Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Boris Johnson offers Christmas message of unity after winning historic landslide… Boris Johnson has pledged to use his 80-seat majority to “heal” Britain once he has brought “closure” to the Brexit turmoil of the past three years. Signalling a distinct shift towards the centre ground, the Prime Minister made unity the theme of a muted victory speech in Downing Street, promising to repay the trust of all those who had voted Tory for the first time. He promised 2020 would be a year of “prosperity, growth and hope” on Friday and signed off by saying: “Thank you all very much, and Happy Christmas.” Mr Johnson’s victory provided an immediate jolt to the economy, with the FTSE 250 index hitting a record high as the value of businesses in the FTSE 350 increased by £33 billion. – Telegraph (£) Boris Johnson calls for ‘healing’ after crushing UK election victory – FT (£) Boris Johnson calls on Britain to ‘heal’ after Brexit turmoil – Politico > WATCH: Newly elected PM Boris Johnson addresses the nation …as his adviser Dominic Cummings reportedly says they won because Remainers ‘f***ed it up’ Boris Johnson‘s top adviser has said the Conservatives won a decisive election victory as opponents of Brexit “f***** it up” by failing to read the mood of the country. Dominic Cummings, who was one of the driving forces in the Vote Leave campaign, delivered a typically blunt criticism of “educated Remainer campaigner types”, who he said had doubled down on their views rather than learning from the results of the referendum. Regarded in Westminster as a divisive figure, Mr Cummings has played a key role in Mr Johnson’s premiership, including the controversial decision to prorogue parliament in September. – Independent People’s Vote campaign is scrapped as organisers accept a second Brexit referendum is not going to happen under Johnson The so-called People’s Vote campaign is to be scrapped following Boris Johnson’s overwhelming Brexit mandate. Leading Remainers on Thursday watched their hopes of a second EU referendum go up in smoke as the Prime Minister stormed to a decisive 80-seat majority with which he can ram through his withdrawal deal. Open Britain, which runs the campaign, conceded a fresh vote is no longer a realistic possibility and made the decision to mothball the grassroots movement. The group will instead rebrand to an organisation that holds the government to account as it charts a course outside of the EU. – Daily Mail Brexit to come ‘soon’ after the election win after the EU says it’s ‘ready for the next phase’… European Council President Charles Michel has today said the EU is ready to get Brexit done following Boris Johnson’s landslide election victory. Charles Michel congratulated Boris on his huge majority and said: “We expect a vote on the withdrawal agreement as soon as possible. The EU is ready for the next phase.” A jubilant Prime Minister declared that his party has “smashed the roadblock” and “ended the gridlock” as he vowed to plough on with Brexit. The Conservatives cruised to an historic victory – securing a massive majority – as Boris this morning thanked Brexit Brits for trusting him. He vowed to work every day to honour them and the ecstatic Tory boss stressed that work to finally get Britain out of the EU would start later today. – The Sun …with EU leaders finally acknowledging that Brexit is inevitable… EU leaders said Friday they will now work to ensure close cooperation with the United Kingdom after it leaves the EU. After Boris Johnson won a large majority in Thursday’s election, it looks now all but certain the UK will leave the European Union on January 31 — a fact conceded by EU leaders as thoughts immediately turned to fresh negotiations on Britain’s future relationship with the bloc. “We expect as soon as possible a vote by the British parliament on the Withdrawal Agreement,” European Council President Charles Michel said on arriving at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels. “The EU will negotiate to ensure to have a close cooperation in the future with the U.K.,” he added, noting that “the integrity of the Single Market is a very important issue for us.” – Politico > WATCH: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reacts to the UK’s election result > WATCH: EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier reacts to the UK’s election result > WATCH: Irish PM Leo Varadkar reacts to the UK’s election result …and Brussels seemingly adopts ‘Let’s Get Brexit Done’ as its slogan A day after the UK election, EU27 leaders took up a new position: “Let’s get Brexit done!” And if that wasn’t familiar enough to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, they also warned that the clock is still ticking. Speaking at the end of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she expected the Withdrawal Agreement to be ratified on the British side by January, and to move swiftly into negotiations on a new trade relationship. She