© Charlotte Graham/Pool via REUTERS

Can a leader be incompetent and lacking in ideas—while at the same time be convinced that he is a revolutionary? In the case of Boris Johnson, the answer seemingly is “yes.”

Britain’s prime minister, courtesy of Eton College and Oxford University, makes for an unlikely agitator against the Establishment. But this master of reinvention and marketing is determined to go down in history as one of the greats who will change his country – and the world. Like his lodestar, Winston Churchill, Johnson thinks he is battling to save his nation from the enemy.

It is, of course, all nonsense, a figment of his ever-fertile brain. But it matters because he believes it, and a worrying proportion of voters believe him too.

What therefore is the grand plan? Johnson doesn’t do detail—his chaotic handling of the coronavirus pandemic attests to that. But he does have a sharp eye for the popular (and populist) and has spent a career constructing a persona around that. He identified from early on, from the mid-late 1980s, the benefits he would accrue from euroskepticism. He then pursued it relentlessly. Many interlocutors attest to the fact that he didn’t actually believe it. But that wasn’t the point.

His entire identity has been artfully constructed—his shambolic appearance, his unfortunate turns of phrase, his ostentatious unpunctuality. It has allowed him to stand out from the crowd, to build a base. Like US President Donald Trump, he turned conventional wisdom on its head. Personality traits that mainstream members of public life regard as weaknesses, he saw as a strength. Like Trump, he has not trimmed these back since taking office, defying those who predicted that he would.

Hitting Easily Identifiable Targets

Like Trump, Johnson has not learnt gravitas in the face of the biggest global crisis for 75 years. He stumbles around, suggesting laws, changing his mind, blithely indifferent to the effect the shambolic leadership style is having on ordinary lives. What is remarkable, however, is how his opinion poll ratings have dropped only slightly—and in line with a normal first year in office for a leader.

He must therefore be doing something right. I scratch my head to see what exactly it is. But I will attempt to deconstruct the underpinnings of an agenda for the Johnson premiership.

First of all, he is good at hitting easily identifiable targets. He said he would “get Brexit done,” come what may, and unlike his predecessor, the dithering Theresa May, he did just that. He had no idea what would follow, but he deduced that decisiveness was, in voters’ minds, more important than content. Even as the negotiations floundered over the spring and summer, he declared that he would not delay the deadline for transition —deal or no deal—whatever the consequences.

Throwing Money Around

COVID-19 may have diverted him from his post-Brexit reveries; it may have exposed his failings, but, bizarrely for a crisis as existential as this one, it has also allowed him to luxuriate in his customary optimism—and to invite the Great British Public to do the same. How so? As with other countries, the economic exigencies have required the Treasury to throw the rule book into the bin. He can now throw money around with abandon, giving expression to his preferences and his prejudices. It did not go unnoticed around the world that pubs in Britain opened earlier than schools.

Like the British children’s television character, Bob the Builder, he has allowed himself to be termed Boris the Builder. “Build, build, build” was the slogan pinned to the lectern when he gave a speech in the English Midlands recently. Not content with being compared to Churchill, Johnson now likens himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Promising a “New Deal” to “rebuild Britain,” and blaming his predecessors for Britain’s woes, he vowed to use the coronavirus crisis “to tackle this country’s great unresolved challenges of the last three decades.” He continued: “To build the homes, to fix the National Health Service, to tackle the skills crisis, to mend the indefensible gap in opportunity and productivity and connectivity between the regions of the UK. To unite and level up.”

Much of the money will be spent in the North of England, which he is right to say has been starved of investment for decades. Johnson recognizes that many people in poorer, non-metropolitan parts of the country, the so-called “Red Wall” of traditional Labour voters, enabled his big majority in December’s general election by “lending” him their support. They did so because of Brexit, antipathy towards the then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn—and his promises to “level up” the country. At the same time, Johnson’s people believe that they can keep a portion of the younger, more environmentalist, voters on side by pushing ahead with a green agenda. This could include incentives towards jobs and projects that help meet or even accelerate the country’s net zero carbon targets.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak—the only member of the cabinet to have emerged from coronavirus crisis with his standing enhanced—will announce a National Infrastructure Strategy as part of his budget in October. By then, unemployment in the UK will have soared as the well-received salary deferral scheme comes to a close. And most likely a second wave of the pandemic will have led to either a second national lockdown or more selected local ones. The atmosphere will be one of frustration and anxiety.

Taxes or Spending

Longer term, Johnson faces two interlinked dilemmas. With the UK having spent the best part of a decade under David Cameron paying down the deficit, he will have accrued one that dwarfs all previous challenges. Public opinion and economic thinking have long since moved away from ultra-austerity, but this current government will, within a few years, have to start addressing the problem. If Johnson refuses to cut spending, he will have to raise taxes. Which brings me to his underlying philosophical dilemma—if that isn’t too fancy a term to give it. How does he reconcile the dreams of many Brexiteer ideologues of creating a low-tax, low-regulation Singapore on the Thames, with his high-spending, earthy, nostalgic view of Britain? Could he create both? Could he have his cake and eat it. It is highly unlikely, but not impossible. He will try.

