On Monday the 28th of October - three days before our now-abandoned, firmly guaranteed Brexit Day - Prime Minister Johnson lost another vote in Parliament attempting to force a general election. The widely criticised Fixed Term Parliament Act, created by the coalition government, requires a two thirds majority in the House of Commons (432 votes) for an early election to be called. Opposition parties refused to back the motion for a general election all citing different reasons.
For the Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats, their argument rested on the desire for an alternative election date - the 9th of December. They believed that the Conservatives would use the extra Parliamentary hours to whack the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through Parliament without valuable debate. This argument felt dubious at the time; Parliament has already shown a distaste for speedy scrutiny of the WAB and the DUP’s complete contempt for the Withdrawal Agreement means it’s exceptionally unlikely to pass through on such an accelerated timetable.
The Labour Party chose to abstain from the vote despite Corbyn declaring to the Labour Conference only a month ago to “go forward to win an election for the people of this country.” It’s undeniable that the Labour Leadership despises Johnson’s politics and believes that the Conservative Party has inflicted unprecedented harm on the country and yet they appeared to be, in the words of Johnson, running scared from an election. Labour argued that it could not vote in favour of the country going to the polls until there were cast iron guarantees that we would not leave the EU by default under a no deal arrangement. They argued that Johnson has used deceptive tactics in the past to subvert the will of parliament (for example the time he unlawfully gave the Queen advice to give MPs an unwanted mandatory holiday) but does this claim really stack up?
The EU have now granted another extension to the Article 50 process and the government have now agreed we will not leave until the 31st of January, therefore meaning (in theory) it should be impossible for us to leave without a deal for the next three months. Further trashing opposition party argument, the government has now declared (following the vote on the General Election) that they have no intention to bring back the WAB. Johnson has wanted an election for a while now and clearly is willing to do whatever it takes to get one - including now appeasing some of the desires of the opposition.
The government set out plans to make a second attempt to call an election on the 29th of October through the passing of a one-line Bill.
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