FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY KEVIN SULLIVAN
AND KARLA ADAMlondon — Despite a string of
stinging defeats in Parliament,
and the painful, public resigna-
tion of his own brother, Prime
Minister Boris Johnson on Thurs-
day continued his passionate
push for an early general election
he hopes would help him deliver
Brexit by Oct. 31.
Johnson cast his quest to bust
Britain out of the European Union
in defiant and populist terms, say-
ing he would “rather be dead in a
ditch” than seek any further de-
lays to Brexit.
He said he didn’t want to see
“the “powers of the British people
handed over to Brussels, so we can
be kept incarcerated in the E.U.”
That echoed the populist — and
successful — appeal to British vot-
ers to “take back control” of Brit-
ain that led to the passage of Brex-
it in a 2016 national referendum.
Still, the tumult of the past
week appeared to be taking a toll
on Johnson, who was unusually
halting and uncertain as he spoke
before a group of police cadets in
Yorkshire. Normally a gifted and
confident orator, Johnson squint-
ed awkwardly into the bright sun-
shine. He stumbled as he tried to
recite the British equivalent of the
Miranda rights to the cadets, who
know the lines well.
That may have been especially
understandable on a day he suf-
fered the personal blow of having
his younger brother, Jo Johnson,
resign as a member of Parliament
and government minister.
“In recent weeks I’ve been torn
between family loyalty and the
national interest — it’s an unre-
solvable tension & time for others
to take on my roles as MP & Minis-
ter,” Jo Johnson tweeted, using the
hashtag #overandout.
Jo Johnson voted against Brexit
in the 2016 referendum, and his
ideological disagreements with
his brother are well known. But
his resignation was unexpected
and underscored the depth of divi-
sions over Brexit and of the prime
minister’s political problems.
“Jo doesn’t agree with me about
the European Union. It’s an issue
that divides families and divides
everybody,” Boris Johnson said in
Yorkshire, calling his brother a
“fantastic guy” and noting he sup-
ported the government’s efforts to
increase spending on education,
hospitals and public safety.
Asked by a reporter why people
should trust him to act in the
national interest when his brother
doesn’t, the prime minister said:
“People disagree about the E.U.,
but the way to unite the country,
I’m afraid, is to get this thing done.
That is the reality. The longer this
goes on, the more dither and delay
we have from Parliament... the
worse this thing will be.”
Asked if he would be the next
Johnson to resign, the prime min-
ister didn’t answer directly but
said he was determined to “deliver
on the mandate of the people”
from the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The embattled Johnson got a
supportive assist on Thursday
from visiting Vice President
Pence, who met with him at 10
Downing Street and suggested a
post-Brexit trade deal could “in-
crease trade between our coun-tries by three or four times.”
“The United States is ready,
willing and able to immediately
negotiate a free-trade agreement
with the U.K.,” Pence said.
Johnson has been criticized by
his opponents for being too defer-
ential to the U.S. administration.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Cor-
byn has charged that Johnson
would bring the U.K. “a one-sided
United States trade deal that will
put us at the mercy of Donald
Trump and the biggest American
corporations.”
Johnson took pains in his ses-
sion with Pence to say he wanted a
trade deal “that works for all
sides.”
“The National Health Service is
not on the table, as far as our
negotiations go,” he said. “We’re
not too keen on that chlorinated
chicken, either. We have a gigantic
chlorinated chicken of our own,
here, on the opposition benches.”
Pence chuckled at Johnson’s
reference to his latest nicknamefor Corbyn.
The United States and Britain
can’t actually strike a trade deal
until after Brexit. And whether
Johnson would be around to nego-
tiate it is unclear.
Parliament has rebelled against
his position that Britain should be
willing to leave the E.U. on Oct. 31
without a withdrawal deal to
manage the transition. The House
of Commons passed legislation on
Wednesday designed to avert a
chaotic no-deal Brexit next
month. That legislation seeks a
three-month delay in Brexit if no
terms can be reached before the
Oct. 31 deadline.
The House of Lords, after de-
bating well into the night Wednes-
day, cleared the way for the bill to
get final approval by Friday.