He has a certain amount of wriggle room. The Conservatives’ standing on the economy remains considerably above that of Labour, a traditional advantage they have almost always enjoyed over the years. Yet the steely and forensic approach of the still-new Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, is beginning to unnerve Downing Street.

Even if Johnson’s ratings for economic competence begin to suffer, he has something else to fall back on. Again, in a mirror of Trump, he plays the culture war whenever he feels he is having a bad week.     

His agitator-in-chief, Dominic Cummings, having ignored the condemnation of his breaking lockdown rules and driving 400 kilometers from London to his parents’ home in the city of Durham, is back at his voracious best (or worst). Johnson’s right hand man loves to be noticed. This Rasputin-meets-Richelieu is even creating a new fashion, of dress-down tracksuit with shepherd’s walking stick. His call at the start of 2020 for “misfits and weirdos” to apply to work with the new government attracted the attention that was no doubt intended.

English Exceptionalism 2.0

Cummings likes to identify enemies and then remove them. He has already got rid of the government’s most senior civil servant, the Cabinet Secretary, and his equivalent in the Foreign Office. He wants wholesale reform of Whitehall and has also set his sights on the defense sector and the intelligence agencies. The assault on the BBC is incessant.

The plans have two aims. One is to create greater efficiency, which is to be applauded. Many a prime minister, not least Tony Blair, lamented the bureaucracy’s ability to stop fresh thinking. Alongside this is a more pervasive idea to create an English Exceptionalism 2.0. This borrows from nostalgic notions of an island nation, freed from the shackles of unprincipled Europeans, a nation of true-born and free Englishmen where liberties are uppermost. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has recently taken to attacking Russia and China for their human rights records, gliding over the fact that a parliamentary report into Russian influence, which Johnson refused to publish for nearly a year, revealed the extent to which the government deliberately failed to investigate Kremlin involvement in the Brexit referendum or the 2019 election.

Just as COVID-19 has turned all governments’ plans on their heads, so other events will also intervene. Two are easy to predict. Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2021 could produce a further uptick in support for the Scottish National Party. That will encourage Nicola Sturgeon to push hard for a second independence referendum. Johnson will seek to refuse it, leading to an epic struggle.

The single most important event will be the US presidential elections. If Trump wins (God forbid), Johnson’s role as the president’s best buddy will be enhanced. A trade deal with the US will be easier to negotiate (albeit more on the Americans’ terms). Yet it will cement a US-UK relationship that will be seen by much of the world as dangerously toxic. If Biden prevails, Johnson will have lost his prop. He will have to operate in a world that may, just may, be returning to the mainstream. How would he operate then? Would he be capable of another reincarnation? Such is his hubris, he would certainly try, suggesting all along that he was never the nationalist-populist that he was so “unfairly” accused of being.

John Kampfner’s new book Why the Germans Do It Better (Altantic Books) is out now.

The post The Master of Reinvention appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Hannah McKay

Brexit was always an emotional rather than instrumental venture. It was based on a yearning for national sovereignty and a nostalgic view of the United Kingdom’s role in the world. Its biggest weakness, however, lies elsewhere.

Its architects could not make up their mind about which of two visions they were projecting. Was Britain going to become Singapore-on-the-Thames, a low-tax, low-regulation island of futuristic start-ups that was open to all-comers, as long as they had the skills and the thirst? Or, unshackled from the European Union, was it going to do more to protect its own, to give the state more of a say in determining and equalizing outcomes? The likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove—the leaders of the 2016 Leave campaign and presently prime minister and minister for the cabinet office respectively—never resolved this dilemma, because they knew they couldn’t, and because they wanted to have their cake and eat it.

June Is the Real Deadline

Now, with COVID-19 tearing apart lives and communities, exposing the lack of planning, strategy, and investment in the National Health Service and decimating the economy, logic might dictate that the government let up in its determination to meet the December 31 deadline for the transition period out of the EU. Not a bit of it, say ministers, displaying the same hubris that led them initially to dismiss the coronavirus as a serious threat to the UK.

According to one adviser, those around the prime minister believe they can still make the deadline—even though that deadline is not actually the end of the year, but the end of June. As the Withdrawal Treaty states, any request for a one- or two-year extension must be submitted by then.

With the two men at the heart of the negotiations, the EU’s Michel Barnier and the UK’s David Frost, having previously been struck down by the virus, and with discussions only now resuming by video link after a sizeable pause, the chances of any meaningful agreement in weeks are negligible at best.

The aim is a free-trade agreement, with a zero-quota, zero-tariff deal similar to the one the EU agreed with Canada (after years of talks). They also have to tackle aviation, nuclear energy, international security, and the small but politically vexed question of fisheries. Thus, the timetable was always going to be ambitious. When the first round of negotiations began, the two sides admitted that they faced “very serious divergences.”

