Brexit: strategies and tactics in the battle for Britain

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/05/brexit-strategies-and-tactics-in-the-battle-for-britain

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The euphoria over Boris Johnson’s defeat on no deal is premature (Cornered Johnson suffers triple Commons defeat, 5 September). He has merely lost a trick, not the game. There will be an election, and Johnson’s strategy is still intact: to monopolise the leave vote, and trust the remain vote will be split.

Anti-no-deal won on Tuesday night only because the opposition was united. If it can carry that unity into an election, it will win again. This means electoral pacts. Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens are very close on Brexit: all want a new referendum. Comparing their 2017 manifestos shows that on other issues of great importance – the NHS, crime, the economy, immigration and defence – they are not far apart.

A procedure for allocating seats between parties can and should be a mechanical matter. Party tribalism has been overcome to block no deal. It must not be a stumbling block in a general election.Willy McCourtLondon

• Once Hilary Benn’s bill receives royal assent, will Boris Johnson try to get a general election on 15 October in the hope that on 17 October he can go to the European summit with a majority in the House of Commons? Is this logistically possible?

Voting would end at 10pm on the 15th. Counting would not start at the earliest in some constituencies until the early hours of the 16th. With recounts and other delays, we may not know which party has the most seats and who may be able to form a government for some days. In 2005 one constituency did not declare the result until 36 hours after the polls closed. In 2010 it took three to four days to form a government.

Should no party get an overall majority, who as prime minister would attend the summit and what authority would they have to take part in the proceedings? Brian SelbyLeeds

• The last two days have shown how our politicians just do not have a way of coming to a clear outcome on our relationship with Europe. So it needs to go back to the people.

But via a general election or a referendum? An election, with so much internal disagreement within the two main parties, is likely to result in a hung parliament and so will not resolve the matter.

So it needs to be a referendum. Of course, referendums are not good ways of making decisions on complex issues. But this is the mess that our inadequate system of governance has brought us to.

Our current way of doing politics isn’t working. It generates confusion and acrimony. We need a radical sort-out of our democratic system. Vicky SeddonSheffield

• Jeremy Corbyn says he will back a 15 October election (Corbyn urged to resist snap poll and ‘let Tories stew’, 5 September). But gifting Boris Johnson a general election at a time when he is doing well in the polls (though God knows why) should not be a priority of the opposition.

Wouldn’t a more sensible strategy be to force a vote of no confidence and, assuming Johnson loses, go to the Queen with a proposal for a government of national unity, the main point of which would be to set up a new referendum to see where the country sits in the light of all we now know. They might also usefully start an investigation into the various illegalities of the previous referendum. Only when that’s been done should we consider granting Boris his general election. Prof Paul BootonLondon

• The pressure is now on Johnson. If the no-deal bill gets royal assent and with an election now on the horizon because he cannot function as a minority government, he knows the Brexit party will wipe him out if he has not left the EU by 31 October. So he now absolutely has to get a deal to stay in power. I’m surprised the expert commentators are not making this point.Richard Bryant-JefferiesEpsom, Surrey

• Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act it seems that if the prime minister wishes to call a general election his only option might be to propose a no-confidence vote in his own government – in the Alice in Wonderland political world in which he operates it seems to be the logical conclusion of the position that he has now got us to.Nick RobertsBirmingham

• Opposition parties should not allow Boris Johnson to hustle them into a snap general election. The 21 Conservatives who had the whip withdrawn for voting against him on Tuesday night have the ability to form an alternative government. If all opposition members supported them, they could manage a deal with the EU before 31 October.John PellingCoddenham, Suffolk

• You report (5 September) that more than 100,000 people registered to vote within 48 hours.

This early surge is the just the tip of the iceberg of applications that electoral officials will receive once an election is called. On the deadline day before the 2017 general election alone 612,543 applied.

Troublingly for British democracy, the last-minute nature of electoral registration will put huge pressures on local authorities. Many are cash-strapped, wading through thousands of duplicate registrations, working to Victorian practices.

Citizens, meanwhile, have no way to check whether they are already registered and millions are missing from the roll. Last month’s Missing Millions Still Missing report sets out a vision for reforming electoral registration that should be taken forward by the next government so that we have a robust system.Professor Toby JamesUniversity of East Anglia

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