Boris Johnson is poised to trigger a General Election within DAYS if his No Deal plan is blocked
BORIS Johnson is poised to trigger a General Election within days if his Brexit plan is scuppered by Remainers this week.
He put his troops on alert as he gears up for a six-day scrap with MPs and peers that will decide Britain’s future — and his own.
The PM plans a snap poll if a “rabble alliance” of wreckers finds a way to block him from leaving the EU by October 31.
In the past few days ministers have been ordered to submit vote-winning policy ideas for a future Tory manifesto and the party’s election planning machine is in overdrive.
Tory MPs and officials are braced for an early campaign if Parliament knocks him off course this week.
If they fail, and he delivers a Halloween Brexit, Boris will look for a pre-Christmas election – with December 5 earmarked as a possible date.
One senior aide said: “It’s clear an election is looming on the horizon. The only question is when.
“We’ll probably have a better idea after the events of the next few days have played out.”
Mr Johnson has been buoyed by polls which puts him seven points ahead of Labour.
That is enough to secure a 28-seat majority in a general election — giving him enough clout to drive Britain through the EU departure gate.
It’s clear an election is looming on the horizon. The only question is when.
Senior aide
First he must battle through the coming week, as MPs return from their summer break on Tuesday.
Labour will team up with Lib Dems and up to 17 Tory rebels, including ex-Cabinet big guns Philip Hammond and David Gauke, to take control of Parliament.
They plan to then pass a law banning the PM from leaving the EU without a deal – weakening his bargaining position with Brussels and forcing him to ask for another extension.
Time is not on their side since Mr Johnson asked the Queen to suspend Parliament from next week.
WRECKING TACTICS
But pro-Remain Speaker John Bercow will do all he can to rush a new law through the Commons. Brexit-backing Tory peers will then do their best to delay it in the Lords.
One said: “We’ll be deploying every trick in the book to run down the clock and stop this Bill reaching the statute book.”
Another said: “We’ve been told to expect sittings to continue into the small hours, or through the night — and possibly into the weekend, too.”
Remainer peers have spent the week combing the procedure books to find ways to outflank the Brexiteers.
If the wrecking tactics fail, Parliament will be suspended next Monday until October 14, three weeks before Brexit Day.
But there are signs Mr Johnson’s hardline is working and the EU’s nerve is starting to crack — with suggestions that France’s President Macron is now ready to scrap the October 31 deadline.
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Former Brexit Secretary David Davis said: “I think it would indicate that yet again, as we thought they would, they are blinking.
“From the beginning, I’ve said it won’t be the three years that matter but the last three weeks. It will be in that period that they begin to make concessions.
“It is a sign that they are far more afraid of a No Deal than we are. They are desperate to avoid it.”
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