|
UK's Johnson Claims Brexit Mandate 12/13 06:23
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party has won a thumping
majority of seats in Britain's Parliament -- a decisive outcome to a
Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take
the U.K. out of the European Union next month.
LONDON (AP) -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party has won a
thumping majority of seats in Britain's Parliament --- a decisive outcome to a
Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take
the U.K. out of the European Union next month.
With 649 of the 650 results declared on Friday, the Conservatives had 364
seats and the main opposition Labour Party 203.
"We did it --- we pulled it off, didn't we?'' a jubilant Johnson told
supporters. "We broke the gridlock, we ended the deadlock, we smashed the
roadblock!"
A few hours later, Johnson was whisked to Buckingham Palace to meet with
Queen Elizabeth II as part of the constitutional ritual of forming a new
government. He is the 14th prime minister to be asked by the monarch to form a
government.
Johnson's victory paves the way for Britain's departure from the European
Union by Jan. 31.
The victory makes Johnson the most electorally successful Conservative
leader since Margaret Thatcher, another politician who was loved and loathed in
almost equal measure. It was a disaster for left-wing Labour leader Jeremy
Corbyn, who faced calls for his resignation even as the results rolled in.
U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Johnson on Twitter, and said that
"Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new trade
deal after Brexit."
Corbyn called the result "very disappointing" for his party and said he
would not l ead Labour into another election, though he said he would lead a
period of "reflection'' rather than quit immediately.
Results poured in early Friday showing a substantial shift in support to the
Conservatives from Labour. In the last election in 2017, the Conservatives won
318 seats and Labour 262.
The result this time delivered the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher's
1980s heyday, and Labour's lowest number of seats since 1935.
The Scottish National Party won almost 50 of Scotland's 59 seats, up from 35
in 2017, a result that will embolden its demands for a new referendum on
Scottish independence.
The centrist, pro-EU Liberal Democrats took only about a dozen seats. Lib
Dem leader Jo Swinson stepped down after losing in her own Scottish
constituency.
The Conservatives took a swath of seats in post-industrial northern England
towns that were long Labour strongholds. Labour's vote held up better in
London, where the party managed to grab the Putney seat from the Conservatives.
The decisive Conservative showing vindicates Johnson's decision to press for
Thursday's early election, which was held nearly two years ahead of schedule.
He said that if the Conservatives won a majority, he would get Parliament to
ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current
Jan. 31 deadline.
Speaking at the election count in his Uxbridge constituency in suburban
London, Johnson said the "historic" election "gives us now, in this new
government, the chance to respect the democratic will of the British people to
change this country for the better and to unleash the potential of the entire
people of this country."
That message appears to have had strong appeal for Brexit-supporting voters,
who turned away from Labour in the party's traditional heartlands and embraced
Johnson's promise that the Conservatives would "get Brexit done."
"I think Brexit has dominated, it has dominated everything by the looks of
it," said Labour economy spokesman John McDonnell. "We thought other issues
could cut through and there would be a wider debate. From this evidence there
clearly wasn't."
The prospect of Brexit finally happening more than three years after Britons
narrowly voted to leave the EU marks a momentous shift for both the U.K. and
the bloc. No country has ever left the union, which was created in the decades
after World War II to bring unity to a shattered continent.
But a decisive Conservative victory would also provide some relief to the
EU, which has grown tired of Britain's Brexit indecision.
Britain's departure will start a new phase of negotiations on future
relations between Britain and the 27 remaining EU members.
EU Council President Charles Michel promised that EU leaders meeting Friday
would send a "strong message" to the next British government and parliament
about next steps.
"We are ready to negotiate," European Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen said.
The pound surged when an exit poll forecast the Tory win, jumping over two
cents against the dollar, to $1.3445, the highest in more than a year and a
half. Many investors hope the Conservative win will speed up the Brexit process
and ease, at least in the short term, some of the uncertainty that has corroded
business confidence since the 2016 vote.
Many voters casting ballots on Thursday hoped the election might finally
find a way out of the Brexit stalemate in this deeply divided nation. Three and
a half years after the U.K. voted by 52%-48% to leave the EU, Britons remain
split over whether to leave the 28-nation bloc, and lawmakers have proved
incapable of agreeing on departure terms.
Opinion polls had given the Conservatives a steady lead, but the result was
considered hard to predict, because the issue of Brexit cuts across traditional
party loyalties.
Johnson campaigned relentlessly on a promise to "Get Brexit done" by getting
Parliament to ratify his "oven-ready" divorce deal with the EU and take Britain
out of the bloc as scheduled on Jan. 31.
The Conservatives focused much of their energy on trying to win in a "red
wall" of working-class towns in central and northern England that have elected
Labour lawmakers for decades but also voted strongly in 2016 to leave the EU.
That effort got a boost when the Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage decided at
the last minute not to contest 317 Conservative-held seats to avoid splitting
the pro-Brexit vote.
Labour, which is largely but ambiguously pro-EU, faced competition for
anti-Brexit voters from the centrist Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh
nationalist parties, and the Greens.
But on the whole Labour tried to focus the campaign away from Brexit and
onto its radical domestic agenda, vowing to tax the rich, nationalize
industries such as railroads and water companies and give everyone in the
country free internet access. It campaigned heavily on the future of the
National Health Service, a deeply respected institution that has struggled to
meet rising demand after nine years of austerity under Conservative-led
governments.
Senior Johnson aide Dominic Cummings said that the opponents of the
Conservatives just weren't listening to the public outside London.
"After the shock of the referendum, MPs and journalists should have taken a
deep breath and had a lot of self-reflection of why they misunderstood what was
going on in the country, but instead a lot of people just doubled down on their
own ideas," Cummings told Press Association.
"That's why something like this happens against expectations."
Defeat will likely spell the end for Corbyn, a veteran socialist who moved
his party sharply to the left after taking the helm in 2015, but who now looks
to have led his left-of-center party to two electoral defeats since 2017. The
70-year-old left-winger was also accused of allowing anti-Semitism to spread
within the party.
"It's Corbyn," said former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Johnson, when asked
about the poor result. "We knew he was incapable of leading, we knew he was
worse than useless at all the qualities you need to lead a political party."
For many voters, the election offered an unpalatable choice. Both Johnson
and Corbyn have personal approval ratings in negative territory, and both have
been dogged by questions about their character.
Johnson has been confronted with past broken promises, untruths and
offensive statements, from calling the children of single mothers "ignorant,
aggressive and illegitimate" to comparing Muslim women who wear face-covering
veils to "letter boxes."
Yet, his energy and determination proved persuasive to many voters.
"It's a big relief, looking at the exit polls as they are now, we've finally
got that majority a working majority that we have not had for 3 1/2 years,"
said Conservative-supporting writer Jack Rydeheard. "We've got the opportunity
to get Brexit done and get everything else that we promised as well. That's
investment in the NHS, schools, hospitals you name it --- it's finally a chance
to break that deadlock in Parliament."
(KR)
|
|