Don’t underestimate him. Boris Johnson is making a powerful appeal defying party traditions, but at the expense of the Union
Posted by Jim on August 11, 2019
Brian Walker on August 11, 2019
Without doubt Boris Johnson holds the political initiative. Despite all their lambasting and lamentations, the opposition parties show no sign of getting an act to together to prevent No Deal or even save the Union. Rather the reverse.
Andrew Rawnsley is the latest to explain the situation.
Labour is insistent that any alternative government must have Mr Corbyn as its leader. There is no conceivable parliamentary majority for installing him at Number 10, even on a temporary basis. There are other things MPs can do if they have the will and the numbers, though none is easy and some would be political dynamite. They could take control of parliament’s agenda in order to declare a revocation of article 50. They could rush through changes to the relevant laws to ensure that an election happened before 31 October.
All possible solutions depend on there being sufficient Conservative MPs capable of remembering that Britain’s democratic fabric relies not so much on laws as assumptions that people will behave properly.
The word unprecedented is overused, but not in this case. If Britain crashes out of the EU in the middle of an election campaign deliberately delayed by a prime minister with no mandate, it won’t just be the constitution that will be plunged into the darkest crisis of our modern history.
In the FT one of New Labour’s leading strategists John McTernan has written a wonderfully contrarian piece praising Johnson’s’ strategy and even comparing him to de Gaulle.
He turns the anti Johnson case on its head. Rather than leading a minority of English nationalists that a parliamentary majority should easily defeat, McTernan sees the prime minister positioning himself to exploit the internal splits within Conservative and Labour and occupy the vacuum on the left and right created by years of broad consensus over austerity – the centre ground newly gone militant, if you like and ready for Boris . This is a recipe for political success.
The de Gaulle parallel ( a pretty tenuous one admittedly) comes in because the aloof Frenchman managed to appeal for national unity over the heads of a multiparty system that couldn’t form stable governments at a time when a military revolt was threatened over their inability to decide whether to pull out of Algeria or fight the rebels to the death. To win power, de Gaulle sounded the patriotic note but outraged the Right by promptly betraying them, going for independence and using his unique authority gained in second world war to face the coup attempt down.
The parallel then is not so close. And by the way Boris is no de Gaulle. He sees himself as Churchill. But is the Union Boris’s Algeria? Which will be betray; the Union or withdrawal, “no if, no buts?” McTernan warms to his provocative theme.
The most foolish of the Labour party’s attacks on Mr Johnson has been that he is a rabid rightwinger. The problem is that the new prime minister is not the narrow nationalist depicted by the Corbynites, he is a globalist.
A referendum smashes and then remakes political allegiances, uprooting old loyalties and making millions of voters available. Not just swing voters, but switchers too. Political flux creates opportunities but it needs new approaches. The failures, in the end, of Mr Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, are almost identical — both saw the current political conjuncture as a chance to move their respective parties to the left and right poles.
Traditionally, this would have created a gap in the centre, but the failure of any new “centrist” party is telling. Times of unprecedented change can only be answered by unprecedented politics. Step forward, Mr Johnson.
Good politicians accumulate political capital, great ones spend it as well. Michael Gove is the best recent model. His unchallenged reputation as a rightwinger enabled him to be the most liberal justice secretary since the post was created. Mr Johnson has learnt well from this example and has placed Mr Gove at his right-hand side as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster — that opaquely named post which is really “secretary of state for the centre of government
By delivering Brexit, Mr Johnson will have the largest amount of political capital that a Tory leader has had with their right since Thatcher won the miners’ strike. This will give him almost total freedom. Already he has established message discipline, and the political discourse has shifted from “people’s vote vs Brexit”, where the government struggled, to “no deal vs no Brexit”, where the Tories are the champions of the voice of the people. The prime minister will use his freedom to marshal new constituencies. Not just the northern working class, but all patriots who worry about Mr Corbyn’s uncritical approach to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Expect a large increase in defence spending. The work of Mr Gove to “green” the image of the Conservatives will continue, with legislation on animal rights and agricultural subsidies for carbon-neutral means of production.
And don’t be surprised if the legalisation of cannabis moves closer — young people need a reason to vote Tory too. Intervention. Infrastructure. Optimism. Patriotism. A renewal of politics to rescue the nation. Soon we will hear the prime minister’s clarion call: “Anglaises, Anglais, aidez-moi!”
(De Gaulle in an dramatic TV address had appealed “ Francaises, Francais, aidez moi”, to bring out the masses on to the streets of Paris even as some rebel paratroops from Algiers were landing in France. We’re not quite there yet).