Now the big battle seems to be
when — rather than if — to hold a
general election for the 650 seats
in the House of Commons.
Johnson’s government on Mon-
day plans to introduce new legis-lation again seeking an early elec-
tion, despite Parliament’s rejec-
tion of such a plan on Wednesday
night, officials said.
Johnson argued in Yorkshire
that an Oct. 15 election was need-
ed to determine who would repre-
sent Britain’s Brexit strategy at a
key Oct. 17 meeting of E.U. leaders.
Labour has said it would be
eager for an election to unseat
Johnson, but only when the party
had a guarantee that Britain
would not “crash out” of the E.U.
without a deal. There is debate
within the party about whether
that would mean holding off until
after an extension of the Oct. 31
deadline had been secured.
Beyond the public rationale,
Johnson needs an election to have
any chance of moving any legisla-
tion. He lost his governing majori-
ty this week through defections
from rebellious party members
and his remarkable decision to
expel from the party more than 20
lawmakers who voted against himin Parliament. Some of those
kicked out were among the most
experienced and honored mem-
bers of the party.
In a speech in Glasgow, former
prime minister John Major said
that “without them — and others
like them — we will cease to be a
broad-based national party, and
be seen as a mean-minded sect.”
He said the government’s behav-
ior in recent days was something
“I never thought to see from any
British government, and it must
stop.”
In Brussels, frustration with
the British drama was running
high. Senior negotiators have all
but given up on discussions with
Johnson’s team for now, seeing
little point in making plans with a
group that could soon be swept
out by elections. And despite
Johnson’s claims of “great prog-
ress,” British negotiators have not
offered any new ideas that could
be the subject of negotiations, offi-
cials said.
“There’s been no concrete pro-
posals yet. It’s all smokescreen,”
said a senior E.U. diplomat, speak-
ing on the condition of anonymity
to discuss the sensitive — if appar-
ently lacking in substance — talks.
Johnson’s Brexit negotiator,
David Frost, was in Brussels on
Wednesday for more than five
hours of discussions. But there
was little on the table to discuss,
the European diplomat said.
“I don’t know what they talk
about,” the diplomat said.
E.U. officials say that although
they are eager to avoid the chaos of
a no-deal Brexit, they are unwill-
ing to compromise on their de-
mand for ironclad guarantees that
the Irish border remain open, al-
though Johnson has suggested
otherwise in Parliament.
But they also said that E.U. lead-
ers had no plans to push Britain
out of the European Union against
its will, and that if Johnson asked
to delay his country’s exit date to
hold a general election, he would
almost certainly be granted the
reprieve.
[email protected]
[email protected]Robert Costa in London, Michael
Birnbaum in Brussels and Laura
Hughes in Washington contributed to
this report.Boris Johnson pushes for early general election in hopes of delivering Brexit
HANNAH MCKAY/REUTERS
Jo Johnson, the British prime minister’s brother, resigned Thursday, citing being torn over “family loyalty and the national interest.”British Prime
Minister Boris
Johnson has
eclipsed President
Trump as the
chaos-maker-in-
chief. Just weeks
into his tenure at
10 Downing
Street, the new
leader tried to take a wrecking
ball to the political system and
ended up hitting himself as well.
This is all in the latest chapter
of the long-running drama
known as Brexit. In the summer
of 2016, British voters narrowly
voted to leave the European
Union. Nothing has been the
same since. Government has
been paralyzed, and the public’s
dissatisfaction has grown
steadily. Two prime ministers
were taken down by the turmoil
unleashed by that vote. Johnson
could be the third. Or could he?
Like Trump, Johnson is much
bluff and bluster — in look and
action. At the dispatch box in the
House of Commons, he looks
slightly out of place, his hair
permanently mussed and askew,
his head cocked to one side or the
other. But if he looks as if he
doesn’t quite belong, he also
seems to relish the political
combat with Labour Party leader
Jeremy Corbyn and others in the
opposition. It hasn’t gone well.
