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Boris Johnson Becomes U.K. Prime Minister, Replacing Theresa May Boris Johnson Becomes U.K. Prime Minister, Replacing Theresa May
(about 2 hours later)
By Megan Specia LONDON — His jacket neatly buttoned, his hair corralled into chaos-free submission, Boris Johnson stood outside Downing Street on Wednesday and in his first moments as prime minister promised to do what so far has proved impossible: lead Britain through an orderly, on-time exit from the European Union.
LONDON — Boris Johnson, an ardent supporter of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, took over as prime minister from Theresa May on Wednesday, projecting an optimistic view of the country’s future despite the looming specter of Brexit. “The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters — they are going to get it wrong,” he declared. “The people who bet against Brexit are going to lose their shirts.”
Mr. Johnson, a former foreign secretary and two-term mayor of London, is a polarizing figure, known for over-the-top displays and a charismatic bluster that has connected with many voters but alienated others. It was a supremely confident, at times grandiloquent address from a man whose silver-tongued talk often surpasses his performance. After a lifetime of joking and blustering and maneuvering his way into jobs and then sabotaging himself with poor preparation and deceitful behavior, Mr. Johnson, 55, seems determined to prove he can put aside his court-jesterish ways and rise to the occasion.
But in his first address in front of 10 Downing Street, his new residence, shortly after meeting with Queen Elizabeth II and being invited to form a new government, he offered a rebuttal to those who doubt his ability to lead. He seemed unbothered by the fact that he is entering office with a paper-thin working parliamentary majority and at a time of deep divisions within the country and in his own Conservative Party.
“After three years of unfounded self-doubt, it is time to change the record,” he said in a speech that repeatedly made reference to Brexit, an issue that divided the country and brought down the last two prime ministers. “No one in the last few centuries has succeeded in betting against the pluck, nerve and ambition of this country. They will not succeed today.” In his speech, he vowed to flood the streets with new police officers. He promised to improve health care, to spend more on education, to bolster railroad infrastructure, to promote animal welfare, to improve satellite systems, to increase salaries, to be the prime minister for all of Britain, to restore trust in democracy and, among a dizzying array of other things, to “liberate the U.K.’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules.”
Mr. Johnson promised to start work immediately on a series of policies including putting more police officers on the streets, revitalizing social care and strengthening the National Health Service. He was also preparing to appoint a new cabinet, a day after his easy victory in a Conservative Party leadership vote was confirmed. His pro-Britain pronouncements and kitchen sink’s-worth of programs seemed designed as a feel-good distraction strategy, something shiny and positive to counter the gloom, alarm and discord touched off by the Brexit referendum three years ago. But Brexit was where Mr. Johnson’s speech began and where its most serious promises lay.
“We in the government will work flat out to give this country the leadership it deserves, and that work begins now,” he said, reiterating his view that Britain must leave the European Union by Oct. 31 one way or another. “No ifs or buts.” Above all, Mr. Johnson vowed, Britain would leave the European Union by Oct. 31, “no ifs, or buts,” with or without a deal setting out the terms of its departure. “The British people have had enough of waiting,” he said.
He wasted no time reconstituting the cabinet. Jeremy Hunt, who had unsuccessfully challenged Mr. Johnson for the party’s leader, announced that he would step down as foreign secretary. He was among nearly a dozen cabinet members who said they were resigning. Mr. Johnson appointed Sajid Javid to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the most senior cabinet jobs. Priti Patel was named home secretary. And though later in the day he purged the old guard from his cabinet and appointed a series of loyalists and die-hard Brexiteers to the newly vacant posts, it is still a mystery how he, or they, propose to carry out Brexit.
Protesters, apparently from Greenpeace, tried to block Mr. Johnson’s car as he was being driven to Buckingham Palace. Several tried to form a human chain that was quickly dispersed, and two others unfurled a banner that said “Climate Emergency.” Some members of Parliament, even from his own party, have vowed to prevent Mr. Johnson from allowing the country to slide into a no-deal Brexit, a scenario that Parliament has already rejected but that the prime minister says would be preferable to delaying further.
A little more than an hour earlier, Mrs. May stood outside the same iconic doorway at 10 Downing Street offering her final remarks as prime minister before handing her formal resignation to the queen. Meanwhile, a number of cabinet ministers who served under the outgoing prime minister, Theresa May, resigned before Mr. Johnson took office, declaring that they could never countenance working for him.
