mirror.co.uk WEDNESDAY 24.07.2019 DAILY MIRROR^7
DM1STmarital indiscretions, which included
multiple affairs and at least two children
by other women, are well known.
Mr Johnson is said to “yearn” for the
stability his marriage provided, espe-
cially as his new relationship has been
buffeted by rows, with the police even
called to one. But allies also insist he is
“smitten” with the former Tory PR chief.
She has been credited not just with his
weight loss and his smarter haircut but
with helping to convince sceptical Tory
MPs that Mr Johnson could not only get
them a Brexit deal, but would also win a
subsequent general election.
But even Mr Johnson’s allies recognise
how tough the months ahead will be.
With a wafer-thin majority in Parlia-
ment, a raft of hardline pledges on Brexit
to deliver and a deeply fractured Tory
party to try to unite, let alone the EU to
convince, he could be out by Christmas.
Even his closest allies know it. “It could
all be over in three months, but it might
not be, he might be lucky,” one said.
Mr Johnson will need more than luck.
[email protected]
@PippaCrerarunder control and out of
the country. But his period
at the Foreign Office was
not a success. Among his
many errors were his role
in getting British-Iranian
charity worker Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s jail
term extended.
The most important
figure in his transformation has been his
girlfriend Carrie Symonds, 31, for whom
he left long-suffering wife Marina, the
mother of four of his children. Hishis record was patchy in
reality, with many successes
conceived elsewhere and a
mayoralty littered with
vanity projects and gaffes.
And while he dismissed
his chances of getting to
No10 as less likely than
being “reincarnated as an
olive”, it was always his aim.
After eight years at City Hall, Mr
Johnson returned to Parliament. Last
year he was appointed Foreign Secretary
by Theresa May, in a bid to keep himGORDON BROWN
Former Labour Prime Ministerfactories. He will have to explain
why he is ignoring a Department
of Health warning that vital drugs
may be held up, costing lives.
And if he persists in his election
promise to withhold millions of
our EU dues, it will be viewed as
declaring economic war on our
neighbours. In short, the new PM
will have to justify a huge act of
self-harm that will almost
certainly lead to a recession.
He may be right that no deal is
demanded by the Tory party
membership but they represent
fewer people than voted for Ed
Balls on Strictly Come Dancing.
And by 2:1, according to new
HOPE not Hate polling, voters
think our economy, their family’s
financial prospects, incoming
investment and even
our fight against
terrorism will suffer
if we go over the
cliff.
A new petition,
which can be signed
at https://secure.
avaaz.org/
campaign/en/no_
deal_no_brexit_loc/
already has more
than 100,
signatures as people
wake up to the calamitous
consequences of a no deal.
And it’s not just our union with
Northern Ireland at issue – but
union with Scotland. Such are the
risks he is taking he could be the
first Prime Minister of England.
It is Boris Johnson’s choice of
his own political staff that will
show how he plans to govern.
If, as predicted, he brings in the
henchman of Lynton Crosby – the
electoral guru who specialises in
Trump-style political attacks – so
called “enemies of the people”
from immigrants to anyone with
the word “European” in their job
title will be targeted. This will just
polarise Britain.
I want to wish him well. But I
fear a Boris no-deal Brexit could
divide us further.
■ A full version of this piece is
available at mirror.co.ukHe is threatening
economic suicide
SIDE BY SIDE Gordon Brown, PM at the time, with Lord Coe and then
London Mayor, Boris Johnson, at the 2008 Olympic Games in BeijingBORIS Johnson will enter No 10
for the first time as PM between
3pm and 4pm, as I did in 2007.
If he follows convention, he will
have set out his mission on the
steps of Downing Street.
As the black door shuts behind
him, he will be greeted by 100 or
so civil servants who work there
and who will line the long passage
to his tiny ground floor office.
With MPs about to sign off for
five weeks, the new PM will want
to hit the ground running.
Within seconds of arriving, he
will be taking a multitude of calls
from world leaders congratulating
him on his new post.
Watchers will check who he
chooses to phone first – President
Trump, Germany’s Angela Merkel
or France’s
Emmanuel Macron
and who, possibly
President Putin, is
last on the list.
Serious business
will start right
away.
And because the
next three months
are going to be
non-stop on Brexit,
he might be well
advised to phone
the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar,
whose support he needs to
change European minds.
Events he cannot anticipate
may throw him off course. But his
stated priority, from day one, is to
remove the Irish backstop from
the EU withdrawal agreement.
His clarion call has been a
European exit on October 31 with
or without a deal.
But Boris’ problem is that his
most important civil servant
adviser, Sir Mark Sedwill, has set
out all the reasons a no-deal exit
has to be avoided at all costs.
Almost immediately he will
have to explain why he is ignoring
Sir Mark’s advice that such an exit
at Halloween means hold-ups at
ports, jams on motorways, a
falling pound, food price hikes of
around 10%, and components
taking take far longer to reach ourhis successor Sadiq Khan in 2017. Mr
Johnson also paid £322,000 for three
second-hand water cannon in the wake of
the 2014 riots, which were never used and
were later sold for scrap.
As Foreign Secretary, he blew more
than £20,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a
visit to Kabul. And the trip was
conveniently timed to miss a Commons
vote on expanding Heathrow Airport – a
scheme which he said he would “lie down
in front of bulldozers” to oppose.week to the EU – even splashing on the
side of a battle bus that the cash could
go to our NHS instead.
It was closer to £190million and the
Statistics Authority said it was a “clear
misuse of official statistics”.
His gaffes have also ended up costing
the taxpayer millions of pounds.
As London Mayor, he backed a failed
plan for a Garden Bridge across the River
Thames which wasted £43million of
public money. It was finally scrapped byCHANCER’S RISE TO TOP..
It could be
all over in 3
months but
it might not
be, he may
be lucky...CLOSE ALLY ON BOJO’S
CHANCES OF SUCCEEDINGSECOND
CLASS
Johnson as
President of
Oxford UnionTOUGH TACKLER Smashing into rugby boySTRANDED On zipwire before London gamesLOVER CARRIE WAITS IN THE WINGS: PAGES 8&isI fear that
a Boris
no-deal
Brexit will
just divide
us further