The Daily Telegraph - 24.07.2019

The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 24 July 2019 *** 5

in crucial first 100 days of power

tially said Mr Johnson was going to lead

the “United Kingston” before correct-

ing her tweet.

Mr Johnson indicated to The Daily

Telegraph this month that talking to

the EU about a trade deal was a higher

priority than US trade talks, and aides

are in discussions about inviting Jean-

Claude Juncker, the outgoing EU Com-

mission president, to Chequers,

possibly this weekend.

One insider stressed that Mr John-

son did not plan to travel to Brussels

himself. “He is not going to go cap-in-

hand with his begging bowl around

Europe like Theresa May did,” said the

well-placed source. Instead, Mr John-

son’s most trusted advisers are urging

him to schedule a meeting with Mr

Trump within the next four weeks.

Another source added: “He is all but

certain to go there because he needs to

meet Trump. Washington is shut down

during August so the chances are a

meeting would be in Florida. But he

needs to see Trump wherever he is,

and he should spend at least a day with

him, wherever he is.”

Mr Johnson will need to appoint a

new ambassador to Washington fol-

lowing the resignation of Sir Kim, who

was described as “wacky” and “pomp-

ous” by Mr Trump after the leak of dip-

lomatic cables in which the ambassador

had dismissed the Trump administra-

tion as “inept”.

Mr Johnson has been admired by Mr

Trump and his team since he was for-

eign secretary. He met Mr Trump’s

son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and strate-

gist, Steve Bannon, in 2017 before Mr

Trump was sworn in, then had his first

public meeting with Mr Trump at the

United Nations that September.

In the immediate term, Mr Johnson

will focus his efforts on home soil with

Meet the

Johnsons

It was a family

affair at the

announcement

of Boris Johnson’s

election victory

at the Queen

Elizabeth II

Conference Centre

yesterday. Father

Stanley was taking

pictures, while also

looking on were

the new

Conservative

leader’s sister

Rachel, a television

presenter and

author, and brother

Jo, the MP for

Orpington

Sceptical Europe

gives lukewarm

welcome to new

prime minister

By Peter Foster and James Rothwell

EUROPE welcomed Boris Johnson as

Britain’s next prime minister yesterday

with a thinly veiled reminder that it has

no plans to renegotiate Theresa May’s

divorce package.

Within seconds of the result being

announced, Michel Barnier, the EU’s

chief Brexit negotiator, said he would

work “constructively” with Mr John-

son to “facilitate the ratification of the

Withdrawal Agreement”.

There was no mention of any alter-

natives to that agreement despite Mr

Johnson’s repeated warnings that the

Withdrawal Agreement was “dead” af-

ter being rejected three times by Par-

liament.

Mr Barnier, who negotiated the deal

based on orders from the other 27 EU

countries, repeated that Europe was

willing only to “rework” the Political

Declaration on the future relationship

with Europe.

EU diplomatic sources said that Eu-

rope would not give up on the Irish

backstop until the UK could explain

how it would maintain an “invisible”

border in Northern Ireland while leav-

ing the single market and customs un-

ion as Mr Johnson has promised.

A senior source close to the EU nego-

tiations said that Europe would “wait

and see” how Mr Johnson pitched his

negotiation once installed in No 10, but

added that hard talk of “no deal” and

“binning the backstop” would result in

the EU disengaging quickly.

Frans Timmermans, the liberal

Dutch EU commissioner, noted that Mr

Johnson had not always been a hard-

bitten anti-European, alluding to hopes

in the bloc that he will be more emol-

lient in office than on the stump.

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump,

the US president, tweeted his congrat-

ulations to Mr Johnson, adding: “He

will be great!” It is not yet clear how

quickly Mr Johnson will travel to

Washington, or whether he will meet

Mr Trump before senior EU leaders.

Elsewhere across Europe the buzz-

word used in unison by Mr Barnier,

Emmanuel Macron, the French presi-

dent, and the Irish deputy prime minis-

ter Simon Coveney was “constructive”

• but with little hint of any concessions
  to come.
  “We will work constructively with
  Mr Johnson and his government to

maintain and strengthen British-Irish

relations through the challenges of

Brexit,” Mr Coveney wrote on Twitter.

In a crumb of possible comfort to Mr

Johnson, Mr Macron noted that he

looked forward to working with the UK

on the Iran oil tanker stand-off.

“I want very much to work with him

as quickly as possible and not just on

European subjects and the continua-

tion of negotiations linked to Brexit,

but also on international issues ... like

the situation in Iran,” he said.

Ursula von der Leyen, the former

German defence minister who will be-

come the next president of the Euro-

pean Commission on Nov 1, said she

was looking forward to a good working

relationship to tackle many “difficult”

and “challenging” issues.

There was a hint of steel from Guy

Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s

Brexit coordinator, who has cam-

paigned to protect the rights of the

3.2 million EU citizens who will remain

in the UK after Brexit. In a sign of his

continued determination to stand firm

on the issue, Mr Verhofstadt said he

was “looking forward to defending the

interests of all Europeans” and that his

committee would meet today to dis-

cuss Mr Johnson’s appointment.

