Boris Johnson vows to push on with early election with UK stuck in Brexit limbo

Boris Johnson has seen his hopes of securing an election scuppered once again but the British Prime Minister is set to plough ahead with his push for an early poll again today.

Against all the odds, on Monday he secured a so-called “flextension” deal with Brussels to delay Brexit until January, but failed to get it ratified in Parliament.

And when the embattled Mr Johnson tried for a third time to trigger a snap poll to end the Brexit impasse he was once more rebuffed by the House of Commons.

Yet the signs are he won’t have long to wait before firing the starting gun on Britain’s third general election campaign in a tumultuous four years. Mr Johnson is set to try again today to get Parliament to allow an early election to take place, this time using an easier legal route.

“We will not allow this paralysis to continue,” he told MPs. “One way or another, we must proceed straight to an election.”

Despite the impasse, an election appears inevitable well before the next scheduled one in 2022 if Britain is to move on from the stasis caused by a PM who vowed to deliver Brexit “do or die” and a Parliament that has repeatedly thwarted him.

Opposition parties also want an election, though not on Mr Johnson’s terms. The main opposition Labour Party said it would study the government’s bill before deciding whether to back it.

“We look forward to a clear, definitive decision that no deal is absolutely off the table and there is no danger of this prime minister not sticking to his word,” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said.

Earlier, Mr Johnson had accused his opponents of betraying voters’ decision to leave the European Union (EU) by thwarting the government’s Brexit plans.

He said that unless there was an election, the government would be “like Charlie Brown, endlessly running up to kick the ball only to have Parliament whisk it away”. “We cannot continue with this endless delay,” Mr Johnson said.

Yet further delays are on the cards after the EU agreed to postpone Brexit until January 31, acting to avert a chaotic UK. departure just three days before Britain was due to become the first country ever to leave the 28-nation bloc.

After a short meeting of diplomats in Brussels, European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted that the EU’s 27 other countries would accept the Britain’s request for a “flextension”. Under the terms of the agreement, it can leave before January 31 if the British and European parliaments both ratify a Brexit divorce agreement.

It’s the third time the Brexit deadline has been changed since British voters decided in a 2016 referendum to leave the bloc.