By Ben Kerrigan
Uk prime minister, Boris Johnson said Parliament has become dysfunctional , shortly after Mps rejected the prime minister’s plan for a December general election.
Johnson said “it’s time” for voters to have a chance back his deal and “replace this dysfunctional Parliament with a new Parliament that can get Brexit done so the country can move on”.
Johnson’s comments came after he wrote to European Council president Donald Tusk to confirm the UK’s “formal agreement” to the Brexit extension. Mr. Johnson described the “unwanted prolongation” of Brexit as “damaging to our democracy” but wrote that he’d confirmed “the UK’s formal agreement to this extension” to January 31.
However, the prime minister expressed plans to publish a short piece of legislation seeking the support of the Lib Dems and SNP for an election on December 12 .He told Mps:
“This House can no longer keep this country hostage,” he told MPs, sa.
Although the government won Monday’s vote by 299 votes to 70 – after the Labour frontbench abstained, it fell well short of getting the support of the 434 MPs it needed. Johnson said he would persist with his efforts to get an early election, telling MPs that “one way or another” the current deadlock had to be broken.
The new legislation Johnson proposes would only require the support of a simple majority of MPs able to vote, which would be 320.Mr Labour and opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn said the PM’s new Brexit deal was a “recycled and rejected deal” that had been “misrepresented by ministers”, meaning a no-deal Brexit would still be possible, even if the deal was supported.
The Lib Dems and SNP have expressed a willingness to back an election on the slightly earlier date of Monday, 9 December instead, which they say will prevent any chance of the PM’s Brexit deal being approved in the short time before Parliament is dissolved.
SUPPORT
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said his party would support the new plan for a December 12 election if the PM gave a “cast-iron guarantee” he would not bring back the WAB. Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson indicated that her party would reject new calls for a general election.