Mr Johnson has already hinted

strongly that he intends to guarantee

unilaterally to grandfather the rights of

EU citizens as set out in the Withdrawal

Agreement by writing them into UK

law.

Further away from the coalface of

the negotiations, the language directed

at Mr Johnson was coarser.

Franziska Brantner, the spokesman

for the German Greens, said Tory party

members had “crowned a notorious

liar and gambler” as the next prime

minister.

The negative sentiments were fol-

lowed by Vytenis Andriukaitis, Lithua-

nia’s EU commissioner, who accused

Mr Johnson and his supporters of un-

dermining democracy via “cheap

promises, simplified visions [and] bla-

tantly evident incorrect statements”.

Either Boris delivers Brexit to the country by

Hallowe’en – or he will be gone by Christmas

A

ll political careers end in failure,

but few reach their pinnacle so

close to the edge. Boris Johnson

has long fantasised about a euphoric

landslide sweeping him into Downing

Street, but yesterday 92,000 Tory

members crowned him leader of a

sinking minority government instead.

Still, Boris will be optimistic

because that is who he is. His victory

speech yesterday afternoon to a visibly

tetchy audience of Tory MPs fizzed

with energy and “can-do”

determination, as he vowed to release

the country’s “guy ropes of self-

doubt”. But the big political question

now is whether Boris’s optimism will

bring about Brexit or the swiftest

downfall this country has ever seen.

There is no doubt that, after three

years of being force-fed Theresa May’s

mushy-middle gruel, the mouths of

the malnourished Tory grassroots are

finally starting to water in excited

anticipation again. Boris intends to cut

income tax and slash stamp duty, in a

bid to put rockets under the economy.

His refusal to take no deal off the table

and stubborn insistence that

technology can solve the Irish border

problem may yet force Brussels to

blink. A political comeback for Tory

grandees like David Davis and Iain

Duncan Smith may also be imminent.

But there will be no mercy if he fails

to deliver on Brexit. Unlike Theresa

May, who was granted the luxury of

death by a thousand cuts, Boris

Johnson will be swallowed by a

political earthquake within weeks

rather than months. If we do not say

au revoir to Brussels at the end of

October, Conservatives will desert en

masse on Nov 1. Within weeks, the

steady drip of MP defections to the

Brexit Party will start, as politicians

scramble to save their seats. This will,

in turn, bring about the collapse of a

government which now has a majority

of just a couple of seats.

The big danger is that the self-

assured Boris is in denial about this.

He would do well to realise that while

brazen optimism is an asset when

you’re moving mountains, it is an

Achilles’ heel when you are trying to

cover your filthy tracks. The worst

liars are ambitious liars, because they

think they can get away with almost

comically elaborate deceits. Such as

the idea that Brexit is a tweaked

version of Theresa May’s deal. If Boris

does calculate that he could convince

Brexiteer MPs and Leave voters to get

behind a form of the Withdrawal

Agreement, then he is suffering from

delusions of grandeur about his

support. Remainers taunt Leavers for

putting their trust in a “buffoon”’ and

a “charlatan”. In fact, Brexit supporters

are far more circumspect.

They accept that they do not know

whether the country will get Boris the

Churchillian statesman who is willing

to take Britain out of the EU with no

deal; or Boris the slimy Blairite who

will try and slip the people an

exfoliated version of Mrs May’s deal.

But after three years of appalling

Tory failure, they have little choice but

to take a leap of faith born out of

desperation. Boris may be slippery,

but the grassroots has prudently

concluded that as someone who

campaigned to Leave and understands

the importance of keeping no deal on

the cards, he is their best bet. The

relationship is therefore contractual

rather than emotional – conditional on

Britain leaving the EU on Oct 31.

It is a myth that great leaders are

feverish optimists. They are stone-cold

pessimists too. They are willing to

stare into the black abyss of potential

political failure and accept the full

horrors of what it could unleash. This

is what Mr Johnson now must do.

Whether he realises this remains a

mystery. Attending Tory hustings over

the course of this month, did Boris

have the humility to notice that people

were applauding him with one foot out

of the door? Does he truly grasp the

seismometer-smashing magnitude of

the failure if he misses the Oct 31

deadline? Has it truly hit home that he

already has no lifelines left? Only time

will tell, but we won’t have to wait

too long; either Boris delivers

Brexit by Hallowe’en, or he will be

gone by Christmas.

As the grey grit of the Theresa May

era melted away yesterday, in the

bright but torrid July warmth, cynics

like me could not help but detect more

than a hint of pathetic fallacy. Will

Boris’s sunlit optimism save the day?

Or has a Great Britain in limbo now

entered the seventh fiery circle of

Dante’s “Brexit Betrayal” Inferno,

which ominously precedes the final

two phases: Treachery and Fraud.