Johnson’s Corona Setback

Bizarrely, given how much of a mess his government has made of its response to the pandemic, Johnson is politically unassailable. His 80-seat majority in the House of Commons gives him legislative carte blanche. His opinion poll ratings are sky high, boosted by a sympathy vote after he was admitted to hospital with the coronavirus. The Labour Party’s new leader, Keir Starmer, will provide a much more forensic opposition than Jeremy Corbyn ever did, but he will take some time to make a mark in this “wartime” setting.

Longer term, Johnson knows that COVID-19 has delivered a setback to his plans to remake Britain in his image. He knows that he cannot opt for a low-tax regime, such will be the UK’s indebtedness. He also knows that he will not be able to lavish money on his pet projects. Thus, there will be no Singapore-on-the-Thames nor will there be a great social transformation.

Yet, as one former aide to Theresa May points out, Johnson has nowhere else to go. “He has to make this new political geography work. He has to make this realignment permanent. They will be desperate for the budget not to be swept away.” The advisor was referring to the so-called Red Wall, the constituencies in the North of England and the Midlands that had been traditionally Labour, but were won over to the Conservatives in last December’s general election because of their twin pledge to “get Brexit done” and to invest more in their regions.

On his victory, Johnson thanked those voters for “lending” their support, knowing that they could easily transfer it back if they felt the promises had been broken. Hence his visceral reluctance to “do a May” on Brexit, to follow his predecessor in delaying the departure process, irrespective of the circumstances. In addition, if he is unable to make as much of a difference in domestic policy as he had hoped, then Brexit becomes even more talismanic for him.

Oven-Ready or Not

When Johnson declared during the election campaign that a deal “was oven-ready,” it seems he meant it. Or rather he meant that he believed the country was ready for either leaving without a deal or with the most minimalist of deals, both of which translated into the hardest of Brexit and future trading on World Trade Organization terms—plus a special protocol for Northern Ireland. He didn’t even see the point of an accord on security matters or on aviation.

The plan was, literally, to get it all done as soon as possible, both the January 31, 2020, departure and the December 31, 2020, end of transition. The idea was to absorb the economic shock early in the cycle of the parliament.

The British economy might have been just about robust enough in normal times, but now? The counterargument is that, given that a post-COVID-19 recession (or depression) will last years and not months, a short-term delay will not make much difference. That is a cavalier approach—but Johnson is a cavalier politician.

Downing Street has other rhetorical weaponry to deploy. First of all, it can argue that the UK will be saving money by not paying any more into Brussels’ coffers. That is correct, in a narrow sense. It can also point to the fact that the EU has hardly covered itself in glory during the pandemic, closing borders, slapping bans on the export of vital equipment even within Europe, fighting over coronabonds, and the richer North refusing to help out the poorer South, as happened during the eurozone debt crisis a decade ago.

At the same time, the UK cannot point to a single area where being outside of the EU’s institutional framework has helped it plan logistics and purchase equipment to tackle the virus.

U-Turn in the Offing?

Johnson, like Margaret Thatcher, manages the twin feat of sounding unyielding while being perfectly willing to compromise or make a U-turn. The easiest way for him to agree to a delay is if both sides agree to it jointly. This would require Barnier’s agreement as the current requirement is a request coming from London. Any joint agreement could be dressed up as technical and purely in light of the COVID-19 crisis.

Already ultra-Brexiteers are crying foul. They started to sense something was afoot when a former Tory MP, Nick de Bois, who had served as chief of staff to Dominic Raab, now the Foreign Secretary, penned an opinion piece in the Sunday Times newspaper in early April explicitly calling for a delay. “First, it would be incomprehensible to many members of the public if this government devoted time and energy on these talks until the pandemic was under control. The controversy over testing policy and logistics illustrates how intense government efforts must both be and seen to be,” he wrote. “Second, it will strike business, already on life support, as utterly illogical and inconsistent with the government’s efforts to support business, to impose the prospect of greater disruption by not extending the transition period.”

Nigel Farage, who since the December 2019 election has fallen off the political radar, sensed an opportunity when the question of a delay was first mooted. “We need to be free completely of the EU so that, as we emerge from the crisis, we are free to make all of our commercial and trade decisions,” he told his dwindling band of supporters. Tory MPs and former ministers are making similar noises.

The more “Remainers” or “soft Brexiteers” advocate a delay, the harder it will be for Johnson politically. In any case, the final decision will be guided by public opinion. Polls currently show a small majority supporting a delay, although that number drops sharply among ardent “Leavers”. Most floating voters were relieved to have forgotten about Brexit and have little desire or cause to think about it during the pandemic.

Stretching the Truth

Downing Street has already been stung by well-sourced media accounts of how Johnson paid little attention to the coronavirus outbreak during the crucial five weeks from the end of January (while the Germans and others were frantically trying to prepare themselves). He was too busy celebrating “Brexit day” and planning his assault on institutions from the BBC to the civil service. He knows the public will not tolerate another “distraction”.

