‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’

Boris’ huge mandate sparks new questions

LONDON: Five days after British voters handed Prime Minister Boris Johnson the greatest political mandate of any Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher, the country is still arguing over what he’s going to do with that power.

Even after a campaign that Mr Johnson made almost exclusively about Brexit, nobody knows what kind of relationship he truly wants with the European Union, and so the theories abound.

“A softer Brexit may well now happen,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. Mr Johnson’s Conservative Party, he said, rode to victory on working-class voters, who will now pressure him to negotiate a closer long-term trading relationship with the European Union.

Not so fast, said Simon Fraser, a former head of the British diplomatic service. Mr Johnson’s victory, he said, signified the power of fast, simple answers, and the fastest, simplest one is to make a clean break from Europe. “I’m not at all convinced he wants to do a softer Brexit,” Mr Fraser said.

The debate has raged in newspaper columns, TV appearances and on social media — and it shows no sign of abating. It speaks of an election that was at once historically consequential and strangely inconclusive.

Those who argue that Mr Johnson will pursue a hard Brexit — a divorce without close ties — seized on the prime minister’s plans for legislation that would bar Britain from extending the Brexit transition period beyond the end of 2020. That was proof, they said, that he was intent on breaking with the EU, come what may. The pound, which soared after the election on hopes of an end to the uncertainty, fell back on fears that Britain could fail to come to terms with the EU in time — triggering a so-called “no deal Brexit” that experts warn would be economically disastrous.

But Mr Travers interpreted the proposed law the other way. Why would Mr Johnson rule out an extension to the trade negotiations, he said, unless his plan was for London and Brussels to end up in close alignment?

The fierce post-election debate attests, first, to the fickleness and ideological elasticity of Mr Johnson, who almost came out against Brexit in 2016 before throwing himself into the Leave campaign.

It also shows the utter lack of substantive debate about the shape of Brexit during the campaign.

Mr Johnson never tired of promising to “get Brexit done”, but steered clear of any explanation of how he would do it, or the trade-offs involved.

The few times he did get into the details, he was often wrong. He erroneously claimed, for example, that companies shipping goods from Northern Ireland to a post-Brexit Britain would not have to fill out any additional customs paperwork, when the terms of his withdrawal agreement with the EU will clearly require it.

Not getting drawn into the details of Brexit was a deliberate strategy that emerged after some internal debate, said Brett O’Donnell, a Republican political consultant who advised the Conservatives during the campaign.

It also helped that the Labour Party’s position on Brexit was hopelessly muddled. In seeking to shift the debate to kitchen-table issues like healthcare or education, the party avoided the subject almost altogether.

So, in an election ostensibly about Brexit, voters were never asked to confront to the essential question raised by Britain’s departure: What kind of trading relationship does Britain want with its largest neighbour?

Mr Johnson himself has given few clues since his victory. He said he recognised that the Conservative Party needed to serve working-class voters in the Midlands and the North, who had historically voted for the Labour Party but switched to the Tories out of frustration with the failure to complete Brexit.

But he did not say whether the interests of those voters would have any effect on how he negotiated with the EU — or, for that matter, how he planned to negotiate with the bloc at all.

On Tuesday, Mr Johnson again stuck to generalities and a message of unity. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, folks,” he promised, without giving a hint of what he had in mind.