UK opposition parties agree to oppose PM's bid for early election


Devdiscourse News Desk | London | Updated: 06-09-2019 17:24 IST | Created: 06-09-2019 16:53 IST
UK opposition parties agree to oppose PM's bid for early election
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The United Kingdom opposition parties have agreed to oppose Prime Minister Boris Johnson's bid to call for an early election in a vote in parliament on Monday, according to media reports.

The government has put forward a motion calling for an early election, which would require the backing of two-thirds of the lower house of parliament's 650 lawmakers. A vote on the same motion on Wednesday failed to win enough support.

British lawmakers are due on Monday to hold another vote on a motion on whether to hold an early election, probably in mid-October, just over two weeks before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on October 31. But opposition parties, including the Labour Party, said they would either vote against or abstain until a law aiming to block a no-deal Brexit is implemented.

A Labour Party source said it would not back Johnson's bid on Monday for an election under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. "We will have that election when the time is right but I will make you this promise, we are not going to have a long wait," Ian Blackford told BBC television, adding that his opposition Scottish National Party (SNP) party would oppose Johnson's bid on Monday.

Johnson has said he would rather die in a ditch than delay Brexit and has cast the opposition parties' bill aiming to stop a no-deal Brexit as a surrender to the EU that he would never go along with. "I will go to Brussels, I'll get a deal and we'll make sure we come out on October 31, that's what we've got to do," Johnson said.

When asked if he would resign if he could not deliver that, he said: "That is not a hypothesis I'm willing to contemplate."

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