In the end, if there is no trade deal, and if the UK leaves at the end of the year in the midst of post-corona economic carnage, Johnson will have made his decision on a precise calculation. One of his considerations will be this: voters, no matter how much they suffer, would not be able to disaggregate his move. He could say that Brexit had nothing to do with it. He could lay the blame entirely on the pandemic. It wouldn’t be the first time in his career he had—to put it ever so politely—stretched the truth.

The post Not for Turning appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

By winning 365 of the 650 parliamentary seats, Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have changed Britain’s political landscape for the next five years, possibly for the next decade. After the last three to four years of knife-edge votes and parliamentary paralysis, the coast will be clear for them to introduce whatever legislation they wish.

The 80-seat majority at the December 12 election was at the very top end of predictions, indeed beyond the expectations of most Tory strategists.

Johnson will move quickly. He will have learnt the lessons of Tony Blair, who failed to capitalize on his landslide in 1997. Brexit will take place on January 31, this time without any last-minute hiccups. A budget will be introduced in March that is likely to include spending commitments on the National Health Service and infrastructure, particularly to reward his new-found voters in the North of England and the Midlands. Expect also early decisions on a series of ideologically driven challenges to the civil service and the BBC, two right-wing pet hates.

A detailed analysis of the results suggests, however, that overall support for the Conservatives is by no means as comprehensive as may initially have seemed.

Leave United, Remain Divided

Their big margin of victory can be attributed to three factors—the demographic particularities of Brexit, the electoral system, and clever strategizing.

Brexit: the Conservatives were clear winners in constituencies that voted Leave in the 2016 EU referendum. They won almost three quarters of all these seats. The writing was on the wall for pro-Remain groups when Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party announced at the start of the campaign that it would not compete in constituencies that the Tories were defending.

The Leave caucus found itself united. By contrast, the Remain one was not. Some small-scale alliances were formed involving the Liberal Democrats, Welsh nationalists, and Greens; but these were marginal and had very little effect. The fact that the Lib Dems (who had advocated revoking the original Article 50 decision) and Labour (who couldn’t quite work out what its position was) fought furiously against each other was a gift to Johnson.

As a result, the Remain vote was split, with a crowded field of parties sharing the seats between them.

The Conservatives won an impressive 294 of the 410 seats that had opted to get out of the EU. Labour secured only 106, in spite of Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to accede to the demands of most of his parliamentary party to endorse a second referendum.

Corbyn Trumped Brexit

His equivocation on the issue didn’t do him an enormous amount of good on the other side of the divide either. Of the 240 seats that had a majority opting to remain in 2016, Labour won only 96. The Conservatives trailed, but not by much, with 71, confirming the assertion that Johnson’s role in securing Brexit was regarded as less of a threat to voters than the prospect of a Corbyn government. In heavily pro-Remain Scotland, the SNP pro-independence and pro-EU party won a hugely impressive 48 of the 59 seats available.

The constitution: Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system was designed to ensure “strong” government. This is in direct contrast to, say, Germany or other countries, where consensus is regarded as the goal. That is why the UK has had so few coalitions. Even though the one it had between 2010 and 2015 involving the Conservatives and Lib Dems was stable, conventional wisdom has been hostile to any change in the way votes are distributed.

One can understand why any governing party would be resistant. The winner has a disproportionate amount of power. On a purely proportional system, the UK would have had a hung parliament, and the Tories’ 43.6 percent share of the vote would have required them to try to create an alliance with another party. The Lib Dems and Greens have long been the biggest losers in the present system. This time was no different.

The message: Conservative strategists realized long before Johnson called the election that they did not need to be popular. They needed merely to emphasize the unpopularity of Corbyn. The plan worked perfectly. Labour had their worst return of seats in any general election since 1935. They fell backwards in every region of the UK, declining by an average of 8 percentage points. In the northeast of England, their previous heartland, they shed 13 points—almost all of the swing going to the Tories. Even in the most affluent London and the southeast, they lost over 6 percentage points—mainly to the Lib Dems.

The following figures perfectly demonstrate the unfairness of the system. The Lib Dems gained an extra 4 percent of voters, yet lost one seat, ending up with a paltry 11. The Greens and the SNP went up too. The Tory vote only increased by 2 percent overall, but in spite of that small rise, they are seen to have triumphed.

Thanks therefore to a skewed voting system, an unpopular Labour leader, smart Tory strategy, and the failure of pro-EU parties to unite, the UK faces a long period of hegemony by a right-wing populist-nationalist party voted in by less than half of the population. That is the depressing state of Britain’s constitution and political culture.

A More Diverse Parliament

Yet some other data suggest that long term trends may be different. Northern Ireland, on the front line of the Brexit battle, now has for the first time more nationalist than unionist MPs. Parliament will have a record 63 members who come from an ethnic minority, an increase of 11 from two years ago. And a total of 220 women have been elected. This is 12 more than the previous high of 208 in 2017 and constitutes just over a third of the total number. Labour and the Lib Dems have more female than male MPs.

