The most likely outcome will be a Johnson victory with a reasonable overall majority over all other parties, writes Valdai Club expert Sir Malcolm Rifkind. However, to achieve that he has to win a significant number of seats from the Labour Party to make up for the seats he is likely to lose to the Nationalists in Scotland and to the pro-EU Liberal Democrats in the South and South-West of England.
The General Election in the United Kingdom will be one of the most important that has been held since 1945.
Firstly, on 12th December the British public will decide whether Boris Johnson will remain as Prime Minister; an office he has held only since August of this year.
Alternatively, Britain and the wider world will know whether the Opposition Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has become Prime Minister of the most hard left government the UK would ever have experienced. Such an outcome would have serious consequences for the UK’s relationship with the US; for the future of NATO and Britain’s nuclear deterrent; and for the whole course of Britain’s foreign and domestic policy.
But that, of course, is not all. The General Election will also decide whether, after three agonising years, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union after having been a member of it for 43 years.