The Observer view on Boris Johnson: a toxic prospectus

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/28/observer-view-on-boris-johnson-toxic-prospectus

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‘No ifs or buts.” Boris Johnson’s pledge to voters in his first speech as prime minister was that he will take Britain out of the EU on 31 October, come what may. He has spent the early days of his premiership setting the country on a disastrous course towards a no-deal Brexit. What unfolds will shape Britain for at least a generation to come: the health of our economy, the gap between the haves and the have-nots; the integrity of the union; our relationship with our allies; the determination of our place in the world.

Britain has never been more in need of a leader capable of healing a divided nation. Yet though Johnson has promised to be a prime minister for the whole of the United Kingdom, the angry protests that greeted him at Downing Street symbolise how contentious and divisive a figure he is. Though he lacks any mandate, beyond winning a contest decided by the unrepresentative sliver of the electorate that makes up the Tory party membership, he has made no conciliatory attempt to unify the country, no effort to interpret the referendum result in the context of the slim majority it produced for Leave. He has left no doubt that he will not be a prime minister for Scotland and Northern Ireland, for those who voted Remain, for the least affluent areas of the country that will be hardest hit if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal. He will be a prime minister for the minority of voters who say they support a no-deal Brexit and the rest of us be damned.

A toxic prospectus for government

Johnson’s opening performances as prime minister were not encouraging. Both his Downing Street speech and his parliamentary statement the next day lacked gravitas and were characterised by the rambling and blustering that have come to be Johnson trademarks.

But to underestimate him would be a mistake. His actions since becoming prime minister leave little room for doubt that the “do or die” approach to Brexit he set out during the leadership contest was not just a play to win the hearts of the Tory selectorate. It was a toxic prospectus for government and there is a dangerous strategy that sits behind it: to make demands of the EU he knows there is almost zero chance it can agree to, making a no-deal exit more likely. And to prepare for the parliamentary showdown that this will inevitably precipitate, by presenting himself as the prime minister standing up for the will of the people against an recalcitrant legislature.

So there is every chance that Britain will face an election soon. That Johnson has put his new government on a general election footing is obvious, not just in the spending commitments designed to appeal to Tory marginal voters, but in his dramatic cull of Theresa May’s cabinet. Out went the moderates who have been clear they cannot countenance a no-deal scenario. In came a sorry collection of incompetents, unreconstructed Thatcherites and anti-European ideologues.

Priti Patel, who was sacked as international development strategy in 2017 for carrying out unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers while on holiday, is home secretary. She has a dismal record on civil liberties, which includes making an incoherent case for the death penalty on the BBC as recently as 2011. Questions already hang over her appointment in light of revelations that she took a lucrative private sector advisory role without clearing it, as former ministers are required to do. The new foreign secretary is Dominic Raab, whose vision for post-Brexit Britain is a race to the bottom on taxes and regulation. Gavin Williamson, sacked just weeks ago as defence secretary for leaking sensitive information, is back as education secretary. Johnson’s cabinet shows he prizes loyalty over competence. It represents a collective lurch rightwards, the logical next chapter of a story that began with Cameron’s capitulation to his party’s Eurosceptics in holding a referendum and continued with the red lines Theresa May adopted to keep them happy.

No deal will hit the economy hard

Johnson has set Britain on a collision course with Europe in making scrapping the backstop a precondition for any further negotiations. The EU cannot remove the backstop from the withdrawal agreement unless there is another Irish border solution in place. To do so risks forcing a choice between undermining the Good Friday agreement or unravelling the integrity of the single market. So it looks like Britain is heading for no deal, which every forecast predicts will hit the economy hard. The pain will be inflicted most sharply on the areas that have suffered most as a result of deindustrialisation and on the families who can least afford to bear a further economic shock after a decade of austerity.

A no-deal Brexit also makes the breakup of the UK more likely. It would provide further succour to the Scottish independence movement. It could necessitate the reimposition of home rule in Northern Ireland, which – together with a border – might sufficiently shift public opinion to require a poll on Irish reunification.

And in making Britain more reliant on the US for trade, no deal risks putting us at the whims of a volatile, self-avowedly America First president. Donald Trump may have been effusive about the prospect of a US-UK trade deal, but large disparities in economic clout put the UK in a relatively weak position. He will do Johnson no favours and the UK can expect the tearing down of health and environmental standards to be on the table in any trade talks. The White House is also calculating that closer trade ties will increase its leverage over the UK, drawing us further into its geopolitical and foreign policy orbit, diminishing Britain’s sovereign control over its affairs.

Pre-election bribes

Johnson knows what pain lies ahead, which is why he has made commitments on increased spending on the police, schools and hospitals and transport infrastructure. More money in these areas is to be welcomed, but this is a pre-election bribe for voters, rather than a strategy to rebuild a state brought low by 10 years of austerity.

Services for the most vulnerable in society, such as the children’s services that have been cut six times as fast in the poorest areas of the country compared with the most affluent, will barely get a look in. Expensive tax cuts will predominantly benefit the richest 10% of families, while there will be no relief for the low-income families with children who have lost thousands of pounds a year through cuts to their tax credits and benefits. And these giveaways will pale into insignificance when set against the long-term damage to the public finances that will be wreaked by a no-deal Brexit.

Labour must step up

Any hope of avoiding the calamity of a no-deal Brexit rests on the decisions of Conservative moderates and the Labour leadership. If Johnson chooses to face parliament down rather than call for a pre-emptive general election, the decision of those Tories who oppose no deal will become critical. It may well be that the only way of stopping no deal will be to pass a vote of no confidence in the government by mid-October, which would trigger a general election that could conceivably put Jeremy Corbyn in Number 10. If it is the only way of avoiding no deal, they must do so or be complicit in what follows.

Johnson will position the Tories as the no-deal party and treat any general election as a quasi-referendum. It’s a high-risk strategy: he is gambling that any seats he loses to the Liberal Democrats – who have been admirably, and consistently, clear on the issue of Brexit – will be more than compensated for by attracting voters that might otherwise be tempted by the Brexit party. What will ensure his bet pays off is if Labour continues to equivocate. Just last week, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, appeared to backpedal from Labour’s current position by saying it would “look at” any deal Johnson brings back. This is entirely disingenuous in implying that there could be a Johnson deal that Labour could support.

Labour cannot win a general election by trying to please everyone on the biggest question Britain has faced in decades and winding up pleasing no one. It cannot wish Brexit away as an issue: it must commit to being a referendum-and-Remain party. It must focus its attacks on a Johnson no deal rather than fruitlessly aiming at easy targets among the Liberal Democrats .

Our future prosperity is now at the whim of a group of ideologues who don’t represent Britain but are nevertheless running the country. Johnson’s strategy is clearly to lead Britain into a catastrophic Brexit if that’s what it takes to bolster his premiership and his party against the Farage threat. There are those who still have the power to stop him. The question is, will they step up?