Saturday 7 September 2019

Boris is in danger of losing everything but could still win big

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Boris Johnson is, of course, a half American adventurer, which reminds me of Rab Butler's view of Churchill in 1940.
"Rab said he thought that the good clean tradition of English politics, that of Pitt as opposed to Fox, had been sold to the greatest adventurer of modern political history. He had tried earnestly and long to persuade Halifax to accept the Premiership, but he had failed. He believed this sudden coup of Winston and his rabble was a serious disaster and an unnecessary one: the 'pass has been sold' by Mr. C[hamberlain], Lord Halifax and Oliver Stanley. They had weakly surrendered to a half-breed American whose main support was that of inefficient but talkative people of a similar type. " Sir John 'Jock' Colville's diary entry (10 May 1940).

Boris has much more Latin and Greek than Churchill but he is certainly a Fox, not a Pitt the Younger. Fox was lovable but he is not good role model.
What a difference five days makes.

On Tuesday when the House of Commons returned and Boris gave it his statement on the G7 Summit he gave a masterful and funny performance. The country seemed to be about to feel the smack of firm government (what the Daily Telegraph famously said, in January 1956, it was waiting for Sir Anthony Eden to provide). 


On Wednesday Boris was pretty bad at Prime Minister's Question Time, slightly undergraduate and slightly seedy, used a four letter word, made a very tired joke about Jeremy Corbyn being a chlorinated chicken and allowed Jeremy Corbyn to get the better of him. 


He has never been good speaking in the House. He is not a House of Commons man.

Then everything unravelled. Tory and Labour MPs, enabled by a thoroughly unconstitutional decision by the Speaker, got a bill through the Commons preventing the Prime Minister leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October. 21 distinguished Conservative MPs, all but one former ministers, voted against the Government and were therefore deprived of the whip, meaning out of the party, former 
Conservatives

It had become increasingly clear to everyone that Boris was not telling the truth by claiming not to want an election and that he was playing an elaborate game. Ken Clarke congratulated the Prime Minister on 

'keeping such a straight face while being so disingenuous'. 
Disingenuous is the Parliamentary word for lying.

The bill could have been prevented from passing the upper house or from receiving royal assent but Boris decided not to attempt this, thinking Jeremy Corbyn would agree an election in mid October. He did not. Today, after two days of pondering, Jeremy Corbyn says he will not agree to an election until the EU has agreed to delay Brexit, which sounds reasonable to the man in the street. It makes sense to me, though I know he is being thoroughly disingenuous too. 

According to the Times today, rebel Tory MPs (I am sure I detect Dominic Grieve's hand) and opposition leaders agreed with European leaders before they published their bill that a request for a three-month further Brexit extension would be granted.

Sir Christopher Meyer, who was British Ambassador in Moscow, calls this collusion with foreign powers. So do others.

The cross-party group also has plans to take Boris Johnson to court if he does not obey the law. 
But though the court could and no doubt would issue an injunction, requiring the Prime Minister to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline, he says he will not do it. 

The court would put him in prison if he did not comply, but I do not see how the court can make him do anything. And if he does not and does not resign we automatically leave the EU. 

But the cabinet would step in before he went to prison or, failing that, the Queen 

But this is in the future. What happens now?

Is it too late to advise the Queen not to assent to this bill, which passed by the House of Lords yesterday? If I were the Prime Minister I'd prefer to do that than go to prison.

Boris is in office but not in power. He cannot call an election without the vote of 434 MPs. He could resign but I don't think he will do that. If he does, he will I imagine advise the Queen to send for Jeremy Corbyn and in the inevitable election hope to get a big victory. But that is a very risky strategy. 

Boris expected, since Corbyn will not provide the votes to call an election, would be able to repeal the Fixed Terms Parliaments Act with a majority of one, but he does not have a majority at all. He thought he could do it with the agreement of Nicola Sturgeon, leader in Edinburgh of the Scottish Nationalists. She wants an election in order to capture all the Scottish Conservative seats which Boris's policy looks like losing, but she has been persuaded by her Westminster MPs not to agree to an election yet.

Interestingly, I am sure she would be happy with leaving with no deal, if she could blame it on England, because she only cares about Scottish independence, which she thinks No Deal would facilitate.  I think Jeremy Corbyn would be happy with No Deal too, if he could blame it on the Tories. It would enable him to do all sorts of far left things with the British economy.

All this could still go very well for Boris. Labour think that forcing him not to keep his promise to take the UK out of the EU 'do or die' he will lose the public's respect, but it seems to me more likely that Labour will.

Dominic Cummings, who is planning Boris's strategy, told a meeting of political advisers last night to hold their nerve, warning that if they had thought last week was chaos it was “only just the beginning”.

15 comments:

  1. It's debatable whether Sturgeon and Corbyn secretly crave a no-deal exit for their own political gain. But if such an exit does take place, why shouldn't they blame it on the Tories? Boris is not really negotiating with the EU and has limited what parliament can do to avoid a crash-out. Any departure from the EU with no deal will be entirely Boris's to have and to hold.

