Ambitious Boris Johnson rattles May, shakes up Brexit debate
Prime Minister Theresa May must be asking herself: How do you solve a problem like Boris Johnson?
Britain’s undiplomatic chief diplomat has thrown British politics into turmoil by thrusting himself to the front of the Brexit debate at the worst possible time for the country’s leader.
The insurrection has left friends and foes scrambling to determine his motives. Is he about to resign, get fired, mount a coup? Is he trying to push May into adopting his free-market vision of life outside the European Union?
The one certainty is that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is exactly where he likes to be: at the centre of attention. Johnson’s rumpled exterior - affable, flaxenhaired upper-class eccentric covers a core of steely ambition.
“He doesn’t like it that much when the spotlight isn’t on him,” journalist Michael Cockerell, who has made a documentary about Johnson, told Sky News.
Johnson’s latest spotlight-stealing move came in a 4,000word Sunday Telegraph article outlining his vision of a “glorious Brexit.” It was published days before the prime minister travels to Florence, Italy on Friday to make a speech intended to unblock logjammed divorce talks with the EU.
Johnson’s article called for the U.K. to adopt a low-tax, low-regulation economy outside the EU’s single market and customs union. Seemingly written without consulting May, it was widely seen as an act of insubordination that would get most ministers fired. But pro-EU Conservative lawmaker Ken Clarke said that May, leading a fragile government and weakened after losing her parliamentary majority in June’s snap election, “is not in the position easily to sack him.”
The response from May and her allies was noticeably muted.
“Boris is Boris,” May said, insisting that “the U.K. government is driven from the front, and we all have the same destination in our sights.”
Johnson, meanwhile, denied planning to quit or manoeuvring to oust May. Cornered — in his jogging clothes — by British reporters in a New York hotel lobby on Tuesday, he insisted that the government was a harmonious “nest of singing birds.”
That’s unlikely. The Cabinet is split between Brexit true believers including Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who want a sharp break with the EU, and those such as Treasury chief Philip Hammond, who want to soften the economic impact through a long status-quo transition period.
May is trying to keep the warring sides from tearing her government apart. Johnson’s article helps position him as figurehead of the “hard Brexit” faction.
“He is trying to create an alternative base for himself in the Conservative Party and portray Theresa May as a lame duck — which in essence she is,” said Victoria Honeyman, a lecturer in politics at the University of Leeds.
Honeyman said becoming prime minister was the “ultimate game plan, though I think Boris Johnson generally is someone who travels in zigzags, rather than in a straight line.”
His career bears out that description. The 53-year-old has been a journalist (and was once fired for fabricating a quote), a magazine editor, a member of Parliament, the mayor of London between 2008 and 2016 and a leading campaigner to quit the EU during last year’s referendum campaign.
When David Cameron resigned as prime minister after the referendum, Johnson planned to run to replace him. But he was abandoned by a key Conservative ally and outmanoeuvred by May, who had backed the losing “remain” side of the EU debate.
May made him foreign secretary, one of the most important posts in government. But Johnson’s remit does not include Brexit, which is consuming most of the government’s time and energy.