to the British public that you will not go back to Brussels

and ask for another delay to Brexit?

BORIS JOHNSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And-- sorry.

BORIS JOHNSON: I can.

INTERVIEWER: And would you rather--

BORIS JOHNSON: I'd rather be dead in a ditch.

SIONA JENKINS: Boris Johnson has promised

that Britain will leave the EU by October 31, do or die.

To fulfil this pledge, he's portrayed himself

as fulfilling the will of the people

against Parliament and even the Supreme Court.

BORIS JOHNSON: The people of this country

can see perfectly clearly what is going on.

They know that Parliament does not want to honour its promises

to respect the referendum.

The people at home know that this Parliament

will keep delaying.

It will keep sabotaging the negotiations,

because they don't want a deal.

SIONA JENKINS: The October 31 deadline is looming,

but with no majority in Parliament,

it is all but inevitable that the prime minister will

be forced to go to the polls in the coming months.

But the question is will Mr Johnson's strategy

of pitting the people against Parliament

win him a general election?

To try and answer that question, I'm speaking to Whitehall

and polling experts at the FT and visiting the marginal seats

of Halifax, which labour could lose to the Tories

and Guildford, which the Tories could lose to the Liberal

Democrats.

SEBASTIAN PAYNE: The calculation of the prime minister

and his team in Downing Street is that people in the country

are just fed up with the whole Brexit thing.

They just want it over.

They're really annoyed we didn't leave the EU on March the 29th.

They're also annoyed we didn't leave on April the 12th,

and they're going to be particularly annoyed we didn't

leave on October the 31st.

Now, the natural person to blame would be the prime minister,

because he's the one trying to deliver Brexit.

But he wants to spin that on his head

and say, actually, it's not me.

I've been trying to do this.

It's these people in Parliament who are to blame.

Now, this is not something you normally see

in British general elections.

Normally, leaders are trying to get a bigger

parliamentary majority to give themselves

the ability to pass through all that different policies.

But we have a very febrile mood in Britain at the moment.

There's a lot of anger in the country.

And people certainly do blame the main supporting MPs,

judges, and even the speaker in some cases

for not delivering Brexit.

So they're confident this populist message will work,

but it could easily backfire.

It could, in fact, say Mr Johnson,

you came in promising to deliver Brexit,

and you fail, just like the rest of them.

BORIS JOHNSON: We're going to get a deal.

That's the plan anyway.

And if we don't, we're coming out anyway on October the 31st.

INTERVIEWER: [INAUDIBLE]

BORIS JOHNSON: That's what we're going to do.

INTERVIEWER: [INAUDIBLE] come out.

BORIS JOHNSON: Yeah, we'll be good.

It's democracy.

INTERVIEWER: It is.

SIONA JENKINS: Boris Johnson's election strategy depends

on winning over labour voters in parts of northern England that

voted to leave in 2016, places like here in Halifax which

voted to leave the EU in 2016, but has been solidly labour

since the late 1980s.

Can Boris Johnson's people versus Parliament strategy

work here?

Stephen Baines is chairman of the West Yorkshire

Conservatives and is a local councillor.

STEPHEN BAINES: I think that they

are backing what the prime minister is trying to do.

I think they are pleased that he is pushing for it.

Most of them, you know, the majority

did vote to leave Europe.

That is still what they want to do,

and they are disappointed that Brexit has not

been delivered by the parliamentarians who are--

they firmly believe are to mandate to fulfil,

and they still haven't fulfilled that mandate,

and Boris is the only one who's really trying hard

to fulfil that wish.

Labour voters could switch, because we tend to be

in the mid ground on politics.

And Labour, at the moment, they're putting through some

very hard left wing policies, and I think that will count

against them.

And I don't find many apart from really hard Labour heartlands

of people who like, Jeremy Corbyn.

SEBASTIAN PAYNE: The question is does the love of Brexit

trump the traditional hatred of the Tories.

In these seats, Margaret Thatcher's anathema,

these are the post-industrial seats that were completely

destroyed by the conservatives in the 1980s,

and the calculation is the Labour party's now gone so far

to the left and is also very much of a main party now that

the Tories are now more connected economically

and socially with the voters in those seats.

So Boris would like to win those seats.

In fact, he has to win those seats

if he's going to get a majority in the next election.

But this has been predicted before.

It didn't happen in 2017.

And the only thing that might make it happen this time

is the shear force of Boris's personality.

BORIS JOHNSON: This government.

I lead has been trying truly to get us out,

and most people, indeed most supporters

of the party opposite, regardless

of how they voted three years ago,

think the referendum must be respected.

They want Brexit done.

