‘Do or die’ for Boris

Expected new prime minister’s Brexit strategy to face test

BORIS Johnson has 100 days to achieve what his predecessor failed to deliver in three years if he is appointed, as expected, as Britain’s new prime minister tonight.

Mr Johnson’s supporters were confident he would win the poll, with estimates of a two-votes-to-one victory over his rival Jeremy Hunt.

If successful, the former London lord mayor will have to use all his optimism and selfbelief to deliver Brexit or see the UK crash out of the European Union and into a predicted recession.

Mr Johnson has run on a platform that, “do or die”, Britain would leave the European Union on October 31 even if it does not have an exit deal.

He faces a potential vote of no-confidence, which would lead to a general election within months, as pro-European MPs from his own party threaten to move against him.

That would throw up a Jeremy Corbyn Labour government, which is battling an anti-Semitism crisis, that would lurch the country to the hard Left, and put security alliances into chaos.

European leaders have repeatedly refused to open negotiations publicly, but there have been secret meetings brokered by Ireland in recent weeks about possible changes to a Withdrawal Agreement that has been rejected by the British parliament.

Britain’s current money man Philip Hammond has said he would quit as Chancellor if Mr Johnson was elected and warned a no-deal exit would cost Britain £90 billion ($160 billion). But Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay was sticking to his guns, with Mr Johnson’s supporters believing that only the threat of a no-deal doomsday would get the EU back to meaningful talks.

“The current text of the Withdrawal Agreement – if nothing at all is changed – then I didn’t see that going through the House of Commons,” he told Sky News. “It’s been rejected three times.”