Brexit: Can Boris Johnson convince the British Parliament?

Brussels was just the beginning. A new showdown is awaiting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: after having torn laboriously from a Brexit agreement with the European Union on Thursday, the British Prime Minister must convince his deputies on Saturday, October 19, in a vote whose outcome remains uncertain .

In front of the press, "Bojo" said he was "confident" that this "very good agreement" was approved during the special session of the British Parliament on Saturday: "I am very hopeful that when MPs of all parties will examine, they will see the benefits of supporting it. "

"Now is the time to come together as a country" and to "honor" the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum, he added.

"Between 'very tight' and 'no'"

Yet the one who came to power in July on the promise of a Brexit at any cost on October 31 will have to fight for each vote. The government now has only 288 elected members, compared to an absolute majority of 320 votes in the House of Commons. The risk is therefore that MPs will for the fourth time reject a divorce agreement with the EU, after having three times reversed the compromise negotiated by its predecessor Theresa May, dissatisfied with the provisions on Northern Ireland.

"At the moment, parliamentary arithmetic is somewhere between 'very tight' and 'no'," says Constantine Fraser, a political analyst at research firm TS Lombard.

No Labor, DUP and Scottish Independents

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labor Party (Labor), the main opposition party with 244 deputies, called on his troops to "reject" the text.

This is "no" also for the North Irish unionist party DUP, a key ally of the Westminster government: there is no question of endorsing a text treating Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom and thus allowing the specter of a reunification of Ireland, his nightmare.

The DUP has only 10 deputies in the House of Commons, but its support is indispensable in the absence of a majority. Above all, its green light would have convinced the few dozen "Brexiters" the hardest of the Conservative Party, whose position remains unknown.

The "The Democratic Unionist Party will be unable to support these proposals in Parliament." Pic.twitter.com/zcisdSLkPy

"It is theoretically possible to have an agreement approved without DUP, but it is extremely unlikely," said Dom Walsh, an analyst at the Open Europe think tank.

Boris Johnson spared no effort to convince the North Irish unionists, including promising an economic "New Deal" for the British province.

According to Constantine Fraser, this announcement of agreement could be a way for him to put them before the "fait accompli", even to throw in the towel to concentrate on the next shot, the general elections anticipated, seen as essential for get out of the political crisis.

Hostiles in Brexit, the Scottish separatists of the SNP (35 deputies) and the liberal-democrats (19) also opposed a plea of ​​inadmissibility.

Deserters, key to voting?

Paradoxically, Boris Johnson could count on the support of 21 rebel deputies whom he ruthlessly excluded Tory ranks in September for voting with the opposition to avoid a "no deal" with disastrous economic consequences.

"Voting an agreement could allow them to come back," says Tim Bale, deputy director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank.

Labor MPs could also challenge their leader's vote order, eager to see the UK finally leave the fold of Europe. "But do they want to make a Christmas present to Boris Johnson?" Asked Tim Bale, while the polls give the winning leader in the event of an election.

According to Downing Steet, Boris Johnson has been trying all day long over the phone to rally the recalcitrant elected officials. He will be working on it again on Friday and is expected to offer the pro-Brexit Labor environment and post-exit social protection guarantees to the EU.

In case of failure, the leader is forced by law to request a three-month postponement of Brexit to avoid a "no deal", which he again excluded Thursday.

Many experts now believe that this is the most likely scenario and the opposition would like to take advantage of a deadline to submit the agreement to referendum.

Keir Starmer, head of Brexit in Labor, believes that a postponement is inevitable in any case, if only to pass the necessary legislation for the implementation of Brexit if the agreement is approved.

With AFP