A more diverse parliament, just like a more diverse corporate boardroom, is a good thing in itself. Whether it produces a different mindset is much harder to say.

What is clear from these results is that the United Kingdom is a patchwork of voters with very different backgrounds and priorities. That one party and prime minister have acquired unbridled power, in effect able to do whatever they like for a minimum of five years, is the most dangerous of the many quirks in the British system.

The post Europe by Numbers: A Very British Election appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Ben Stansall/Pool via REUTERS

The British general election on December 12 can be seen as a de facto second referendum on Brexit. Certainly, other important issues were brought up during the campaign, most of them domestic. But the resounding victory for Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservatives can only be interpreted as a clear endorsement of his Brexit approach: to leave the EU at the end of January 2020 and to subsequently pursue his vision of a more distant future relationship with the EU.

One can argue with good reason that before the 2016 referendum, the UK did not have a well-informed debate about the consequences of leaving the EU. But after two-and-a-half years of negotiations with Brussels, many hours of debate in Parliament, and a broad public discussion, British voters had a better idea of what Brexit meant. For instance, they knew that that, once outside, trade with the EU would no longer be “frictionless” and that UK citizens would lose their freedom of movement within the EU. Nevertheless, British voters confirmed their 2016 decision. While the UK’s first-past-the-post system makes the Conservative victory look bigger than it was, the fact is that the party promising to “Get Brexit Done” won a clear majority to do just that.

For the EU, there is one immediate upside to the election outcome. There is now certainty that the UK’s withdrawal can take place in an orderly manner. The EU and its most affected member states had put in place serious contingency planning to prepare for “no-deal”. Once the parliament in Westminster and the European Parliament have ratified the withdrawal agreement Johnson renegotiated in the fall, the EU will have succeeded at defending its vital interests: EU unity has been maintained throughout the Brexit process; the rights of EU citizens living in the UK (and vice versa) have been secured; a solution for the Irish border question has been found; and the UK has signed up to a financial settlement of its membership obligations as well as to a political framework for future relationship.

Toward a New Cliff Edge

In the UK, the impact of leaving will not immediately be felt on February 1, 2020. The withdrawal agreement provides for a transition phase in which the UK essentially continues to enjoy all benefits of EU membership without participating in the EU institutions: Britain continues to be part of the single market and even free movement will continue.

And yet, most of the decisions that will shape the relationship between the UK and the EU—probably for decades—have yet to be taken. A key difference between the “Johnson deal” and that of his predecessor Theresa May (“May deal”) is that Johnson’s pursues—at least in economic terms—a rather distant relationship with the EU in the future. Norway, Switzerland and even Turkey have closer economic ties with the EU than the UK will have once the transition phase ends. The difficult decisions that this approach entails will become clear quite quickly once the second phase of the negotiations begins.

As for the EU, maintaining unity among the 27 member states was key to securing a withdrawal agreement within the given time frame. But it may be more difficult to stick together during the negotiations on the future relationship. EU members, having secured their key interests in the withdrawal agreement, may find it tempting to pursue national interests more assertively now in upcoming negotiations with a non-member state.

Also, there will be enormous time pressure. The transition phase is limited to the end of 2020 unless an extension of one or two years is mutually agreed by June 2020. In their manifesto, the Tories committed to not extending the transition period. And in contrast to the earlier two-year withdrawal negotiations period which started in March 2017, two safety valves no longer exist: a last minute extension, called for by the UK on three occasions in order to avoid a disorderly withdrawal, is no longer an option. And revoking Article 50 (which set the withdrawal process in motion) will no longer be possible, either. The new cliff-edge at the end of the transition may be less steep, but much more difficult to avoid.

Stay or Go?

The medium- and long-term impact Brexit will have on Scotland’s and Northern Ireland’s place in the UK also difficult to assess. While the Scottish Nationalists (SNP) interpret their strong showing as a mandate to pursue a second referendum on independence, Johnson has rejected the idea, while most polls continue to show a narrow majority for Scotland staying in the UK. And a referendum in  in (Northern) Ireland is even less of an issue at the moment.

However, with the SNP ascendant, the question of Scottish independence is not going away. And the fact that Northern Ireland will remain in the EU’s market for goods for all practical purposes and that there will eventually be customs checks in the Irish sea may contribute to a change in dynamic there too.

In both cases, the effect would not be limited to the UK itself or UK-Irish relations: The EU would have to respond to both a membership application from an independent Scotland or a move towards the unification of Ireland. So the EU will want to watch domestic developments in the UK closely even after Brexit.

At the same time, there is a very sobering dimension to the election result for the EU itself. Anyone who still hoped for a reversal of the 2016 referendum result can now give up that dream. In addition, the EU can no longer console itself with the notion that the rejection of membership in one of the EU’s biggest, most prosperous member states could be explained by dissatisfaction with domestic policy issues or as being a result of poor information about the consequences of leaving the EU. If the withdrawal negotiations demonstrated in detail the difficulties of departure from the EU, voters in the UK essentially shrugged them off. In that sense, the UK election serves as a reminder for the remaining EU members that popular support for European integration should never be taken for granted.

