Alastair Grant/AP Photo
A street cleaner clears autumn leaves from the front of 10 Downing Street, in London.
For the next month, the United Kingdom’s political parties will battle over 650 seats in Parliament. In true Shakespearean fashion, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the future of the Kingdom, nor the rivalries more intense. Boris Johnson of the Conservative Party risks becoming the shortest-serving British prime minister in history. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn fights an uphill battle while campaigning with a confusing Brexit plan within his manifesto. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland is fed up with being steam-rolled by the Tories. Jo Swinson, of the Liberal Democrats, says she’s going for a majority despite the mathematic challenges. And Nigel Farage, the UK’s resident Puck, threatens to disrupt the election by running a Brexit Party candidate in any constituency he wants.
The December 12 general election will be the United Kingdom’s third in six years. But large-scale national issues are mostly playing supporting roles to a political scene dominated by Brexit. The UK voted in a simple “Yes/No” referendum on continued membership in the European Union in June 2016, but since then nothing has been simple about the withdrawal process. The UK was supposed to formally leave the EU on March 31, 2019, two years from when then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s government triggered Article 50 of the European Constitution. Three extensions later, the government has been consumed with Brexit, causing frustration and record discontent with politics.
“The pollsters tell us the British voters have never been as volatile as they are now,” says Quentin Peel, associate fellow with the Europe Programme at Chatham House. “More people have changed their votes over the last three elections than in living memory, switching across for Labour to Conservative, from Conservative to Labour, in and out of the Lib Dems and so on, between elections.”
While every party has a different manifesto on Brexit, the country’s Leave and Remain identities will be a driving force. So what will happen to Brexit after this election?
If the Conservatives Win an Outright Majority …
Early polls suggest the Conservative Party, led by Boris Johnson, is the most likely to win an out-right majority. Johnson is the UK’s best-known politician, former Mayor of London, and probably the best campaigner for a Tory government that has suffered several defeats of late. Then-Prime Minister David Cameron campaigned for Remain in the referendum and lost, and May lost her majority in 2017’s snap-election, forcing her into a coalition with the DUP.
Despite the odds against him when he took power this summer, Johnson renegotiated a Brexit withdrawal agreement deal with the European Union in October. A win would allow him to push his Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament.
With an outright majority, this could go smoothly and on time. But then Johnson must negotiate the UK-EU trade deal by December 31, 2020, which he rarely mentions when pressing his agenda to the public.
“Then, of course, we go into the transition period, where we abide by all the rules for the rest of 2020, but hope and expect against all previous experience that a big, long-term trade deal can be done [between the UK and EU], which the government insists is possible, and there is not a single trade negotiator who believes them,” Peel says.
This means even with the Withdrawal Agreement Bill and a majority in Westminster to support it, No-Deal Brexit and an overnight jump to World Trade Organization rules and tariffs are not yet off the table.
“Anyone who knows anything about Brexit knows that in fact that it’ll just be getting stage one of Brexit done. Stage 2, which is the more important stage, will begin right after we leave,” says Tim Bale, deputy director of UK in a Changing EU, an independent Brexit think tank. “I think, unfortunately, most British voters haven’t really grasped that this is stage one of a two-stage process. As far as they’re concerned when we leave we will have left and there’s nothing more to talk about.”
Johnson is naturally hesitant to bring attention to another far-off deadline while trying to stake a claim as the man who will finally achieve Brexit before the new deadline, January 31, 2020.
If the Conservatives Win the Most Seats, But Not a Majority …
After Theresa May’s 2017 snap election, the Conservatives found their majority through a coalition with Northern Ireland’s DUP. But the DUP voted against the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, and its support is unlikely to return. Johnson’s popularity since becoming prime minister has also been limited outside of England, as people in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which are stronger Remain areas, feel neglected by the government’s positions.
When asked where the Conservatives can turn if they need a coalition, Peel says, “Nowhere.” The only other possibility is the Brexit Party, he adds. But he predicts that Nigel Farage’s single-focus party is unlikely to win more than a couple of seats. “I wouldn’t put them at impossible, but I would be incredibly surprised if the Brexit Party managed to win a single seat,” Bale adds.
Every other party has ruled out working with the Conservatives, and especially when it comes to Brexit, they have antithetical goals. In this situation, Johnson would find himself with a more homogenous party behind this iteration of Brexit, but with not much else.
“He could try and govern again as a minority government,” Peel says. “But then he’d be back to same nightmare that he’s been in for the last few months, where every time he tried to push things through hard, he fell on his face.”
If Labour Wins an Outright Majority …
Labour wants to be seen as the “sensible” party when it comes to Brexit. Its manifesto states that they will renegotiate a withdrawal deal with a closer relationship with the EU and the customs union within three months of taking power, then three months after that hold a referendum with a choice between this new deal and canceling Brexit all together. The timeline is clear and another referendum could be organized within about five months according to experts, however Labour has not said which option it would campaign for in its referendum. This discrepancy is confusing, as it’s meant to be.