and other EU27 leaders said their top priority would be to maintain a “level playing field” between the EU and the UK — in an effort to prevent economic competition from undermining regulatory standards or putting the bloc at other disadvantages. – Politico Leo Varadkar claims Johnson is ready to sign up to EU standards to secure a post-Brexit trade deal next year… Leo Varadkar has suggested Boris Johnson could use his decisive majority to sign up to EU standards in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit at the end of next year. The taoiseach said he believed Mr Johnson would agree to keep the UK closely aligned to European rules on labour rights and environmental protections to ensure he can sign a tariff-free and quota-free trade with Brussels. The prime minister has vowed not to extend the transition period beyond December 2020, giving himself only 11 months to negotiate the future trading relationship with Brussels or risk crashing out of the bloc. – Independent …but warns of tough trade talks ahead EU leaders also warned that it would be difficult to conclude the post-Brexit free trade agreement by deadline of the end of next year, which Mr Johnson has vowed not to extend despite the risk of exiting without a trade deal in January 2021 if talks fail. They insisted Britain would not be allowed to gain an unfair competitive advantage by undercutting EU standards after Brexit, which should now happen on 31 January, 11 months before the deadline. The German Chancellor, who has reportedly backed the idea of an early ‘stage one deal’ with the UK by December, congratulated Mr Johnson on his “impressive victory” at the end of a European Council summit in Brussels. – Telegraph (£) Nigel Farage warns Boris Johnson against pursuing ‘easy option of a soft Brexit’ after Tories’ landslide election victory Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has vowed to be ‘not too far away from the action’ after Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to victory at the polls. The Tories will hold an 80-seat majority when Parliament resumes and Mr Johnson said his party’s MPs have an ‘overwhelming mandate… to get Brexit done and we will honour that mandate by 31 January’. But Mr Farage, whose party contested 275 seats and took 2 per cent of votes but won no seats, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that pressure would have to be reapplied if Mr Johnson does not live up to his promise of getting Brexit done. He added he was now concerned with the form of Britain’s departure from the bloc, rather than whether Brexit would take place at all. – Daily Mail ‘Devastated’ Jo Swinson apologises to Lib Dems for election failure Jo Swinson has apologised to the Liberal Democrats for a dismal election in which she lost her seat and the party slipped to 11 MPs, but said she did not regret fighting on a defiantly pro-remain platform. Naming some of the MPs ejected as her party lost 10 of its pre-election tally of 21, including the Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, and all the recent defectors from the Conservatives and Labour, Swinson said: “I’m so sorry I couldn’t get them re-elected.” In a speech to party activists, Swinson said she had been an “unapologetic voice of remain in this election”. The stance prompted some criticism inside the Lib Dems, notably the pledge to revoke Brexit without a second referendum if the party won a majority. “Obviously it hasn’t worked,” Swinson said. – Guardian > WATCH: Now former Lib Dem Leader, Jo Swinson reflects on the election result John Longworth: The Brexit Party’s work is over. Now it’s up to the Tories to get Brexit done Over the coming days and weeks, there will be a lot of politicians and commentators peddling their agendas, providing their excuses and trying to shape future thinking in their own image. Many of these narratives and analyses of the election will be wrong factually, and flawed in their intent. The true narrative is that the Conservative government have been given a rare mandate to shape Britain, to establish our place in the world and to develop a turbo-charged economy. It is vital that the Conservative Party do not retrench to becoming conservative with a small ”c”. After a splendid election result, my only concern at present is that vested interests prevail coupled with the low-level of competence in our political class allowing the Whitehall agenda to win out. – John Longworth MEP for the Telegraph (£) Andrew Lilico: This massive Tory victory spells the death of the disgraceful People’s Vote movement The battle to prevent Brexit is over. It failed. It was the most scandalous, anti-democratic, reactionary movement since the opposition to the Great Reform Bill of the 1830s. It trampled on our constitutional traditions. It broke the Conservative Party into pieces. It left over 17 million people with the Establishment openly declaring them mentally and morally deficient, incapable and unworthy of making democratic decisions. It was