BORIS Johnson’s chief of staff has cancelled all leave for government advisers, fuelling speculation that Tory leader is on the cusp of calling a General Election.
In an email on Thursday night, special advisers were told by the Prime Minister’s senior adviser Edward Lister that nobody should be taking a holiday until the Halloween Brexit deadline.
“There is serious work to be done between now and October 31st and we should be focused on the job,” the email said.
Westminster insiders believe an election could take place at very the start of November.
Labour have said they will call a vote of no confidence in Johnson’s government when MPs return from their summer recess in September.
With opposition MP and a handful of Tory rebels likely to back the motion, there is every chance it would be successful.
If it is then under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, the Commons has two weeks to try to come up with a solution.
MPs could either change their mind and back Johnson or they could try and agree on an alternative government. Currently, both of those seem unlikely.
Shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said Labour will attempt to form a government but he has ruled out any support for a so-called government national unity.
He said any MP wishing to stop no deal should give their backing to Jeremy Corbyn.
Yesterday morning, LibDem Chuka Umunna, the former Labour MP, claimed a “substantial minority” of his former colleagues would not support Corbyn as Prime Minister.
“The problem there with the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn taking up the role of leading an emergency government is he cannot command a majority among his own MPs, never mind others like Conservative rebels who would refuse to give him confidence,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I know, because I have spoken to them. There is a substantial minority of Labour MPs at the very least who simply would not countenance Jeremy Corbyn being the prime minister of this country. So the question is, is there a figure who, as an alternative, could command a majority?”
McDonnell tweeted that the LibDems would rather have a No-Deal Brexit than back Labour.
“Umunna [is] making it clear that he’s putting his personal animosity towards Jeremy Corbyn and Labour before the interests of the country,” he tweeted. “The LibDems are clearly willing to watch the economy crash before they will put their party interests to one side.”
If MPs cannot agree a solution then there will be a General Election.
However, the Fixed Term Parliaments Act says the timing of the vote is to be determined by the Queen “on the recommendation of the prime minister”.
Johnson’s right-hand man, Dominic Cummings has reportedly said that the Tories would tell the monarch to hold the election after October 31, thus preventing MPs from stopping a No-Deal Brexit.
On Thursday, Corbyn wrote to Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, describing this as an “unprecedented, unconstitutional and anti-democratic abuse of power”.
In his letter, the Labour leader asked Sedwill to block a No-Deal Brexit and said that if the UK is due to leave the EU without a deal during an election campaign, then the government must seek an extension to Article 50.
Meanwhile, the pollster Sir John Curtice, interviewed at an Edinburgh Festival Fringe event by the broadcaster Iain Dale said it’s now “too late for us to leave the European Union on October 31 with any kind of deal”.
He added: “There isn’t time. Even if the government were wanting to put Theresa May’s deal through, we’ve run out of time.”
An SNP spokesperson said: “Rather than putting the interests of the Conservative Party before the country and scheming on ways to bypass Parliament, Boris Johnson must heed the economic evidence and stop the Brexit madness”.
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