Why would Boris Johnson not try to call an early general election by 'ordinary law' at this point?

Question

According to some of the answers given to this question, it is possible that Boris Johnson could try to call an early UK general election by ordinary law, through an act of Parliament, which would not require approval by a 2/3 majority of MPs.

One of the downsides suggested for that strategy was that his political opponents might try to force amendments to the bill that would be undesirable for the PM, such as requiring him to request an extension to Brexit from the EU.

However, given that at this point he has already failed to prevent a bill being passed that would force a Brexit extension, why would he not attempt to call an election by ordinary law at this point? What does he have to lose?

Especially as it seems likely (according to this article) that he would easily achieve a simple majority (on September 4th, 298 MPs voted for an early election and only 56 voted against).

Answer 1

The PM has a huge amount to lose in terms of calling a General Election via an Ordinary Law.

First off, he could lose the vote. As I noted in a comment 298 MPs is not a majority of the house of Commons. After removing non-voting speakers, and non-sitting Sinn Fein you still need around 313 votes to be certain of a majority as the Cooper Amendment showed.

Secondly using ordinary legislation means the bill would be amendable as you've noted. There are any number of ways this could go wrong for the PM, including reversing the Kinnock Amendment assuming it is true that the government engaged in shenanigans to get the amendment onto the anti-no-deal bill in the first place.

Finally it would remove any ambiguity over the date of such an election. This being the reason MPs are currently giving for not voting for the election under the Fixed Term Parliament act. Ordinary legislation would have to include a date (which could be amended) and the PM would lose the ability to change it after the legislation passed. This is not the case with a motion under the Fixed Term Parliament Act.

A fresh vote on an early election is scheduled for Monday; Another Vote. But it's not clear to me if this is under Ordinary Legislation or the Fixed Term Parliament Act.