Election push: Boris Johnson demands 12 December vote

A winter general election is back on the agenda after Boris Johnson said he will give MPs more time to debate his Brexit deal if they agree to a national vote on 12 December.

The PM says an election is required to help the country move on after MPs voted for his Brexit deal but rejected the timetable for scrutinising it and asked for more time.

But he may not get his wish. He needs two-thirds of MPs to vote for an election under the Fixed Term Parliament Act, and Labour “appears poised to block Boris Johnson’s offer of a pre-Christmas general election” by telling MPs to abstain in Monday’s vote, The Guardian says.

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A cautious Jeremy Corbyn told the BBC he still wants to make sure a no-deal Brexit is taken off the table, and it is understood that he will only make his final decision once the EU has confirmed what extension the UK will be offered.

However, one Labour MP has already said they had been told they could abstain or vote against the motion for an election. The Daily Telegraph’s sketchwriter, Michael Deacon, said Labour MPs looked “absolutely horrified” at the prospect of a pre-Christmas poll.

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson said her party “will not support any election until it is clear that we can avoid crashing out with no-deal, and that needs an extension from the EU”.

“In truth,” says Sky News, Johnson “knows he won't get [an election] - yet”. His demand is in fact a “clever device to distract from the admission he'd rather bury - that he will break his ‘do or die’ promise to leave the EU on 31 October”, the broadcaster says.

So what will happen next? The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg says that both Labour and the Conservatives could have dramatic plans up their sleeves.

“Plenty of Tory MPs worry that Labour will pursue a delaying tactic – ‘like a boa constrictor they will slowly squeeze Boris until his novelty fun factor starts to grate,’” she writes.

And in response, she adds, the government may go on a form of political strike to get its way, refusing to bring any business to the House of Commons until Johnson gets his way. In a move that would “turn an already fraught and bizarre situation into something completely extraordinary”, Johnson would make MPs vote “day after day after day on whether or not to have an election”.

Recent opinion polls explain Johnson’s enthusiasm for an election. Although The Times concedes that “the result is perhaps harder to predict than any previous vote”, its analysis suggests that Tories would end up with about 413 seats, Labour would get 148 and the Lib Dems 32.

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