London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn attacked each other’s policies on Brexit, health care and economy on Tuesday in a televised election debate that likely failed to answer the question of trust troubling many voters.
The two politicians hammered away at their rival’s weaknesses and sidestepped tricky questions about their own policies in the hour long encounter which was the first-ever head-to-head TV debate between a British prime minister and a chief challenger.
It was a chance for Corbyn to make up ground in opinion polls that show his Labour Party trailing Johnson's Conservatives ahead of the December 12 election.
For Johnson, the match-up was an opportunity to shake off a wobbly campaign start that has seen the Conservatives thrown on the defensive by candidates’ gaffes and favouritism allegations involving Johnson’s relationship with an American businesswoman while he was London’s mayor.
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Both men stuck to safe territory with Corbyn touting Labour’s plans for big increases in public spending and Johnson trying to keep the focus on his promise to get Brexit done.
Speaking in front of a live audience at the studios of broadcaster ITV in Salford in northwest England, the two men traded blows over Britain’s stalled departure from the European Union - the reason the election is being held. The UK is due to leave the bloc on January 31 after failing to meet the October 31 deadline to approve a divorce deal.
Johnson pushed to hold the election more than two years ahead of schedule in an effort to win a majority in the House of Commons that could pass his departure agreement with the EU.
Corbyn said a Labour government would also settle the Brexit question by negotiating a new divorce deal before holding a new EU membership referendum within six months. A life-long critic of the EU and lukewarm advocate of Britain’s membership in the bloc, Corbyn did not answer when asked repeatedly by Johnson whether he would support leaving or remaining in a new referendum.
The Labour leader, meanwhile, slammed Johnson’s claim that he would negotiate a new trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020 as a fantasy saying such deals usually take years to complete.
The Labour leader also repeated his allegation that Johnson planned to offer chunks of Britain’s state-funded health system to American medical firms as part of future trade negotiations with the US.
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Johnson branded that claim an absolute invention.
The stakes are high for both Johnson and Corbyn as they try to win over a Brexit-weary electorate. Both are trying to overcome a mountain of mistrust. Neither delivered the kind of performance to silence their critics.
Johnson who shelved his customary bluster in favour of a more muted, serious approach, is under fire for failing to deliver on his often-repeated vow that Britain would leave the EU on October 31.
Corbyn, a stolid socialist, is accused by critics of promoting high-tax policies and of failing to clamp down on anti-Semitism within his party. His refusal to say which side he would be on in a Brexit referendum was also met with laughter.
Pushed by moderator Julie Etchingham to pledge to tone down the angry rhetoric that has poisoned British politics since the country’s 2016 Brexit referendum, the two men awkwardly agreed and shook hands.
Televised debates are a relatively new phenomenon in British elections with the first taking place in 2010.
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