- The Guardian Sat urday 31 Aug ust 2019
(^10) National
Politics
Tearing up the
political rulebook
How Johnson
unleashed a storm
Heather Stewart
Political editor
A
s Boris Johnson
strolled down his
Voyager plane on
his way home from
Biarritz on Monday
evening, tie off and
white shirt unbuttoned, to josh with
the travelling journalists, he had a
bullish air.
The G7 summit had passed off
without gaff es; he had carefully
navigated the tricky diplomatic
territory between Donald Trump
and the EU – and he and fellow old
Etonian Ed Llewellyn, the UK’s
ambassador, had enjoyed two
bracing swims in the sea.
But at the PM’s closing press
conference in Biarritz – delayed
while Donald Trump held his own
rambling address – Johnson had
chosen his words carefully.
“I rely on parliamentarians to
do the right thing and honour the
pledge that they made to the people
of this country,” when pressed
repeatedly about whether he
could prorogue parliament to push
through a no-deal Brexit.
Little more than 24 hours later,
the explanation began to emerge.
First, a speech by Sajid Javid billed as
setting out his economic philosophy
was abruptly cancelled. Then, late
on Tuesday night, rumours began
to swirl of a meeting of the privy
council – a gathering of senior
ministers with the Queen – at her
Scottish summer retreat in Balmoral.
Downing Street refused to
confi rm the story – and instead,
began scrambling to accelerate the
drastic plan drawn up by Johnson’s
legislative adviser, Nikki da Costa,
and chief strategist, Dominic
Cummings.
On Wednesday morning, a
conference call of cabinet ministers
was hastily convened: at the
insistence of cabinet secretary, Mark
Sedwill, part of whose role is to act
as the guardian of the constitution atthe heart of Downing Street.
Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg was
boarding an early morning fl ight to
Aberdeen. His fellow privy council
members Natalie Evans, the leader
of the House of Lords, and chief
whip, Mark Spencer – neither easily
recognisable by travellers – fl ew
separately, to avoid scrutiny.
As news of their mission broke,
all hell broke loose. Johnson’s hiring
of Cummings was widely read as a
signal that in his bid to achieve the
“mission” of Brexit, he was willing
to tear up convention and ride
roughshod over the usual niceties
of politics. While Johnson doesn’t
share the world view of Trump he
does privately admit a grudging
admiration for the way the US
president plays the game of politics,
believing there is more method in it
than is sometimes apparent.
Many of the ragtag band of rebels
committed to stopping a no-deal
Brexit were caught by surprise by
Wednesday’s announcement. Some
were still abroad, squeezing the last
few drops from the summer break.
Former attorney general Dominic
Grieve quickly began liaising with
like-minded anti-no-deal colleagues
en route to a wedding in Italy, his
wife at the wheel. The Speaker,
John Bercow, issued a blistering
statement from sunny Turkey. Tory
veteran Lord Heseltine took to the
airwaves from Montenegro in a natty
embroidered shirt.
But the blueprint for the rebels’
response had already been set at a
key meeting on Tuesday, convened
by Jeremy Corbyn.
Attended by leading opposition
fi gures, including Jo Swinson and
Caroline Lucas, the meeting ended
with agreement that the priority was
to rush through legislation to force
Johnson to extend article 50, if he
hasn’t struck a Brexit deal in time for
the 31 October deadline.
On the conference call with his
cabinet colleagues, who had all
signed up to the “mission” of leaving
the EU by Halloween come what
may, there was little open dissent;
though Amber Rudd was noticeably
less enthusiastic than colleagues,
and Julian Smith asked about the
legal advice Downing Street had
commissioned to underpin the
decision.
Beyond Downing Street, the
backlash was ferocious. Corbyn –
not a noted monarchist – fi red off a
missive to the Queen, asking for an
audience, and urging her to reverse
the decision.
But it was too late. The “order
in council,” formally recording her
approval of the decision at the privy‘The people now
who are saying they
would do anything to
avoid a no deal had a
goal gaping in front
of them three times’Ruth Davidson
Ex-leader, Scottish Toriescouncil meeting, headed with the
emblem of the crown, had already
been published.
By the end of the day, a scratch
crowd of protest ers outside
parliament, many of them draped in
EU fl ags, were belting out: “ No one
voted for Bor-is!”, to the tune of the
White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army,
accompanied on the trumpet.
Rees-Mogg, sent out on the
airwaves to defend the decision in
his trademark plummy vowels the
next morning, dismissed the outrage
as “candyfl oss”, and stuck rigidly
to the explanation that holding a
Queens speech was entirely usual for
a new government.
And Johnson’s outriders don’t
mind their opponents bandying
around #Brexitcoup hashtags and
threatening to block bridges.
They believe it will only help them
paint their opponents as extremists,
as they draw up the battlelines for
the coming general election. The
backing of Rudd and the few other
erstwhile remainers who are still
on board the Boris bandwagon is
heavily conditional on his insistencethat all this parliamentary hardball is
ultimately aimed at getting a Brexit
deal through parliament.
“Amber will take a lot, if it leads to
a deal,” said an ally.
There is bitterness among this
group, too, against the Labour MPs
who voted against Theresa May’s
Brexit deal three times.
“They had the softest Brexit deal
they were ever going to get on the
table. They threw it away. It’s just
bad tactics,” sa id one senior Tory.
That view was perhaps most
clearly expressed in the parting
words of Ruth Davidson, the Scottish
Tory leader, as she announced her
resignation on Thursday.
“We had three golden
opportunities to support a deal. The
people now who are saying they
would do anything to avoid a no deal
had a goal gaping in front of them
three times and hit the ball over the
bar ... the simplest way to avoid no
deal is to vote for a deal,” she said.
She said Johnson had promised
her, face to face, that he wanted to
get a Brexit deal – and urged him to
do so.While Davidson insisted that her
departure had as much to do with
motherhood as Brexit, it underlined
the sense that the Johnson
administration is a very long way
from David Cameron’s detoxifi ed
2010 Tories.
Johnson told his cabinet there
was a 50/50 chance of a deal; and
Brussels-watchers say there is a
glimmer of an opportunity.
Mujtaba Rahman of the
consultancy Eurasia Group, who is
well connected with EU decision-
makers, says by relentlessly singling
out the Irish border backstop as
the unacceptable aspect of Theresa
May’s deal, Johnson may have
opened up some wriggle room.
“When you just focus on one
process, one problem, it creates
space to negotiate on other things,”
he said. “I do think that there’s a
small chance a deal gets done.”
But he still puts the probability
of that outcome at just 15% – and
is convinced the PM is pursuing a
“twin-track” strategy: pursue a deal,
but be ready to leave with no deal if
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