Todd Bishop
If someone can predict the future, people can work hard today to disprove their predictions. However, no one can break the prediction of Conservative victory since Johnson became Prime Minister in July this year. In the British election last Thursday (December 12), the Conservative Party won 365 of the 650 seats in Parliament, which was the biggest victory since Mrs. Dezor led the Conservative Party’s third victory in 1987. After ruling out the possibility of a second referendum, the British can finally predict with certainty that Britain will officially leave the European Union on January 31, 2020.
In his first speech on the morning of the day after the victory, in addition to shouting that Brexit is “Nothing, No But, No, or No” as scheduled, Johnson in power also did not forget the humor: “Let’s get out of Brexit! But we still Get breakfast first! ”In contrast, Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn was besieged by party friends that night, saying he” should step down a long time ago. “
Opposition party almost annihilated
The Labor Party, which held up the “anti-Dydrism” left-wing political platform such as nationalization, had only 203 seats and lost 42 seats, the worst performance since 1935. Although insisting that his policy is “extremely popular” and blaming the media for his “disgusting” attack, he did not immediately resign or apologize, but he has stated that he will not lead the Labor Party to participate in the next election. The forty-six-year-old member of parliament has been excluded because of his left-wing ideals. Until 2015, he relied on grassroots support to win the position of party leader, and officially completed his political journey.
The Labor Party has always hoped that the domestic policy of the “Left-Wing Revolution” overwhelmed the theme of “Brexit stance determines election results”. However, because of the opposition between staying in Europe and Brexit, it chose to maintain a neutral second referendum and lost business. Many iron constituencies for ten years, the so-called “Red Wall”, which traditionally extended from northern Wales to Yorkshire, also officially fell. The Labour Party, which has only been in power for 13 years in the past 40 years, has lost four consecutive elections. If the two parties in the party, “Remaining Europe vs. Brexit” and “Left-wing vs. Mild”, are in dispute, it will definitely become “perpetual Opposition party. “
Before the election, the Liberal Democrats, who hoped to hold the flag of staying in Europe and had more than 100 seats, won only 11 seats, which was less than the original 21. The party leader Jo Swinson lost his seat and was forced to resign. . Swainson claimed to be the prime minister in the early days of the campaign, referring to the extreme positions of the Brexit Party and advocating “directly canceling Brexit without a referendum.” Eventually, the hearts of voters staying in Europe could not be retained. The end is only better than the Brexit party, which was the party with the most votes in Britain in the European Parliament elections at the end of May.
The Democratic Conservative Party of Northern Ireland, the governing coalition of the previous Conservative Minority Government, was arbitrarily abandoned by Johnson in its new Brexit agreement to accept Irish maritime border checks, and lost two seats in the Northern Ireland constituency. The party’s former House of Commons leader Nigel Dodds also lost to the hands of Sinn Fein, an advocate of Irish unity.
With the exception of the Conservatives, the only parties that are considered to be winning and influential are the Scottish National Party, which advocates independence from Europe and Scotland. The National Party won 48 of the 59 seats in Scotland, an increase of 13 from the previous term. Although party leader Nicola Sturgeon has publicly demanded that the new government allow Scotland to hold another independent referendum, the Nationalist party is still less than 56 seats in 2015, and under the situation of the Conservative majority government, it is also unable to influence the British The political picture of the House. Therefore, this victory can only be regarded as a small step on its independent journey.
This first pre-Christmas election since 1923 is undoubtedly the most far-reaching British election since World War II. It definitely responds to the question of “will Britain formally leave the EU eventually” since the 2016 referendum on Brexit.
Brexit storm after formal Brexit
If this election is a referendum on the disguise of “Remaining Europe vs. Brexit”, then the situation of the split between Britain ’s staying in Europe and Brexit ’s sentiment remains unchanged: the Conservative Party ’s and Brexit ’s total votes are only 45.6%. The Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party and the Green Party in support of the European Union or the second referendum received 50.4% of the votes. One of the main reasons for the victory of the Conservatives is that no party can effectively raise the flag of staying in Europe and compete with the clear-cut Conservatives. Under the British single-seat, single-vote simple majority voting system, 43.6% of voters voted for the Conservative Party, which determined the final farewell between Britain and the European Union.
If nothing else, Johnson ’s Brexit deal will be passed by Congress before Christmas. The EU nations can only put aside their last hope for the return of Britain, and be prepared for the EU without Britain (such as how to share the EU budget in the post-British era) and how to rebuild the future with this seemingly near island country relationship.
