24 Britain The EconomistAugust 10th 2019
H
istorical parallels with Boris Johnson, Britain’s new prime
minister, abound. Mr Johnson’s acolytes compare their leader
to Winston Churchill, who also once helped Britain out of a pickle
in its relations with Europe. Smart alecs opt for George Canning, a
fellow Old Etonian with populist tendencies, who became prime
minister in 1827—and died in office after just 119 days. David Lloyd
George, a Liberal prime minister whose time in office combined
huge constitutional changes, political chicanery and enthusiastic
infidelity, also fits.
Yet the better comparison is with a more recent and less likely
prime minister: Theresa May. Mr Johnson and Mrs May are differ-
ent species. She was determinedly dull, while he is unstoppably
jolly. She ascended to the highest office by careful management of
a cabinet job, whereas he almost torpedoed his career with a dodgy
stint as foreign secretary. Mrs May embodies a strand of curtain-
twitching suburban Conservatism. Mr Johnson represents the
party’s wing of cavalier public-school bons vivants. Yet these differ-
ent political animals have strikingly similar strategies.
Team Johnson has cornered itself on Brexit, painting negotiat-
ing red lines with the same enthusiasm as Mrs May. Mr Johnson
has promised to take Britain out of the European Union by October
31st, just as Mrs May pledged to do so by March 29th—the missed
deadline that, in effect, sealed her fate. Both prime ministers’
Brexit strategies have at their heart the threat that “no deal is better
than a bad deal”. Injecting that phrase into the bloodstream of Brit-
ish politics was one of Mrs May’s few successes as a political com-
municator. Fatally for her, she turned out not really to believe it,
chickening out when the possibility of leaving with no deal arrived
in March. Mr Johnson’s team in Downing Street have adopted the
same mantra, and insist that, unlike her, they will hold their nerve.
They may secretly suspect that their promise will never be tested,
as Parliament is plotting to force an election rather than allow the
country to be dragged out of the euwithout a deal.
The possibility of an election gives rise to the next similarity
between the May and Johnson regimes: their serene confidence
that a vote will lead to a Conservative victory. The same thinking
dominated in the spring of 2017, when Mrs May plotted her snap
general election. Such a victory was to be built on Leave-votingconstituencies in the Midlands and the north, with voters flocking
to the Tories on a pledge of a pure Brexit. Mr Johnson’s electoral
pitch is the same. In his first speech as prime minister he spoke of
“answering at last the plea of the forgotten people and the left-be-
hind towns”, just as Mrs May pledged to right the “burning injus-
tices” that led to the Brexit vote. When it came to the election, Mrs
May framed it as a battle between the people and an establishment
determined to thwart their will. If mps do force an election, Mr
Johnson would play a similar tune, with what aides describe as a
“people versus the politicians” campaign.
Even the coverage of their advisers has been similar. Westmin-
ster is given to “Life of Brian” syndrome, in which a single bag-car-
rier is designated as a political messiah. For Mrs May, it was Nick
Timothy, a bald Machiavelli who fell out with David Cameron
while in government and spent a hiatus from politics composing
forthright blogposts, before finding himself in Downing Street.
For Mr Johnson, it is Dominic Cummings, a bald Machiavelli who
fell out with David Cameron while in government and spent a hia-
tus from politics composing forthright blogposts, before finding
himself in Downing Street.
Despite their different styles, the presentation of the two prime
ministers is oddly familiar. Mr Johnson, who prides himself on his
campaigning skills, shuffles between photo opportunities, agree-
ing only to carefully staged pool interviews, as was Mrs May’s
wont. Although Mr Johnson looks comfortable chatting to farmers
or petting their livestock in a way that Mrs May never could, the
strategy is the same: keep the prime minister away from the press.
This should be little surprise. Staffers from ctfPartners, a political
consultancy that oversaw Mrs May’s bungled 2017 election, have
taken roles in Mr Johnson’s operation.Once more, with feeling
That a strategy failed once does not mean it will always fail. Mrs
May’s former aides moan that figures such as Philip Hammond,
her chancellor, hamstrung the prime minister by refusing to play
along with her pantomime preparations for a no-deal Brexit. Mr
Johnson’s team has seen off this problem by selecting a cabinet of
true Brexit believers and a few former Remainers who have kissed
the ring. Labour gained 20 points during the course of the 2017
election campaign, a feat it may struggle to repeat. In calling her
snap election, Mrs May looked opportunistic—an ugly trait for a
politician whose selling point was a sense of duty. Mr Johnson may
be forced into one, or at least look as if he was. Grand political re-
alignments also take time. The 2017 election was called only ten
months after the Brexit referendum. Now, after three years of in-
cessant argument, people identify more strongly with their vote in
the referendum than with a political party. It may be that the au-
thors of Mrs May’s strategy were merely ahead of their time.
Yet the May-Johnson approach still suffers from gaping flaws.
An election cannot be won with the votes of Leavers alone. Nab-
bing seats from Labour in pro-Brexit areas is pointless if Remainer
seats in London suburbs and university towns are lost. Mr Johnson
may frame an election as a plebiscite on Brexit, but it will be voters
who decide which topics matter. Mrs May, astonishing as it may
now seem, was once wildly popular, entering office with an ap-
proval rating of 35. Mr Johnson’s is -7. And whereas Mrs May had
options when she became prime minister—a majority, a malleable
mandate from the referendum and a public less divided than to-
day—Mr Johnson has none of these. The new prime minister has
taken the path of May Mark 2. It is a treacherous one. 7Bagehot Theresa 2.0
A sense of déjà vu in Downing Street