michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: As Britain holds its election, Boris Johnson is appealing to voters who believe that his promise to get Brexit done will mean restoring Britain to its past glory. My colleague Mark Landler on what it actually means. It’s Thursday, December 12. So Mark, you have been traveling around the U.K. in the days leading up to this general election. What is the feeling there?

mark landler

Well, it’s kind of strange, Michael, because on the one hand, this is a monumentally important election for the British people. And it was called in a very dramatic way back in late October by Boris Johnson. Yet as the election has unfolded over the last six weeks, it’s felt oddly anticlimactic. I think some of this has to do with the time of the year. It gets dark really early in Britain at this time of the year. The weather’s also cold. And I think, more importantly, the British people are really in the mood for Christmas. Christmas is just a huge holiday in this country. And so I think for that reason, rather than generating the kind of excitement which sort of leads to a peak the way it would in an American election, you have a kind of a surly electorate that feels like they’re being forced to think about these serious issues at a time when they ought to be decorating their tree and going to their kid’s Christmas play.

michael barbaro

Right. Nothing says Christmas like a general election.

mark landler

Indeed. And in fact, even from a logistical point of view, it’s potentially problematic, because some of the polling places that you would normally use in a general election are being reserved for Christmas parties, nativity exhibits, plays, concerts. So even from a purely practical point of view, it’s not the best time of the year to hold an election.

michael barbaro

But you said that this is, in fact, a monumental election. So explain why that is. This is an election — correct me if I’m wrong — for prime minister. It is not a vote for Brexit, right?

mark landler

Well, it isn’t technically a vote for or against Brexit. But in a way, it’s a proxy for that vote. And to understand that, you need to go back to when Boris Johnson called this election and why he called it.

archived recording (boris johnson) Mr. Speaker — well, Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by echoing what you’ve just said — my gratitude to all members of the House for assembling on a Saturday for the first time in 37 years.

mark landler

Back in September and October, after Boris Johnson had been elected prime minister by his own party, not by the general public, he came in and he tried very aggressively to push through a plan to get Brexit done — to get Britain out of the European Union.

archived recording (boris johnson) Let’s go for a deal that can heal this country and can allow us all to express our legitimate desires for the deepest possible friendship and partnership with our neighbors, and a deal that also allows us to believe in ourselves once again as an open, generous, global, outward-looking, free-trading United Kingdom. That is the prospect.

mark landler

The problem is he didn’t have a working majority. So every time he tried to do this, he was stymied both by the opposition and by breakaway members of his own Conservative Party.

archived recording The ayes to the right — 308. The nos to the left — 322.

mark landler

And so he decided, at the end of October, to force through a general election to throw this back to the British people on the calculation that if they gave him a solid majority, he would then have a free hand to deliver Brexit.

archived recording (boris johnson) I don’t want an early election, and no one much wants to have an election in December. But we’ve got to the stage where we have no choice.

mark landler

So while it is in fact an election for control of the Parliament, it is at some very fundamental level a vote for or against Boris Johnson’s Brexit.

archived recording (boris johnson) I’m going out now to campaign across the whole country. Let’s get Brexit done and unleash the potential of the whole United Kingdom.

michael barbaro

So Mark, how is Boris Johnson selling this election — kind of this desperate Hail Mary play of an election — to the voters? What is he saying? How is he talking about it?

mark landler

Well, he’s selling it with three words: Get Brexit done. It’s an incredibly simple, single-minded, narrow message. It says to the British voters, you guys are sick and tired of hearing about this. We’re sick and tired of debating it. I am the leader who will get Brexit done, so Britain can move on to whatever its next chapter is.

archived recording (boris johnson) Get Brexit done. And we can restore confidence and certainty to business and to values. Get Brexit done.

mark landler

It’s an extremely simple message. It’s one that he’s hammered away at every single day of this election, almost to the exclusion of any other topic.

archived recording (boris johnson) Get Brexit done, and we can focus our hearts and our minds on the priorities of the British people.

