Downing Street denies plot to trick MPs over election date
Downing Street has denied there is a plot afoot to trick MPs into voting for a pre-Brexit General Election, only to later postpone it until after Halloween.
A government source today said it was “tin foil hat stuff” to suggest that Boris Johnson would shift the date of the election, which is likely to be called later this week.
“[Opponents are] pushing a different agenda, which is not wanting to have an election because they’re worried about the consequences,” he added.
Last night a senior government source confirmed that the Prime Minister would call an election for 14 October if he is defeated by backbench rebels this week.
Speaking just minutes after Boris Johnson told the nation: “I don’t want an election; you don’t want an election”, the source told journalists that if MPs seize control of the order paper the PM would treat this as an effective vote of confidence.
That would enable him to call a General Election under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.
While Labour and other opposition parties including the SNP welcomed a chance to go to the polls, MPs were clear they had no trust in the Prime Minister, who blindsided everyone last week when his team flew in secret to Balmoral in order to request that the Queen prorogue parliament.
One Labour source told City AM: “We have no trust in the PM, and worry that he will seek to use a General Election to force a no-deal Brexit through.”
“Of course I’m up for an election,” shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told the BBC. “But we don’t want an election which is just a ruse so Boris Johnson can do a disastrous no-deal Brexit”
This morning, Downing Street insisted that would not be the case.
The official spokesman said there was “no discretion to change the date… In short, the idea is simply wrong”.
He pointed to rules around purdah, and stressed governments always abide by those rules.
There was, from the Prime Minister, a “firm commitment” that any election would have to be concluded before the European Council on 17 October.
He went on to describe the Benn-Burt bill, aimed at stopping a no-deal Brexit by potentially extending Article 50 a further three months, as a “blueprint for legislative purgatory”, saying it was “very clearly in Brussels’ interests not in the British interest”.
The spokesman said: “We are opposed to the bill which is being brought forward because it is about crippling negotiations and chopping the legs out from under the UK position, and making any further negotiation impossible.”