Why the rush for a general election before 31st October would be irresponsible

Statesmen do the right thing for the country. It is very hard to judge any decision at the time, but when the history books are written, things that at the time seemed massively important and things that seemed trivial, turn out to be absolutely key. In 25 years time, whether the UK leaves the UK on 31st of October of the 25th December will seem totally trivial. What will seem hugely important is the shape of the ultimate settlement with Europe.

The Conservative party, already leading a minority administration chose a leader who is hell bent on leaving the EU in the shortest possible timescale. Today he tables another attempt to call a general election on the 15th of October. This is highly irresponsible. No one can possibly know the outcome of such an election. Whatever you may think of Jeremy Corbyn he is quite right to resist this. My only disagreement with his strategy, and if he is chicken, it is for this not for his refusal, is that he should state that given the risks of another hung parliament, it may not actually be possible to put a working administration together before the exit deadline.

Boris is being disingenuous and dishonest. If the EU grant us and extension until January 2020 and he really has his heart set on a no deal Brexit, he cculd announce that he's going to the country on November the first, with an extension and if he wins an outright majority, he will pull us out on November the 2nd, unilaterally. If he wins a majority, he'd have the mandate. If he really has the courage of his convictions, then that surely would be his course of action. He could do a deal with Nigel Farage, who would have no choice but to support Boris and then we'd all know exactly where we stood.

My view is that there will be no majority for Corbyn or Boris after the next election. I think it is unlikely that the Labour party will lose or gain many seats. If Corbyn won there in 2017, he will win again. I do however think that the SNP will gain seats from the Tories and that the Lib Dems will do the same. I also fully expect a non aggression pact between the Greens and the Lib Dems to give the greens a larger presence.

This means that whatever the shape of the new Parliament, it will take weeks, if not months to work out a deal to govern the country. The SNP are likely to demand a high price for a coalition or supply deal. Will the Lib Dems enter a full blown coalition, in light of what happened to them last time or will they simply have an informal deal? What about the Greens? Just suppose they have the balance of power, what demands will they make?

What about if Parliament looks like it did after the last election. What if Boris recruits a whole bunch of true believers to replace the likes of Ken Clarke and Nick Soames, but they still need the DUP to pass votes, and then only just? Will the few remaining remainers left scupper him? The issue is that if all of these shenanigans go on as we are crashing out on a no deal basis, we will have a weak govenrment, with a monumental task. Boris wants a no deal so he can do a free trade deal with Trump. This prospect disappears when Jeremy Corbyn gets the keys to No 10.

Boris claims that he has been undermined in his negotiations with the EU by Parliament. Nothing would undermine a Corbyn government more than a Rainbow coalition. Boris wants short election campaign because he wants minimal scrutiny of his policies and plans. He has been challenged numerous times to disclose what he's actually tried to negotiate with the EU. He simply says that if he tells anyone what he wants, he will be undermined.  I've negotiated hundreds of deals. Telling the other side what you want is the first stage. The tactics are quite simple. You ask for the world, and ask for it at the least cost. Then you go through the detail and agree on a mutually beneficial compromise. Quite often, I've been surprised that the other side actually agree to what I thought were impossible demands. They have seen the logic in our proposal to an extent that surprised me. But this comes about because we have a clear proposal and we talk through the detail. 

Boris is not stupid, despite what seems to be happening. I believe he has made a massive miscalculation. He has backed himself into a corner and left no wriggle room. Having done this, he has sought to blame everybody else. As I mentioned, I have a customer who is a member of team Boris. I saw him briefly at the weekend. Whereas normally they are  happy to chat, they simply said "I really can't talk about what's going on" and we discussed football.  I do understand that and given the state of what is happening, I draw no conclusions. What I did notice is that the previously chipper demeanour has substantially diminished.

If you read history books, the one thing that is clear is that when things collapse, they collapse very quickly.  Parliamentary democracy has served Great Britain well for a very long time. What disturbs me more than anything are those calling for it to end. I really do not understand what those who want an unelected Prime Minister with no majority want. If they want to see the end of Parliament and some other sort of system of government, they should say so. All of this "Parlaiment is defying the will of the people" talk is not only dangerous, but it is dishonest. MP's were elected in 2017. You may not like their actions, but they are doing what our constitution requires. If you think that a man elected only by the members of the Conservative party, has more legitimacy, I suggest that you do not really understand what democracy means.

What we need is for someone to produce a blueprint to fix not only the Brexit mess, but the broken state of our politics. Sadly, neither Boris or Jezza seem to me to have the answers to any of this. The one thing that is clear is that we don't want to be leaving the EU without a stable government in place.