Elizabeth Piper -
Britain’s two main parties set the stage on Monday for a battle over a no-deal Brexit, hoping to win back voters who abandoned them for a new movement led by eurosceptic Nigel Farage and other smaller parties in European elections.
After a punishing night when deepening divisions over Britain’s departure from the European Union were plain to see, contenders for the leadership of the governing Conservatives said the results were a demand to deliver Brexit no matter what. Taking a different tack, the opposition Labour Party said a public vote — a new national election or second referendum — was the way to reunite the country. It pledged to make sure a new Conservative leader
would not take Britain out of the EU without a transition deal to help protect the economy.
With Farage’s Brexit Party, which prefers a no-deal Brexit, capturing the greatest number of votes for seats in the European Parliament, closely shadowed by a group of fervently pro-EU parties, Conservatives and Labour were under pressure to commit clearly to either side of the debate.
Almost three years since Britain voted narrowly to leave the EU and barely two months after the originally planned departure date, lawmakers remain at loggerheads over how, when or even whether the country will quit the club it joined in 1973.
For the Conservatives, who will appoint a new leader by the end of July, many of the would be successors see the European vote outcome as proof they must seek a cleaner break with the EU, with several saying they would leave without a deal.
For Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pressure will mount to embrace a second referendum without qualification — something he has said would be needed to prevent a no-deal Brexit.
But what is clear from a vote which many used as a protest is that Brexit — which forced Prime Minister Theresa May to say she will resign on June 7 after failing to deliver Britain’s departure — risks shattering the election prospects of both the main parties.
Former foreign minister Boris Johnson, the favourite to replace May as party leader and prime minister, said the election message was “if we go on like this, we will be fired: dismissed from the job of running the country”.
“We can and must deliver. No one sensible would aim exclusively for a no-deal outcome. No one responsible would take no-deal off the table,” Johnson, who was also London mayor, said in his regular column in the Telegraph newspaper.
“If we are courageous and optimistic, we can strike a good bargain with our friends across the Channel, come out well and on time - by October 31 - and start delivering on all the hopes and ambitions of the people.”
Johnson was one of several prime ministerial contenders to express their belief that the disappointing result in the European vote, which put the Conservatives in fifth position, amounted to a clear demand for Britain to get on with Brexit. May said the results showed the importance of agreeing a deal.
The question posed for the Labour Party was a little different. With part of its support bolting to the Brexit Party and part to the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who support a second referendum, some felt the pressure to change tack.
Labour’s finance chief, John McDonnell, caused a short-lived sensation in seeming to signal a shift in Labour policy to unequivocally back a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU - something the party has long fought off.
But Corbyn set out the party’s position, again saying Labour would do its utmost to prevent a no-deal Brexit — something experts say might be
legally trickier than many lawmakers earlier thought if faced with a eurosceptic prime minister determined to leave the EU by the current deadline of October 31. — Reuters
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