Originally Posted by
Matthew Parris
Boris Johnson is enough of a rascal to rat on Brexit
The frontrunner for No 10 might be the only candidate who’d get away with ripping up Article 50 and starting again
Watching Theresa May’s tearful farewell on the steps of Downing Street I felt intensely the tangle of sentiment and argument, the wrestle of conflicting emotions that now disfigure our politics as they have disfigured her premiership.
When she spoke of her disappointed hopes I felt sympathy. When she tried to drag in the kindertransport of children rescued from the Nazis — and twisted the words of its pioneer, Sir Nicholas Winton, into an argument for her Brexit compromise — I felt rage and scorn. When her voice cracked I felt pity. When she spoke of the need to seek common ground I felt indignant at a prime minister who stubbornly refused to reach out until her own position was threatened.
And when she reminded us that it was now up to her successor to secure what she had failed to secure, a Brexit that works for everybody, I felt despair. Will it be Boris Johnson? Have we learnt nothing? To that incompetent scoundrel in a moment.
For the lack of two attributes, Theresa May’s premiership has ended in failure. The want of these two qualities, unless the next prime minister can supply them, will consign his or her premiership to the same fate. And the missing ingredients? The first is logic, the second honesty. Can Mrs May’s successor supply these? In their absence, British politics chokes. Nothing matters more.
So to hell with “empathy”, “reaching out”, “listening”, “emotional intelligence” and all that jazz. To hell with Boris’s “charm”, Jeremy Hunt’s “calm”, Matt Hancock’s “energy”, Michael Gove’s “intellect” or Rory Stewart’s “back story”. And brush aside Mrs May’s tears. We’re in for a weekend of psychobabble: a summer pudding of self-pity on Mrs May’s side and, on her critics’ side, oh-so-wise advice on how she could have kept everybody sweet.
Our politics doesn’t need any further buckets of slop about “seeking the common ground”. Leadership is about so much more than relationship counselling. Process, process, process — the curse of our age, forever flinching from the crunch question, the only question: not of process but of outcome. This is what she couldn’t duck any longer. Her successor will also struggle, and fail, to avoid it.
What do I mean about honesty and logic? The frontrunner in the race for Downing Street offered a masterclass in his lack of it during the referendum: “My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.” You can’t.
The Archangel Gabriel couldn’t have delivered Mrs May’s famous “Brexit that works for everyone” promise. It will become fashionable in columns like these to identify things she could have done to get her deal through, and the time (always yesterday) when she could have done them. And I can believe that with Mr Gove’s persuasiveness or Mr Johnson’s amiable bombast, a different prime minister might just have pushed something like her deal over the line.
But — have we all forgotten? — her deal is for the 22-month transition period, not for Britain’s final status outside the EU. So we’d now be in that transition period, still tearing ourselves apart, for it’s really only about the final status that Brexiteers and Remainers disagree.
And so to the logic. It’s possible to believe (as I don’t) that Brexit could lead us to glory: but only after a “clean” exit from the EU and the ties that come with membership. And it’s possible to believe (as I do) that we are wiser to remain. But to believe we could benefit from being half-in, half-out defies logic. The ties of membership, or half-membership, are what real Leavers believe hold us back. Real Remainers, meanwhile, share their horror at subjecting ourselves to rules we’ve lost the right to shape. The illogic of compromise that delivers the worst of both worlds would defeat Gabriel, defeated Mrs May, and will defeat whoever succeeds her.
And so to honesty. Somebody has to square with the British people. She never would. It is about Remain or Leave. We loop back to 2016, but this time with a much clearer grasp of what “Leave” means. Isn’t the Gordian knot cut by putting the question again?
And here, I don’t mean to queer Mr Johnson’s pitch by putting the wind up his Brexiteer supporters, but must mention one faint hope: a reason for hoping a Johnson premiership would not end in calamity. My Times colleague Rachel Sylvester discussed it in these pages on Tuesday. Mr Johnson might be capable of ratting on his promise to take us out of the EU — and getting away with it.
The arguments against his suitability are too many for a comprehensive list. Casual disregard for the truth; reckless caprice; lazy disregard for detail; weak negotiating skills (as Whitehall knows); moral turpitude which perhaps we should overlook in politics but which has been so destructive of others’ lives that I cannot forget it; and his failure as foreign secretary to achieve anything but an extension of his notoriety beyond our own shores.
The man’s a rascal. But like many rascals he’s capable of a big decision. It’s possible to imagine him telling the country that this Brexit business has got into such a poisonous muddle that we need to rip it up and start again: to revoke Article 50, or refer back to the people, or both. He might escape with his life. A Hunt, a Gove, a Hancock or a Javid wouldn’t.
Be clear: whoever takes over will soon enough need to be very, very bold, one way or the other. Would-be Tory leaders will shortly be wooing supporters with a promise to “go back to Brussels” for a better deal, threatening no-deal Brexit if they don’t. Whoever wins will then have to try. They’ll return empty-handed. What then? Here’s Mr Johnson, speaking in Switzerland today: “We will leave the EU on October 31, deal or no deal ... The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no deal. To get things done you need to be prepared to walk away.”
This week the Institute for Government published an important report, suggesting that a PM intent on a no-deal Brexit could thwart parliament by a lightning decision to do it without MPs’ say-so. Be warned, would-be prime ministers: this would be nuclear, a coup against representative democracy and a breach of our unwritten constitution. This way, infamy lies. Gangrene would follow such an amputation. Don’t even think about it.
That leaves a referendum, a revocation, a general election, or all three. Theresa May’s departing tears are unlikely to be the last shed at Downing Street’s door.