During her short address, she congratulated Mr. Johnson and then added, “Of course much remains to be done, the immediate priority begin to complete our exit from the E.U.,” highlighting the very issues she had tried and repeatedly failed to resolve. Philip Hammond, the chancellor of the Exchequer; David Gauke, the justice secretary; Rory Stewart, international development secretary; and David Lidington, the de facto deputy prime minister — had all said they would refuse to serve in a Johnson cabinet, and all were among a dozen people who resigned, or ended up being fired, over Mr. Johnson’s accession.
Earlier in the day, Mrs. May traveled to Parliament for a final round of questions from legislators. After some pleasantries, she launched into a raucous back and forth with the opposition in which she was questioned about Mr. Johnson’s fitness as a leader. Meanwhile, the opposition parties were not very impressed by Mr. Johnson’s enthusiastic promises.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, applauded her service before adding that he hoped Mrs. May, who will keep her seat in Parliament, would be involved in “helping me to oppose the reckless plans of her successor.” “Boris Johnson is about to learn that there is a massive gulf between glib throwaway lines that delight the Tory faithful and the difficult decisions of leadership,” Keir Starmer, who is responsible for Labour’s Brexit policy, said on Twitter.
Mr. Johnson was among the most high-profile backers of Brexit, and in his Wednesday speech, he had made clear that he would push for Britain to leave by the October deadline even if there were no deal in place. He also took aim at one of the major stumbling blocks for Mrs. May in successfully passing her deal for Britain to leave the bloc: the Irish backstop, an insurance policy designed to prevent a contentious hard border between Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, which will remain a European Union member state. And Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party and first minister of Scotland, which is pro-Europe and anti-Brexit, posted a tweet: “Behind all the ‘make Britain great again’ type rhetoric, that speech was rambling, blame-shifting and, to put it mildly, somewhat divorced from reality.’”
“Never mind the backstop, the buck stops here,” Mr. Johnson said on Wednesday, but said he was convinced Britain could make a deal that didn’t include checks at the Irish border. In Europe, Mr. Johnson has been an unpopular figure ever since his days as a young journalist writing inaccurate articles portraying Europe as a wasteful, bloated bureaucracy determined to do things like enforce one-size-fits-all condoms. Nor did he make many friends as foreign secretary under Mrs. May, or in recent months as he maneuvered to become prime minister and increased the volume of his anti-Europe rhetoric.
Mr. Johnson has previously described Britain’s departure from Europe as a matter of “do or die,” but opponents of a no-deal departure — who include a majority of Parliament and some members of his own party — have warned that it could have ruinous effects on the British economy, and lead to shortages of food and medicine. “We look forward to hearing what the new prime minister, Boris Johnson, wants,” Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, told the BBC Wednesday. “It is an orderly Brexit, which is the choice or the preference of the E.U.?”
Mr. Johnson’s leadership team will include Dominic Cummings, a director of the “Vote Leave” campaign for the 2016 referendum on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, according to the BBC. He continued: “Or is it a no-deal Brexit? The no-deal Brexit will never be — never — the choice of the E.U.”
While his appointment as a senior adviser would be likely to be applauded by hard-line supporters of Brexit, his role in that campaign’s ruthlessly successful strategy has made him a controversial and sometimes mythologized figure. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, sent Mr. Johnson a terse letter that had an ominous “see me after class” vibe. After offering his congratulations, Mr. Tusk added a single sentence that appeared to allude to Mr. Johnson’s reputed sloppiness with the fine points of issues.
[Read more on Boris Johnson’s chaotic personal life.] “I look forward to meeting you to discuss — in detail — our cooperation,” Mr. Tusk wrote.
A handful of Conservatives who served in the previous government have resigned already, signaling they had no intention of serving under Mr. Johnson’s leadership. Mr. Johnson’s speech was delivered late in the afternoon at the lectern customarily wheeled out in front of Downing Street for prime ministerial statements. It followed a long day of the choreographed pageantry that always accompanies prime ministerial transitions. But today’s events were perhaps more charged than usual, because of the crisis the country finds itself in and because the new prime minister himself is such a divisive figure.
