PM Johnson calls for 12 Dec. election to break Brexit deadlock

London (Reuters): Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on Thursday for a general election on 12 December to break Britain’s Brexit impasse, conceding for the first time he will not meet his “do or die” deadline to leave the European Union next week.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Johnson said in a letter to Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that he would hand Parliament more time to approve his Brexit deal, but that lawmakers must back a December election, Johnson’s third attempt to try to force a snap poll.

Just a week before Britain was due to leave the European Union, the bloc looks set to grant Johnson a Brexit delay, something he has repeatedly said he does not want, but was forced to request by the country’s divided Parliament.

An election is seen by his team as the only way of breaking the deadlock over Brexit, after Parliament voted in favour of his deal, but then, just minutes later, rejected his preferred timetable which would have met his 31 October deadline.

But he has twice before failed to win the votes in Parliament for an election, where he needs the support of two-thirds of its 650 lawmakers. The main Opposition Labour Party has repeatedly said it will only back an election when it is sure that he cannot lead Britain out of the EU without a deal.

“This Parliament has refused to take decisions. It cannot refuse to let the voters replace it with a new Parliament that can make decisions,” he wrote to Corbyn.

“Prolonging this paralysis into 2020 would have dangerous consequences for businesses, jobs and for basic confidence in democratic institutions, already badly damaged by the behaviour of Parliament since the referendum. Parliament cannot continue to hold the country hostage.”

In Parliament after the Government announced the new vote on an election for Monday, Labour’s parliamentary business manager Valerie Vaz did not say whether the party would back the move, saying only it would wait to see what the EU says about a delay on Friday.

More than three years after voting 52%-48% to be the first sovereign country to leave the European project, the future of Brexit is as unclear as ever with Britain still debating when, how or even whether it should go ahead.

Johnson won the top job in July by staking his career on getting Brexit done by 31 October, though in the letter he makes clear he is ready to scrap his deadline. Last month, he said he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than ask for a delay.

But several of his aides think he can weather any criticism for failing to meet the deadline at an election by arguing that he was thwarted by lawmakers, doubling down on his team’s narrative of pitting the “people versus the Parliament”.

At a meeting of his political Cabinet of top Ministers, some media reported that there was disagreement over whether the Government should try for an early election, fearing that going to the polls before Brexit was settled might damage the governing Conservatives.

But Johnson seems to still hold out hope of securing a deal with Brussels, offering Parliament until 6 November to ratify an agreement he settled with the EU last week.

“This means that we could get Brexit done before the election on 12 December, if MPs (members of parliament) choose to do so.”