P Kharel

Billed by British political parties as an opportunity for the voice of choice in leading the future course of action regarding their country’s tortuous exit from the European Union, 46 million eligible British voters are to give their verdict on December 12. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in his fourth attempt, succeeded in obtaining parliament’s approval for snap polls. The EU having agreed to extend the Brexit deadline to January 31, there was some small room for satisfaction to the prime minister’s Conservative Party as well as the main opposition Labour Party.
At the same time, the two large parties have had to put up brave faces. Johnson skirts the issue of his vow to accomplish Brexit with or without a formal divorce deal with the EU by the previously extended deadline of October 31. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, too, ran out of any credible excuse to put off the election, but he points out that a no-deal exit sought after by the government had not happened prior to the impending December exercise at obtaining voter verdict.
Compulsion
The development was an outcome of compulsion for the parties that had trooped to the parliament for an election to be held in winter for the first time since 1923. The MPs sat on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War in 1982. In his fourth attempt, Johnson proved successful as Labour could not dare refuse it.
Johnson stepped in to emerge as the boss of London’s 10 Downing Street after his immediate predecessor Theresa May in July resigned when her draft proposal for a divorce with the EU was repeatedly rejected by not only the Labour but also some members of her own party. Prime Minister May had gambled in a U-turn in June 2017, when she decided to go for snap elections not because of the challenge her government faced in fixing Brexit but to test the prospect of cashing in on the supposedly positive voter backing for her party. Popular support for the Conservatives was apparently overestimated. As eventual results recorded, May’s public credibility had been shaved off significantly. Many voters were put off by what they saw as the prime minister’s attitude of taking them for granted. The result: May’s party suffered a setback in not obtaining a clear majority.
In Johnson’s case, the timing was favourable in opting for election. Refused thrice, Johnson’s proposal for the fourth time to seek voter’s endorsement worked. Most major parties sensed that people were against prolonging any more the agony pertaining to Brexit. Conservative MPs closed ranks, as the public mood took a shift in its favour unlike these past two years when one group or another within the Conservative MPs rebelled against May and then Johnson when the latter tabled their proposals to the House.
So where do things stand? Johnson’s do-or-die Brexit approach did not quite work the way he had set out to achieve four months ago when he took the baton from Prime Minister May for the coveted lap to 10 Downing Street vowed to accomplish. Consequently, the date of Britain’s departure from the EU is deferred.
Labour leader Corbyn, who was never keen on testing the popular mood at this stage, finally relented in deference to public opinion for ending the agony of Brexit efforts, notwithstanding opinion polls that late October gave the Conservatives a double digit lead over Labour. So he clung to the theme that the Johnson government was prevented from imposing on the country a no-deal Brexit without adequate efforts. In fact, he described the election as “time for real change”.
To recall, after serving as the main opposition leader for five years, David Cameron led his Conservative Party to obtain the largest number of seats but short of clear majority, which forced him to form a coalition cabinet in partnership with the Liberal Democrats. Five years later, he led the party to majority. A year later in 2016, he complied with his campaign promise to hold a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU, though he himself stood for not leaving the organisation. The referendum verdict went against the country’s continued EU membership, which made Cameron to quit office.
Probably Cameron could have skippered three Conservative-led governments, but for his gamble on accepting the challenge to a referendum on the issue of Britain remaining an EU member proved him failing to gauge the public mood. The elusive deal with the EU has agonised Britons, in a process that has already claimed two prime ministers and Johnson nearly became its third victim. In fact, Johnson’s test is yet to complete. If his party win a majority or forms a coalition team post-election,
The parliament refused to support Prime Minister May’s Brexit proposals again and again before she announced her resignation in tears last July, paving way for Johnson to take over. It was a tough going, admitted by both the press and the public. Johnson had been a leading figure in support of Brexit during the 2016 referendum campaign. Ironically, it fell on him the task of obtaining a deal when he was sworn in as the premier in July.
The heat of suspense and speculation soared to a new scale while the new prime minister tried his hand at achieving a turnaround in parliament. In the process, some of his own party MPs refused to be moved by his proposal. Anti-Brexit groups pointed out that exiting from the EU would result in the loss of 70 billion pounds throughout the decade of the 2020s.

Course of challenge
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel not very long ago expressed her belief that Brexit might succeed and pose a fierce economic competition to the EU. In that case, will Johnson have the last laugh? There’s a vast difference between success and failure whatever the means applied to a course of challenge. Johnson happens to attract from some of his erstwhile detractors grudging commendation for the manner in which he created for himself some space and an opportunity that might yet land him in a crucial role. Next month’s election and subsequent events in the new Commons should show how far his strides take him. As of today, opinion polls indicate the Labour approval rating of the Labour leader is the poorest for an opposition party chief in the British survey history.

(Former chief editor of The Rising Nepal, P. Kharel has been writing for this daily since 1973)