While UK parliament has shot down PM Boris Johnson’s bid for a general election next month, there’s no excuse for further delays once the risk of a no-deal Brexit is removed from the table, former MP George Galloway told RT.
Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party all abstained from voting to hold early general elections, leaving only 298 MPs in support – woefully short of the required two-thirds majority to pass the measure on Wednesday.
However, Johnson requested the opposition take the time to “reflect overnight,” which is “parliamentary code for ‘negotiations are going on behind the scenes’,” the former MP and RT contributor pointed out, adding that the MPs used to call this sort of thing "behind the speaker’s chair.”
Once the October 31 Brexit deadline is out of the way – and with it the possibility of a no-deal Brexit postponed – Labour will have “no excuse at all for refusing a general election,” Galloway said, predicting that the rebels who had been so vociferously demanding a contest up until “just the other week” would return to clamoring for it.
Also on rt.com British lawmakers reject Boris Johnson’s bid for snap electionThe measure to stop a no-deal Brexit by asking the EU for an extension is almost certainly a done deal, Galloway explained, with a caveat:
Unless something dramatic happens in the House of Lords – which can’t be ruled out, because they intend to sit all night and filibuster this bill.
Galloway noted that “giving to the EU the power to extend [the Brexit deadline] indefinitely” is a “very dangerous move indeed.”
Also on rt.com Rebel MPs seal defeat for BoJo’s govt to officially block a ‘no-deal’ Brexit“My prediction? There’ll be an election in early November,” even though it is a “very bad month to have a general election.”
The weather is poor, the nights are dark and it's only in extreme cases of parliamentary emergency that Britain traditionally goes to the polls in November, December, January, even February.
Labour’s decision to prioritize stopping a no-deal over trying to get into power as soon as possible “will cost them dearly when an election does come,” journalist Neil Clark believes. “Having called repeatedly for an election for the last two years, it doesn’t look good that when they finally get the chance of one, they turn it down.”
The new general election is inevitable, agrees former Brexit Party member and MEP David Coburn. “I think, he [Boris Johnson] will get it [elections] in the end. But it will be difficult. Johnson can put through a legislation that simply changes the fixed-term parliament act so that he only needs a 50 percent majority.”
Also on rt.com The world is laughing: Britain needs a new govt capable of serious talks with EU – and quicklyWe need an election to clear those Euro-fanatics and have a Parliament that will be more representative of the people of the UK and of what they want.
If that general election does come to pass, and Johnson comes out on top, Brexit is “a done deal,” journalist George Szamuely predicted, noting that Johnson is likely to succeed.
However, if voters “take out all their resentment against the Conservative Party in the general election” and Labour takes the reins, “I don’t think there’ll be Brexit,” Szamuely continued. A second referendum would no doubt follow, “in which case they’ll continue with these endless negotiations, or it might go against the result of the first referendum.” In that case, all of this political agony has been for naught.
Britain will just continue limping along with this kind of on-again, off-again relationship to the EU.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!