UK election: mayday for Brexit

Theresa May is betting on a Tory landslide to boost her mandate.

The snap election comes when many voters see a grim outlook for Britain as it prepares for Brexit negotiations with the EU.

Divided about Brexit, divided about the election, divided by age, divided by geography. After Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election for June 8, boosted by the pathetic Labour opposition and a sniping Scottish leader, there was once again apparent division of opinion.

Mirroring the 52-48 per cent Brexit result last year, the nation now appears split on its enthusiasm for yet another election. Young voters, particularly the idealistic members of the Labour Party who have propped up Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership at the grassroots level and supporters of the Liberal Democrats in metropolitan London seats, are buoyed, believing somehow they can reverse the British decision to leave the EU.

“Bring it on, if there is any way we can change Brexit I will be there voting,’’ says Isra Colloden, a 22-year-old arts student at Kingston college in southwest London.

Such a scenario is remote given the EU’s desire to punish Britain for its Brexit vote and the lack of any recall mechanism in the Lisbon Treaty that has been triggered for formal negotiations on an exit.

Instead, May’s political opponents are trying to convince voters they can facilitate the softest of Brexits by insisting that Britain remains part of the European trading bloc even though the EU has ruled out any such proposition unless Britain leaves its borders open to unfettered immigration.

However, those over 35 reacted like the well-groomed Brenda from Bristol, wearied by the constant Brexit positioning, leadership battles and four trips to the polling stations in the past three years. When told by a BBC television journalist that May had just called a fresh election, Brenda didn’t hold back. “You’re joking!” she said, face crumpling. “Oh for god’s sake, I honestly can’t stand this. There’s too much politics going on at the moment, why does she need to do it?”

May needs to do it because she has sensed a brief window in which she can reduce the country’s divisions, annihilate the opposition and increase her majority beyond the Tories’ present 17-seat lead without greatly affecting the Brexit timetable.

Analysts believe the Conservatives could increase their majority by 56 seats if their showing at by-elections and in opinion polls taken just before the surprise announcement translates into votes at the general election. Labour is at an all-time low with 22 per cent support, with the Conservatives almost double that figure.

May has been pushed towards a snap election by the Brexit resistance not just from Scottish nationalists and the House of Lords but from Tory backbenchers who have been horsetrading their public Brexit support for favours down the track, with others demanding a non-negotiable Brexit.

In the financial markets, meanwhile, the feeling is that an enhanced Conservative majority would enable May to take a softer Brexit tone, as she would no longer be beholden to her parliamentary party’s fiercest Eurosceptics, who number about 50. That is one reason the pound sterling shot to a four-month high overnight.

May has shown astute timing in catching her political opponents off-guard, and she is using the brief window in which the electioneering will have no impact on the Brexit timetable. Potentially a big win will offer her party a further three years in government to consolidate life after Brexit, although she does run the risk of motivated young voters turning out in force to join disillusioned Remainers and reluctant Brexiteers in clawing back her party’s majority.

Former prime minister David Cameron, who risked his political career on the Brexit result, called May’s decision “brave and right”.

It is nonetheless surprising that she did not wait until after Sunday’s first round of French elections. The leading four French candidates are so close in the polls that it would not be a shock if French voters diverged to the extremes and sent the far left’s Jean-Luc Melenchon and the far right’s Marine Le Pen into the second round on May 7, sidelining the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the centre-right Francois Fillon. This would lead to France rewriting its own relationship with the EU and strengthen the British government’s negotiating hand.

Brexit was central to May’s election statement. “If we do not hold a general election now,” she said of her opponents, “their political game playing will continue, and the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up to the next scheduled election.

“Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability.”

The focus on Brexit has been so overwhelming that when Labour’s Corbyn started talking about campaigning on economic mismanagement and his party’s focus on social welfare, it seemed somehow misplaced.

He says the failure of the National Health Service under the Tories is “quite serious indeed” and the NHS needs adequate funding to deliver the quality of care the nation deserves.

The nationalist UK Independence Party, whose chief political aim was to achieve Brexit, will likely be sidelined by May’s tough pro-Brexit positioning.

The Liberal Democrats, currently polling 12 per cent, picked up the seat of Tory MP Zac Goldsmith following his failure to win the London mayoral election last year, and could become the default party for Remainers.

North of the English border, the Scots will be mounting a parallel campaign, trying to turn the election into a quasi-independence vote. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, says the June election is an opportunistic ploy by the Tories, who see a chance to move Britain to the right, force through a hard Brexit and impose deeper cuts.

But Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson says Scotland has crossed the peak of nationalistic fervour and she remains confident of a better performance than the solo seat her party won two years ago.

In Wales, Labour is particularly vulnerable and in Northern Ireland Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has hailed the election as a chance to “vote against Brexit and for progress”.

Across the continent, the election is expected to have little impact, although leaders may have to reveal some of their Brexit negotiating positions to voters.

European Council president Donald Tusk drew on the director of Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, to make an astute observation about the twists and turns of the process, tweeting: “It was Hitchcock, who directed Brexit: first an earthquake and the tension rises.”