The Economist Magazine the World in 2020 by The Economist

Author:The Economist [Economist, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B081Y4HFZS
Publisher: The Economist
Published: 2019-12-14T23:00:00+00:00

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Runners and riders

John Peet Brexit editor, The Economist

Eleven faces to watch in the December election

2020 in brief

The BBC goes voice-to-voice with Alexa and Siri with the launch of “Beeb”, a voice assistant for its apps and website that has been trained to understand a range of British regional accents

WITHOUT A CLEAR majority since becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson has long sought an election. He has now got one, on December 12th 2019. He is confident of victory. But Britain’s politics are exceptionally fragmented.

The main protagonists in this drama are Mr Johnson and Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Johnson has a big poll lead, whereas Mr Corbyn has the lowest approval rating ever recorded for an opposition leader. Yet memories are fresh that Theresa May, Mr Johnson’s predecessor, had an even bigger poll lead before the election in May 2017—and ended up with a hung parliament.

Smaller parties will matter. Jo Swinson, the fresh-faced leader of the Liberal Democrats, has seen her ranks swell to 20 MPs, thanks to defections. She is pitching hard to Remainers by promising to cancel Brexit and expects to win more seats in London and the south-west. If the Lib Dems were to hold the balance of power they could make their support conditional on a fresh referendum on Brexit. Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Nationalist Party also hopes for gains. The Tories have lost their charismatic Scottish leader, Ruth Davidson, and will bleed support in this strongly pro-Remain country, while Labour still trails north of the border. The SNP’s image may suffer because of the forthcoming sexual-assault trial of Ms Sturgeon’s predecessor, Alex Salmond, but the party has been buoyed by a rebound in support for Scottish independence, and is pushing for a new referendum on the issue in 2020.

Because his yet-to-be-approved Brexit deal puts customs controls in the Irish Sea, Mr Johnson has lost the support of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party. Yet Arlene Foster, the DUP’s leader, expects to hold on to most of her MPs and remain as the biggest Northern Irish party. Sinn Fein, which does not take up its Westminster seats, will keep most of the nationalist vote, but the smaller non-partisan Alliance Party is also hoping to elect its first MP.

The most interesting runners could be dissenters in the two main parties. Two ex-Tories to watch are Philip Hammond, a former chancellor known as “spreadsheet Phil”, who is now the biggest critic of a no-deal Brexit, a risk that may re-emerge at the end of the transition period in 2020; and Dominic Grieve, a cerebral former attorney-general who has fought doggedly to give MPs a say throughout the Brexit process.

Several Labour figures are on manoeuvres. Mr Corbyn is 70, tired and unlikely to stay if he loses another election. John McDonnell, his clever shadow chancellor, is said to favour a woman as Mr Corbyn’s successor, probably Angela Rayner. A dark horse to

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