UK OPPOSITION LEADER SUPPORTS GOVERNMENT PLAN FOR SNAP POLL Grossi named as new chief of UN’s nuclear watchdog
▶ Prime Minister Boris Johnson accuses Parliament of attempting to delay Brexit for ever as election looms for ever as election looms
The UK is likely to call a snap election in December after opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn announced he would back the government’s proposal for an early poll.
After attending a Shadow Cabinet meeting, Mr Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, said his MPs would support calls for an early election and launch the “most ambitious and radical campaign for real change our country has ever seen” now a no-deal Brexit was off the table.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to propose in parliament yesterday that a snap election be held in the first half of December.
On Monday, his attempt to force an election through the Fixed-term Parliament Act failed to meet a required twothirds majority.
Labour’s decision to back the new bill, which requires only a one-vote majority, removes many of the obstacles the government faced in Monday’s vote, Labour abstained and the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party voted down the proposal.
But some challenges remain. MPs voted in favour of a proposal, tabled by Labour’s Stella Creasy, making it easier for them to put forward amendments to Mr Johnson’s early election bill.
Amid reports that not everyone on the Labour front bench supported Mr Corbyn’s election push, the party leader said he would back proposals for 16 and 17-year-olds and EU citizens with settled status to vote in an election.
But such amendments would have to be selected by Speaker John Bercow.
As the bill was debated, Mr Johnson said MPs were trying to delay Brexit for ever.
“They don’t want to deliver Brexit on October 31, on November 31, even on January 31,” he told the Commons.
The date of the proposed poll is a sticking point, with the Liberal Democrats and the SNP having proposed holding the election on December 9.
That may not leave Mr Johnson’s government enough time to push through its Brexit bill before Parliament is suspended for the election.
The bill Mr Johnson’s government will put before Parliament, meanwhile, will propose a December 12 election.
The passage of the bill is not expected to be smooth after an amendment by a Labour MP was passed by parliament, against the government wishes. It will allow backbench MPs the chance to amend the bill.
Former Conservative chancellor Philip Hammond, who is now a backbench MP and a thorn in the side of the government, told the BBC’s Today programme he was angered by the prospect of postponing the passage of the withdrawal agreement for an election.
“The idea now that we would halt all this and have a general election, frankly appals me. I think the government is trying to create a narrative that Parliament is blocking Brexit and therefore we need an election,” Mr Hammond said.
“But that is simply untrue – Parliament signalled clearly last week that it was prepared to press on with the Brexit Bill, provided it has a reasonable timetable to do so.”
Many pro-Brexit MPs in Mr Johnson’s party have balked at his plans to freeze his Brexit bill as he attempts to win over
the opposition. The rightwing of the Conservative Party fears being outflanked by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party if they are unable to secure the UK ’s withdrawal from the EU before an election is held.
Many Labour MPs also remain opposed to an election because of the strong polling numbers enjoyed by the Conservatives, as well as public confusion over Mr Corbyn’s policy of negotiating a Brexit deal while also promising a second Brexit referendum.
On Monday, the EU agreed to extend the Brexit deadline until January 31 next year, acting to avert a chaotic UK departure only three days before it became the first country to leave the 28-nation bloc since it was founded.
Mr Johnson, who said only weeks ago that he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than delay the leaving date beyond October 31, was forced to seek an extension on Parliament’s orders to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi was elected as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday, beating his rival Cornel Feruta of Romania in a vote by the UN body’s board of governors.
Mr Grossi, a diplomat for more than 35 years, won by 24 votes to 10 and he will take charge from January 1 next year.
He will have to contend with crucial issues facing the UN’s nuclear watchdog, including the 2015 Iran deal and nuclear aggression from North Korea.
“What I think is important is that I give my member states and the international community the guarantee that I am absolutely independent and impermeable to pressure,” Mr Grossi said.
The agency’s business has been overshadowed by infighting over the Iran deal.
The accord between Iran and China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US, curbed Tehran’s nuclear powers in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. The US withdrew from the agreement last year.
Andreas Persbo, executive director of the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, told The National that Mr Grossi had indicated he would be “firm but fair” to Iran.
“The tone will perhaps be perceived as slightly more crisp vis-a-vis Iran but in terms of actual implementation, I don’t see anything changing,” he said.