BORIS: UNION TRUMPS BREXIT
He vows to defend UK ‘with every breath in my body’ ++ But stops short of ruling out Indyref 2 ++ Hunt ‘won’t allow split’
PRESERVING the Union is more important than delivering Brexit, Boris Johnson declared yesterday.
The Tory leadership frontrunner committed to putting the integrity of the UK ahead of all else as the campaign for No10 came to Scotland.
Mr Johnson said he would fight to keep Britain together with ‘every breath in my body’ – but refused to rule out granting Nicola Sturgeon a second independence referendum.
Meanwhile, leadership rival Jeremy Hunt said he ‘would not engage’ with the First Minister in her bid to break up Britain.
The Foreign Secretary suggested that an SNP majority at the next
Holyrood elections would not be enough for Miss Sturgeon to secure a second vote. Mr Hunt also launched an astonishing attack on the SNP, claiming its government was the most ‘bullying, divisive, duplicitous, anti-business’ administration Scotland has ‘ever seen’.
The leadership rivals were in Scotland yesterday to take part in a hustings in a bid to win over Scottish party members. At the event in Perth Concert Hall: Mr Johnson confirmed he had heard of a Scottish Tory campaign to keep him out of Downing Street, but insisted he had not been hurt ‘in the slightest’;
He said that the UK had ‘devised its own incarceration’ with the current Withdrawal Agreement; ‘the UK has not really tried to leave, is the awful truth’;
He also said there was no ‘ejector chair’ underneath Scottish Secretary David Mundell’s seat but refused to say if he would remain in the Cabinet;
Both Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt said they would keep the Barnett formula;
Mr Hunt said he was ‘absolutely clear I will not be the Prime Minister that allows the break-up of the UK’.
Mr Johnson vowed to ‘defend’ and ‘fight for’ the Union ‘with every fibre of my being’ on a visit to the BAE Systems shipyard in Glasgow.
In a desperate bid to bolster his pro-Union stance, the arch Brexiteer even pledged to put keeping the UK together ahead of leaving the EU.
But he failed definitively to rule out granting Miss Sturgeon the power to hold Indyref 2. It came after polls north of the Border suggested a No Deal Brexit could drive a wedge between Scotland and the rest of the UK, making such a vote more likely.
Asked what would be his priority if there were a clash between Brexit and preserving the Union, Mr Johnson said: ‘I’m a passionate Unionist. I will defend it, fight for it with every fibre of my being and every breath in my body. The Union comes first.’
Asked again about his priorities, he said: ‘I’m saying Union before Brexit.’
On the subject of Indyref 2, Mr Johnson said: ‘We had a referendum in 2014, I remember it well, I obviously camtion.
‘The Union comes first’
paigned on the side of the UK and the Union because I believe in it passionately and I was delighted to see it win.
‘It was a decisive win and I don’t think there is any more need, speaking personally, to see any more referendums on that subject for this generaindependence We did it then, people voted then, they were assured that their votes were decisive, they were told this was a once in a generation thing and I think we should stick to that promise.’
That stopped short of Mr Hunt’s unequivocal pledge there would not be a second referendum under his tenure at No10.
Mr Johnson also rubbished Miss Sturgeon’s claims she would take an independent Scotland back into the EU.
He said: ‘If we come out of the EU in the way that I think we all hope, getting a good deal, and we are able to start doing free trade deals, then what is the SNP, the breakaway party, what are they going to say then?
‘Are they really going to want Scotland to join the euro, to join Schengen? Is it going to be the centrepiece of the SNP’s campaign that Scotland, having just got back control of its fisheries, should hand it over to Brussels? It doesn’t sound to me a winning formula.’ Mr Hunt also committed to putting the UK first, saying: ‘The Union comes before everything.’
He criticised Miss Sturgeon, claiming she leads ‘the most bullying, divisive, duplicitous, anti-business Government Scotland has ever seen’.
Although he pledged to work ‘constructively’ with her, he said he would lock her out of Brexit negotiations. He also vowed to continue to reject attempts for a Section 30 order which Holyrood needs to hold Indyref 2.
Mr Hunt said: ‘If she asks for a second referendum I will decline in the most polite way, but it will be a no.’
An SNP spokesman said: ‘Jeremy Hunt clearly knows or cares even less about Scotland than we thought.’
