IS BORIS SERIOUSLY FOCUSED ON DELIVERING BREXIT?
For those of us that want to see Brexit
delivered and, in particular, are hopeful of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit, Boris Johnson
has made various remarks that his friend and campaign advisor, Sir Lynton
Crosby would call ‘Dog Whistles’, that is remarks which call us back to heel
like well-trained dogs!
Of course these remarks might be genuine
expressions of Boris’ personal determination and ideological commitment to
Brexit “Do or die!”
Alternatively these remarks might well be
being said by Boris Johnson purely for reasons of expediency. It would therefore be worth reminding
ourselves of Boris’ history.
The first thing I should say is that I do
personally like Boris’ style. He is
clearly an absolute star and a magnetic personality and performer with
tremendous charisma. He has genuine leadership
ability which makes a fantastic change from the dispiriting lack of it of
Theresa May and her inner circle. That
said let’s consider his position.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born in
the United States and when he attended Oxford University his former tutor at
Balliol confirmed that he did so as an American citizen.
More recently as MP for Henley and Editor of
the Spectator and then as Mayor of London, Boris had seemed enthusiastically
Europhile.
I remember in a TV programme which he did
enthusing on the topic that the EU was the new Roman Empire. He suggested that what we now needed was a
new Caesar Augustus!
He also at one stage enthusiastically endorsed
the idea of Turkey, the land of his Great Grandfather, Ali Kamal (one of the
last Sultan’s ministers), joining the EU.
We then have the occasion when he decided to
come out as supporting Leave once David Cameron had called the EU referendum in
2016. During that campaign he made all
sorts of remarks which pleased us Leave supporters.
However it should be borne in mind that he had
done two draft speeches. One supporting
Remain and David Cameron, the other coming out for Leave. David Cameron has also apparently confirmed
that he thought Boris did not believe in Brexit.
I would therefore say it is not clear that
Boris coming out for Leave was about commitment and principle, rather than
about career and opportunity.
There is also Boris’ family background which
is very Europhile, globalist, multi-racial, multi-cultural and metropolitan
elitist. Perhaps not the typical seed
bed of patriotism and nationalism!
Now we turn to what is going on at the
moment. Boris has obviously got the
leadership of the Conservative Party, partly on the basis of his personality
but also partly on the basis of promising to deliver Brexit “Do or die”. Brexit has therefore been very useful to his
career ambitions.
When Boris became Prime Minister, Stephen
Barclay became the New Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. The two of them still could have agreed by
Consent that our case “Defend Brexit” would win and agreed that there be a Declaration
that we were out on the 29th.
Indeed, we could have agreed some other date
where we would be out if the Government thought there was any reason for having
a different date.
Instead of doing this, despite the fact that
Boris, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Stephen Barclay and many Conservative MPs had been
lobbied about it, the Government’s lawyers wrote to me and to the Court of
Appeal saying that they had received instructions to reiterate the Government’s
pleaded Defence. Although I have asked
for confirmation of who ordered it but I think it highly unlikely that that
would have been written if the new Prime Minister and Secretary of State had
not ordered it.
A lot of the noise and froth which we read in
the media or hear from Boris’ supporters is that he is being almost martyred
for the issue of Brexit by the parliamentary Remainers, it is nevertheless worth
pausing and considering that Boris had several opportunities to prevent the then
Bill becoming law. The Conservative
Peers had lined up many amendments which would have filibustered the Bill so
that it could not pass through the House of Lords before Parliament was
prorogued and would therefore have been lost.
It has been reported that Boris personally stood the Conservative Peers
down and enabled the Bill to pass without objection.
He also could have refused or delayed Royal
Assent to the Bill. There would then have been a further row about whether that
was proper to do, but the time would have ticked away and we would have been
closer to achieving Brexit with ‘No Deal’.
He has now signalled that he would consider a
‘No Deal’ Brexit to be a failure. It is also worth remembering that on the third occasion
he did actually vote for Theresa May’s Withdrawal Deal, which, of course, is
really more of an abject and almost unconditional surrender document. From this we can draw the certain conclusion
that Boris is not ideologically committed to opposing Theresa May’s deal. The question of the deal is purely a matter
of expediency for him.
We will see over the coming weeks whether he
does take any decisions which advance the chances of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit, or
whether he in fact prevents that from happening behind a cloak of ‘Dog Whistle’
remarks to Leavers.
So you might ask me what I think Boris is
actually trying to achieve if it is not a clean break Brexit?
My answer would be that I think what he is
trying to achieve is a General Election with him having a good chance of using
the Brexit issue to enable him to destroy the Brexit Party and to get a large
majority as a result of the election.
If that election takes place before the 31st
October I wouldn’t then be at all surprised if Boris quickly signs us up to
what to all intent and purposes is Theresa May’s deal.
The amusing commentator Rod Liddall suggested
that what Boris would sign us up to was “Theresa May’s pig of a deal which
Boris had put lipstick and rouge on”!
What do you think?