However concern over the Union is reaching panic stations. Scottish Independence fervour is massively boosted by English No Deal militancy. It’s a bad sign when the economics are almost entirely ignored. What strikes reasonable unionists is how so many don’t seem to care if the Union survives or not. This is at the heart of Gordon Brown’s theme below, and the commentator Alex Massie’s. He sees the unionist case going by default in both main UK parties.
Lord Ashcroft’s most recent poll found 52% of Scots favour independence now. Revealingly, just 30% of those Scots polled thought unionism would prevail in a second referendum if, or when, such a vote was held.
From which one thing seems obvious: unionism can only win this game by not playing this game. Ruth Davidson understands this. It’s a misfortune for unionism that the Labour Party does not. Just as the Tories are prepared to sacrifice the stability of the union on the altar of a no-deal Brexit, so Labour appears ready to offer the SNP a second independence referendum if that’s what it takes to put Corbyn into Downing Street.
As a result, viewed from Scotland, neither the English Conservative nor the English Labour Party can sensibly be considered unionist organisations.
Given the conviction in some parts of the left that Scotland was England’s first “colony” — a conviction both ignorant and depressing — it’s little surprise that the likes of McDonnell are so relaxed about Scottish independence. Yet it’s still startling to think that the people leading the Labour Party are so intensely relaxed about the dismemberment of the country they seek to lead. This is not the Labour Party of John Smith and nor is it that of Gordon Brown. That party no longer exists.
So these are lonely times for Scottish unionists. They peer south and do not much care for what they see. A Britain in which the choice lies between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn is not a cheerful place. No wonder they view the future with foreboding.
If their paranoia does not yet match that of their Ulster brethren, they still have an inkling that, should it be deemed necessary, they too will be sold out. That is one obvious interpretation of the recent polling, which reveals that, in England, “leave” voters think the break-up of the UK is a price worth paying for Brexit. And it is the obvious conclusion to be drawn from McDonnell’s decision to offer a referendum to the SNP too.
So these are lonely times for Scottish unionists. They peer south and do not much care for what they see. A Britain in which the choice lies between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn is not a cheerful place. No wonder they view the future with foreboding.
If their paranoia does not yet match that of their Ulster brethren, they still have an inkling that, should it be deemed necessary, they too will be sold out. That is one obvious interpretation of the recent polling, which reveals that, in England, “leave” voters think the break-up of the UK is a price worth paying for Brexit. And it is the obvious conclusion to be drawn from McDonnell’s decision to offer a referendum to the SNP too.
The former prime minister Gordon Brown is fighting back..
The first step to solving a problem is to see it clearly. And if we are to understand why we are facing not only our most serious constitutional crisis since the 17th century but an unprecedented economic calamity precipitated by a no-deal exit from the EU, we must recognise that nationalism is now driving British politics…
Johnson’s flying visits to all corners of the UK have done nothing to dispel the impression that under him the world’s most successful multinational state is devoid of a unifying purpose powerful enough to hold it together and to keep four nationalisms – Scottish, Irish, English and also a rising Welsh nationalism – at bay….
What is most worrying is not just that so many think the union will end but how at least for now so few appear to care. Only 30% of British Conservatives (and only 14% of Brexit party voters) would oppose Brexit if it meant the break-up of the union: 56% of Tories (and 78% of Brexit party voters) – in total 70% of Leavers – would go ahead regardless, even if the union collapsed….
Unionist parties in Northern Ireland should have been persuaded that their stated objectives – the integrity of the UK and an open border with the Irish Republic – could be best secured by continued membership of the customs union and single market…
As the Second World War ended, George Orwell made a distinction between patriots who instinctively love their country and the opposite, a political nationalism that he defined as “power hunger tempered by self-deception”. He noted its defining features: unreality about the country’s prospects; introversion bordering on the xenophobic; and hate-filled obsessiveness that treats people solely in terms of their loyalty and utility. Orwell argued passionately that the descent into a narrow, chauvinistic nationalism could be halted only by what he called “moral effort”.
In our times, this means we must rediscover the age-old virtues of empathy, solidarity across borders, reciprocity between nations and co-operation rather than conflict. These precious ideals – and a tolerant, inclusive and outward-looking Britishness – could not survive the divisiveness and chaos of a no-deal Brexit. To prevent the rise of dysfunctional nationalism, the first step is to stop no deal in its tracks.
But Gordon, how is this to be done? We’ve heard the lament before What’s the strategy?