30 Britain The EconomistDecember 7th 2019
2 ing its current budget rebate.
Mr Johnson’s team responds to such
gloom with four arguments. First, he was
told that he would be unable to reopen The-
resa May’s withdrawal agreement, and yet
he did it. But this analogy does not work.
His substantive change was to accept an
original Brussels proposal to avert a hard
border in Ireland by in effect leaving North-
ern Ireland alone in a customs union, im-
plying border checks in the Irish Sea. Pre-
sumably Mr Johnson does not want to do a
trade deal by a similar process of repeated
concessions to the eu.
The second line is that a good trade deal
should be easy because Britain and Brus-
sels start in complete alignment. Yet Mr
Johnson’s explicit plan is to diverge from
eurules and regulations. He has recently
even said he wants more flexibility over
state aid. Brussels has reacted badly: the eu
fears being undercut by a deregulated off-
shore competitor. Without what it calls a
level playing-field, it says it must limit ac-
cess to its single market. Mujtaba Rahman
of the Eurasia Group consultancy says that
negotiating a trade deal that erects barriers
will always be harder and take longer than a
normal deal that does the opposite.
A third claim is that setting a deadline is
the only way to galvanise trade talks. With
enough political will, a deal can always be
done. Yet Sam Lowe of the Centre for Euro-
pean Reform, another think-tank, says the
sole practical option in such a short time
would be a bare-bones deal that covered
goods trade alone. Such a deal might avoid
the need for parliamentary ratification. But
it would do nothing for services, which
make up 80% of Britain’s economy and half
its trade. It would not cover security, data
and much else. And the lesson from the Ar-
ticle 50 experience is that a tight deadline
forces Britain to make concessions, which
might range from fisheries to Gibraltar.
Fourth, many Tories maintain that if no
trade deal can be done in time, leaving on
World Trade Organisation terms would be
fine. The withdrawal agreement would still
cover eucitizens, money and Northern Ire-
land. Yet reliance on the wto is dodgy
when the system is under threat from Do-
nald Trump. It would imply extensive ta-
riffs and non-tariff barriers. And it would
bring back all the fears of lorry queues,
shortages of medicine and food, and pro-
blems for airlines and energy supplies that
led both Mrs May and then Mr Johnson not
to press for a no-deal Brexit.
The damage of no deal would be severe,
cutting 8% off income per head after ten
years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a
think-tank, suggests the budget deficit
would hit 4% of gdpand the public debt
would rise sharply. Far from getting Brexit
done, as Mr Johnson says, next year prom-
ises to repeat 2019’s experience of missed
deadlines and cliff-edges to no-deal. 7I
t’s odds-onfor a Conservative overall
majority and the betting markets put the
chances of Labour’s getting one at 20/1. But
the Tory lead has narrowed slightly (see
chart). If it drops to six percentage points
Parliament would probably be hung—and,
given that during November a fifth of vot-
ers changed their preferences (including to
and from “don’t know”), that could hap-
pen. So it’s not all over for the Labour Party.
As Vernon Bogdanor of King’s College
London points out, this is an asymmetrical
election. The Conservatives need an overall
majority in order to stay in Downing Street,
but Labour needs only a hung parliament.
That is because Boris Johnson would find it
hard to do deals with other parties.
The Conservatives’ hard-Brexit policy
appeals to no other party except the North-
ern Irish Democratic Unionists, who feel
betrayed by Mr Johnson because the Brexit
deal he has done with the European Union
envisages treating Northern Ireland differ-
ently from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mr Johnson has ruled out another referen-
dum on Scottish independence, and thus a
deal with Scottish National Party (snp),
which is likely to be the third-biggest party
in Parliament. The Liberal Democrats, who
are likely to be the fourth-largest, might do
a deal with the Conservatives if Mr Johnson
offered another referendum on leaving theeu, but he is unlikely to.
Mr Johnson, thus, could have the largest
number of seats but be unable to form a
government. If that happens, eyes turn to
the second-largest party. Labour’s policy
on Brexit—to put a renegotiated deal to a
second referendum—appeals to the snp.
Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader, has care-
fully left open the possibility of another
Scottish independence referendum, say-
ing only that he would not hold one in his
first two years in power.
But if Mr Corbyn needed support from
the Liberal Democrats as well, things
would be trickier. Jo Swinson, their leader,
has said that she would not put him in
Downing Street. And although there is
speculation about whether Mr Corbyn
might step down if he loses the election, if
he were in a position to do a deal with the
Lib Dems he would have done well enough
to spin the election result as a victory, and
therefore would cling to power. Moreover,
since Mr Corbyn promises the second eu
referendum that the Lib Dems want, they
would be very likely to make it possible for
him to form a government by at least ab-
staining. If the alternative were losing the
chance of another referendum, they might
even support him.
A Corbyn government propped up by
the snpand the Liberal Democrats would
presumably remain in office to oversee the
two referendums. That might give it
enough time to bed down in power and
cling on after those were done; though giv-
en that there is little support for its more
radical policies and minority governments
tend to be unstable, another election
would probably beckon.
In such circumstances Mr Johnson’s po-
sition would not be solid, either. He is short
of friends in his party, and since his appeal
lay in his supposed ability to win elections,
he might have outlived his usefulness. But
with an instinct for power as strong as his,
it would probably be wrong to bet on his
ejection: he would be as hard to separate
from the leadership of his party as the she-
elephant from her calf. 7How Labour could still swing itA hung parliamentCorbyn the
dealmaker
Blue story
Britain, general election voting intention, %
To December 5th 2019Sources: Politico Poll of Polls;The Economist50403020100LabourConservativeBrexit PartyLib DemGreen2019