‘He’s not

going to go

cap in hand

with his

begging bowl

around

Europe like

Theresa

May did’

‘He needs to

see Trump

wherever he

is, and he

should spend

at least a day

with him,

wherever

he is’

a tour to all four corners of the UK. A

speech is planned for Friday or Satur-

day, most likely in the north, before Mr

Johnson travels to Scotland, Wales and

Northern Ireland in an effort to sell his

vision for delivering Brexit and uniting

the country. It is still to be decided

whether he will address the House of

Commons before MPs break up for the

summer recess tomorrow.

With all of his key aides already in

position, spearheaded by Sir Eddie Lis-

ter as chief of staff, long-term adviser

Ben Gascoigne as deputy, Lee Cain as

communications secretary and Munira

Mirza tipped as policy chief, Mr John-

son now needs to finalise his Cabinet.

A split has emerged among Brexiteer

Boris backers between those who

agree with the Attorney General, Geof-

frey Cox, that an amended Withdrawal

Agreement can still get through parlia-

ment, and those who are more aligned

with Iain Duncan Smith’s view that Mrs

May’s Brexit deal is dead and a “man-

aged no deal” is the only viable option

out of the EU. If he cannot negotiate the

Brexit deal, it is uncertain whether Mr

Johnson will attempt to pass some of

the uncontroversial parts of the With-

drawal Agreement or pass an emer-

gency Budget before the Brexit

deadline to prepare for no deal instead.

Whatever happens, Mr Johnson will

launch a nationwide PR campaign to

get the country and its businesses to

prepare for no deal.

Another obstacle in Mr Johnson’s

first 100 days in office will be the no-

confidence motion set to be tabled

when MPs return in September. Yester-

day, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said

the motion would be tabled “at a time

of [their] choosing”, adding “it will be

an interesting surprise for all of you”.

With ministers David Gauke, Rory

Stewart and Anne Milton all having

tendered their  resignations amid sug-

gestions Tory Remainers may support

a no-confidence motion to stop the

Government taking Britain out of the

EU without a deal, Mr Johnson will

have his work cut out trying to keep

backbenchers under control.

The Tories’ majority of three ap-

peared in jeopardy on Monday after

Dover MP Charlie Elphicke was charged

with sexual assault – and it may dwindle

further if they lose the Brecon and Rad-

norshire by-election next Thursday. It

was called after sitting Tory MP Chris

Davies was found guilty of submitting

false expenses claims.

Could a snap general election be on

the cards? Only if MPs thwart Mr John-

son’s plans to leave without a deal, giv-

ing him no other option than to try to

shore up the Tory majority to deliver

Brexit once and for all.

‘I very much want to work

with Mr Johnson as quickly

as possible on European

and international issues’

Fight for our union,

urges DUP’s Foster

By Harry Yorke

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

ARLENE FOSTER, the Democratic Un-

ionist Party leader, urged Boris John-

son yesterday to defend the Union,

confirming that the Northern Irish

party’s confidence and supply deal

with the Tories would continue under

his leadership.

Having tweeted a photograph of her

watching the Conservative leadership

announcement live at her office in En-

niskillen, Mrs Foster described it as a

“historic day” before revealing that the

pair had spoken and confirmed that the

deal between the two parties would

continue.

“We discussed our shared objectives

of strengthening every part of the Un-

ion, ensuring the 2016 referendum re-

sult is implemented and seeing

devolution restored in Northern Ire-

land,” she said. “The confidence and

supply agreement between the Con-

servative Party and the Democratic Un-

ionist Party (DUP) remains. That

agreement included a review between

each parliamentary session.

“This will take place over the coming

weeks and will explore the policy pri-

orities of both parties for the next par-

liamentary session.” Confirming

speculation that Mr Johnson will soon

embark on a tour of all four corners of

the UK, she added: “I also look forward

to welcoming Mr Johnson back to

Northern Ireland shortly after (he) be-

comes Prime Minister.”

Nigel Dodds, the deputy DUP leader,

said it was a “totally emphatic victory”

for Mr Johnson, saying it gave him “a

very, very strong hand within his own

party to say to those naysayers and peo-

ple who may be out to thwart the refer-

endum result that they’ve got to get

this done now and move on and govern

in the interest of all of the people of the

country”.

He said Brexit “needs to be deliv-

ered”, adding: “We want to get a deal.

Our objective is not a no deal. We un-

derstand the need to keep a no deal on

the table. We want to get a deal.”

However, Robin Swann, the Ulster

Unionist Party leader, warned that the

job of prime minister comes with

“enormous responsibilities”, while

Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, de-

scribed Mr Johnson’s victory over Jer-

emy Hunt as a “worrying step toward a

hard no-deal Brexit and a hard border

in Ireland”. He suggested Mr Johnson

had “coasted into Downing Street on a

wave of Brexit bluff and bluster”.

Naomi Long, the Alliance leader, said

the UK needed a “statesman, not a

showman”.

Sherelle Jacobsbs

‘Boris may be slippery, but

the Conservative grassroots

has prudently concluded

that he is their best bet’

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