Brexit and Boris

The last time I wrote about Brexit, I predicted that there was no easy way through the mess. Parliament was not ready to vote for anything acceptable to the EU, and the Irish question was essentially insoluble. Neither a second referendum nor a general election would automatically clear things up. Things were going to have to get worse before there was any chance of getting better.

Well, for a change, I was right. But now one of the dominos required to drop to enable starting to reach a resolution has fallen. Theresa May has finally given up and resigned. She has been much maligned, and maybe for good reason: she was something of a lightweight, lacking the ability to lead either her party or her country in a decisive way and lacking the intellectual capacity to drive through her own approach. But in her defence it can be argued that her motives were always pretty pure: she tried to put the needs of the country above anything else. That quality is rare, and my guess is that we will have cause to miss it in what will now follow.

Because, during a night of fitful sleep last week, a clear idea of what will happen in the coming months came to me. It leads us out of the current jungle. But perhaps it leads us into an even more dangerous place.

Boris Johnson will become the leader of the conservatives and become prime minister. This feels inevitable. MP’s have to rank him in their top two, and then be the choice of party members. While many Tory MP’s hate Boris with a passion, I believe many will vote for him, as the leader most likely to lead the party out of the jungle. The Tories polled historically badly in the EU elections and could face oblivion if they don’t unite over Brexit. Johnson is the only candidate who might achieve that. MP’s, and especially Tory MP’s, place power above all else, so they will hold their noses and vote for him, at least in sufficient numbers for him to rank one or two. Then the party member vote will be a landslide.

What then? I think this is clear too. He will see that he is just as stuck as Theresa was and he will find a way out via an election. First, he will use his strong mandate to define a very clear and aggressive Brexit policy. Then he will invite MP’s and prospective parliamentary candidates to back this position or resign, asking pliant constituency parties to act as enforcers. Then he will manufacture a crisis with the EU – not difficult, because there is one already – and call an election, which he will win by a landslide.

His election platform is easy to define. He will promise rapid Brexit, with questionable promises about what can be negotiated, and exit with no deal as a backstop. He will use City money to position Corbyn as a Marxist, and succeed in out-debating Corbyn by exploiting the ambiguity in its own Brexit platform. He will campaign to reduce taxes, especially corporate ones, positioning the UK as one giant Jersey. He will use the dog whistle on immigration, stirred up by some manufactured story or other. There will be little else, but this will be more than enough.

The next steps are predictable too. Boris will gain some minor concessions from the EU, find a meaningless fudge for the Irish question, and then present a package that barely differs from Theresa to his newly compliant parliament, and Brexit will then take place. All these steps might require one more deferment but nobody will mind this since the process will at least be moving forward.

After this, predictions become a bit flakier. But I’ll keep going while I’m on a roll.

I can predict what Brexit itself might mean. I believe the people I’ve been listening to recently, whether wealthy expats in Portugal or BBC pundits or people trying to work flexibly, have all overstated Brexit’s negative impacts. Especially under Boris, I believe the rich have little to fear. Britain managed well enough without the EU before and Switzerland or Norway does now. The wealthy will find a way to get by, and indeed my Jersey analogy suggests all sorts of ways for the rich to get richer. While I hate all of this, these impacts are probably less damaging than years of unresolved crisis. Boris will settle the issue for a generation, and the economic impacts will be negative but not catastrophic.

There are clues around in other countries for other ways this might pan out. The comparison with Trump is telling, and no doubt Steve Bannon is quietly plotting behind Boris. Like Trump, Boris is a celebrity and will act like one, and the victims will be many, starting with truth. Complex issues will be deferred or simplified, scapegoats will be sought and foreigners and elites scorned. The BBC will be an early target. The new Tory parliament will be as supine as the US republicans. John Howard in Australia may be a closer match, so expect dumbing down, artificial scandals (stop the boats!), power to Murdoch and corporate greed.

Europe itself could react in either direction. Boris could possibly strengthen fellow populists in Europe, but it is as likely that remaining Europe will become more cohesive and liberal in response, just as Brexit itself has lessened demands in other member states to exit the EU.

It is also hard to predict what will happen to the left in British politics. Corbyn will probably resign, and there could be some splintering, involving growing Greens, revitalised liberals or even a new force with disgruntled Tories. That might enable Boris to keep power for a decade, despite the inevitable scandals and crises that he will generate. His own party will be rather united, and the Jersey strategy will keep the City and the papers happy. But in the longer run, just as in the US, the backlash will eventually come, as an educated generation will look to more enlightened leadership.

The impacts will be toughest on the Union and on the UK constitution and institutions. In the election, Scotland will remain an SNP bastion and more obviously pro-EU, so a second referendum with a different result is all too likely. Ireland is even harder, The DUP has wasted a historic opportunity, as it always does, and it is possible that Boris will concede a special arrangement for Northern Ireland with the customs border in the sea not between the parts of Ireland. That could portend a resumption of the troubles there, or maybe even a re-united Ireland. For sure Boris will think about this too little, too late and too selfishly, so the Irish will be sold down the river by the Brits one more time. The UK constitution, or its absence, is a flimsy thing, and it will be tested to the full in the Boris years.

From the beginning, the argument to remain in the EU for me was always less about trade and more about peace. Gordon Brown was one of the few who stood up and made this point before the referendum. I fear he and I may be proved right in the coming decade. The referendum will finally lead to Brexit, but also to Boris, to a breakup of the union and to growing risks of war, at least in Ireland and perhaps more widely, partly because efforts to reduce climate change impacts will be weaker.

I am always an optimist, and in the long term the world will emerge stronger, because the positive trends about the development of humanity are strongest. But I do think we need to buckle up for a tough ride in the coming decade, and Boris is one more reason why.