SIONA JENKINS: Halifax's is incumbent Labour MP,

Holly Lynch, knows she has a small majority,

only just over 5,000 at the last election,

but she thinks Boris Johnson's strategy will alienate many

voters in her constituency and that Labour policies appeal

whatever people feel about Jeremy Corbyn,

the party leader.

HOLLY LYNCH: So whereas those national politics play out,

I've no doubt that Boris will connect with some people.

But even traditional conservative voters

that I've spoken to are concerned

about some of the recklessness that

is characteristic of the way he conducts himself

and his politics that deliberately divisive language

that he uses.

We are a diverse community here in [INAUDIBLE] and in Halifax,

and so I really would have concerns

if he thinks that he's taken Halifax

at the next general election.

And where I've been out speaking to people,

actually there's a new found respect

which has been odd for the work of politicians

and understanding that it is complicated stuff

that we are doing.

And there is an acknowledgment that no, actually, I

think we need a bit more grown up politics

if we're going to go forward.

SUBJECT: This Mr Speaker was 10 minutes of bluster

from a dangerous prime minister who thinks he is above the law.

HOLLY LYNCH: There's nothing new about [INAUDIBLE] of parties

being a bit like Marmite on occasion.

I get people that love Jeremy Corbyn.

I get people that are not convinced.

You want to speak to all of those people.

You need to build that coalition of support to being government.

So I hear those concerns.

But people are usually always very enthusiastic about

Labour's policies.

And what they are enthusiastic about

is getting rid of austerity, replace

in a conservative government that northern Pennine

towns have really felt the impact of all

those years of austerity.

SUBJECT: To also declare the prorogation of Parliament--

SIONA JENKINS: Part of Boris Johnson's high stakes strategy

was proroguing, or suspending, Parliament for five weeks,

in effect a bid to minimise debate by MPs on Brexit.

But it was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.

FT data journalist, John Burn Murdoch says the way that

voters reacted to that decision reveals how Mr

Johnson's election strategy could play in Labour seats

seats in the north.

BORIS JOHNSON: And it is absolutely no disrespect

to the judiciary to say I think the court was

wrong to pronounce on what is essentially

a political question.

JOHN BURN-MURDOCH: Labour voters from 2017 who voted leave were

actually completely split on prorogation.

So 44% of Labour leave voters said prorogation was correct

despite the Supreme Court decision.

43% opposed it.

So you're looking there are people

who haven't been very conservative in the past,

but do buck Johnson's strategy on this.

The question, however, on those is going to be is backing

Johnson's individual stance enough to make Labour voters

vote Conservative, and what we see here is there's evidence

from the European Parliament elections early in the year

that for plenty of Labour leave voters they're reacting against

their own party's stance on Brexit.

But they're reacting towards for example the Brexit party.

SIONA JENKINS: So there is a clear danger

that in areas like Halifax, the leave vote

could be split between Tories and the Brexit party.

Sarah Wood is the party's Halifax candidate.

SARAH WOOD: There is a definite difference

between what the people want and what the Parliament want.

Now, whether or not that will be something

which is good for Boris in a future general election

maybe possibly not.

And the reason I say that is because it might

be the right message, but are the conservative party

the right vehicle to actually present that to the people?

Probably not, because some of their incumbent MPs

are part of the people versus the parliament problem.

Whatever happens on the 31st of October,

if the message that he's been given currently

in the mainstream media, he doesn't honour,

so if he doesn't have us leave and honour the requirements

of the referendum in 2016, then I think that would bode very

badly for the conservative party and Boris Johnson.

And I think people are angry enough to let go of Labour

and to look for another party.

SIONA JENKINS: Another danger for the conservatives

is that while Mr Johnson's strategy might appeal

to leave voting towns in northern England

and the midlands, it could alienate too many

remain supporting Tory voters in places like Guildford.

The wealthy town to the south of London

has had mostly conservative MPs since 1945.

Guildford's MP, Anne Milton, was in the current government

until she lost the party whip after voting for the bill

to prevent a no deal Brexit.

Now sitting as an independent, she

thinks Boris Johnson's strategy will see her constituency

switch to the Liberal Democrats.

ANNE MILTON: Pitting parliament against people is saying,

we're happy for you to lose trust in Parliament.

Well, I think it's a very, very high stakes

game, because parliamentary democracy is

important in this country.

It's important to any country.

And suddenly, over this one issue,

we're saying, to hell with it.

I was aware before the results of the leadership election

were announced that Boris Johnson would not necessarily

sit comfortably with the people of Guildford.

We're quite a moderate place.

I would say we're radically moderate Guildford.

There are people who want to leave the European

Union without a deal.

I mean, they email me.

But I think most people want a moderate solution

to the results of the 2016 election.

I think Boris Johnson's strategy would