Johnson has indicated he may oust party members who vote against his straight-ahead approach to Brexit. Whether life-long party stalwarts who oppose Brexit will risk excommunication is unclear.
If an election happens, Johnson will need the votes of the large group who voted for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the recent EU elections. Farage has indicated Johnson will have to promise a no-deal exit to gain their votes. Whether Farage is correct or even able to deliver their votes is also unclear.
Heretofore Johnson has been unwilling to commit to no-deal, viewing it as his last ditch alternative to staying in or accepting a bad deal. Much of what is happening in the U.K. is essentially unprecedented. It will be interesting to follow what happens next.
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I begin to see parallels in the U.K.'s situation to what happened to our two major parties in the U.S. during the Johnson-Nixon era. During that time both parties became more monolithic.
Conservative southern Democrats became Republicans, making the Democratic "tent" ideologically less broad. In reaction, most northern liberal Republicans became Democrats, with a similar "tent-shrinking" effect.
British Tories could become the party of English nationalists, who were the backbone of the Brexit movement. Anti-Brexit former Tories may gravitate to the Liberal Democrats who are globalist in outlook. I don't see them joining Corbyn's now-bright-pink Labour, which may lose seats to a pro-Brexit party.
