Valdai Club

Early parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom brought a landslide victory to the Conservatives, led by Boris Johnson, who won 365 seats in the House of Commons. With no need for a coalition partner, the new Tory government will be able to pass the bills it needs.

The success of the Conservatives was ensured by a combination of several factors. First, the Tories offered a clear programme that all voters might not like, but it suggested ending with a period of uncertainty. Second, properly, the Labour Party lost the election. Led by leftist Jeremy Corbyn, Labour went to the polls with a number of proposals that failed to resonate, even with some of the party’s traditional voters. As for Brexit, the Labour Party proposed to continue negotiations and reach a new agreement, and then hold another referendum. The second important message of their programme was the proposal for large-scale nationalisation, which is poorly correlated with current trends. Thus, Corbyn proposed to extend the time of uncertainty in relations with the EU, and in parallel to carry out serious "leftist" reforms. Under such a Labour programme, the voters preferred to vote for other parties. Third, the Brexit party, which was very popular with a part of the population, worked for the Conservatives, it did not nominate its candidates where there were Tory candidates, so as not to create competition among supporters of Britain's exit from the EU.

The Liberal Democrats lost only one seat in the Parliament, and this would not be very important if this place did not belong to their leader Jo Swinson, who lost in her constituency. In this case, one can speak not so much about a decline in popularity of the party, which, in general, remains stable, although not very high, but about the low rating of its young leader.

The second election winner was the Scottish National Party (SNP), which, in addition to Swinson’s seat, took votes from Conservatives and Labour in Scotland and won 48 seats in the House of Commons. Such success gave reason to the leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, to talk about the need for a second referendum on the independence of Scotland. However, Boris Johnson has already stated that he sees this as unnecessary idea, because during the 2014 referendum, residents of Scotland expressed their will. It is obvious that the Conservative government is not interested in holding a new vote in the region and is unlikely to give permission for it. Therefore, Scotland most likely will leave the EU as part of the United Kingdom.

The most obvious consequence of the elections will be the intensification of the UK’s exit from the EU. Boris Johnson intends to submit an agreement on leaving the EU to the renewed House of Commons before the start of the Christmas holidays. Thus, there is reason to believe that the country will leave the European Union before the January 31 deadline. At the same time that the British elections took place, a meeting of the European Council was held in Brussels, and the EU leaders recognised that the results of elections in the United Kingdom would lead to a final divorce of the parties.

The victory of the Conservatives led by Boris Johnson brought clarity to the Brexit process: now it will finally happen. In such a situation, the discussion comes to the fore of the formats of future relations in various fields. The transition period, which it has been determined will last until the end of 2020, presupposes the preservation of existing norms, rules and obligations, but without the participation of the UK in the work of EU institutions. During this time, the Conservatives expect to conclude a series of agreements with the EU, primarily with respect to free trade. To work out such an agreement, the time until the end of 2020 may not be sufficient. As practice shows, this process takes more than one year. But, in the case of the United Kingdom, the EU can intensify negotiations, since the absence of an agreement by the end of the transition period is equivalent to a “no deal” Brexit, which the EU is not interested in.