If the SNP and Lib Dems want to stop Brexit, they should focus on a Final Say, rather than a general election

Editorial: The two parties say they want to end the Brexit stalemate. What they don’t say is that an early election would serve their interests

The idea of a general election on 9 December is clever in one sense: Labour would not be able to veto it (PA)

No political party is being entirely honest when it comes to the date of the next general election. Boris Johnson wants to railroad his Brexit deal through parliament and hold an election on 12 December. He petulantly put his EU (Withdrawal) Bill on the backburner when MPs rejected his totally inadequate timetable for approving it.

Labour insists it wants an election once the threat of a no-deal Brexit has been lifted. But it will not necessarily vote for one even if the EU extends the UK’s membership to 31 January. The real reason for Labour’s caution is that, while Jeremy Corbyn is happy to see an early contest, many of his MPs fear the party would suffer a crushing defeat.

Two other opposition parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party, have proposed an election on 9 December, but before parliament gives its verdict on his deal. Their idea is clever in one sense: Labour would not be able to veto it. The government motion to be debated today is under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which requires at least 434 (two-thirds) of the 650 MPs to vote for it – in practice, Tory and Labour MPs. In contrast, the Lib Dem-SNP bill requires only a simple majority of those voting.