U.K. Set for December Election in Bid to Break Brexit Deadlock
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson won the backing of opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for Dec. 9-12 snap polls.
The U.K. is set for its third general election since 2015 as political leaders attempt to resolve the Brexit crisis paralyzing the country.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson won the backing of opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for a snap poll to take place between Dec. 9 and 12.
While the date is yet to be confirmed, the vote is set to become a proxy referendum on European Union membership. It is likely to be the last chance voters have to choose between parties offering to cancel Brexit or force through a hard split at any cost.
The pound pared losses as traders judged an early election would go ahead, and on speculation it could produce a Conservative Party majority to end the Brexit deadlock.
“There is only one way to get Brexit done in the face of this unrelenting parliamentary obstructionism,” Johnson told the House of Commons. “That is, Mr Speaker, to refresh this Parliament and give the people a choice.”
Corbyn said he supported an election. “This is a once in a generation chance to build a country for the many, not the few,” Corbyn said on Twitter to announce Labour’s support for the early poll. “It’s time.”
Meanwhile, the haggling over the exact date continues. Johnson doesn’t consider a poll on Dec. 9 as logistically possible, according to his spokesman. That means Dec. 10 or 11 could emerge as a viable compromise.
Members of Parliament will vote Tuesday on whether to endorse the plan. It will be the fourth time the prime minister has tried to persuade the House of Commons to back his call for a snap election.
He was rebuffed previously because the main opposition Labour Party refused to agree to dissolve Parliament for a national campaign while there was still a chance the U.K. could crash out of the EU without a divorce agreement.
On Monday, the EU agreed to postpone Brexit day until Jan. 31 to give Johnson more time to persuade members of Parliament to ratify the deal he struck on Oct. 17.
“For the next three months, our condition of taking no-deal off the table has now been met,” Corbyn told his top team on Tuesday, according to a party statement. “We will now launch the most ambitious and radical campaign for real change our country has ever seen.”
Johnson is proposing a one-line bill, a straightforward piece of legislation, to change the law so an election takes place on Thursday Dec. 12. Other smaller opposition parties want a vote on Dec. 9, but the Labour leader has not yet publicly expressed a preference on exactly when the election should take place. The prime minister’s spokesman said he would consider alternative dates but did not believe Dec. 9 was logistically possible.
The broader risk for Johnson is that his simple bill proposing an election could be re-written as it passes through Parliament on Tuesday. Corbyn told the Commons he would support a move to amend the bill so that all 16-year-olds get to vote. The minimum age for voting in a U.K. general election is currently 18.
Corbyn also said he would also support the right of EU citizens living in Britain to vote in the contest, too.
Johnson is unlikely to agree to either of these changes to the franchise -- and could even ditch the bill if he is defeated on these points.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net;Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny
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