After Thumping Victory, Boris Johnson Focuses on Swift Brexit, Boost to Public Spending

Fresh from a decisive electoral victory, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to move quickly to take Britain out of the European Union, while promising to deliver billions of pounds in public spending to consolidate the Conservative Party’s once-in-a-generation gains among working-class voters still hurting from the financial crisis.

The Conservatives won 364 seats in the U.K. Parliament with just one seat yet to be declared, the party’s biggest win since former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 re-election.

Mr. Johnson, who gambled that a snap election would give him the parliamentary majority he needed to break a protracted deadlock on how and when the U.K. will leave the EU, trounced the opposition Labour Party, which won 203 seats, its smallest total since 1935. Mr. Johnson appealed to frustrations over the Brexit stalemate, as well as economic pain in traditionally left-leaning industrial areas in northern England.

As a result, the Tories won 79 more seats than all other parties combined. They took traditional Labour districts such as Sedgefield, once the seat of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and in the opposition party’s hands since 1931.

Early Friday, Mr. Johnson reiterated his promise to take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.

“We will get Brexit done, on time, by the 31st of January, no ifs, no buts, no maybes,” he said in his victory speech.

The prime minister is expected to bring his bill on the terms of Britain’s split from the EU back to Parliament before Christmas, with full approval of the plan expected in January. Mr. Johnson, who came to power in July after Prime Minister Theresa May resigned in the wake of her failure to take the U.K. out of the EU, may also reshuffle his cabinet in the coming days.

After taking breakfast at the prime minister’s residence, Mr. Johnson visited Queen Elizabeth II to ask for permission to form a government, which she granted.

Early Friday, European Council President Charles Michel said the EU hopes British lawmakers will quickly ratify the Brexit bill and that the bloc stands ready for talks on a future trade deal.

If Parliament approves Mr. Johnson’s Brexit bill as expected, London and Brussels must undertake talks on a new agreement that will dictate the U.K.’s future economic relations with a trading bloc that represents about half of all British trade. The EU is expected to give the bloc’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, a fresh mandate to begin those negotiations with London.

The scale of Mr. Johnson’s victory may give him more leverage in those talks, but also more flexibility back home, since he will no longer be beholden to lawmakers who want a sharp break with the EU.

“A large majority gives Boris Johnson a much freer hand when negotiating a post-Brexit free-trade deal,” wrote Sara Hobolt, a professor of European politics at the London School of Economics, in an analysis Friday.

The British pound jumped about 2% to its highest level against the dollar since 2016 after Thursday’s exit poll forecast a Tory win, and the currency held most of its gains early Friday. U.K. domestic stocks surged Friday, marking their strongest day since May 2010.

Early Friday, President Trump promised to move quickly on talks for a new U.S.-U.K. trade deal.

“Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal after BREXIT,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the EU.”

In his speech Friday, Mr. Johnson sought to consolidate a watershed realignment of Britain’s electoral map, with scores of long-held working-class seats in England and Wales switching to the Conservatives from Labour, drawn to Mr. Johnson’s pledge to deliver the Brexit they voted for in 2016.

Brexit gave Mr. Johnson the opportunity to transform his Conservative Party into a political machine that could appeal to voters spanning from the landed gentry to the working class.

But if he delivers on his promise to usher Britain out of the EU, Brexit may not be a pressing issue by the time he seeks re-election in 2024.

Delivering his victory speech from a podium that bore the slogan, “The People’s Government,” Mr. Johnson promised to deliver on a campaign pledge to spend GBP100 billion ($131 billion) in new infrastructure and billions more on health care, schools and policing. He singled out fresh investment in the country’s National Health Service, a cherished institution that voters have traditionally felt is safer in Labour’s hands.

Mr. Johnson’s promise of budget largess appealed in particular to working-class areas that lost heavy industry and suffered from decaying infrastructure and worsening public services.

“You may only have lent us your vote,” he said. “Your hand may have quivered over the ballot paper before you put your cross in the Conservative box. I am humbled that you have put your trust in me, and that you have put your trust in us. And I and we will never take your support for granted.”

The party has also promised more spending on infrastructure such as railways in northern and central England, where many of its newly won districts are located.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he wouldn’t contest another election as leader of the party after voters soundly rejected his vision of heavy state intervention in the British economy, including the nationalization of water supply and the railways.

Mr. Corbyn promised a period of “reflection” following the defeat. Senior lawmakers from the party Friday suggested voters hadn’t been open to its message because of their focus on leaving the EU.

“We just couldn’t get through Brexit,” said John McDonnell, the party’s finance spokesman.

Mr. Johnson also promised to revamp the U.K.’s immigration system — an issue that helped drive the 2016 referendum toward a win for euroskeptics — by instituting a points-based system similar to that used in Australia, a country with strict policies on whom it admits.

While the Conservative Party extended its reach in England and Wales, the pro-independence Scottish National Party tightened its grip on one of the four countries that make up the U.K. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party’s 13-seat gain indicates that Scots want another referendum on whether to leave the U.K., a call Mr. Johnson is likely to reject.

In Northern Ireland, the Conservative Party’s former allies in the Democratic Unionist Party suffered losses. For the first time, the country elected more lawmakers who favor unification with Ireland than those who support continued membership of the U.K.
Source: Dow Jones