These two events will set the future for the UK. Except that one of them; Boris's great promise to the people who are sick to death with the EU whether they were 'leavers' or 'remainers' - that the UK is finished with the EU - turns out to be 'fake news' (in the delightful terms used by Boris's own coach.)
The idea that the UK (or for that matter, the EU) will stop organising trade etc., after the 'No Deal Exit' is fatuous. That's when the real negotiations will start. There is even the chance that Boris will get an EU 'deal' before the end of October. It is truly absurd, as some of the media correspondents and old Tory gurus would have it, to expect the EU will insist on some moral rejection of their trade rather than deal the cash. The EU has already got its main result. The UK's pathetic performance, the total collapse of its long term reputation of political savvy across the world, has done the damage that the EU needed to prevent any further break up in its own camp, at least for the next few years. After October 30 the EU will ferociously demand a deal from the UK. And Boris will accept it - if he's still around.
The reality is that Boris's Brexit will just be be the start of the negotiations with the EU, under conditions where there has been a considerable shift in the relation of forces between the two contenders. Brexit does not finish on October 30. When the Brexiteers cheers finally fade away, that's when it all starts.
And an early General Election? Well, here's a gap even smaller than the number of days offered to MPs to stop 'No Deal'. The next General Election, which will effect the real political and economic future of Britain, will instantly follow October 30 - whether MPs manage to block Brexit or not. If Boris is blocked he will call the election 'for Brexit.' If he gets it through, he will call the election on the immediate effect of his 'successful' promise (before the roof falls in.)
That is the big game. The election, believes Boris, is the critical issue for his own future because it is the most important issue for Britain's economic and political elite. If he can break the prospect of a radical Labour Government then he opens the renovation of the Tory Party as the political instrument of the ruling class once more. (So long as his victory is big enough in terms of the number of MPs, he will also try to dump his some of his more manic, Brexit-believers.)
Polls all show that Boris's Tories are now 5 or 7% above Labour. But both Labour and the Tories are being bitten from the margins. The current 18% for the Lib Dems is shaky, particularly after its leader rejected Corbyn's place as temporary Prime Minister if the Tory government was voted down. (Even the Tory grandee Kenneth Clark was for it.) Similarly, Farage's 14% is needed for the Tories to do better than their current, tiny, jiggered, majority. But the 'science' of polling is practically meaningless in Britain, as was clear in the last election.
The substantial issue of the coming election partly lies with the ability (or lack of it) of the leadership and of the conference of the Labour Party, ideally promoting mounting mass action against Boris across the country and building key alliances which presents a popular, practical and attractive future. Boris's spray of a few £millions, plus a false end to Brexit, is not a future. It is a Trumpite disaster. The future is a different economy, because the one that Britain has doesn't work; it is concentration on health, education, welfare and redistribution as the key jobs of government and it is stopping getting into Trump's wars and fights across the globe.
The current crop of Labour MPs, even including a hopeful new selection, will not be enough as a large number remain who are hostile to all things radical and socialist. They hang on to the Blairite history, where it was supposed that all classes, in practice mainly the rich, were well supported. Besides these MPs, more dangerous is the fact that the general population is not receiving an alternative message - one that stands against Boris's bombast. If Labour starts setting up concrete agreements now, particularly with the Scottish Nationalists and the Greens, that would make a radical future seem far more real. Support for the ridiculously under-represented Green Party requires a large-scale Labour outreach to them and an open, publicly-shared support in common for a new green economy. Millions of young people see the centre of their political lives in a battle to be green. Equally, the dissolution of the House of Lords would allow for the great cities and their leaders to build a new institution that raises democracy among local people. All of these steps and others, starting now, would demonstrate powerful images of a different, better society which everybody can understand.
Mass-action and a radical Labour, projecting a new version of the sort of country (and countries) that could be won by millions of ordinary people across the whole of the UK, will build a new vision in society. That is yet to be won. There needs to be a different picture of the future in the countries of the UK. Radical Labour and its allies need to de-centre Dunkirk and the all the other remnants of Empire, and create a new majority in society. In turn a new majority will help a new unity among the working class and its allies that can put Brexit in its proper place - with Brexit measured as a part and only a part of the much wider future that needs to be constructed. These are essential goals to be won through mass action and political clarity.
If Boris wins and gets through, he will start failing very, very fast, both inside his party and outside in society. And then it will be the fight against fascism that will become the priority.
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