-On June 23, 2016, Britain voted
to leave the European Union.
Voters sided immigration
and sovereignty
as their top reasons
for leaving,
but more than
three years later,
the United Kingdom
is still part of the EU.
The original departure date
was set for March 29, 2019,
but after a series of events,
that deadline was extended
to October 31, 2019.
And then came another extension.
-Order!
People are just sticking --
-Now the deadline for Britain
to leave Europe
is January 31, 2020.
But before that can happen,
the UK will hold an election
on December 12th.
And the outcome of that election
will not only shape
how Brexit happens
but perhaps even
if Brexit happens at all.
-It's pretty unusual to have
a December election in the UK.
This is the first time
in roughly 100 years
there's been one.
Boris Johnson wanted an election
after he was unable
to get his withdrawal agreement
through parliament in time.
The reason that he couldn't get
his withdrawal agreement
through parliament before
the October 31st deadline
was because he basically
doesn't have a parliament
who supports his view of Brexit.
His hope is that by having
a new election,
he can get more lawmakers who
approve of his idea of Brexit
and help him get out of the EU
before the January
31st deadline.
-Let's get Brexit done
and unleash the potential
of the whole United Kingdom.
-Even though Johnson is getting
the election he wanted,
it's still a risky move
for the prime minister.
-For Boris,
the worst-case scenario
is that rather than get
a majority in parliament,
he actually loses more seats
and allows someone,
probably Jeremy Corbyn
of the Labour Party
or perhaps even someone else,
to form a government
and he loses the government.
Boris is actually running
in a seat himself.
He's a member of parliament.
So in theory,
if he loses that seat,
he can't be prime minister,
even if the conservatives
win the election.
It's a calculated risk,
basically.
Like, when you look
at the polls,
the likelihood is that
he'll keep government,
he'll probably be able
to get a majority,
and that would just make
his life so much easier,
and everything is going forward.
So, it makes sense why he wanted
to do it, but it is a risk.
And Boris Johnson's
conservatives are pretty
considerably ahead in the polls
by about 10 percentage points.
That doesn't mean
that they'll win.
Britain has to first pass
the post-electoral system,
which means that, you know,
percentage polls
don't necessarily tell you
who's gonna win,
who can form a government.
And there's also the fact
that Jeremy Corbyn,
the major opposition leader,
he's shown himself to be
very good in the campaign trail.
He presents a very different
view of Britain than Boris does.
When he was up
against Theresa May,
he came back from 20 points
behind to prevent her
from getting
a majority government
and force her into
minority government
that is now
Boris Johnson's whole problem.
So if he's come from 20 points
behind before,
10 points behind suddenly
doesn't seem so bad.
-If you watched the debate,
you'll have heard Boris Johnson
claim that he'll get Brexit
done over and over
and over
and over and over again.
He might still be saying it
for all I know.
That claim is a fraud
on the British people.
With Labour,
it will be very different.
We will get Brexit
sorted within six months.
-So, the Labour party,
they're not anti-Brexit.
They say they want a softer
Brexit where the UK stays
much more in line with the EU
than it would have done
in other situations.
Boris wants a much harder break,
which would cause
more disruption
but also enable the UK to have
more say in how it governs
and how it makes trade deals
with the United States,
for example.
It could speed up the process
of Brexit
if Boris Johnson can get
a sort of overwhelming majority,
he could push through
a lot of laws.
He could push for his deal in
the final rounds of negotiation.
He could push through trade
deals and things like that.
-However, the election outcome
could also massively
slow down Brexit.
-If Boris loses government,
the likelihood is that
whoever succeeds him
will have to go back to the EU
and negotiate a new
withdrawal agreement,
which presumably would mean
another extension
and however many more months
or years of Brexit negotiations.
The bigger issue
is if the opposition parties --
Labour, Liberal Democrats,
the Greens,
the nationalist parties --
can somehow sort of band
together in a way
that presents
a very real threat to him,
because when you look
at opinion polls,
there's actually more people
who oppose
the government than support it,
but they're scattered
amongst different parties.
-If Jeremy Corbyn or another
prime minister succeeds Johnson,
they might even take Brexit
back to the British public
with a second referendum,
which could mean Britain
does not leave the EU after all.