BORIS Johnson bounds into the room in buoyant mood. In little over three weeks he will, barring an unlikely upset, realise his boyhood dream of becoming prime minister. The sun is shining on his campaign visit to North Yorkshire and he has just sheared a sheep named Joy for the cameras. As he sits down with the Mail, there is no hiding his ebullience. Yes, he insists he is ‘fighting for every vote and taking nothing for granted’. Yet with less than three weeks until the end of the campaign, he is comfortably ahead in every poll of Tory members.
He is on the brink of power, and he can hardly contain himself. since he declared his intention to succeed Theresa May, Mr Johnson has been accused of hiding away from Press scrutiny, but there is no sign of that today. In his most revealing interview in years, he delivers a series of eyecatching pledges and insists he can fulfil them all if he gets to No10.
Clearly determined to restore the Tories’ battered reputation as the party of law and order, he rages against sentencing laws that allow serious sexual and violent offenders to be released halfway through their term.
He declares his intention to tear up restrictions on stop and search, saying he wants to free the police to do the jobs they signed up for and saying Mrs May got it wrong.
On Brexit, Mr Johnson warns the Tories are ‘haemorrhaging’ votes to the Lib Dems and Brexit Party and suggests Labour will want to help get Brexit done because of their ‘existential’ crisis.
The public, he insists, are ‘so fed up with this discussion they just want to move on’. And he looks forward to a time after Brexit when ‘everyone can breathe again’ and the Conservatives can ‘relaunch’.
He also offers to sell us his clapped-out Toyota with 140,000 miles on the clock.
His quickfire answers are also revealing about his mood. His favourite quote is not from some obscure Latin text, but is the following: ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.’
This dog, clearly, is up for the fight. But first he has to clean up after the sheep shearing.
‘Let me just wash my hands,’ he booms, leaving the room before returning moments later. He resists the temptation of a platter of pork pies but admits he’s had a ‘nutritious KitKat for lunch – doctors recommend it’.
As is often the way with Mr Johnson, he’s then prompted to tell a story – this time about his days as a reporter. He says: ‘KitKat, which used to be made in York, I believe, in the old days. I remember when Rowntrees were bought by Nestle and there was a huge protest. You’re too young to remember it. I was actually sent to cover the protest by Rowntree’s shareholders against the takeover.’
Asked if we should make them British again, he thunders: ‘YEs!’
On sentencing, he spies a clear injustice, and thumps the table as he spells out his answer.
‘I’m afraid there are too many people, because of the way the sentencing law works, who have committed serious violence or sexual offences who are being let out, as the law prescribes, after they’ve served only half the sentence that is pronounced in open court. This
is happening! And I’m talking about serious sexual or violent offenders. And I think the public is noticing this quite properly. They don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think it’s right.’
Restrictions on stop and search also need to go, Mr Johnson says.
‘When it comes to stop and search, I think the fact is that we went wrong when we decided to change the rules on the best use of stop and search.
‘We made it more difficult. And I think it’s important now that we change that balance back.’
No, it’s not the least bit racist, he says, adding: ‘There is nothing remotely discriminatory about taking a knife off a kid who is going to wreck not just the lives of others, but wreck his life and the life of his family.
‘Having been through that I can tell you there are a few people who back stop and search more strongly than the mums of the kids who risk their lives by carrying knives.
‘And there’s nothing more loving and kind you can do than intercept a kid carrying a knife and ask him to turn out his pockets.’
What will he do when it comes to the end of October and he hits a roadblock? What if the EU won’t give him anything, and MPs stop No Deal in Parliament?
That wouldn’t happen ‘in a month of sundays’, Mr Johnson declares.
‘I’m very full of confidence,’ he says, and the reason is that Brexit has become ‘existential for both parties’ and MPs just want to ‘get this thing done’.
He adds: ‘Politics has changed since March 29 and there is a growing understanding in the House of Commons that this is existential for both parties.
‘Look at where Labour is now – 18 points. These are not propitious circumstances for either of the main parties and we need to move on and get this thing done.
‘We’re haemorrhaging votes to the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats and they are both predating on that sense of failure by the political establishment.’
He downplays the idea he could suspend or ‘prorogue’ Parliament to force No Deal. ‘I’m not attracted to archaic political devices. I would prefer to see our friends around the chamber recognise – and I think they do – that it’s our job now to get this thing done,’ he says.
‘That’s the way to restore trust and confidence to politics, end the uncertainty for business, allow everyone to breathe again.
‘And it will give us, the Conservatives, a moment really to relaunch ourselves with a vision for modern conservatism that is exciting, that is about wealth creation, but also about fantastic public services and infrastructure.’
