"World" editorial. This time, Europe really lost the United Kingdom. More than three years after the pro-Brexit vote in the referendum, the resounding victory of the Boris Johnson Conservatives in the legislative elections on Thursday, December 12 sounds like an unequivocal response to the choice of the British to leave the European Union. The Prime Minister's emphasis triumphantly renewed, claiming " a huge, great and awesome mandate ” to implement its campaign slogan " Let's achieve Brexit ", is not moved. With 364 seats against 203 for Jeremy Corbyn's Labor, the Conservatives obtained their strongest majority in the House of Commons since Margaret Thatcher in 1987.
After months of delay and a disturbing deadlock in Westminster’s parliament, Johnson will soon be able to get MEPs to ratify the new deal he has negotiated with the 27 EU countries. In keeping with its promise, Brexit is expected to be complete by January 31, 2020. In less than five months on Downing Street, it has achieved more than its predecessor, Theresa May, in three years.
For British political life, Thursday's poll looks like a tornado: while the Tories, long divided over Europe, arise in favor of Brexit, Labor, which did not know how to choose between its pro members -Europeans and its pro-Brexit popular voters, suffered its worst result since 1935.
For the very left Jeremy Corbyn, the massive loss of working-class constituencies in the north of England, historically acquired by Labor, constitutes a crushing defeat which opens the question of his succession and announces a probable internal crisis. Unable to recognize that Brexit has become the main political cleavage and the lack of clear discourse on Europe, Labor knows its Berezina. Just like the liberal Democrats (LibDem), whose claim to cancel Brexit was seen as undemocratic.
The threat of explosion
The inability of pro-Europeans to constitute a united front appears all the more dramatic since in percentage of the votes pro-Brexit voters (47%) are less numerous than the total of those (53%) who voted for the one of the parties in favor of a second referendum. But the former voted overwhelmingly for the conservatives, while the latter were divided between Labor and LibDem, Scottish SNP and Greens. The relentless single-turn British electoral system has given a big bonus to the unity of the Brexiters around the Tories.
The political hurricane of Brexit is now threatening the country with an explosion: the triumph of the Scottish nationalists opens the way to a new referendum on independence, immediately claimed by the Scottish Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, but so far refused by Mr. Johnson. In Northern Ireland, the rout of the DUP unionists validates the strategy of the Prime Minister who had abandoned them, but it reinforces the partisans of the reunification of an island that Brexit will isolate from Great Britain. Prime Minister of Brexit, Boris Johnson risks also being that of a disunited kingdom.
The whole question now is what will he do with his victory? The answer first concerns the British, whose jobs and prosperity depend largely on relations with the EU. With a clear mandate, the British leader sees his position strengthened in the negotiations that will open with the 27. But, between free access to the European single market and social, fiscal and environmental differences, Mr. Johnson will have to choose. Warmly congratulated by Donald Trump, who dazzles him with a " huge juicier trade deal (…) that with the EU ", the Briton will also have to choose between the continent and the "offshore wind". It is up to Europeans to remain united in order to lead him to make "the right choice": to preserve the maximum of links with his neighbors rather than to carry out his threat of transforming the United Kingdom into a paradise of dumping at the gates of Europe.
