Boris: MPs holding Britain hostage by blocking Election
PM renews poll bid to end Brexit deadlock
BORIS Johnson last night urged MPs to stop ‘holding the country hostage’ and grant his wish for a snap pre-Christmas Election.
The Prime Minister, making his plea ahead of a Commons vote tomorrow on whether to hold a December 12 poll, declared the current Parliament had ‘run its course’ and should be dissolved.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘My worry is this Parliament will just waste the next three months like it’s wasted the last three years.
‘If Parliament cannot agree a way forward, then it is time for a new Parliament – the means of doing this is via a General Election.’
Mr Johnson’s remarks came as a new opinion poll gave the Conservative Party a 16-point lead over Labour – its largest advantage over Jeremy Corbyn since May 2017.
The Opinium survey for The Observer put the Tories on 40 per cent, Labour on 24 and the Liberal Democrats on 15 per cent.
Mr Johnson is expected to lose tomorrow’s Election vote since opposition MPs are saying they will block such a move until No Deal is ruled out – but No10 says that it will put down similar motions until it wins the day.
To add to the pressure, the Tories this weekend are launching a social media campaign encouraging voters to email their MPs to push for a chance to go to the polls.
Meanwhile, and in an attempt to ‘call the bluff’ of Election-blocking MPs, No10 strategists said they were considering announcing that No Deal was ‘off the table’ on the grounds that Mr Johnson has in fact secured a deal with Brussels. In another development, DUP leader Arlene Foster warned the Prime Minister that her MPs will continue to reject his deal unless he secures further concessions from Europe.
Addressing her party conference in Belfast yesterday, Ms Foster said the DUP had put Mr Johnson on the ‘naughty step’ through voting against his Government twice in the last week because the measures in the new deal for regulatory and customs borders between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would take Northern Ireland in the ‘wrong direction’.
Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn has infuriated his MPs by vacillating about whether or not to comply with Mr Johnson’s Election pleas.
Many worry that a Tory party spurred on by voter frustration over Brexit would lead to a heavy defeat for Labour in a December poll. And as The Mail on Sunday reports today, a group of Mr Corbyn’s MPs is mobilising to try to topple him.
Yesterday, he claimed that Labour would be very happy to fight a General Election once ‘all vestiges’ of a No Deal Brexit had been taken off the table. He also called on Mr Johnson to stop using ‘ridiculous language’ after he urged Mr Corbyn to ‘man up’ and back a December 12 poll.
Officials at Tory HQ say they are ready to go to the polls, with many campaign managers already in place across the country and associated literature going out this week.
Stressing that Labour ‘must agree to an Election on December 12’, Mr Johnson added: ‘If they refuse this timetable – if they refuse to go the extra mile to complete Brexit – I will have no choice but to conclude that they are not really sincere in their desire to get Brexit done.
‘If they do not accept this offer, I will continue to campaign for an Election and show the people in this country the stark choice before them: a Conservative Government that will get Brexit done, deliver on their priorities and unite the country, or a Labour Party that will snarl us in further toxic debate and more delay.
‘Parliament cannot hold the country hostage any longer. Millions of businesses and people cannot plan their futures. This paralysis is causing real damage.’
‘This paralysis is now causing real damage’
REBEL Labour MPs are mounting a secret bid to bring down Jeremy Corbyn, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
They plan to thwart moves to install ‘Corbyn legacy’ candidates in vacant Commons seats to keep alive his hard-Left vision after he has gone.
The Labour moderates are plotting to force their leader to resign and prevent him from consigning the party to a wipeout in an early General Election.
They have set up a rebel WhatsApp group named ‘Clause One’ – a reference to the party constitution’s opening commitment to be a ‘political Labour Party’ in Parliament – amid fears it is losing its raison d’etre.
The plot emerged after leading moderate MP Neil Coyle warned the Opposition leader to his face that his tactics could mean ‘we may never again have a Labour Prime Minister’.
