A big win for Boris Johnson and his plans for Brexit
Hi there, welcome to Plain English. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and this is episode 217 of Plain English, the best podcast for practicing English. That’s because we have two versions—a slower version and a faster version, to help you train your ear and get you used to listening to English. And if you miss a word, not to worry: you can find a transcript of the program at PlainEnglish.com/217.
Coming up today: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to “get Brexit done” and the voters rewarded him with an 80-seat majority. As he moves to make Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union official, he has the wind at his back—and that is the expression we’ll talk about today. We also have a song of the week, since it’s Thursday.
Before we start, I want to clarify a quick term that I’ll be using. The term is “poll” and it has two meanings relevant to this topic. The first meaning is as an opinion poll, essentially a survey, in which a pollster calls people on the phone and asks their opinion about a question. The other type of poll that we’ll talk about today is an exit poll. An exit poll is where a pollster stands outside the voting areas and asks people how they voted. Opinion polls happen all year round on all sorts of topics, whereas exit polls are only done on election day.
Boris wins big in vote dominated by Brexit
Boris Johnson’s Conservative party stormed to an 80-seat majority in Britain’s Parliamentary elections, setting the stage for his country’s official withdrawal from the European Union and dealing the opposition Labour party its worst defeat since the 1930s.
If the word to describe British politics in the last three years has been “deadlock,” the word to describe this election was “decisive.” British voters elect Members of Parliament in their 650 constituencies, as their districts are known. The MP’s then select the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is typically the leader of the party with a majority.
The Tories, as the Conservative party is also known, picked up 66 new seats and hold 365 seats in the 650-seat Parliament. It was the party’s best showing since Margaret Thatcher’s re-election in 1987. Labour suffered a humiliating defeat. They lost 42 seats and will now hold just 200 seats, less than a third of the House of Commons.
The party that was formed to defend the interests of working people lost one industrial working-class constituency after another. Towns with mining, manufacturing, and shipping heritage in the middle and north of England were the Labour party’s reason for being and represented a so-called “Red Wall” of security, named after the color representing the Labour party on election maps. But the bricks of that wall fell one by one as the Conservatives flipped constituencies that had voted Labour for generations.
The result of the election was far from foretold. Opinion polls had been hinting at a Conservative majority, but the scale of their victory only became clear on election night. One reason it was hard to predict is that Brexit has shifted the dividing lines in politics. Among each major party’s supporters, there were voters who preferred to stay and those who preferred to leave the EU. If you’re a traditional Labour voter and prefer to leave the EU, do you switch sides and vote for Johnson? If you’re an international-minded Conservative supporter, can you stomach the “hard Brexit” that your party promises?
In Britain, it is illegal to publish exit polls or analyses of voting patterns when voting polls are open, so there wasn’t a stream of news during the day about the election results. After the voting polls closed, an alliance of media organizations released its official exit poll and it was immediately clear the Tories were headed for a convincing victory.
It was vindication for Johnson. He inherited the office of prime minister earlier this year after Theresa May, mockingly dubbed Theresa Maybe for her indecisiveness on Brexit, resigned as prime minister after failing to win support for her proposed exit deal from the EU. Johnson stormed into office in a flurry of activity, re-negotiated the deal with the EU, and then called a snap election to ask for voters’ support.
They gave it to him. With a strong majority and the wind at his back, Boris Johnson will have the mandate to make the Brexit deal official. His party will introduce Parliamentary bills to make the withdrawal official before Christmas and pass them after the new year. The terms of the preliminary deal with Brussels say that the two sides will have a one-year transition period to negotiate a permanent trade agreement. A year to hammer out new trading relationship sounds unrealistic, raising the specter that the nightmare of Brexit drama, deadlines, extensions, and negotiations will continue well into the future.
I’ll tell you my favorite part of British elections: the hashtag #Dogsatpollingstations. It’s a delightful tradition in which people bring their dogs with them to vote. The dogs don’t make the final selections—at least I don’t think—but they’re adorable and are usually tied up outside while their masters are inside casting their ballots. Check out the hashtag #Dogsatpollingstations. for some great pictures of dogs doing their civic duty.
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