LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson headed to Scotland yesterday in campaign mode despite failing to call an early election after MPs this week thwarted his hardline Brexit strategy. Johnson, who will make a fresh attempt next week to force the mid-October snap election, is set to visit a fish market and announce a post-Brexit funding boost for Scottish farmers during a visit to Aberdeenshire, his office said.
He will then stay at Queen Elizabeth II’s Balmoral estate and dine with her, an annual weekend-long tradition for prime ministers but one that Johnson has been forced to cut short to a single night due to the political turmoil in Westminster.
Opposition lawmakers and rebels in his ruling Conservative party on Wednesday left Johnson’s plans for a no-deal Brexit next month in tatters and then blocked a request for a snap election on October 15. Under British law, the government requires two-thirds of MPs to support holding such a poll. The main opposition Labour Party abstained on the proposal, saying parliament must first approve its legislation to prevent Britain leaving the European Union without an agreement on October 31.
The government has said it will make a second attempt to force it through next week. “What I want to do now is to give the country a choice,” Johnson said Thursday during a campaign-style visit to northern England, where he greeted voters and delivered a speech. His trip to Scotland, where voters backed remaining in the EU in the 2016 referendum and the Tories face a struggle to hold 13 parliamentary seats there in any upcoming election, appears part of a strategy to pressure Labour to cave into his demand.
The House of Lords yesterday was set to approve the legislation, which compels Johnson to seek a three-month extension from Brussels if he cannot agree a divorce deal at an EU summit on October 17-18.
It is then expected to become law on Monday. Johnson said Thursday he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than delay Brexit and is pushing for the election in the hope of winning a fresh mandate for his approach. Lawmakers rushed the bill through parliament ahead of a five-week shutdown the prime minister controversially ordered last month which was widely seen as a pre-emptive attempt to prevent such legislation. – AFP
