Philip Johnston:
Brexit would never have happened without him. Now is his time to take up the reins and deliver it
Where is he? Where’s Boris? It’s like waiting for Harry Lime to turn up in The Third Man. Everyone is talking about him; his footsteps can be heard in the dark; a shadow passes in the night. Then, beneath the sudden glare of a lamp, there he is, smirking smugly. Yes, it’s all about me; now the drama can really begin.
Entrances are important provided they are timed well. Leave them too long and everyone becomes impatient before getting fed up. These past few days, as the Conservative leadership contenders have paraded themselves before the judges, the impending arrival of Boris Johnson has become more anticipated than the Queen of Sheba’s descent on Jerusalem. By the time he launches his campaign formally today, virtually everyone else will have had their say, mostly defining themselves against him because he is the man to beat.
Of course, he has not been entirely absent from the fray. He has made a “man of the people” video; he gave an interview to the Sunday Times; he penned his Monday column for this newspaper and set the weather with a
slew of pledges that had his rivals scrambling to denounce them. Since these undertakings included aspirational tax cuts, leaving the EU as planned (again) on October 31 and investment in infrastructure, there wasn’t much for other Tories to disagree with. Where Boris is weakest is that he does not commit to proper reforms of the NHS; but no politician has the guts to go there.
His colleagues really don’t have major policy differences with him. Their objections are to his character. Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove kicked off their campaigns emphasising the need for a “serious leader for serious times”. What they meant was: not Boris. He will be portrayed in the days to come as untrustworthy, capricious, mercurial, self-centred and unsuited to the great task of rescuing the Tory party from potential oblivion.
Above all, they fear that if Boris wins, it will trigger a general election. It is an odd slogan for a leadership campaign – “I can avoid an election and certain annihilation” – but that is what many of them are saying either implicitly or, in the case of Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock, quite openly.
Odder still is that even though they fear an election and, by extension, the voters, they are all unveiling minimanifestos – ending VAT, building more homes, boosting schools and police spending etc – as though they are about to contest one. After all, without a majority none of their policies would get through parliament as currently constituted.
Here, then, is the conundrum: the Conservatives need a proven vote winner, someone who can articulate their values and appeal beyond the party’s heartlands with a positive message. As our poll emphatically shows today, and as he has shown twice in London, that is Boris. But they are also desperate to avoid the very election they need him to fight until Brexit is delivered; and if he is true to his word and tries to take the UK out by October 31 without a deal with the EU, his short-lived Government will be brought down in a vote of confidence. However, those who think the Tories will be slaughtered will need to moderate their rhetoric when they see the Comres poll showing how Boris can win back many disaffected Tories. It will make Labour sit up and take notice, too. Bringing down the Tory Government might not be such a good idea after all.
Mind you, this assumes that when Boris says he will seek a no-deal Brexit he means it. I suspect he will go to Brussels in July set on reopening the Withdrawal Agreement, encounter the same refusal to do so that Theresa May faced and return to contemplate the realities of his position: that the only way out of the impasse is a general election or another referendum, with the Tories under Boris campaigning unambiguously as an out-and-out Leave party while Labour morphs into the champions of Remain.
And whatever he says about putting Nigel Farage “back in his box”, I wouldn’t put it past Boris to do a deal with the Brexit Party leader. If he has any sense he will. Otherwise, I cannot see what is going to change on Brexit by October 31, however elegant the strategies outlined by Dominic Raab or Mr Hunt for persuading the EU to reopen negotiations. They will only do so if they think the no-deal threat is real; but they know it as an empty one because it will be blocked by Parliament. Andrea Leadsom’s assertion that October 31 was an absolute red line and MPS would not stand in her way is for the birds.
It will need a big moment and a big person to break this logjam, one willing to do something that has not already been tried, like taking the £39 billion off the table. Until Brexit is sorted, all the other promises and attempts to redefine Conservatism are irrelevant. Sajid Javid’s “backstory”; Matt Hancock’s youthful enthusiasm; Esther Mcvey’s “Northern grit”; Dom Raab’s black-belt steeliness; Rory Stewart’s exotic adventurism; Jeremy Hunt’s safe pair of hands; Andrea Leadsom’s headmistressy assertiveness; Mark Harper’s blank sheet of paper and Michael Gove’s unexpectedly louche past: all are meaningless without a feasible strategy for ending this constitutional and political stasis.
One way or the other it has got to stop or the malign impact on the economy and national confidence will be felt for years to come. The country craves clarity, direction and a leader who can provide it. The BBC is currently showing an excellent documentary on Margaret Thatcher, A Very British Revolution. It reminds us of what can be done if the right leader is prepared to eschew personal popularity and pursue goals in which she believed when all around her were sceptical, if not downright hostile.
She took over the Conservative Party in 1975 amid an economic crisis, though not a political one. The two main parties were still vying for power and when Labour imploded in 1979, the Tories were able to step in. Such certainties no longer exist but the same qualities of single-minded leadership are needed; and Boris, once he emerges into the light, needs to show them in the coming weeks. Without him, arguably, Brexit would never have happened. Now he has to deliver it.