ONE issue will make or break Boris Johnson’s premiership, Brexit.
He is only Prime Minister because of Theresa May’s failure to get Britain out of the EU on March 29.
If Boris can’t get Brexit done, then he’ll be done.
So what’s the plan? Well, it is to seek a deal while preparing for No Deal.
Boris has long regarded a genuine threat to walk away without a deal as being a bit like the Trident nuclear deterrent: Because you have it, you don’t have to use it.
But as one of those involved in devising this approach tells me, for it to work, “both elements of the strategy have to be credible”. In other words, both the No Deal preparation and the proposed deal must be realistic.
This is where his key Brexit lieutenants Dominic Cummings and David Frost come in.
They might be backroom appointments but they are as — if not more — important to the success of Boris’s premiership as the Cabinet appointments he has made.
Cummings is a unique figure in Westminster. He is interested in getting things done with little regard to what people think of him and the political niceties.
It is thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch that Cummings has attracted something close to celebrity status in political circles. Cumberbatch played Cummings in the TV drama Brexit: The Uncivil War.
He captured brilliantly Cummings’ drive and determination to win as the campaign chief for Vote Leave, and the fact he doesn’t care whose ego he ruffles in the process.
BIG CHALLENGE
In his new job, Cummings’ determination is already clear.
Yesterday he was meant to be on the operating table under general anaesthetic.
But once the offer came from Boris, he cancelled the operation. I am told he won’t have it done now until after October 31, Boris’s deadline for getting Brexit done.
Cummings came in because the chance of getting the Vote Leave team back together to deliver Brexit after three years of drift simply had to be taken. The big challenge for this team is to get the UK ready for a No Deal Brexit.
Cummings is well suited to his task. He knows how Whitehall works and how to succeed despite intense opposition; he drove through Michael Gove’s Free Schools, which have proved hugely successful, against the objections of the educational establishment.
Strikingly, in Boris’s new Government it is now Gove who is in charge of the No Deal planning.
Getting the logistics and the necessary contingency plans sorted is one aspect of No Deal planning, and one that was shamefully neglected under Mrs May. But there also needs to be a political strategy for it.
Many in the EU are convinced — thanks to the antics of Dominic Grieve, Philip Hammond and co — that Parliament will block No Deal.
Or that if the UK did leave without a deal on Halloween, it would come crawling back by Christmas.
So they reckon there is no need to compromise as No Deal either won’t happen or will be only a temporary affair.
The best way to deal with both the Parliamentary opposition to No Deal and the belief that the UK would come crawling back is for Boris to take a lead in the polls.
If it was clear that a general election would lead to a majority for Boris, then Parliament would be less likely to throw obstacles in his way.
That’s why Boris, in his Downing Street speech, tried to address the issues that cost the Tories their majority in 2017: Social care, schools funding and police cuts.
If the EU thought that Boris could do No Deal, and could politically sustain it, then it would have to decide whether it was prepared to compromise to avoid No Deal.
The Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, would have to decide whether it is worth sticking with a backstop that is going to cause the very thing it was meant to avoid, a hard border on the island of Ireland.
‘BUMPY RIDE’
Varadkar would also have to consider whether he really wants to go through with No Deal when it would do more damage to the Irish economy than the UK’s. This is where David Frost comes in.
No, not the late, great TV personality but the former Foreign Office diplomat who is going to be Boris’s point man for negotiations with the EU.
Frost knows his way round the chancelleries of Europe, he is a former Foreign Office Europe Director and he also knows what Boris wants on Brexit.
He was his special adviser when Boris was Foreign Secretary and was there when Boris decided to quit over Mrs May’s Chequers plan.
MOST READ IN OPINION
His role is to craft a Brexit agreement that delivers what Boris thinks the UK needs AND one that has a chance of being accepted by the EU if the alternative is No Deal. This isn’t going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be done quickly.
Those involved admit that if the EU is going to blink, it will not be until the October EU Council at the earliest, which is just two weeks away from the October 31 deadline. As one of those working in the new No10 puts it: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
But after years in which the EU thought they had the measure of the British Prime Minister, we now have a team who might just have what it takes to pull Brexit back from the brink.
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https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/britain-needs-a-real-deal-and-if-boris-johnson-cannot-get-it-done-he-will-follow-theresa-may-through-the-brexit-door/
News Photo Britain needs a real deal and if Boris Johnson cannot get it done he will follow Theresa May through the Brexit door
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