Johnson says UK ready for giant step

Prime minister sets out stall to party conference

The UK is about to take a “giant step” towards a new future, Boris Johnson said as he set out his vision for a post-brexit Britain.

In his first Conservative conference speech as leader Mr Johnson sought to present himself as a “sensible, moderate” prime minister and branded Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour a party of “fraticidal, anti-semitic Marxists”.

Aware his decision to publish his proposals for a Brexit deal would overshadow the content of his address to the Tory faithful in Manchester, the prime minister’s 40-minute speech was heavy on rhetoric but light on policy.

Instead, he focused on the kind of “open, outward-looking, global” country that the UK would become after leaving the European Union, mixed with strongly-worded attacks on his political opponents ahead of a widely-expected early election.

“Let’s get Brexit done and let’s finally believe in ourselves and what we can do,” he said.

He compared the prospect of leaving the EU to technological and social revolutions including the steam age, the rise of parliamentary democracy and female emancipation.

He said that people felt they were being “taken for fools” by Westminster’s failure to honour the result of the 2016 referendum, and warned of “grave consequences” if Brexit was not delivered.

The prime minister insisted that the Tories were “the party of the NHS” because they were also “the party of capitalism”.

He also claimed the Tories would “turbocharge the Scottish fishing sector” while the SNP would hand back control to Brussels.

Mr Johnson, who skipped Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons to address the partisan crowd in Manchester, said the Parliament that refused to agree to an election was “on the blink”.

“If it were a reality TV show, the whole lot of us would have been voted out of the jungle”, he said.

Mr Johnson sought to highlight clear dividing lines between himself and Mr Corbyn.

“If Jeremy Corbyn were allowed into Downing Street, he would whack up your taxes, he would foul up the economy, he would rip up the alliance between Britain and the USA, and he would break up the UK,” he said.

In the Commons, during PMQS, the SNP’S Westminster leader Ian Blackford called on opposition parties to unite to remove Mr Johnson from Downing Street.

He urged opposition MPS to “step up at this moment of national crisis” to “prepare a vote of no confidence, ensure a Brexit extension, prevent a no deal and call a general election”.

Meanwhile, the prime minister intends to prorogue Parliament from Tuesday evening, paving the way for a Queen’s Speech on October 14.

Mr Johnson needs a new suspension if he is to outline his legislative programme for the next session of Parliament.

The Supreme Court ruled the prime minister’s five-week prorogation as the Halloween Brexit deadline loomed was unlawful because it frustrated or prevented Parliament from its duties, in part because of its duration.

Downing Street said: “The prime minister has been consistently clear that he wants to set out a fresh legislative programme in a Queen’s Speech.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Parliament as being like a “pebble in an athlete’s shoe”.

He bumbled on in his trademark “caught with his trousers down” style, paying tribute to his predecessor Theresa May and promising to protect her legacy; I can only imagine this is a commitment to make sure citizens who have every right to live in the UK are deported anyway.

He also paid tribute to former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, thanking her for the 13 MPS she delivered to Westminster at the last election. That none of these 13 have opposed Mr Johnson’s Brexit plans must delight the prime minister, especially as Ms Davidson herself could not accept his “at-any-cost” exit from the EU.

His mentions of Scotland were, as ever, brief, with only the above homage to Ms Davidson and a swipe at the SNP – first as facilitators for the

“He very rarely feels responsible for tidying up after the mess he has created

“Marxist” Jeremy Corbyn and again for setting off a second constitutional debate.

“Can you imagine,” Mr Johnson said, “Another three years of this” – seemingly oblivious to the fact that “this” was brought about by him in the first place.

As is commonplace in Mr Johnson’s indefatigable style, he very rarely feels responsible for tidying up after the mess he has created.

And so to Parliament, an irritant so annoying to the prime minister he saw fit to try to shut it down before ignoring it completely.

A second, lawful prorogation is expected to take place next week to allow for a Queen’s Speech. What luck for Mr Johnson: Missing out on Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday to deliver his conference speech, he will by all accounts not have to answer to the House again next week, either.

Mr Johnson and his Cabinet have injected military parlance into the political lexicon as they try to bundle Brexit over the gain-line.

There is one word that repeatedly springs to mind, in that same martial style, to describe a leader too afraid to answer the men and women from all sides of our democratically elected House.

COMMENT PAUL MALIK