LONDON
(AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was heading to northern
England on Saturday to meet newly elected Conservative Party lawmakers
in the working class heartland that turned its back on the opposition
Labour Party in this week’s election and helped give him an 80-seat
majority.
In a
victory speech outside 10 Downing Street on Friday, Johnson called for
an end to the acrimony that has festered throughout the country since
the divisive 2016 Brexit referendum, and urged Britain to “let the
healing begin.”
Johnson’s
campaign mantra to “get Brexit done″ and widespread unease with the
leadership style and socialist policies of opposition leader Jeremy
Corbyn combined to give the ruling Conservatives 365 seats in the House
of Commons, its best performance since party icon Margaret Thatcher’s
last victory in 1987. Labour slumped to 203 seats, its worst showing
since 1935.
While
Johnson was on a victory lap Saturday, Corbyn — who has pledged to
stand down next year — was under fire from within his own party.
Former
lawmaker Helen Goodman, one of many Labour legislators to lose their
seat in northern England, told BBC radio that “the biggest factor was
obviously the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn as the leader.”
Armed
with his hefty new majority, Johnson is set to start the process next
week of pushing Brexit legislation through Parliament to ensure Britain
leaves the EU by the Jan. 31 deadline. Once he’s passed that hurdle —
breaking three years of parliamentary deadlock — he has to seal a trade
deal with the bloc by the end of 2020.
Johnson
owes his success, in part, to traditionally Labour-voting working class
constituencies in northern England that backed the Conservatives
because of the party’s promise to deliver Brexit. During the 2016
referendum, many of those communities voted to leave the EU because of
concerns that immigrants were taking their jobs and neglect by the
central government in London.
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