Yes, Mr Johnson says, we should get ready for No Deal or a World Trade Organisation Brexit. But he thinks it’s unlikely.
‘I think we will get a much more commonsensical or practical arrangement than the current Withdrawal Agreement, which is fatally flawed,’ he says.
Does his famous ‘do or die’ pledge to get Britain out by October 31 mean he would resign if we are still in the EU on November 1? Three times he deflects the question. ‘Unless we get it done, we die not in the literal sense… but actually we will face a slow political extinction. That’s the reality and I think people understand that,’ he answers.
‘I think people are so fed up with
this discussion they just want to move on. I don’t want to sound over optimistic but I am very full of confidence we’re going to get this done.’
Isn’t his credibility undermined by his pledge to lie down ‘in front of bulldozers’ to prevent a third runway at Heathrow, which has not translated into a commitment to scrap it if he makes it to No 10?
‘The bulldozers are a long way off,’ he replies. ‘Show me the bulldozers.’ Message discipline – not a Johnson strong point in the past – is now impressive.
Time and again, he points to his record as mayor of London. Cutting the murder rate by 50 per cent, reducing Tube delays, building affordable homes.
‘Sometimes I kept promises that people said were totally undeliverable and we did them,’ he boasts.
He made, he says, a ‘material difference’ to the lives of Londoners, and his premiership will be that idea, writ large: ‘What I want to do if I can, if I’m given the chance, is bring together the whole of the UK in the way we brought London together.’
But what about his private life? Is he about to become the first single man since Edward Heath to enter No10? Won’t he be lonely in what is already a famously lonely job? Or will his glamorous 31-yearold partner Carrie Symonds move in to keep him company? It seems a reasonable question. The couple have been living together for some months, as the whole country knows following a flaming row last month which led to the police being called to her London flat.
He is divorcing his second wife Marina. And Miss Symonds’s close friend Nimco Ali says the ‘expectation’ is they will marry. But for now at least, he is absolutely not saying whether he will make her Britain’s ‘First Lady’, arguing it would be ‘presumptuous’ to talk about how his domestic arrangements might work while the contest is ongoing.
‘We are two or three weeks away from the end – that is a very long time in politics. I am fighting for every vote and taking nothing for granted. It would be folly to talk now about anybody, about me, moving into No10,’ he says.
What people want to know, he says, is ‘what’s my agenda for the country? What are we going to do to fight crime? What do we need to do to invest in transport infrastructure.’ Well, maybe. Or maybe they want to know what role Miss Symonds might play in No10.
She is not a No10 spouse out of the Norma Major mould. A former head of communications for the Conservative Party, she is a smart cookie, with strong political views of her own, who now works as a campaigner for the Oceana organisation, which lobbies for greater protection of the seas. Can he guarantee she will not be allowed to interfere in government policy? After initially saying: ‘I just don’t talk about that kind of thing,’ he appears to accept it might be better to make it clear that he, the elected politician, will be in charge.
‘I will be deciding what we do,’ he says finally. ‘And I will be getting on with it.’ Despite, or perhaps because of, having one of the most colourful and wellreported private lives in British politics, Mr Johnson considers the subject off limits. Asked whether it is legitimate to raise questions about his past drug use (cannabis and a youthful experiment with cocaine), his extra-marital affairs (plural) or even how many children he has (unknown), he suggests only the drugs are in order.
‘It is relevant to ask about class A drugs, but you’ve had the answer,’ he says, ‘which is there was a total non-event when I was 19, which has been extensively documented. As for the other members of my family, none of them is, as far as I know, standing for election.’
Asked whether his unwillingness to answer a simple question about how many children he has says something about his character, he lets out a long sigh, before replying: ‘All I can say is I think what the public want to know is, do I deliver? Have I got massive ambitions for this country?’
With a revitalised Boris, there are frequent glimpses of the mischief of old not far below the surface.
What really gets him going is a discussion of his car – a 15-year-old jalopy, which Miss Symonds’s neighbours complained was frequently parked illegally and festooned with unpaid tickets.
Asked whether he thinks the multiple parking tickets are a sign that he thinks the rules don’t apply to him he feigns offence at the slight on his ‘superb machine’.
‘I’m not going to hear a word against that car,’ he says. ‘The snootiness and the snobbery. You’re attacking my car, you’re mocking my car.
‘You know, it’s done about 140,000 miles. I’m not saying I wouldn’t sell it to you if you made me the right offer.’
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