The Fate of Boris and Brexit

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Britain is voting in a general election today. During his re-election campaign, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hitched his re-election campaign to a promise to “get Brexit done” — while selling bankers and blue-collar workers two very different visions for the country. Some hope his promise will mean restoring the United Kingdom to its past glory. But what does it actually mean? Guest: Mark Landler, London bureau chief of The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:There is growing anxiety among some voters that the prime minister’s vow to complete Brexit could undermine the country’s national health service, a key social safety net. The service is at the center of an election scandal in the final days of the campaign.As Britain prepared for the election, a Times reporter spent two weeks driving from London to Glasgow. He found a country united only by its disunity.With agitations for secession in Scotland and Northern Ireland, our chief correspondent asks: Could completing Brexit spell the end of the United Kingdom as we know it?

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is Daily.
0:09.5	Today, as Britain holds its election, Boris Johnson is appealing to voters who believe
0:16.4	that his promise to get Brexit done will mean we're storing Britain to its past glory.
0:23.0	My colleague, Mark Lander, on what it actually means.
0:32.0	It's Thursday, December 12.
0:37.8	So, Mark, you have been traveling around the UK in the days leading up to this general election.
0:42.4	What is the feeling there?
0:44.9	Well, it's kind of strange, Michael, because on the one hand, this is a monumentally important
0:50.6	election for the British people. And it was called in a very dramatic way back in late October
0:56.7	by Boris Johnson. Yet, as the election has unfolded over the last six weeks, it's felt oddly
1:03.6	anticlimactic. I think some of this has to do with the time of the year. It gets dark really early
1:10.2	in Britain at this time of the year. The weather's also cold. And I think more importantly,
1:15.9	the British people are really in the mood for Christmas. Christmas is just a huge holiday in this
1:21.2	country. And so, I think, for that reason, rather than generating the kind of excitement, which
1:26.8	sort of leads to a peak the way it would in an American election, you sort of have a kind of
1:32.8	a surly electorate that feels like they're being forced to think about these serious issues at a
1:38.0	time when they ought to be decorating their tree and going to their kids. Christmas play.
1:43.1	Right. Nothing says Christmas like a general election. Indeed. And in fact, even from a
1:48.3	logistical point of view, it's potentially problematic because some of the polling places
1:53.9	that you would normally use in a general election are being reserved for Christmas parties,
1:59.5	the activity exhibits, plays, concerts. So even from a purely practical point of view,
2:07.0	it's not the best time of the year to hold an election. But you said that this is, in fact,
	...

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