MPs should reject Boris Johnson’s misleading election offer

The prime minister has tried to make Jeremy Corbyn an offer he cannot refuse. He has tried to tempt the leader of the opposition with the prospect of a general election after Britain has left the European Union.

Mr Corbyn might relish such a contest. He undoubtedly finds it hard to straddle the Brexit divide, and would rather fight an election on ending austerity and increasing public spending on the NHS, social care, schools, university tuition, police and housing.

Boris Johnson’s offer is not, however, quite the open-ended proposal of democratic virtue that it seems. If Labour MPs were to vote on Monday for an early election on 12 December, there could be no guarantee that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill would be passed before parliament was dissolved on 7 November.

That would mean the election could be fought with Brexit still unresolved, and with Mr Corbyn still on the fence, trying to explain to voters that the Labour Party stands for both those who want to leave the EU and those who want to remain.

But put these political calculations to one side: Labour MPs should refuse to vote for an early election on principle. The new timetable for the bill offered by the prime minister is unacceptable.

On Tuesday, the House of Commons rightly rejected a timetable that gave it three days and the House of Lords another three days, including a weekend, to consider this huge, and hugely important, piece of legislation. Mr Johnson is now offering a total of nine days, including sitting over a weekend.

This is not enough to scrutinise the bill thoroughly and to debate in detail possible amendments for a referendum, a customs union and to prevent a delayed no-deal Brexit at the end of the transition period.

Mr Johnson should stop playing games designed to hide his embarrassment at failing to meet his 31 October deadline to deliver Brexit. The Labour Party has offered to discuss a reasonable timetable for the bill. The prime minister should hold Mr Corbyn to that offer and try to get his bill through. If he cannot, then he can talk about a general election.

However, if it comes to that, a Final Say referendum would be the right way to resolve the Brexit deadlock. Any attempt to settle Brexit through a general election is an attempt to win political power by exploiting the whipped-up hysteria of deal-or-no-deal-dead-in-a-ditch-now-or-never chaos.

Nine days of debate is no way to pass a complex piece of legislation. Especially when even secretaries of state do not understand its practical implications – as Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, did not when asked about the paperwork for goods going from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom.

And a general election, which will inevitably be fought on issues other than Brexit, is no way to decide whether the sovereign people assent to the exit deal that Mr Johnson has negotiated. On Monday, opposition MPs should vote against an early election.