Although the leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union still had differences on carbon emission targets and other issues during the EU summit held on Thursday for two days, their stance on Britain was consistent. Since Johnson has promised not to delay the Brexit transition period that ends at the end of 2020, if the UK wants to avoid another “no-deal Brexit”, it will need to complete the negotiation of the Anglo-European trade agreement within 11 months.
New European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has stated that time is pressing and that the EU can only prioritize issues such as commodity trade, fisheries regulation, and security cooperation that “have no existing framework and cannot be dealt with unilaterally and urgently”. At a first glance, Von Delaney did not include the financial services industry, which is vital to the UK.
After Brexit, the British financial services industry will lose its single-port license (Passporting); the British side has always asked the EU to enter into a special relationship for bilateral cross-border financial services, but it is not essential. According to the EU’s existing framework, the EU can confirm that the UK financial industry after the Brexit is eligible for “equivalent regulatory standards”. However, whether non-EU member states have such qualifications is entirely a “unilateral” decision of the EU and can be withdrawn at any time. It can be seen that the EU will hold on to a major economic lifeline of Britain at the trade negotiation table.
At the same time, French President Macron also clearly expressed the general opinion of leaders of various countries: “If Johnson wants an aggressive trade agreement, he also needs to have aggressive convergence regulation.” He added a little provocatively in English and said “Learn Be my guest “.
These statements clearly require that if the UK wants to maintain access to merchandise trade, its product regulations must follow EU standards. This is a far cry from Johnson ’s ideal of customizing the rules of the UK after Brexit and getting rid of the EU bureaucracy—a small story of his Brexit discourse, that is, when he was mayor of London, he found that the height of the van window height required by the EU was too high. As a result, it is difficult for drivers to see the cyclists on the roadside, while the British cannot unilaterally change the customization.
At present, the European Union has handed over the heavy responsibility of future negotiations to Michel Barnier, the chief representative of the EU side who has always dealt with Brexit negotiations. It is bound to set off a new round of “Brexit storm”.
Even if Johnson can finally survive this “Brexit storm” after Brexit, the United Kingdom, which fought alone in the vast sea, will face many challenges in the future.
New crisis in the post-Brexit era
First of all, Britain will inevitably be caught between the US and Europe’s increasingly divergent diplomatic and trade paths. Should the United Kingdom cooperate with the ban on Huawei’s 5G equipment or withdraw from the mechanism used by many European countries to bypass the US dollar system’s trade with Iran? Since the Brexit advocates the freedom of entering into trade agreements with other countries, and the United States is one of its primary goals, should the United Kingdom enter the United States merchandise trade system represented by the “US-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (USMCA) or retain the existing and Close relations in the European market? These are also the major external difficulties Johnson will face in the future.
Within the UK, the subsequent development of Brexit will lead the United Kingdom into a crisis of division. Scotland’s independence today has surpassed the level of the 2014 referendum. After Britain’s formal Brexit, Scotland supporting Europe has not been treated by Northern Ireland under EU regulations, and Johnson is likely to make concessions on the fisheries policy that Scotland attaches great importance to in order to streamline trade with Europe. “The United Kingdom is equal to leaving the European Union” is no longer a reason to oppose independence, and the call for Scottish independence will be even hotter.
On the other hand, post-Brexit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will not have rigid border inspections, and various tangible or intangible border inspections will be built between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This “one country, two systems” arrangement will only increasingly encourage the public opinion in Northern Ireland, which now supports “Irish Unity” (especially among young people).
To take a step back, the Conservatives’ election has won the support of many Labour Party blue-collar voters by “finding Brexit.” Although Johnson vowed not to disappoint them and return to the Labour Party, the Conservative Party has always had difficult ideological conflicts with this class of voters. For these voters, Britain after Brexit is a return of industries under protectionism, and the British work as British workers; however, for Conservative doubters in Europe, Britain after Brexit is “Singapore on the Thames”. It is a neo-liberal economy open to the world. How to mediate the gap between these two “Brexit dreams” will be another battle for the Conservatives in the post-Brexit era.
After the general election on December 12, Britain has undoubtedly entered the post-Brexit era led by the Conservative Party. Some people have begun to predict that the United Kingdom will not be able to talk about Anglo-European trade, become a weak diplomatic country, and face national division. Of course, every prediction has the possibility of being disproved as wrong. Johnson’s biggest challenge is whether he can become this person.