Alan Duncan, the second-ranking official in the foreign office, resigned on Monday, while Anne Milton, an education minister, announced her resignation on Tuesday shortly before Mr. Johnson’s victory in the party leadership race was announced. Philip Hammond, the chancellor of the Exchequer, resigned on Thursday, having said earlier that he would quit before Mr. Johnson could fire him. Mrs. May, the outgoing prime minister, announced in May that she planned to resign as leader of the Conservative Party. Her decision came after Parliament repeatedly rejected the Brexit settlement she had negotiated with Europe, fatally weakening her position within the party as would-be rivals began circling overhead. It also touched off the party leadership battle that Mr. Johnson eventually won, allowing him to accede to the prime minister job.
Other prominent figures, including David Gauke, the justice secretary, and Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, made clear that they would not serve in a government led by Mr. Johnson because of concerns about his willingness to leave the European Union without a deal. By tradition, Mrs. May remained in office for the early part of the day. After a final lunch with her husband, Philip, at 10 Downing Street, she made a short statement to the news media.
A series of further cabinet ministers resigned or were fired Wednesday evening as Mr. Johnson began the process of appointing his team. “Stop Brexit!” someone shouted in the background. “I think not,” Mrs. May replied.
Mr. Johnson won 66 percent of the votes cast by registered party members, defeating Jeremy Hunt, his rival for the Conservative leadership and his successor as foreign secretary, by a comfortable margin. Mr. and Mrs. May were then driven to Buckingham Palace so she could offer her resignation to Queen Elizabeth. They left.
Those dues-paying members, however, represent, just a tiny fraction of overall British voters, so the extent of his mandate is unclear. He will face deep challenges as he takes the helm, with Brexit looming large and tensions with Iran bubbling into a potential crisis. And his Conservative Party lacks an outright majority in Parliament. Then Mr. Johnson, whose limousine was briefly blocked by protesters, arrived and also met with the Queen. By custom, she “invited” him to form a new government, and by custom he accepted. That procedure is known as “kissing the hand” of the monarch, in the old days a sign of personal loyalty.
Nigel Farage — the populist leader of the Brexit Party, which outperformed the Conservatives in European Parliament elections in May — has said he would be open to the idea of an electoral pact between his party and the Conservatives. Prime ministers no longer literally have to kiss any body parts to take office.
Mr. Johnson would have to call a general election to prevent Parliament from blocking a no-deal Brexit, Mr. Farage has argued, and would need such an alliance to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote. The Queen, now 93, took the throne in 1952, when she was 25 and Winston Churchill was the prime minister. Mr. Johnson is the queen’s 14th prime minister, tying the record set by King George III between 1760 and 1820.
In an interview at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where he was attending a conference for conservative teenagers, Mr. Farage challenged Mr. Johnson to roll the dice. In Mrs. May’s last big political appearance as prime minister, presiding over the weekly ritual known as Prime Minister’s Questions, she was exposed Wednesday to a range of thoughts not only about her outgoing premiership, but also about the incoming one of Mr. Johnson.
“My contention is the only way Brexit gets done by the 31st of October is if we get a brave Boris and he calls a general election,” Mr. Farage said. “That’s the only way I think this can really happen. If he calls an election, he unavoidably has to deal with me in some way.” Statements to the prime minister in Question Time take the form of questions, and on this occasion some were designed to try to prod or trick Mrs. May into criticizing Mr. Johnson.
He added: “If he really wants to do it, I’ll help him. I could be his best friend or his worst enemy.” She didn’t take the bait, not even when Jo Swinson, the first woman to become leader of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, rose with a particularly pointed query.
Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, when asked on Wednesday about his thoughts on Mr. Johnson, said he looked forward to hearing the new prime minister’s plans for Britain’s exit from the bloc. ‘‘Can I ask the prime minister,” Ms. Swinson said, “what advice she has for women across the country on how to deal with those men who think they could do a better job but are not prepared to do the actual work?’’
“Is it an orderly Brexit? That is the choice, the preference of the E.U., and we worked for an orderly Brexit all along the last two years,” he said. “Is it a no-deal Brexit? The no-deal Brexit will never be the choice of the E.U. but we are prepared.” Megan Specia contributed reporting.
But Brexit will not be the only issue on the agenda for the new leader. Tensions in the Persian Gulf will also demand attention. Last week, Iran announced it had seized a British tanker there, raising the stakes in a simmering conflict with the West. Earlier this month, the British Navy seized an Iranian vessel near Gibraltar on suspicion of violating a European Union embargo on the sale of oil to Syria.
Katie Rogers contributed reporting from Washington.