday criticised their own parties’ contenders.
Former Conservative prime minister John Major called
Brexit the ‘‘worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime’’, while former Labour prime minister Tony Blair urged voters to make the best of a ‘‘horrible’’ choice.
The Conservatives had a minority government before the election, and Johnson pushed for the December 12 vote, which is taking place more than two years early, in the hope of winning a majority and breaking Britain’s political impasse over Brexit.
Labour yesterday took aim at Johnson’s insistence that there will be no new checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK after Brexit. It said it had obtained a leaked Treasury document that said the opposite.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Brexit envoy in Washington, DC has quit, saying she no longer wants to ‘‘peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust’’.
Alexandra Hall Hall, a 33-year veteran of Britain’s foreign service and a former ambassador to Georgia, resigned with a letter slamming her government’s use of ‘‘misleading’’ arguments and reluctance ‘‘to address honestly’’ the challenges and tradeoffs involved in the UK’s departure from the EU.
Hall Hall said her position had become ‘‘unbearable personally’’ and ‘‘untenable professionally’’, and she had formally complained about being asked to convey messages that were ‘‘neither fully honest nor politically impartial’’ to US representatives and politicians.