With a day to go before Britons head to the polls to vote in their third general election in under four years, the question the ruling Conservatives are asking themselves is, will Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s gamble to hold an early ballot pay off?
Will he be able to accomplish what his Downing Street predecessor, Theresa May, failed to do in 2017 with her snap election and secure a large parliamentary majority?
Johnson hopes to achieve what she failed to do — to persuade traditional working-class voters who favor Brexit in the north of England to ditch their lifetime habit of voting Labor. If successful, it would amount to a seismic reshaping of British politics.
Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives may pull off a big win Thursday and secure a sufficient majority for Johnson to end the long-running Brexit mess by taking Britain out of the European Union by the end of January. In the final days of the campaign, Johnson has focused on Labor’s so-called "red wall," searching for cracks to widen in old towns and farming villages crucial to the Conservatives’ hopes of winning Thursday’s election, warning voters that they face a “great Brexit betrayal,” if they vote for an increasingly metropolitan and southern Labor Party.
Most polls have been giving the Conservatives, also known as Tories, a 10-percent lead over Labor, the country’s main opposition party. But the race appears to have tightened in the final stretch. One poll midweek had the lead cut to 8 percent and a further drop would point to a likely hung parliament. Few pollsters are ready to hazard a firm prediction of a Johnson win. In 2017, the opinion polls were upended by a late surge toward Labor and a high turnout by pro-EU youngsters. Labor has a strong record in getting out their vote.
Brexit has turned Britain into a politically tumultuous country — old party allegiances have weakened and a wide generation gap has been exposed, with younger voters shifting left and older voters shifting right. New political groups have emerged; the centrist pro-EU Liberal Democrats have enjoyed a revival thanks to lawmakers defecting to them from Labor and the Tories. Both main parties have lurched toward their extremes, putting off their moderate supporters.
All of that spells the possibility of some big surprises on election night. Twelve percent to 17 percent of Britons apparently are still undecided voters.
The conduct of this election, what has been dubbed Britain’s first post-truth election, has been anything but normal and that could come back to hurt the parties when voters are casting their ballots.
The campaigning has become more toxic as it unfolds. “Fake news” stories have been planted with abandon, and online disinformation and manipulation are being used to rally support by fomenting outrage and anger. Social media have become more influential in the national discourse than the newspapers or the broadcasters. The politicians have been lost in a world of spin, say election critics, playing fast and loose with the facts, determinedly evading serious examination of their policies and plans.
“This election has been marinated in mendacity: big lies and small lies, quarter truths and pseudo facts; distraction, dissembling and disinformation; and digital skulduggery on an industrial scale,” the country’s storied Economist magazine said this week.
The biggest lie by the Tories, say commentators, has been that Brexit can be delivered painlessly and without much disruption. “Get Brexit done” has been Johnson’s mantra throughout. And the Conservatives have stayed relentlessly on message, warning that a vote for anyone but them will condemn Britain to further “dither and delay” in a likely deadlocked hung parliament with a Labor-led coalition government.
“On Thursday, the country has the chance to end the delay, get Brexit done and move on to sorting out all the other things that matter to you,” Johnson has said.
But Brexit will take longer than just a month to sort out and there will be a high economic price to pay in terms of the national debt and deficit, and major disruption for businesses, according to analysts and the Bank of England. The January Brexit deadline Johnson wants to observe is just the start of a long process of negotiations to settle on a future arrangement with Britain’s largest trading partner, the EU. Most observers argue this second stage of negotiations will be tricky and could take years.
If Johnson wins, "Skies will begin to darken as flocks of Mr. Johnson’s chickens will come home to roost,” says Matthew Parris, a former Conservative lawmaker, and now a columnist at newspaper.
