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General election: Boris Johnson to accelerate Brexit plans as Tories head for landslide

But prime minister faces fraught period of intensive negotiations to avoid a no-deal crash-out at the end of 2020

Andrew Woodcock
Political Editor
Friday 13 December 2019 01:37 GMT
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General Election 2019: Exit poll predicts landslide Conservative majority for Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson’s first priority on being returned to Downing Street with an overall majority will be to make good on his election promise to “get Brexit done”.

The Tories will announce their legislative programme in a Queen’s Speech on 19 December and top of the agenda will be a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, tabled in parliament before Christmas, to ratify Mr Johnson’s deal with Brussels in time to leave on 31 January.

With a comfortable majority in the Commons and the removal of all his internal Remain-backing critics, the prime minister will no longer have to wrangle over details of his deal and will be free of the threat of parliamentary hijacks to block his plans.

He can be expected to accelerate the passage of the legislation through parliament. But senior sources poured cold water on reports that he could order MPs and peers to sit for additional days over the Christmas and New Year period to get the bill through.

Crucially, he will no longer be dependent on the votes of the hardline European Research Group and the Democratic Unionist Party, potentially giving him greater leeway to negotiate a softer trade deal which does not involve an abrupt and chaotic rupture from the EU.

Ironically, Mr Johnson has been given a free hand to get Brexit done by a country which polls suggest no longer wants Brexit.

An eve-of-election poll for The Independent for BMG Research found that 54 per cent of voters want to Remain in the EU, against 46 per cent who want to Leave. And the preference for EU membership was overwhelming among young voters, with 68 per cent of 18-24 year-olds and 72 per cent of 25-34 year-olds saying they would vote Remain.

Some 50 per cent said withdrawal on the terms of Mr Johnson's deal will leave the UK worse-off in the short term, against just 18 per cent who thought it would benefit financially. In the longer term, the margin narrowed, with 36 per cent thinking the UK will be financially worse-off and 35 per cent better-off after five to 10 years.

Forty-five per cent thought the country would be more divided in the next few years as a result of Mr Johnson's deal being implemented, against 18 per cent who said it would be more united.

Dejected second referendum campaigners made no attempt to hide the depth of their disappointment at the result, after putting all their efforts into supporting tactical voting for a hung parliament which might deliver a Final Say vote. They insisted Labour’s under-performance was down to dissatisfaction with Jeremy Corbyn and not Brexit, as the party’s high command was claiming.

Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller said if the exit poll is correct then the UK "will be out" of the EU and there will not be a second referendum.

Speaking to ITV, Ms Miller, a lawyer who has campaigned against the government's Brexit strategy, said: "I don't think there'll be another vote. It will get passed as an Act of Parliament, it will then be ratified as an international treaty and we will be out."

But one insider in the Remain camp insisted the fight for a People’s Vote was not over. “There will be intense talks in the next few days about how to recalibrate the Final Say movement,” he told The Independent. “The scale of the majority will make it difficult, but there are going to arguments over Brexit for years and years, so we don’t think the case for a second referendum is over.”

Formal departure from the EU at the end of January will be far from the end of the matter, with an agreement still to be thrashed out on the UK’s future relations with its former European partners in areas like trade and security.

Mr Johnson has vowed to complete a free trade agreement by the end of 2020, and wrote a promise into the Conservative manifesto not to accept an offered two-year extension beyond this date.

But few in Brussels and few trade experts believe that a comprehensive deal can be concluded within this tight 11-month deadline, as the complex and detailed negotiations on similar agreements generally take five to seven years.

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier this week told a meeting of MEPs that it would not be possible to complete a full deal by December. While the EU would do “as much as we can”, he said that a no-deal crash-out on World Trade Organisation terms remains a possibility.

His deputy Sabine Weyand suggested that no more than a “bare bones” treaty will be possible, covering goods exports but not the all-important service sector which makes up the bulk of the UK economy.

Even after that deal is complete, the UK faces potentially lengthy negotiations with countries like the US, Japan, Australia and China in a bid to restore some of the trade lost by cutting ties with the EU’s single market and customs union.

These will involve hugely controversial trade-offs on access to UK public service markets including health care, as well as environmental, workplace and animal welfare standards.

Conservatives are planning a “post-Brexit Budget" in February which the party promises will cut National Insurance for workers earning more than £8,632.

In a blueprint for their first 100 days, they said they would legislate for a funding increase to schools, change the law to increase the amount that migrants pay to use the NHS, begin cross-party talks to find a solution to the challenge of social care, and finalise an agreement with mobile phone operators to improve mobile service in the countryside.

The party also said they will have introduced:

- legislation to ensure the extra £33.9 billion per year they say they are putting in to the NHS by 2023 is enshrined in law

- new laws to create a new Australian-style points-based immigration system

- legislation for tougher sentences to ensure terrorists spend longer in prison.

- legislation to create a system which prevents "vexatious claims" being brought against Armed Forces veterans.

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