Prime Minister Boris Johnson to seek elections after Brexit deadlock

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson couldn’t get Brexit done by the end of the month like he’d promised he would — so he’s pushing for a general election instead.

On Thursday, Johnson announced that he’s asking members of Parliament (MPs) on Monday to agree to hold a general election on December 12.

“The way to get Brexit done is to be reasonable with Parliament, if they genuinely want more time to study this excellent deal, they can have it, but they have to agree to a general election on December 12,” Johnson said. “And that’s the way forward.”

Johnson officially lost his parliamentary majority last month, after more than 20 members of his Conservative Party rebelled and were kicked out of the party. Since then, Parliament has continued to frustrate his Brexit plans, forcing him to seek a Brexit delay from the European Union and denying him the chance to take the UK out of the EU on October 31, the current Brexit deadline.

Johnson wants an election because he sees this as the only way to secure a parliamentary majority, which will allow him to pass all the necessary Brexit legislation and finally get Brexit over and done with without the parliamentary antics and roadblocks along the way.

In calling for an election in December, Johnson is also conceding defeat: He’s failed to deliver on his “do or die” promise to take the UK out of the EU by October 31.

Right now, the EU is mulling over the UK’s request to extend the Brexit deadline another three months, until January 31, 2020. The EU isn’t bound to that timeline — it could offer a shorter or longer delay — but it is almost certainly going to approve some sort of extension. That decision is expected Friday.

Since Johnson is likely going to have to accept the extension — Parliament will make him — he wants to avoid the chance that this will happen again at the Brexit deadline. He wants his Brexit deal approved, and the UK out of the EU. And he sees an election as the way to achieve that.

But Johnson says he wants to hold new elections — he just can’t call for elections on his own. He needs the backing of two-thirds of Parliament.

And there’s no guarantee Parliament will go for it. MPs have blocked him twice already this year when the prime minister’s asked for an election. And there are some good reasons why they might do so a third time.

A Christmas season election? We’ll see.

All Johnson wants for Christmas is a parliamentary majority. It’s not looking great.

That’s mostly because of the 2011 Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which denies the prime minister the unilateral authority to dissolve Parliament and call elections. Instead, he needs a two-thirds majority of a 650-member House of Commons to vote in favor. Otherwise, no elections.

Normally, the opposition would jump at the opportunity to have elections; they’re out of power, after all, and the primary way to get back into power is to give people a chance to vote.

But the strange politics of Brexit has changed the calculus.

In September, when Johnson last asked for an election, the opposition said no.

The opposition, including the main opposition party, Labour, said they wanted to force Johnson to seek a Brexit extension, to eliminate the immediate threat of a no-deal Brexit in October. It would also mean he’d have failed to fulfill his “do or die” Brexit-by-Halloween promise.

Parliament has now forced Johnson to seek an extension, which will likely be granted. So the opposition should support holding elections now, right?

Well, not quite.

Because Conservatives, led by Johnson, are leading in the polls by quite a lot. And, while polling can change, it definitely looks possible Johnson could get the Conservative majority he desires.

Another problem: Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is really unpopular. Corbyn self-identifies as a socialist, which freaks out more moderate voters. Historically, he also hasn’t been a fan of the EU, and though there are definitely Labour Brexit supporters, they are not the majority, and Corbyn has resisted staking a decisive “Remain” position for the party.

Instead, he’s sort of muddled through, promising to get a better Brexit deal if Labour gets elected and then take it from there. But Labour’s primary Brexit strategy has just been to frustrate Johnson and hope something changes: either Johnson becomes a much weaker candidate, or Corbyn becomes a different person. And, so far, neither has really happened.

Labour “is very likely to say, ‘No way, Boris. We’re not going to do this; we’re not going to have an election. We need a little more time,’” Harold Clarke, an expert on voting and elections at the University of Texas Dallas, told me earlier this week. “And they’ll delay and delay on that, hoping the mood of the country will change. You’ve got this sort of perfect deadlock.”

There are other opposition parties, of course, including the more centrist Liberal Democrats, who’ve gotten a boost for being strongly pro-Remain. But they don’t have the numbers to win an election outright, and so would also be wary about doing anything that might risk giving Johnson more power.

Of course, Labour isn’t going to say outright that it’s afraid to lose an election. On Thursday, Corbyn was coy about whether he would support Johnson’s election plans.

Corbyn specifically said that his party would back Johnson’s election call if the prime minister took no-deal off the table. “Take no deal off the table and we will absolutely support an election,” Corbyn said, adding that the EU will make its extension decision Friday and that “will obviously encompass whether there’s a no deal or not.”

The problem with Corbyn’s statement is this: Even if the EU grants an extension, the threat of a no-deal exit doesn’t go away, it just gets postponed to the new Brexit deadline. And Johnson isn’t likely to remove the threat of a no-deal in the future, because his whole schtick is Brexit, deal or no deal. So the conditions Corbyn lays out for supporting an election might not ever exist.

All of which is to say, the opposition — Labour, specifically — understands that an election is quite risky. Right now, Johnson doesn’t have the numbers in Parliament to get Brexit done, which gives the opposition the power to sideline his agenda. But if Johnson returns a strong Conservative majority, what little power the opposition had to influence Brexit will evaporate.

It’s always possible the Labour may decide next week an election is worth the risk. Maybe Johnson’s decision to seek an extension will make him less popular with Brexiteers. Maybe the polls are wrong.

Or maybe not. The reality is that, right now, the opposition can keep the UK stuck in Brexit limbo. That could change if the balance of power shifts. A perpetual deadlock might be the safer choice.