Johnson plots a high-risk Brexit with war on the doubters

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/28/boris-johnson-plots-high-risk-brexit-with-war-on-doubters

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New prime ministers are often remembered for their grand, unifying pronouncements in the minutes before they enter No 10 Downing Street, when the world’s gaze is upon them.

Just over 40 years ago Margaret Thatcher, before a throng of reporters and with husband Denis looking on from the doorstep, quoted the words of St Francis of Assisi as she promised to bring the country together (“where there is discord, may we bring harmony …”) On taking over from Thatcher in 1990, following years marred by social discord, including the miners’ strike and the poll-tax riots, John Major spoke of creating “a nation at ease with itself”. After Labour’s landslide victory in 1997, which ended 18 years of Tory rule, Tony Blair declared that there was no time for New Labour to waste as it set about rebuilding the country, and modernising its cash-deprived public services. “Today, enough of talking. It is time, now, to do,” he said.

Which Tory tribe should Boris Johnson fear the most?

And just three years ago, Theresa May promised to fight the “burning injustices” that divided people from one another across Britain’s unequal society, and to create ”a country that works for everyone”.

"There are plenty of Conservatives who now believe Johnson is planning for an October election if he fails to win Brussels round to a compromise"

By contrast, Boris Johnson, in his address to the nation last Wednesday afternoon, shunned the lofty, healing themes and soundbites of his predecessors. Instead, in only his second sentence uttered as prime minister, he divided the country – and the world – into two halves between the “pessimists at home and abroad” who might dare to doubt the wisdom of Brexit, and those who believe the sheer “pluck” and “nerve” of the British people would ensure leaving the EU delivers ever greater freedom and prosperity. “The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters – they are going to get it wrong again.”

At times he sounded almost menacing. “The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts, because we are going to restore trust in our democracy and we are going to fulfil the repeated promises of parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31st, no ifs or buts.” If the dozens of Foreign Office members of staff who had crammed against the railings that give their courtyard a view of No 10, and the Cabinet Office employees who leaned out of windows to get a glimpse of the new prime minister, had expected a tone of conciliation, what they heard instead sounded more like the first shots in a general election campaign – one to be fought between those who truly believed in Brexit and those who opposed leaving the EU on 31 October, come what may, deal or no deal.

Johnson gazed repeatedly up at the Whitehall buildings around him, telling those in government and outside it that things were about to change. His recognition of May’s contribution to the government of the country was brief, almost cursory. “I pay tribute to the fortitude and patience of my predecessor and her deep sense of public service,” he said at the opening his speech. His real verdict on her time in office, as he drew to a close, was, however, scathing. “After three years of unfounded self-doubt, it is time to change the record. To recover our natural and historic role as an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain, generous in temper and engaged in the world.”

Johnson waved briefly on the No 10 doorstep, then disappeared inside for the first time as prime minister. Soon after parading through its corridors to the applause of staff, he went straight to his office in the House of Commons to conduct the most savage purge of cabinet ministers in modern political history. Some had seen the way the wind was blowing and concluded their best interests would be served by quitting before Johnson had the chance to sack them.

Greg Clark, the business secretary who opposes a no-deal Brexit and believes it would be disastrous for the economy, had held an impromptu departure party on the Commons terrace on Tuesday evening, buying trays of drinks for friends and staff. The chancellor Philip Hammond had announced he was going too, and David Lidington, May’s de facto deputy, followed. But no one had expected the ruthless purge Johnson then ordered.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, his rival for the leadership in the last round of the contest, refused to be demoted to the defence brief and was fired. So, too, was Liam Fox, the pro-Brexit international trade secretary who had clashed with Johnson over how to deliver Brexit. Hunt supporters, even those who were pro-Brexit, including defence secretary Penny Mordaunt, were ousted, as were some of Johnson’s cheerleaders, such as housing minister James Brokenshire.

In all, 11 cabinet ministers lost their jobs in what the Tory MP Nigel Evans described as a “midsummer massacre”. To cap it all, Johnson appointed Dominic Cummings, the former director of the Vote Leave campaign, who is detested by much of the civil service and who even fell out with many Leavers ahead of the 2016 referendum, into the heart of Downing Street. Nick Boles, who resigned the Tory whip after trying but failing to engineer a soft Brexit, said: “The hard right has taken over the Conservative party.”

Five days into his premiership, Tory MPs are still trying to fathom what the Johnson game plan is. His cabinet, with the exceptions of Amber Rudd, who stays at work and pensions, and Nicky Morgan, who returns as culture secretary, are pretty much all Brexit hardliners, willing to tolerate a no-deal Brexit if it comes to that. Many Tory MPs believe Johnson has built a cabinet for a general election, one that through its make-up would convince Brexit voters that there is no point in voting for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party because they have a Tory government intent on the exact same goals. But by sacking so many ministers who are against no-deal, Johnson has swelled the ranks of Conservative backbenchers seeking ways to use parliamentary procedures to block no-deal happening, and the numbers who might even vote down a government intent on that course.

Johnson and his team insist he does not want a general election before 31 October. One said: “He wants a deal, but he has to convince the EU that he is serious about no-deal to have any chance of getting one. Only if he does that will we have learned the lessons of May’s failure. Only if he shows the EU he means it, might they agree to negotiate.” The EU, however, has reacted to the arrival of Johnson with even more hardline messages that it will not reopen the withdrawal agreement, or compromise on the Irish backstop, which is Johnson’s number-one demand. Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, said on Wednesday that Johnson’s desire to renegotiate the entire Brexit deal before October was “totally not in the real world”. Other EU leaders have said the same. Getting a new Brexit deal in time for 31 October, which the EU would agree to and parliament would pass, looks a tall order indeed.

Given this dawning reality, there are plenty of Conservatives who believe Johnson has an alternative plan, if he fails to win Brussels round to a compromise.

It is that he will conduct a tour of EU capitals in August and, if he failed to make progress then, would hold a Commons vote when MPs return from their summer break on 3 September, when he would call for a general election in mid-to-late October. He would say then that the EU had refused to budge, despite his best efforts, and that he needed a mandate to take the UK out of the EU with no deal. Labour would have to back a general election, having called for one for more than a year.

The anti-Brexit Conservative MP Dominic Grieve believes this may be in Johnson’s mind. “It may be that he is thinking of calling a general election, but that would be very divisive and very high-risk,” Grieve says. Divisive because a large part of the Tory party and the country do not want a no-deal, and high-risk because the Conservatives would have no guarantee of winning. And if the election gamble failed – and he led his party to defeat – Johnson would be out of Downing Street less than three months after he moved in.