[music]

mark landler

I’ve been following Boris Johnson for the last few weeks on the campaign trail. And the other day I was up in Staffordshire, where Prime Minister Johnson appeared at a factory that makes giant construction equipment. They built a brick wall out of Styrofoam. They wrote the word “gridlock” across it in giant red letters. And then Boris Johnson drove a backhoe through the Styrofoam wall.

archived recording [BACKHOE CRASHING THROUGH STYROFOAM] [APPLAUSE]

mark landler

The shovel on the backhoe said, “Get Brexit done.” And there was a giant Union Jack on the back.

michael barbaro

That is very subtle.

archived recording (boris johnson) I think it is time for the whole country symbolically to get in the cab.

mark landler

It’s about as blunt as you can get.

archived recording (boris johnson) And remove the current blockage that we have in our parliamentary system.

mark landler

And it aptly summarizes what his whole campaign has been about, which is that dysfunction and paralysis and gridlock exist in Westminster, exist in Parliament. And I’m the one guy that can smash my way through, can bulldoze my way through, to this bright future for Britain —

archived recording (boris johnson) 48 hours to end the deadlock. 48 hours to end the gridlock. The — think of another word. Deadlock. Gridlock.

mark landler

— as long as you elect me and the Conservative Party.

archived recording (boris johnson) Roadblock. 48 hours.

michael barbaro

And is he right about the simplicity of this? If you elect me, Brexit gets done.

mark landler

Well, at one level, it is just as simple as that. If Boris Johnson emerges from this election with even a single-seat majority, he will be able to deliver on his promise to leave the European Union at the end of next January.

michael barbaro

Wow.

mark landler

But I think what the British public doesn’t fully understand is that that’s not the end of the story. That’s really just the end of Act One. So what happens in Act Two? Well, Boris Johnson has negotiated a deal to leave the European Union, but now he immediately has to turn around and negotiate a new permanent trade agreement with the European Union. The only difference is the first time he was negotiating with Brussels, Britain was still a member of the E.U.

michael barbaro

Right.

mark landler

Now, Britain is going to be negotiating with the E.U. as an outsider. So it’s going to be a very, very difficult negotiation, one that, under the rules, he has to finish by the end of 2020. And if he fails to do that, then Britain and the E.U. head into very uncharted territory, with no agreement covering how they trade with each other.

michael barbaro

But truth in advertising — he is accurate. If you vote for Boris Johnson, if you vote for the Conservatives, then the long national nightmare of Brexit not really ever happening — that ends.

mark landler

Actually, I’m not quite sure that’s the case. Brexit defined purely as Britain leaves the European Union — yes, that’s right. That would be accomplished if Boris Johnson wins this election. But if you define Brexit as Britain finding a new place in the world, a new relationship with its most important neighbor, Europe, then it’s not truth in advertising. That part of the drama is still to unfold. And that’s where I think the debate and the message that Boris Johnson has been giving to voters is not quite the complete one.

[music]

michael barbaro

Pesky reporters, always complicating these three-word bumper stickers.

mark landler

That’s right. Well, that’s the nature of bumper stickers, right?

michael barbaro

[LAUGHS]

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So what’s the other option for voters? What is the Labour Party’s pitch on the other side of this debate?

mark landler

Well, if you think of Boris Johnson’s pitch as being very simple and very clear, the Labour Party’s position is the opposite. It’s, in some ways, quite muddled. What the Labour Party is saying is, elect us and we will go negotiate a new withdrawal agreement with Brussels. We’ll bring that agreement back, and we will then throw it back to the public and let the public vote. So if you vote for Labour, what you are in effect voting for is a second referendum on whether to leave Europe. So at some level, if you’re a Remainer — if your goal is to stay in the European Union — this is your last chance.

michael barbaro

So this is the exact opposite of a bumper sticker slogan. It’s kind of a muddle.

mark landler

Yeah, it’s very complicated for an electorate that is tired, fed up, has been listening to the Brexit debate for three and a half years, and just desperately wants to move on. And so the Labour Party’s had a very hard time making this an attractive pitch out on the campaign trail.

