Elected massively on his promise to achieve Brexit on January 31, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson launched Friday, December 13, a vibrant call for assembly, in a United Kingdom bruised by its divisions on the exit from the European Union.
"I call on everyone to turn the page and start healing the wounds" after more than three years of heartbreak since the 2016 referendum that decided Brexit, said Boris Johnson in a short address to 10 Downing Street.
He reached out to Europhiles and those who did not vote for him, insisting that he would now focus on priorities like health, security, education and infrastructure.
The Conservatives won a majority on a scale never seen since Margaret Thatcher in 1987, winning 365 seats (+48) out of the 650 in the House of Commons according to the final results, thanks to the capture of workers' ridings acquired for decades to Labor but in favor of "Leave". Turnout rose to 67.23%, down slightly from the 2017 election.
According to Boris Johnson, his victory results from the "irrefutable, irresistible and incontestable decision" of the British, tired of several years of psychodrama, to turn the page of the EU after 47 years of a stormy marriage.
The Conservative leader was received at Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II, who officially charged him with forming a new government.
"Brexit changed my mind"
Main opposition party, the Labor Party collapsed to 203 seats (against 262 previously), its worst score since 1935, placing on its ejection seat its very left leader Jeremy Corbyn, humiliated.
"I voted Labor all my life. It was Brexit that made me change my mind because I'm really fed up," Colin Spottswood, a 65-year-old merchant in Blyth, told AFP. a Labor stronghold for almost 70 years, fallen to the hands of the conservatives.
In the immediate future, Brexit will not change anything during the transition period until the end of 2020 provided for by the divorce agreement concluded by Boris Johnson with Brussels in order to avoid a brutal, chaotic rupture for the economy.
But a new perilous phase is announced for the months, even years to come: that of the complex negotiations on the future relationship with the European bloc, the main trading partner of the British. They are expected to be completed before the end of 2020 - a calendar deemed "very ambitious" by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
Faithful support, US President Donald Trump wanted to be enticing by promising on Twitter "a huge new trade agreement (...) potentially much bigger and more lucrative than any agreement that could be concluded with the European Union ".
Scottish independence?
Boris Johnson's call for unity did not find an echo among the Scottish nationalists of the SNP, whose strengthening, to 48 seats against 35, fueled the desire for independence.
The success "strengthens the mandate" for a new referendum on the future of Scotland, opposed to Brexit, after the one lost in 2014, said Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
In Northern Ireland, the unionists of the DUP, including their group leader in Westminster, Nigel Dodds, eliminated, give ground against the nationalists favorable to a reunification of the island of Ireland, also posing the question of a breakup of the Kingdom.
Boris Johnson will decline his legislative program during the traditional Queen's speech Thursday, after the start of the new parliamentary term. Before Christmas, he intends to present to the deputies the divorce agreement negotiated with Brussels, which has so far been postponed for lack of a majority, for adoption before January 31.
With AFP
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