Philip JOHNSTON

The new PM must be bold and strike now to get the parliamentary majority he needs to govern

There is a convention that an incoming prime minister offers a few words of reassurance and hope to the nation on the threshold of 10 Downing Street. The custom is not of longstanding and was probably instituted by Harold Wilson in 1964. Before that, newly installed premiers contented themselves with an avuncular wave, before disappearing behind the famous front door.

Boris Johnson must be tempted to do the same. After all, he did say his piece when the result of the leadership contest was announced, but that was a Conservative Party event. When he returns from Buckingham Palace this afternoon as Prime Minister, that is a national moment and he will be expected to rise to the occasion.

In any case, a man who has made his living from crafting artfully elegant phrases can hardly resist the opportunity to ensure his prose is deathless. Unforgotten. Immortal. But that is the problem: when things go wrong, as they will, your words are thrown back in your face.

In May 1979, Mrs Thatcher famously quoted St Francis of Assisi, but later lamented that the prayer – “Where

there is discord, may we bring harmony” – became the subject of a “good deal of sarcasm”. Harmony was not the most obvious characteristic of her time in office.

As he prepared to walk through the famous front door in 1990, her successor, John Major, said: “We are going to unite totally and absolutely and we will win the next general election.” He was right about the election. Unity, however, eluded him.

A youthful Tony Blair posed with his family in 1997 and promised a “world-class education system” and a “modernised welfare system”, but found his agenda stymied by Gordon Brown. When the Chancellor took over 10 years later, he quoted his school motto, “I will try my utmost”, ending with “And now, let the work of change begin”, before being blown out of the water by the financial crisis.

Up next was a fresh-faced David Cameron in 2010 promising strong and stable government, which to be fair the Coalition delivered for five years, while sowing the seeds of the political crisis that is with us now. Theresa May’s speech in July 2016 was well received (more so on the Left, it must be said) for offering “a different kind of Conservatism”, a pledge that she was never able to fulfil because of a lost parliamentary majority.

And now it’s Boris’s turn. What does he say? Does he stand there with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds or will he be the first prime minister since Edward Heath to enter No 10 without a partner by his side? Does he have his hands in his pockets or his hair brushed? These are called the “optics”, the way things look. Nowadays, the first impression is more important than ever, because it is endlessly repeated on 24-hour news outlets and on social media. Get it wrong and it will return to haunt you.

Boris is instinctively predisposed to optimism, as he showed in his last column for this newspaper on Monday, when he said it was time for the country to recover “some of its can-do spirit”. Inevitably, his detractors scoff at what they consider Panglossian sentiment. Gloom, despondency and apocalyptic doom-mongering are their preferred perspectives. If there is a sense of foreboding abroad, it is because of this incessant litany of misery – nowhere more apparent than in the utterances of Mr Blair, once the most sanguine of politicians, now the arch-apostle of calamity.

In the current circumstances – the least auspicious for any arrival in No 10 since 1940 – few would envy Boris the task ahead, even if his elevation does mark the culmination of a lifelong ambition. Virtually every one of his predecessors has come to office bolstered by party goodwill, even if there had been a hard-fought contest for the top job. Probably only Mr Blair was opposed by a goodly chunk of his party – the hard-left, including Jeremy Corbyn, was never reconciled to New Labour. But he had such a stonking majority that they were irrelevant.

Mr Johnson does not have that luxury. He will doubtless talk about unity again today (every PM does), yet he cannot unite his own party, let alone the country, without a popular mandate, and probably not even then. The antipathy towards him among a fair number of Tory MPS is deep-seated and will be mobilised if he tries to take the UK out of the EU without a deal. The old Tory instinct of loyalty towards the leader has been incinerated by the flames of Brexit, as Mrs May found out.

Until Brexit is resolved, it is impossible to move forward with any other policy. In fact, until there is a new Parliament, nothing at all can happen. Boris has a working majority of three, even with the DUP, and that will be virtually erased if the Tories lose Brecon and Radnorshire in next week’s by-election. Talk of his team busily preparing a Queen’s Speech and a Budget is for the birds since neither would pass this House.

That is why an election is essential. It is the dead man’s handle that stops the train of democracy smashing into the wall. Another referendum would take months to organise, if it even could be, and would deepen national divisions, not repair them. A parliamentary majority is an absolute requirement to govern.

A bold leader would avoid waiting for his enemies to gather their forces, strike now and go to the country with a clear Brexit plan, at the same time securing a majority for a brand of free market, enterprising conservatism aimed at boosting British competitiveness, the very thing the EU is anxious to thwart.

By going early, Boris would neutralise the betrayal narrative that Nigel Farage is waiting to deploy against him when he fails to leave by October 31, as he will if he lets this paralysed Parliament dictate his premiership. He will catch Labour in complete disarray, up against a Remain-backing Lib Dem party whose new leader, Jo Swinson, may appeal to many Labour voters.

It is a strategy fraught with risks, and some Tories unable to support a Johnsonian manifesto on Brexit will jump ship. But these are desperate times. If Boris wants to say something memorable in Downing Street today, it is this: “When Parliament returns in September, I intend to seek the backing of MPS for a general election at the earliest possible opportunity.”