archived recording Please join me in welcoming our leader, the next prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn. [APPLAUSE]

mark landler

And that’s why you’ve seen Labour Party leaders and candidates talk about almost anything else.

archived recording (jeremy corbyn) This election is now a fight for the survival of our National Health Service as a public service free for all at the point of need.

mark landler

They talk about kitchen table issues.

archived recording (jeremy corbyn) Voters need to ask themselves some very serious questions. Is the N.H.S. safe in Boris Johnson’s House?

mark landler

Like the state of Britain’s National Health Service, the crime levels in the cities, funding for education.

archived recording (jeremy corbyn) We will create a national education service to make lifelong education a right.

mark landler

Really, almost anything aside from the core issue in the campaign, which is Brexit.

archived recording (jeremy corbyn) And yes, let’s be clear — we will scrap university tuition fees. [CHEERING]

michael barbaro

So they’re trying to run a traditional campaign, when, in reality, it sounds like that’s not exactly where voters’ minds are.

mark landler

That’s right. And they’re also trying to run this traditional campaign against an opponent, Boris Johnson, who is stubbornly unwilling to engage them on any of these other issues. There was a really vivid example of this just a few days ago on the campaign trail.

archived recording The picture that broke hearts and triggered one of the more important disputes of this election — a four-year-old boy.

mark landler

There was this very harrowing case of a young boy who was sick and had been brought to an emergency room at a hospital in Leeds. This hospital was overcrowded. There was no bed for him. And so the boy went to sleep on the floor in the waiting room, and people snapped pictures of him. Well, a local reporter confronted Boris Johnson on the campaign trail —

archived recording What was your reaction when you saw that shocking picture of Jack Williment, the four-year-old?

mark landler

— with his phone in his hand with a picture of this little boy on it.

archived recording (boris johnson) We need to be making investments — archived recording This is the photo. This is the photo. archived recording (boris johnson) We need to be making —

mark landler

And said, you know, Mr. Johnson, what do you say to the family of this boy?

archived recording This is a four-year-old boy, Prime Minister, suspected of pneumonia, forced to lie on the floor on a pile of coats.

mark landler

Isn’t it unacceptable in this society that there isn’t a hospital bed for someone like this? Boris Johnson did not want to get drawn into the conversation.

archived recording (boris johnson) And that’s why we’re putting the record investment into the N.H.S. now.

mark landler

And finally, out of frustration, when the reporter wouldn’t give up —

archived recording You refuse to look at the photo. You’ve taken my phone, put it in your pocket, Prime Minister.

mark landler

He took the reporter’s phone out of his hands and put it in his pocket.

michael barbaro

Wow.

mark landler

It was a really indelible image. It sort of played to the Labour Party critique that Boris Johnson is uncaring, unfeeling, doesn’t understand the problems of ordinary people. And in a campaign that has sort of lacked for vivid images, it was perhaps the most memorable image for what has otherwise been a very disciplined campaign by the prime minister.

michael barbaro

Well, so Mark, I’m curious how all this is playing out with British voters. On the one hand, it’s very easy to understand why voters would be exhausted and desperate to put Brexit behind them — just get this thing over with. On the other hand, I could understand plenty of British voters saying, let’s not rush to do this, and therefore side with the Labour Party.

mark landler

That’s right, and that’s why this election is leading to potentially some very striking realignments in British politics. Look at what the Conservative Party’s strategy is and who they’re going after in the electorate. Their main target is a swath of working-class voters across the Midlands and the industrial north of England. These are voters who, by custom, by tradition, have always voted for the Labour Party. But in 2016, this slice of voters voted to leave the European Union. And they’re increasingly fed up that their politicians haven’t made that happen. So Boris Johnson has gone after these voters. He is trying to appeal to them. He’s trying to convert these dozens of seats that have been in Labour hands for decades — some of them forever — into Conservative seats. And if he does that, he will have, in effect, torn down what’s known as the “red wall.” This is the wall of Labour strongholds that runs right across the middle of England. In the south of England, you actually have a reverse situation. The south of England is more prosperous than the north. And voters in the south have historically, and by custom, tended to vote more for the Conservative Party. These are also voters who, in the main, voted to stay in the European Union in 2016. And they’re really worried about their own party leader’s determination to get Brexit done. They worry about the consequences of that. They worry that he’s moving too fast. So even though their loyalties, by instinct and family tradition, are to vote for the Conservatives, they’re having second thoughts. And the Labour Party is making a play for these voters on the argument that this is your last chance to stay in Europe. So this election could lead to this fascinating flipping of the map in England, where the north and the Midlands would actually turn Conservative blue, while the south might turn more Labour red. And even beyond the enormous consequences of Brexit, you could see this election produce a new alignment in British politics.