The post Brexit’s Point of No Return appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

When he became prime minister in late July, Boris Johnson reassured anxious Britons that leaving the European Union without an exit agreement was “a million-to-one shot.” An divorce deal, which would be the preface to negotiations on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU, could be reached easily. Yet at the G7 summit in Biarritz in late August, Johnson declared that although the prospects for reaching such a deal were improving, it remained “touch and go” as to whether or not such an agreement could be reached.

What had been a million-to-one shot is now the short-priced favorite. Like life, politics comes at you fast.

If Britain crashes out of the EU without an agreement, Johnson is clear where the blame for this must lie: with the EU itself. Britain, he says, is willing to start afresh, and it is only the EU’s intransigence that stands in the way of a successful, mutually satisfactory deal.

This plainly is a message aimed at Johnson’s domestic audience rather than his counterparts in Berlin, Paris, and elsewhere. The UK, he claims, can easily cope with a no-deal Brexit. This despite the fact that the British government’s own forecasts (“Operation Yellowhammer”) anticipate significant difficulties in the short to medium term if Britain simply walks away from the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May.

Wishful Thinking

These difficulties include, but are not limited to, large-scale disruption to food supplies, a possible shortage of vital medicines, and a reduction of trade flows at major ports such as Dover that may, at least in the short-term, reduce traffic flows by more than 50 percent. If the government’s own private appraisal is correct, Britain is not ready for a no-deal Brexit even if the government, in public, declares it is.

After Johnson visited Berlin last month, pro-Brexit parts of the British press leapt upon German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s suggestion the UK had 30 days to come up with alternatives to the current agreement as though this proved Johnson’s strategy of defiance was already paying dividends.

This seems a hopeful analysis based more on wishful thinking than anything of true substance. French President Emmanuel Macron made this very clear. Yes, the agreement could be reopened and yes, the UK could propose workable alternatives to the problem of the Irish backstop that has become the totemic issue of contention but, be in no doubt about this, any new agreement would look very much like the agreement that has three times been rejected by the House of Commons. If there is wiggle room here, it is only very limited wiggle room.

Johnson may demand changes but the most likely one remains shifting the de facto UK-EU border from the frontier with the Republic of Ireland to the Irish sea, leaving Northern Ireland in close alignment with the EU while permitting the rest of the UK to go its own way. A Northern Ireland-only backstop, however, was previously rejected by the British government as an intolerable infringement upon UK sovereignty.

“Do or Die”

One thing is clear, however, and that is that one way or another, things can’t carry on like this indefinitely. As matters stand, Britain will leave the EU on October 31. It is, as Johnson says, a “do or die” matter for his government.

However, the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, complete with all its risks and unknown consequences, horrifies many British parliamentarians. Since Johnson’s government enjoys the slenderest of majorities, its long-term survival is very much in doubt. For all his bluster, the new prime minister leads a very weak government.

Johnson’s most senior aide, Dominic Cummings, who masterminded the successful Leave campaign in 2016, says Brexit will be achieved by any means necessary. If that requires parliamentary maneuvers that would, in more ordinary times, be considered a sensational and provocative misuse of power, then so be it. To that end, the possibility of forcing a so-called “people vs. parliament” election has been mooted.

That would allow Johnson to present himself as a kind of people’s champion whose determination to deliver Brexit—as mandated by the people themselves three long years ago—was being thwarted by an alliance of anti-democratic politicians in Westminster, hellbent on frustrating the people’s will. In this scenario, Johnson could, indeed would, present himself as a populist hero taking the fight to an out-of-touch and unaccountable elite who dare to think they know better than the people themselves.

Fear of Farage

If Johnson, a scion of Eton and Oxford, seems an unlikely populist, he remains all too aware that he must defend his right flank first before turning his attention to the center-ground. The threat of the Brexit Party founded by the veteran euroskeptic, Nigel Farage, cannot be ignored. At the European Parliament elections earlier this summer Johnson’s Conservative Party was beaten into fourth place. Estimates suggest more Tory members voted for the Brexit Party than for their own party.

Farage argues that Johnson cannot be trusted to deliver Brexit. He fears a sell-out. Even cast-iron commitments to leave on October 31 are, to switch metallurgical metaphors, fool’s gold. Fear of Farage, more than anything else, helped persuade Tory MPs and members to put aside their reservations about Johnson and elect him leader. Of the available candidates, he was both best-placed to ensure Brexit happened and to then win an election.

Forcing an election, however, is less easy than it used to be. British prime ministers can no longer call a poll whenever they choose. The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, passed in 2011, means an election cannot be called without the agreement of two thirds of MPs. The only exception to this is if a government loses a vote of confidence. In those circumstances, there are 14 days in which to cobble together a new government under a prime minister who can command the support of a majority of MPs. Only then, if no such government can be found, would a new election be called.