Johnson is the antithesis of his
predecessor, Theresa May, the
impassive and by-the-book
leader whose failed efforts over
two-plus years to find a workable
deal to take Britain out of the
European Union forced her
resignation and damaged her
reputation. She must hope that
Johnson’s initial floundering and
flailing will make her look at
least a bit better in retrospect.
Campaigning for the
leadership of the Tory Party,
Johnson had vowed to take
Britain out of the European
Union as it was scheduled to do
on Oct. 31, deal or no deal. He
insisted — based on no evidence
— that by drawing that line in the
sand, the leaders in Brussels
would find it in their interest —
as well as in Britain’s — to
produce something different and
more acceptable than what May’s
negotiations have brought
forward.
That was the plan. Getting
there has not gone according toplan, however. If Johnson had a
clear strategy, it has not been
evident. Instead, he has suffered
crushing parliamentary defeats
that have brought further
attention to the dysfunction of
the country’s political system.
What’s happened to Johnson?
Only that he has seen his power
to set the Brexit agenda removed,
driven more than 20
Conservative rebels out of the
party and seen his parliamentary
majority eliminated. On
Thursday, Johnson’s brother
announced he would stand down
as a member of Parliament.
Oh, yes, he also provoked a
constitutional crisis in Britain by
declaring that Parliament would
be closed down for much of the
next month. Trump no doubt
would like to do the same with
Congress, if he only had the
power to do so.
No one can say how events will
play out. The House of Commons
approved a measure that would
extend the deadline for leaving
the European Union if no deal
has been approved by the Oct. 31
deadline. Johnson has insisted
he could get a deal, but there has
been no sign of a new proposal ornegotiations.
Left open is the question of
just when a snap election would
be held, assuming that there will
be one. Johnson’s proposal for a
new election in mid-October —
his response to having
Parliament take away his power
to set the agenda — was
demolished by a vote on
Wednesday. Corbyn insists he
wants a new election, date to be
determined after the fate of
Brexit negotiations and
deadlines are clearer.
Just who would win that
election is another matter.
Corbyn’s reluctance to move on
Johnson’s deadline underscored
Labour’s nervousness. Labour
allies called Johnson’s proposal a
trap. Corbyn likened it to Snow
White’s poisoned apple. Labour
lawmakers abstained on the key
vote, and Johnson was left
empty-handed. But it seems
likely the voters will be asked to
resolve the question of who
should lead the country
sometime in the fall.
Trump has been a Johnson
champion for a long time. The
president undercut May at every
opportunity and boostedJohnson whenever he could.
Johnson has seemed his kind of
politician — reckless, irreverent,
disruptive, not a detail person.
Through Vice President Pence,
who met with Johnson on
Thursday in London, Trump sent
a message of support, for Britain
leaving the European Union and
for the prospect of a new trading
agreement between the two
nations that supposedly share a
special relationship. “Fantastic,”
Johnson said to Pence, while
noting that negotiations could be
difficult, which was hardly an
understatement.
Everything appears more
difficult than when Johnson had
so breezily proclaimed himself a
candidate for the leadership post
and even in his early days as
prime minister. It all hit a wall
when Johnson came in contact
with Parliamentary opposition
and the internal revolt among his
own members. As with Trump,
the predictions come easily, but
the execution comes harder.
Johnson underestimated the
ability of his opponents in
Parliament to move swiftly to
seize the agenda from the
government. He might havethought that Corbyn, who has
been calling for an election for
many months, would bite into
that apple. His miscalculations
have left him empty-handed, but
not necessarily without options
or resources.
Trump has repeatedly
challenged the institutions of the
American political system,
seeking to weaken or
delegitimize any that threaten
his power or him personally. In
his short time as prime minister,
Johnson has gone even further,
tearing at the underpinnings of
democratic government in what
has become an all-out war.
How long this can go on is
anybody’s guess. Perhaps the
president will offer advice to his
friend, the prime minister.
Johnson has put himself in a
corner, and one hope is that he
will be rescued by the British
electorate if and when there is a
new election. Whatever the
eventual outcome, the system
was not meant to endure this
much stress for this long.
[email protected]Robert Costa in London contributed
to this article.Prime minister takes a wrecking ball to British government and gets hit himself
Dan Balz
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