LONDON - Britain was heading toward a December election on Tuesday after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s bet on breaking the Brexit deadlock with an early vote gained support from opposition parties.
As the European Union finalizes a third delay to the divorce that was originally supposed to take place on March 29, the United Kingdom, its parliament and its voters remain divided on how or indeed whether to go ahead with Brexit.
Johnson, who had promised to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31 “do or die”, has repeatedly demanded an election to end what he casts as a nightmare paralysis that is sapping public trust by preventing any Brexit outcome at all.
After parliament refused Johnson his third demand for an election on Monday, he will try to force a bill through parliament on Tuesday that calls for a Dec. 12 election. It needs a simple majority in parliament.
In a move that raises the chances of a rare parliamentary success for Johnson, the opposition Labour Party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn said its condition of ruling out a no-deal Brexit had been met so it would support an election.
“Labour will back a general election,” said Corbyn, a veteran socialist campaigner. “The Labour Party loves a debate but they also love the end of the debate, and this is the end of the debate: We are going out there to win.”
Lawmakers could bring significant changes to Johnson’s bill. Opposition parties are squabbling over which day in early December is best for an election and whether to allow settled European Union citizens a vote.
Meanwhile, the legislation enacting Johnson’s Brexit deal has been put on hold, pending an election, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who oversees the government’s legislative agenda in the House of Commons, said.
The first Christmas election in Britain since 1923 would be highly unpredictable: Brexit has variously fatigued and enraged swathes of voters while eroding traditional loyalties to the two major parties, Conservative and Labour.
Ultimately, voters would have a choice between an emboldened Johnson pushing for his Brexit deal or a socialist government under Corbyn renegotiating the deal before a referendum.
If no party wins conclusively, the Brexit deadlock will continue.

“I think we’ve just got to bring this to some sort of resolution. We’ve had many votes in the last 12 months in parliament and I think a general election might be a way to sort it all out,” one commuter, Matt Finch, 36, told Reuters outside London’s Charing Cross rail station. (Reuters)