No Easy Way Out

Some MPs cling to the idea that a so-called “Government of National Unity” could be formed in the event of the House of Commons toppling Johnson. This seems optimistic, to put it mildly, not least since Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, has little to no interest in such a maneuver.

A no confidence vote this month, then, is a high-risk strategy. Even if the votes can be found to sink Johnson, it is not clear an alternative government could be found. That would mean an election that would probably not be held until early November during which time Britain would gently slide out of the EU, deal or no deal.

That latter scenario looks increasingly likely, not least since any agreed exit in the present climate would look less like compromise than capitulation. Britain finds itself in a corner of its own construction and from which there are no attractive exits.

If this is the beginning of the end of this phase of the Brexit process, it is far from the end of this drama, as shown by the government’s progrurement of parliament —effectively cutting short MPs’ time to block a no deal. An election beckons.

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© REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

A clear majority of Conservative Members of Parliament wants Boris Johnson to take the helm and navigate the country out of the Brexit mess. 160 out of 313 voted for him in the final round of the leadership elections last week, compared to 77 for Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and 75 for Environment Secretary Michael Gove (amidst allegations of tactical voting from Johnson supporters to eliminate Gove, who was considered a greater threat).

It is now up to the approximately 160,000 Tory members to choose the next British Prime Minister from the last two men standing. Johnson and Hunt will present their pitches to the party faithful in hustings across the country, with voting closing on 21 July and the next Prime Minister to be announced shortly thereafter.

Due to his popularity with the party’s base, most of whom are hard line Brexiteers, Johnson is the clear front-runner, although his campaign has already hit a road bump: on June 21 the police were called to Johnson’s girlfriend’s flat after neighbors reported that the couple had had a loud altercation. The details are still unclear, but he will likely have to answer difficult questions sooner or later.

The Face of Leave

Johnson was the face of the infamous Leave campaign in the run-up to the Brexit vote, and to Remainers he epitomized all that was wrong about Brexit, with his propensity for xenophobic remarks and imperial nostalgia; his outright lies, like the claim that leaving the EU would boost the British coffers by £350 million a week; and his gross misrepresenting of the EU—he once compared it to the Third Reich (Hunt, incidentally, has compared the EU to the Soviet Union). President of the European Council Donald Tusk’s comment that a “special place of hell” was reserved for “those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely” was a thinly veiled attack on Johnson.

But in the aftermath of the vote, his star rapidly descended. At the eleventh hour of the previous leadership contest in 2016, Johnson’s running mate  Gove back-stabbed him, citing a lack of character and leadership quality. Once promoted to Foreign Secretary in 2016 in Theresa May’s cabinet, Johnson stood out for his amateurism, unpreparedness, and gaffes. When visiting a Buddhist temple in Myanmar, a former British colony, he started reciting a nostalgic poem from the colonial era, forcing the British ambassador to intervene. And the Brexit impasse exposed his charlatanry during the campaign.

And yet, in a reflection of the dire state of British politics at the moment, Johnson quickly emerged as the man to beat once Theresa May resigned. Built on a far more professional campaign than in 2016, his team has kept Johnson’s media appearances to a minimum to avoid gaffes. He has also managed to reach out far beyond the Brexiteers in his party to attract the support of centrists like Matt Hancock, current health secretary. Tories see Johnson as the last chance to unite the polarized party and, given his popularity among voters and track record of twice winning the mayoralty of liberal London, prevent a wipe-out at the next election.

Brussels’ Horror Scenario?

At first glance, a Johnson premiership would be a nightmare for EU leaders, who have grown ever more frustrated with the Brexit mess and just want to move on to deal with other pressing issues like China, the Trump administration, or climate change.

During the campaign, he has sold unicorns, repeating demands to renegotiate the Northern Ireland backstop, threatening to withhold the £39 billion payment of the divorce bill (that he agreed to in cabinet), and wanting to leave the EU with or without a deal by the next deadline on Halloween. Yet the EU has made clear it is not going to budge on its red lines: the UK will have to settle its financial obligations before any negotiations about a future trading relationship and at the European Council on June 20-21, Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reiterated that “the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation.” And the EU leaders know that they are in the stronger bargaining position, as no-deal would be exceedingly more harmful to the United Kingdom.

Two scenarios are thus conceivable. First, Johnson fails to change the substance of the Withdrawal Agreement and seeks to leave acrimoniously without a deal. But the Westminster parliament, where there is no majority for no-deal, could be able to stop him from going down that path, necessitating fresh elections or possibly another referendum with destination unknown. In that case, the EU would probably grant another extension of the Brexit-saga beyond October 31. Irish Premier Leo Varadkar said that “an extension could only really happen if it were to facilitate something like a general election in the UK or perhaps even something like a second referendum.” Second, Johnson leaves the substance of the Withdrawal Agreement intact, but agrees with the EU to rewrite the political declaration to commit the UK to a free trade agreement rather than a customs union, in the process gaining some extra promises that the backstop will not be needed. This would also require a short extension. He could then try to push this repackaged deal through parliament.