michael barbaro

And Mark, what would that mean that the Brexit question could actually flip party identifications in these two very important regions of Britain?

mark landler

Well, I think what’s most important is that the Conservative Party would inherit many of these older, working-class, formerly Labour voters in the industrial Midlands and north, who voted for Brexit largely because they felt it would be a return to the Britain of their childhood — the Britain of the ‘60s and ‘70s, an old-fashioned economy with heavy industry, that it would cut off the flow of immigrants that are changing the way the Main Streets in their villages look, that it would really bring back a kind of a nostalgic view of middle England.

michael barbaro

Right. Make Britain great again.

mark landler

Make Britain great again — the analogies to Trump are extremely parallel. The big problem here is that that is not the vision that Boris Johnson and his closest advisers have for a Britain after Brexit. The politicians like to talk about this new Britain as being something more akin to Singapore. They even have a phrase for it. They call it “Singapore-on-Thames.” And what that means is a country that is extremely open to foreign trade, that becomes a kind of a magnet for highly educated, highly skilled people, a place that has very light regulation, a fundamentally open economy. This is not at all what these new Conservative voters are going to be signing up for. They want the Britain of 1960 — not the Britain of 2020. And I think the challenge for the Conservative Party, if they succeed on Election Day, is how they reconcile their own ambitions for Singapore-on-Thames with the middle England dreams of the voters that they brought into their fold over the course of this election. I think it’s going to be an extremely difficult challenge for them to meet.

michael barbaro

So there’s a very real possibility that voters will be lured to the Conservative Party today on a promise that Brexit is going to happen, finally. But they’re not going to actually get a version of Britain that they envisioned or that they wanted or that is actually hospitable to them.

mark landler

I like to think of Brexit as a tale of two hangovers. The immediate hangover is when the British people realize that Brexit is not actually finished — that they’re just embarking on the second act of this drama. The longer-term hangover is when the people who voted for Brexit realize that the country they yearned for, the restoration to an older middle England, is not going to happen either — that, in fact, the vision for this country is antithetical to what they wanted. It’s a very different country than the one they grew up in. And that change is irrevocable. Brexit was not ever going to bring back that future, and Boris Johnson certainly has no plans to bring it back. So that’s the conundrum that the government’s going to face and the British public is going to face as they navigate their way through this process.

michael barbaro

Mark, thank you very much.

mark landler

Thanks, Michael.

[music]

michael barbaro

Polls show that Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has a consistent lead heading into today’s election and is likely to win a majority in Parliament. We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording (aung san suu kyi) Please bear in mind this complex situation and the challenge to sovereignty and security in our country when you’re assessing the intent of those who attempted to deal with the rebellion. Surely, under the circumstances, genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis.

michael barbaro

In testimony before the International Court of Justice on Wednesday, the leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, defended her government against charges that it carried out genocide against Rohingya Muslims in her country and said that outsiders had failed to understand the complexity of the situation.

archived recording They separated women and children from the men, and systematically killed the men.

michael barbaro

Her remarks followed gruesome testimony from witnesses about the horrors inflicted on the Rohingya by Myanmar’s military, including claims of mass executions, systematic rape and the burning of hundreds of villages.

archived recording A witness recounted, the first round of shooting was like a rain of bullets. The second round was slow as the soldiers killed the men individually.

michael barbaro