Johnson in Trump-style bullish start

Newly unburdened Theresa May was snapped sipping a drink in the sun at Lord’s and watching the cricket. The Brexit nightmare had clearly fallen from the former British PM’s shoulders. The scene made May the most sympathetic she’s been in three years.

The Brexit calculations and complexities for the new leader, Boris Johnson, remain the same as they were for May. A deadline’s ahead and no ratified deal. The UK and EU would suffer economically should London crash out on October 31.

Yet Boris has started in bullish style. He is operating according to his own reality, as though he holds all the cards. First came the purge of May’s team, with Brexiteers such as Dominic Raab given top Cabinet jobs. Then came the challenge to Europe. Johnson has told France’s President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Irish backstop must go.

This is very Trumpian: you take a fierce position and try to knock opponents off balance. You start hard and keep going.

But what is his basic strategy? Most likely it is to win back Tories who jumped ship for the Brexit Party and to reclaim hard Brexit territory for the Conservatives on which to fight an election.

Since the European elections in May, there’s been a tight four-way fight in opinion polls between the Conservatives, Labour, the Brexit Party and Liberal Democrats. New polls yesterday showed the Conservatives in the lead on the back of a Boris bounce and the Brexit Party losing ground.

Johnson has repeatedly said Britain will leave the EU in October with or without a deal. He has the power of the man fully prepared to drive off the cliff — the expectation is others will scramble to try to stop him.

He said last week the Withdrawal Agreement terms negotiated by May with the EU were “unacceptable”. Any agreement would be on his terms: “It must be clearly understood that the way to the deal goes by way of the abolition of the [Irish] backstop”. He wants the border issues dealt with during talks on the future relationship, rather than the immediate exit deal.

Johnson’s spokesman said yesterday there would be no talks until the EU dropped its refusal to reopen negotiations on May’s withdrawal deal.

The EU has previously shown no signs of budging on that and the backstop, and a sizeable number of British MPs have previously treated a looming no-deal Brexit as a line in the sand. Should Parliament step in, an election would be likely, with Johnson trying to gain the majority that eluded May.

Meanwhile, EU leaders will apply their own pressure. Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar warned that the places of Scotland and Northern Ireland in the UK are under threat. “One of the things that ironically could really undermine the union of the UK is a hard Brexit, both for Northern Ireland and for Scotland, and that is a problem they are going to have to face.”

Johnson might soon envy May, in the sun watching cricket.