Reuters :
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell business leaders on Monday that his pledge to take Britain out of the EU swiftly will end uncertainty and boost the economy, seeking to win over industrialists who have mainly opposed Brexit.
Johnson called a Dec. 12 election in a bid to end three years of political crisis since the 2016 52 per cent-48 per cent vote to leave the EU that has shaken investors’ faith in the United Kingdom – once considered one of the pillars of Western stability.
Speaking at the annual conference of Britain’s main business lobby, the CBI, Johnson will say that while big businesses made clear they were not in favor of Brexit in the 2016 referendum, they were also now clear they wanted certainty.
“Britain stuck in gridlock and our economy stuck in first gear. Extension to extension. Marching business up to the top of the hill, only to march them down again,” Johnson will say, according to advance extracts.
Johnson, 55, hopes to win a majority to push through the last-minute Brexit deal he struck last month with the European Union. His main opponent, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, is pitching a government which would nationalize a swathe of British industries and hold another EU referendum.
“With a Conservative majority government you can be sure we will Get Brexit Done and leave with the new deal that is already agreed – ending the uncertainty and confusion that has paralyzed our economy,” Johnson will say.
Opinion polls, which have been wrong on a host of recent electoral events in Britain, show Johnson’s Conservatives are far ahead of Corbyn’s Labour. A Survation poll on Monday put support for the Conservatives on 42 per cent and Labour on 28 per cent.
If no party wins conclusively, the future of Brexit could be thrown up in the air again.
The election pitches two of the most unconventional British politicians of recent years against each other. Both have been repeatedly written off by opponents and both offer starkly different visions for the British economy.
Corbyn, a 70-year-old campaigner who won the Labour leadership in 2015 against the odds, proposes nationalizing utilities and railroads and raising taxes on high earners.