    Really impressive level of chaos, ineptitude, and dubious conduct around Brexit for three years now. Let's see how much further it can go.

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    1. Boris obviously does want a deal and I hope he gets one - though Brexit looks certain to be postponed - perhaps by Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. But A.J. Balfour resigned without an election and let the Liberals form a minority government in 1905. In 1906 the Liberals won their biggest victory ever.Balfour was always too clever by half and lost his won seat.

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    2. But A.J. Balfour resigned without an election and let the Liberals form a minority government in 1905. In 1906 the Liberals won their biggest victory ever.Balfour was always too clever by half and lost his won seat.

      Boris doesn't even seem to be terribly clever. Just shifty. Being shifty will get you a long way in politics but it needs to be combined with at least some cleverness.

      Sturgeon is presumably hoping to win every seat in Scotland which will make another Scottish independence referendum a certainty. And such a referendum will probably go in favour of leaving the UK.

      So at least Boris will get his name in the history books, like his hero Churchill. The man who destroyed the United Kingdom. But Boris is, as you say, a half American adventurer (and a globalist and a social radical and with open borders tendencies). So he won't care what he destroys.

      If the Scots do the independence thing successfully and are able to rejoin the EU without any dramas the Welsh might start to get restive as well. Especially if the EU decides to be particularly generous to the Scots. If the EU is smart (and there's no guarantee of that) they'll offer Scotland a very cosy deal indeed for EU membership. It would be worth it from their point of view, to finally see Perfidious Albion humbled.

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    3. Taking on Scotland would be extremely expensive for the European Union but it would be a huge triumph for France and Germany over England. Napoleon would have won, not to mention the Kaiser and other German leaders.

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    4. Taking on Scotland would be extremely expensive for the European Union but it would be a huge triumph for France and Germany over England. Napoleon would have won, not to mention the Kaiser and other German leaders.

      In their place I'm afraid there's no way I'd be able to resist a temptation like that. And it would destroy Boris Johnson, which would be a major bonus.

      In fact were I in their place I'd start dangling very very tempting offers in front of the Welsh as well.

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    5. Boris has very rightly said that he will not give the Scots permission to have a referendum. Theresa May was too much a scaredy cat to say that but John Macdonnell has said that Labour will permit a referendum - he and Jeremy Corbyn need to get SNP support if they are to take power.

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  2. 'It's debatable whether Sturgeon and Corbyn secretly crave'. I have no windows into men's souls.

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    1. Except you speculated that they would be happy with no deal so they could blame the Tories. Who will be, in fact, to blame.

      Boris played rough and now seems stymied that others have done the same. Perhaps he was a little over-confident.

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    2. Yes fair enough but I am very sure Nicola Sturgeon would be happy if leaving with No Deal helped her to achieve independence for Scotland and am even more sure Mr Corbyn has not really come round to wanting us to Remain. I don't know what he thinks about No Deal really nor what she really thinks but both only have their own interests at heart - Mr Corbyn thinks a hard left government would be best for the country and views everything from that point of view.

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    3. "Except you speculated that they would be happy with no deal so they could blame the Tories. Who will be, in fact, to blame." Some will blame them, some will give them credit if they bring about no deal- as opposed to, for example, Macron.

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  3. If there is an election what will Farage do? He'd be insane to trust Boris. His only chance is to run really hard in the election and hope to win enough seats to ensure that Boris can't form a government without him.

    But Farage seems to be hopelessly naïve.

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    1. His best chance is to do a deal with Boris that gets him a dozen or a score Brexit Party MPs and then seek to bring in electoral reform.

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    2. Without a deal with Boris I doubt the Brexit Party would win seats unless things go badly wrong for Boris and Brexit doesn't happen or Boris makes a deal that seems like Brexit in name only.

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    3. His best chance is to do a deal with Boris that gets him a dozen or a score Brexit Party MPs and then seek to bring in electoral reform.

      Labour and the Tories will fight tooth and nail against electoral reform. Democracy would be disastrous for both parties.

      On the other hand we are talking about Boris Johnson here. If he saw short-term gain in it for himself he might go for it.

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    4. Without a deal with Boris I doubt the Brexit Party would win seats unless things go badly wrong for Boris and Brexit doesn't happen or Boris makes a deal that seems like Brexit in name only.

      I suspect Brexit Party won't win any seats. Brexiteers will vote for Boris and then they'll start crying when he betrays them and they'll be wishing they'd voted for Nigel. If Brexiteers were smart and really wanted to ensure that Brexit goes ahead they'd realise that the only one they can trust on that issue is Nigel. If Brexit is really so important (and so popular) you'd think that Brexit Party would be polling over 50%.

      Of course if Remainers were smart they'd all vote LibDem and they'd get their second referendum which they'd almost certainly win.

      Never underestimate the stupidity of the people.

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