Boris Johnson To Try And ‘Get Brexit Rolling’

Conservative Plans

Multiple reports out of the United Kingdom suggest Boris Johnson will host a meeting with newly elected Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) after last week’s sweeping victory for his party. The reasoning for the conversation will be to whip agreement for his latest Brexit agreement strategy.

The Conservative party gained 66 seats, giving them a strong majority of 365 within the House of Commons, where only 326 is necessary for a majority. The election saw the biggest win the Conservatives since Margaret Thatcher 32 years ago. Some pundits and Labour members blame Brexit for the sweeping Conservative victory, while others blame Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of messaging and directing Labour to take a strong stance against Brexit to take advantage of anti-Brexit sentiment from UK voters under the age of 40.

Elected MPs will be sworn in on Tuesday, and Johnson is expected to announce his new Brexit plan on Friday. Johnson spokesperson James Slack announced the Conservative plans on Monday. According to Yahoo, MPs won’t be able to extend Brexit transition like they have during past negotiation clashes.

The Withdrawal Agreement Bill that the government brings back to Parliament this week will no longer give politicians the power to ask the government to extend the U.K.’s transition period as it leaves the European Union, according to an official.

When ministers were trying to get support for the Brexit deal before the election, they agreed to give Members of Parliament a vote on whether a longer transition period would be needed. But the government now has a large majority — and with every Conservative MP committed to backing the deal — that concession is going away, the official said. Boris Johnson has repeatedly promised the period wouldn’t be extended beyond Dec. 31, 2020.

Inside Labour’s Defeat

Nathan Yeowell of the NewStatesman America explains from a personal perspective the difficulties the Labour party faced during the campaign cycle, “Thursday’s election was a catastrophe, both for the Labour Party and for the country. It was heartbreaking for all of us who campaigned for a Labour government over the past couple of weeks,” Yeowell began. “But our heartbreak is nothing compared to the difficult Christmas and uncertain new year ahead for the many millions of people who desperately needed us to win.” 

Yeowell continued.

Despite promising to fix all these things, we still couldn’t win. Instead, we lost to the most outrageous and opportunistic Conservative leader we’ve faced in modern times.

That we did is staggering, and hints at a deeper issue than just Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of leadership. Make no mistake, wherever we knocked on doors in this campaign, people told us they couldn’t vote for us because they couldn’t stomach the thought of him as Prime Minister. But what is worse, we had no popular, unifying narrative. No cohesive political argument to put before the country. No credible guiding light to illuminate the path ahead.

Yeowell would go on to repeat a Conservative party talking point, developed by pro-Netanyahu right-wingers in Israel who lobbed false allegations of antisemitism towards Corbyn.

Social Democratic Movements Across The World

The Labour party, much like other Social Democratic parties across the who find themselves in the minority portion of government, often do so while championing popular policies. However, like Labour’s inability to properly combat false claims of anti-Semitism, they often find themselves failing to frame issues from a position of strength.

United States Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose platform is nearly identical to Social Democratic parties across the world, learned from his 2016 campaign for President of the United States. Sanders is far more aggressive with his messaging during his 2020 campaign for President of the United States, however, his mislabeling of his ideology as Democratic Socialism has opened him up to attacks.

Labour will have to embrace the Corbyn wing of the party and not move back towards the right for future electoral victory, yet they will have to develop and defend a coherent message and not be caught without a clear electoral strategy.