Ross Clark Ross Clark

Remainers may regret not backing an October general election

So there goes the reputation of Boris Johnson’s henchmen as cunning operators. It has been a bad week for Dominic Cummings and others in the Downing Street bunker who were widely assumed to have gamed every possibility and to have some genius strategy for delivering Brexit by 31 October, in spite of the assembled forces of Remain who are determined to stop them. Clearly, not everything has gone to plan. The Remainers have enjoyed their Battle of Marston Moor. It is Parliamentarians 1, Cavaliers 0. On Monday, a bill seeking to prevent a no-deal Brexit on 31 October will become law – and Boris has been denied his fallback: a general election.

But not so fast. I think Remainers may just have made a huge slip-up of their own – and may come bitterly to regret their decision not to back an October election. If they do fail to prevent a no-deal Brexit it will be because they lost concentration and allowed Corbyn’s personal political interests to take precedence over what ought to be their central cause of stopping Brexit.

As Emily Thornberry confirmed on the Today programme this morning, Labour will not vote for an October general election even when the bill to try to prevent a no-deal Brexit becomes law on Monday. This somewhat undermines the reason Jeremy Corbyn gave on Wednesday for rejecting the Prime Minister’s call for an election – that he wanted to be absolutely sure that Boris Johnson couldn’t sneakily change the date of the election and so allow Britain to slump out of the EU while Parliament was dissolved for the election period. Given that Parliament should be prorogued after Monday’s business, it is difficult to see how we can now have an October election.

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