Britain’s prime minister Theresa May sprang a major surprise on Tuesday by calling a snap general election intended to remove parliamentary obstruction to her plans for implementing Brexit.
“The country is coming together but Westminster [the seat of the UK parliament] is not,” Mrs May declared outside her official residence, 10 Downing Street, referring to opposition attempts to frustrate her strategy for UK withdrawal from the European Union.
Any lingering doubt over Brexit, the process for which was formally triggered last month, would be removed by a victory for her Conservative party on June 8, the date chosen by the government as polling day.
It would also take advantage of disarray among the opposition by extending her own mandate to 2022.
Claiming the UK economy had triumphed over the gloomy prediction of “Remainers”, with upbeat news on consumer confidence, employment and growth, she said: “Britain is leaving the European Union and there can be no turning back.”
Last June’s referendum vote, the election of Donald Trump as US president and developments in some of Britain’s neighbouring European countries have shown western public opinion to be volatile, weakening the mainstream parties that have traditionally governed.
But Mrs May’s Conservatives are currently ahead of Labour, the main opposition party, by such a substantial margin — 18 per cent on recent polling — that they start the campaign as clear favourites to win comfortably.
Given the prime minister’s need to strengthen links with non-EU nations and minimise any impact of Brexit on trading with Europe, victory for her would ensure determined efforts to build on close relations with the Arabian Gulf.
Alistair Burt, a former Middle East minister who chairs the UAE All Party Parliamentary Group in the UK, wrote in The National this week that with more than 120,000 British nationals living in "and making a fantastic contribution to the success of the UAE, as well as a million tourists visiting the country last year", there were obvious reasons why the bond deserved to be fostered.
Mr Burt, like Mrs May, campaigned for Remain but accepts the referendum result as a binding expression of popular will.
The prime minister on Tuesday reaffirmed the need for such ties with “old friends” to be developed.
“We want a deep and special partnership between a strong and successful European Union and a UK that is free to chart its own way in the world,” she said. “That means we will regain control of our own money, our own laws and our own borders and be free to strike trade deals with old friends and new partners all around the world.”
On obstacles to a smooth divorce from the EU, she cited Labour threats to vote against the final agreement reached with the EU and the minority Liberal Democrats’ pledge “to grind the business of government to a standstill”.
“The Scottish National Party (SNP) say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain’s membership,” she said. “And unelected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way.”
With the Conservatives currently governing with a slim working majority of 17 seats at most, Mrs May is also open to challenge from dissident members of her own party.
“Our opponents believe because the government’s majority is so small, that our resolve will weaken and that they can force us to change course,” she said. “They are wrong. They underestimate our determination to get the job done and I am not prepared to let them endanger the security of millions of working people.”
Without an election, she said, political “game-playing” would continue, putting the toughest phase of withdrawal negotiations on collision course with the next scheduled election in 2020.
“Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and cause damaging uncertainty and instability,” she said, accepting that bringing the date forward represented a change in her own view.
Mrs May said the choice facing Britain was between her own “strong leadership” and a “weak and unstable” government led by Labour’s embattled leader Jeremy Corbyn in coalition with two parties bitterly opposed to Brexit, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalist Party.
Last June’s decision to leave the EU was carried by 51.9 per cent to 48.1, a margin of under 1.3 million voters. A sizeable proportion of those who wanted Britain to remain a member state continue to make their feelings known.
But Mr Corbyn has proved an unpopular Labour leader and was blamed by some Remain factions for being timid in opposing Brexit during the referendum campaign.
He welcomed Mrs May’s announcement, effectively ensuring that the necessary parliamentary majority for an interim election would be secured on Wednesday.
But one prominent pro-Labour political commentator, Kevin Maguire, said there was no chance of Mr Corbyn turning the snap election into a re-run of the referendum.
He also tweeted the view of one Labour source: “The silver lining is we’ll be shot of Corbyn earlier.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
