Brexit Bulletin: Attack Overshadows Election

Days to General Election: 13

(Bloomberg) --

What’s Happening? An incident on London Bridge put security concerns back in focus in the U.K. election campaign.

After a week of grandstanding over climate change and the National Health Service, Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to put Brexit back at the heart of the U.K. election.

Even with 2020 just around the corner there were distinct echoes of 2016 in London this morning. Johnson stood next to Michael Gove and former Labour lawmaker Gisela Stuart, just as he did the morning after the U.K. voted in favor of leaving the European Union. He looked a little less shell-shocked this time around. 

Less than two weeks away from an election he appears on course to win, Johnson outlined a raft of plans for life in Britain after Brexit. These had a slightly Trumpian, protectionist tone: a relaxation of state-aid rules, new protections against foreign takeovers of U.K. businesses, and a push for government bodies to buy British.

All of this is in effect a bid to win support from traditional Labour voters who backed Brexit in 2016 and want to see it delivered. With Labour backing a policy that would result in a new referendum, Johnson wants to pitch his Conservatives as the only party that will truly deliver Brexit. 

“Voting for Brexit this time does not make me a Tory now or in the future,” Stuart said as she stood alongside Johnson and Gove. “Rather, it is the best option.”

As ever, the triangulation has an element of danger to it: Many of Brexit’s most ideological backers are free-market purists who might rankle at the prospect of the British government propping up businesses. Johnson later said he believed in competition and in a “level playing field.”

Within hours, though, Johnson's announcement was overshadowed as police shot a man wielding a knife on London Bridge, the scene of a terror attack during the 2017 campaign. The prime minister was forced to return to Downing Street and police declared it a terror incident. You can follow the  latest developments here.

Today’s Must-Reads

• The Tories secretly fear that Donald Trump could wreck their campaign, Bloomberg’s Tim Ross reports. 
• Whatever the YouGov MRP poll showed, don’t rush to believe talk of a “grand realignment” in British politics, pollster James Johnson says in the Times.
• The prime minister and the opposition took entirely different lessons from Britain’s 2017 election. Both are testing their conclusions to destruction, Tom McTague writes for the Atlantic.

Brexit in Brief

Trading Brexit | Burnt by polls once too often, traders are holding tight to hedges in the run-up to Dec. 12, even as Johnson appears on course for a majority. The pound’s initial pop higher versus the dollar after the YouGov survey confirms the market’s base case for a Conservative majority. But volatility measures show traders are in no mood to rule out surprises.

Bleak Friday | U.K. consumer confidence remained subdued in November, putting it at the lowest level going into a general election since 2010. GfK said Friday that its key index of sentiment stayed at minus 14 in November and has now been below zero for almost four years.

Having a Moment | With Jean-Claude Juncker moving on after five years as European Commission president, his team is on the way out as well — including Julian King, likely to prove Britain’s last EU commissioner. “It is a lot more Saigon than Hong Kong, it really is. But it is a moment,” he told the Guardian.

After Jean-Claude | As Juncker leaves the stage, here’s what incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hopes to do over the next five years. (Spoiler: She’s aiming high, and it won’t be easy.) To keep up to speed with how she gets on, you can sign up to our Brussels Edition newsletter.

Battle for the North | Even the enthusiasts are “grumping” in the northern towns where the Conservative want to win votes, Matthew Engel reports for the Financial Times. “It’s so dark you can’t see the sheets,” one Labour worker told him. “You can’t see the house numbers either. But I have to keep telling the others not to shine their torches to read them in case they terrify the voters.”

Want to keep up with Brexit?

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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Kay at ckay5@bloomberg.net, Guy Collins

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