The Johnson U-turn

The second option would contravene everything that Johnson has campaigned for in recent months. But who else could be so shameless to commit the mother of all U-turns? Even he knows that leaving without a deal would be calamitous for the British economy and political relations with its main partners—he has already shifted his rhetoric, arguing when asked to guarantee the exit date that leaving on October 31 is “eminently feasible”.

If anyone can persuade a Conservative Party that has descended into Brexitmania to vote for the repackaged deal (as well as the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party and perhaps a handful of Labour MPs), it is Johnson. Unlike Theresa May, Brexit poster-boy Johnson has sway over the rebellious Tory Brexiteers on the backbenches, most of whom would find it impossible to again vote down a deal that would deliver Brexit. He would also threaten to have no choice but to call a general election should his attempts to push through the deal fail, in which the Tories would be punished heavily by the electorate for not delivering Brexit.

Johnson getting a deal through a divided parliament would be the ultimate irony of Brexit: calling in the arsonist as a firefighter. The next months will show whether the Brexit conflagration can still be contained.

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© REUTERS / Peter Nicholis

In her own statement to the British Parliament on Thursday, Prime Minister Theresa May admitted that Brexit is a “frustrating process.”  That’s some understatement. After more than two years of trying to thrash out a deal with Brussels, many now believe the draft proposal she’s secured is already dead in the water. Whether Leaver or Remainer, this plan has pleased neither side.

The decision by Dominic Raab, the minister who was supposedly in charge of the Brexit process, to quit government set the scene for a chaotic Thursday in Westminster. More resignations, including that of fellow Cabinet minister Esther McVey, followed.

But whatever you think of Theresa May, her resilience in the face of such intense opposition from left, right, and center, is remarkable. She faced down her critics in Parliament, stressing time and again that this was the best Brexit deal the United Kingdom could hope to get. Then she held a press conference in Downing Street insisting she would carry on as prime minister.

On Friday morning she took to the airwaves for a radio phone-in, taking calls from members of the public. With so little support in Parliament, is it any wonder that she is appealing directly to British citizens to get behind her and her Brexit deal? As one person who played a key role in the winning Leave campaign confided to me, May’s office in Number 10 Downing Street has been running “an excellent PR operation. This is Theresa May—strong and stable,” they said.

Ever-Present Danger

But the danger for May and her government is ever-present. A no-confidence vote in her premiership from the Tory right looks like it could be triggered at any moment. Lead Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, who heads the euroskeptic European Research Group (ERG) has submitted his letter calling for her to go. Other Tory backbenchers are now following suit.

If 48 Tory MPs write to Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, expressing their no-confidence in the prime minister, a vote must be called. Rumors are rife in Westminster that this magic number has almost been reached and that a coup is imminent.

However, because the Conservative party appears to be at war with itself, there is a strong possibility that May could win a vote. Just look at what Nicholas Soames, a veteran Tory MP who happens to be the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, has said in a series of tweets:

“I am truly dismayed at the dismal behavior of some of my colleagues parading their letters to Graham Brady on TV in a vulgar display of inferior virtue signaling… It should be a point of Honor to see off the ERG and its hard right members who have been ruining the fortunes of our Party for years…”

Is There an Alternative?

Many Tory MPs may not be happy with May, but the alternative for some could be much worse. Arch Brexiteer and former Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, may still be popular in the country. But he has always struggled to get support from within Parliament. And what if someone who backed staying in the EU, such as new Work and Pensions Secretary, Amber Rudd, were to stand and win? That would infuriate the Tory right—not to mention those ten pro-Brexit MPs from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) who currently prop up the government. Neither side can guarantee that one of their own would win. Important to remember too that if May were to win a no-confidence vote, she couldn’t be challenged again for a year.

But if May were to lose, there would be political chaos. She would have to resign and would be barred from standing in the leadership election that followed. Parliament would be dissolved for two weeks although May would stay in Downing Street during that period.

If the Tories were unable to choose a new leader and form a government within 14 days, a general election would be called. And that is exactly what the leadership of the main opposition Labour Party is praying to see happen. But make no mistake, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is inherently euroskeptic. Only last week he told Germany’s DER SPIEGEL magazine that there should be no second referendum on Brexit.

Divided Labour

Labour itself, though, is also divided. There are those MPs who want out of the European Union as soon as possible; others who support Brexit only because their constituents voted out; those who could back May because of fears of a no-deal; and a number who deeply oppose Brexit and want a second referendum. The problem for this fourth group of Labour MPs is that recent polls suggest there’s no guarantee a majority in the country would vote to stay in the EU.

So where does this leave Brexit? Of course, no-one can really say for sure—not Brussels, not London. But don’t write off this week’s draft agreement and don’t write off Theresa May. On Friday two key Brexiteers within her Cabinet—Environment Secretary Michael Gove and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox—said they were staying put. As the person who played a key role in the Leave campaign admitted to me, “Theresa May could still pull this off.”

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