Labour voters exist on both the Remain and Leave sides of Brexit, and Labour’s plan is meant to not isolate any potential voters, a compromise between the “do or die” Tories and the “cancel Brexit” Lib Dems. But it would prolong the Brexit occupation of British politics and still involve months of negotiating with Europe, which is unpopular among voters.
“I think it’s proving a hard sell, but not an impossible sell,” Peel says. “It’s pretty much where they were in last election, when they ended up doing quite well … By leaving the door open for a form of Brexit, but a less harsh form of Brexit by remaining in a customs union with Europe, for example, they would hope to be able to both win Remain seats and to win pro-Brexit seats, which is what they need to do to hold the party together and win enough seats.”
This strategy could pay off if it attracts enough voters still hoping for what has been called a “soft Brexit” while also winning over the many Brits looking for a reversal of the first referendum. The problem is you can’t have both of those outcomes; it just puts off the reckoning until later. “There is a degree of rhetorical advantage in that midway position,” Bales says, “but the problem is once you get onto the specifics of the Labour position, it does look a little ridiculous.”
Like his opponents, Corbyn is a strong campaigner. His 2017 performance has been compared to the success of Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 grassroots movement campaign. But he is currently the most unpopular opposition leader in the UK in decades. Additionally, Corbyn personifies the confusion of his party’s Brexit plan, as his own Brexit-esque views on the EU prior to the 2016 referendum are well-known, while most of Labour’s top ranks are strongly pro-Remain.
“In the context of the election, Labour looks to be in a worse position than it was in 2017. But perhaps if we remember at the beginning of the election campaign in 2017, Labour’s position was pretty poor then,” Bale says. “We can’t totally write them off, partly because Jeremy Corbyn, whatever people think of him, seems to be quite a good election campaigner and seems to be able to mobilize Labour voters and potential Labour voters quite effectively.” In particular, Labour’s community organizing unit, which has been building a rapport with voters at the grassroots level for months, could be an X-factor.
If Labour Forms a Coalition …
If the Labour Party were to win the most votes, it could rally support from several parties to lead in Westminster. A anti-Brexit coalition or second referendum unity government could bring Labour together with the Lib Dems, the Greens, the Scottish National Party (SNP), and even the DUP, which recently said that UK unity was more important to them than Brexit. However, some parties might insist that Corbyn first step down for that to happen.
Jo Swinson, launching the Lib Dem campaign, said, “I’m absolutely, categorically ruling out Liberal Democrat votes putting Jeremy Corbyn into No. 10,” citing the lack of transparency in the Labour leader’s Brexit views. The Lib Dems have staked out claim to being the main party campaigning to “stop” Brexit, seeking to revoke Article 50 and keep Britain in the EU. Along with the SNP and Greens, Lib Dems have a small coalition that in this close election could make a big difference. The Liberals currently hold 20 seats that could swell to as many as 40 with a good turnout.
If Labour needs a coalition to govern, “You have a situation where both SNP and Liberal Democrats are going to be the kingmakers,” Peel says.
Tactical Voting?
Britain’s elections run in a first-past-the-post system, so whoever gets the most votes in a constituency wins the seat. In a tight two-way race, to maximize the influence of your vote you should vote for one of those top two candidates and not someone likely to finish in third place. This system has always sparked conversation about “tactical voting” to get your vote to count as much as possible, especially when your first choice candidate is unlikely to win. But with a single-issue election like this one, those sparks have become a bonfire.
Both Remainers and Leavers could vote tactically while strategizing within their own parties on where candidates should run. Unite to Remain’s website lets visitors enter their post code (zip codes) and advises on the best way to vote for a party that supports remaining in the EU. And Brexiteers will soon have an app with similar functions paid for by Aaron Banks, the billionaire who funds Farage and the site Leave.EU. Bale says that, in the past, these tactical voting tools have been less effective than the buzz around them suggests, but in this election and with the electorate’s increased tech-savvy, it could make some difference.
Tactical voting could also come into play in each party’s strategies when it comes to where they run candidates. The Liberals, the Greens, and Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Nationalist Party) have already made a pact to not run against each other in about a dozen seats. The anti-Brexit parties’ deal will cover about 60 constituencies and will shrink the chance of dividing the Remainer vote.
However, the Brexit Party’s possible-tactical behavior is drawing the most attention. Farage threatened Johnson, saying he would run a BP candidate in every race, but Banks has since pulled in the reins, reportedly calling Farage and instructing him to pull out of hundreds of seats. The candidates have to be confirmed by Thursday.
All that is known for sure is even the best predictions could be wrong in this political climate. Voters may swing from left to right, but are less likely to budge from Leave to Remain. Says Bale, “Anyone who says they know what’s going to happen is a fool.”
