[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Chris

Bizarrely a Kantar/TNS poll gave the Tories a 10 point lead this week, but a general election would still be a very risky strategy. Dissolving parliament now would ensure a No Deal outcome because there would not be a new parliament in place before 29 March. There is a bit of a convention around governments (which remain in power during an election campaign) doing anything significant to the country while an election is in the offing. I’d say watching the UK leave the EU with no transition arrangements in place, and the attendant likelihood of urgent action being required, would qualify as significant. It would be constitutionally dodgy and it could well be electorally disastrous.*

However, if an extension is granted I wouldn’t rule out a snap election following shortly afterwards to try to break the deadlock. The parliamentary maths are clearly impossible as things stand, there’s no obvious way of getting any deal through parliament this month or next, and if it’s not done and dusted by May, by law we will have to hold European elections, which Nigel Farage would doubtless win by a country mile, to the embarrassment of both main parties and the EU, for whom symbols like the parliament are important and for whom the presence of Farage and his type are an insult.

*(edit) also, the last person who tried sending MPs home and governing without them because he didn’t like what he was being told was Charles I, and we know how that worked out for him.

Yes, a poll and a short extension to Brexit to allow the legislation to go through is now the most plausible solution.