Mr Corbyn was also challenged by a Labour peer to admit he and his allies did not care about losing the next Election as more hardLeft Corbynistas were likely to survive as MPs in an Election meltdown than moderate centreground candidates.
The party leader sparked fury from his backbenchers last week by dithering over whether to back Boris Johnson’s call for a pre-Christmas Election, despite fears from many Labour MPs that a pre-Brexit contest would cost them their seats.
Mr Corbyn has since insisted that he will back an Election only if a No Deal Brexit is ruled out but has still not given a definitive answer on how his MPs will vote when Mr Johnson seeks to win approval for a December 12 Election in the Commons tomorrow.
The confusion comes amid reports that a ‘tired’ Mr Corbyn is looking to stand aside, with long-time friend and ally Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell now in effective control of the party.
Mr Corbyn’s stewardship of the party came in for fierce criticism at a private meeting with senior MPs and peers last week.
Sources say Bermondsey MP Mr Coyle savaged his leader over the dangers for Labour from a snap poll – warning it could hasten Scotland’s departure from the UK and mean that without Scotland providing Labour MPs at Westminster, Labour might never win another Commons majority.
The backbencher reportedly warned Mr Corbyn: ‘If you give Johnson the Election he wants, it’s not just you that will not be Prime Minister. If Johnson decides to get a No Deal Brexit and then Scotland leaves the UK, we may never have a Labour Prime Minister again.’
Lord Harris, chairman of the Labour Peers’ Group in the House of Lords, also suggested some on the party’s ruling NEC ‘may not care about winning because if the Parliamentary Labour Party is reduced in size [after an Election], it will be ideologically purer’.
Sources said the jibe from the Labour peer, who has previously said Mr Corbyn was ‘not cut out’ to run the party, was clearly aimed at the leader himself.
However, Labour rebels have already decided to move against Mr Corbyn. The group is co-ordinating how to stop what they see as a concerted bid by Corbynistas imposing like-minded candidates in Labour-held parliamentary seats.
The protests came amid a major row in Labour-held Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire this weekend over claims that would-be MP Keir Morrison – a Unite-backed Left-winger who reportedly enjoys support from members of
the party’s ruling NEC – was effectively the Corbynistas’ anointed candidate in a selection meeting scheduled for today.
In 2011, Mr Morrison – standing next to then Labour leader Ed Miliband – was photographed wearing a T-shirt featuring a gravestone and the slogan: ‘A generation of trade unionists will dance on Thatcher’s grave.’
Mr Miliband later condemned the attire, saying he would not have had his picture taken with Mr Morrison if he had noticed it.
The would-be candidate has also controversially retweeted messages in support of Chris Williamson, the Labour MP suspended after claiming Labour had ‘been
‘So many seats going to Corbynistas, it’s crazy’
too apologetic’ in its response to anti-Semitism allegations.
One Clause One MP said: ‘So many seats are going to arch-Left Corbynistas, it’s crazy.’
He added that the title of their WhatsApp group was meant to be ‘ironic given that’s the part of the constitution which states that we’re a serious political party’.
Labour last night dismissed fears of disaster in an impending Election, saying the party would run ‘the most ambitious, confident, people-powered campaign this country has ever seen’.
Party sources also invoked Mr Corbyn’s surprise performance in 2017 when he defied poll predictions to deprive Theresa May’s Tories of a Commons majority. ‘We upended conventional wisdom in 2017 and we will do so again,’ they said.
Mr Morrison said the candidate selection process was ‘governed by the rules of the party’ and ‘whoever is longlisted or shortlisted is not my decision’. A party spokesman said the shortlist was drawn up by a panel including regional and local constituency representatives based on the ‘quality of applications’.
Mr Morrison declined to comment further on the Chris Williamson controversy, but said: ‘I fully support the robust action the party is taking to tackle anti-Semitism.’