a disgrace and shamed Britain before the world. Also defeated is the movement to neuter Brexit, by keeping us in the EU’s customs union and having us follow the EU’s laws and trade policy. That project of Theresa May, Philip Hammond, many civil servants and much of the Labour front bench, is bankrupt. When we leave, we will truly leave the EU’s legal jurisdiction. We will make our own laws, our own new trade deals, our own new geopolitical partnerships. – Andrew Lilico for the Telegraph (£) Douglas Carswell: Will Remainers finally admit defeat on Brexit? Spare a thought today for Hugh Grant. Having got involved in the election campaign by urging us to vote to stop Brexit – along with former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major, as well as assorted celebrities such as Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard – he will have now woken up to the realisation that his side has lost. Hugh and co have not just lost in the sense that many of those they wanted us to vote for did not win their seats. Nor has has his side lost simply because Boris won a massive landslide, the largest Conservative win since 1987. No. What all these assorted Remainers have haemorrhaged is credibility. – Douglas Carswell for CapX Colin Drury: Why ‘Workington Man’ has no regrets about voting Tory The Cumbrian town of Workington seemed much the same on Friday morning as it had the previous day. The Christmas lights still twinkled; shoppers still went about their business; the local Wetherspoon still did, even at 8am, a decent clip of business. Yet, overnight, history had been made in this coastal community. The Workington Man – a voter-type identified as key to electoral success – had turned to the Tories. For only the second time in more than a century, this Labour heartland – widely considered one of the most solid bricks in the so-called great red wall – elected a Conservative MP. At 1.30am, at the town’s glass-fronted leisure centre, presiding officer Andrew Seekings announced that Sue Hayman had been beaten by challenger Mark Jenkinson. – Colin Drury for the Independent Stephen Davies: This cataclysmic election confirms that the realignment of British politics is almost complete The 2019 General Election is like a flash of lightning that reveals the contours of a landscape previously shrouded in darkness. Several things are now clear, when you combine this result with its predecessor from 2017. The realignment of politics in England and Wales, which began with the rise of Ukip after 2010, is now almost complete. We are now in a new political settlement in which the main division over politics is not so much economics as national identity and cultural politics, although economic issues still play a part. (A similar but different realignment in Scotland is done and dusted). – Dr Stephen Davies for the Telegraph (£) Darren Loucaides: The Brexit party folded, but make no mistake, Farage won it for Johnson Until 11 November, many had assumed that Nigel Farage’s Brexit party was revving up for a general election. But that morning, Farage told an audience of supporters and journalists in Hartlepool that his Brexit party would be standing down in 317 Conservative-held seats to avoid splitting the leave vote. The audience was stunned; there was muted applause after he finished. This election will be remembered as a resounding, crushing victory for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. Just as has happened countless times before, Farage will be written off and ridiculed for his party not winning a single seat. But that morning of 11 November was the single most important moment of the campaign. Farage won it for Johnson. – Darren Loucaides for the Guardian Oliver Dunn: Why delivering Brexit will revitalise the UK The failure to deliver Brexit has created a fractious and febrile political atmosphere because it is clear many of our politicians have failed to live up to their promises and commitments. It has been suggested by some pro-Remain figures that the desire to see the UK leave the EU has led to some regarding the United Kingdom ‘union of nations’ as standing in the way of Brexit. Indeed, survey data released at the end of October as part of the Future of England Survey* (conducted by YouGov to aid research by the Universities of Cardiff and Edinburgh) shows a majority of both Leave and Remain supporters would be willing to accept the break-up of the UK as a price worth paying for their desired outcome of Leaving or Remaining in the European Union. – Oliver Dunn for Get Britain Out Brexit in Brief At last, Britain’s glorious Brexit dream can take off – Patrick O’FLynn for the Express Well done the voters – John Redwood’s Diary Is the Electoral Commission fit for purpose? – Joshua Mackenzie-Lawrie for Get Britain Out All candidates Hugh Grant canvassed with during the election campaign failed to win their seat – The Sun All 18 anti-Brexit MPs who switched parties since 2017 and stood again were defeated – Guido Fawkes