With Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 about to hit our television screens, another version is running in our politics. One stars George Clooney; the other Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the man he has to beat to become prime minister, are trapped in a world in which it is national suicide to drive towards the cliff of a no-deal Brexit, and yet career suicide not to try.
The cognitive dissonance involved is monstrous. As one Tory MP put it to me this week, it is not clear how many of his colleagues are mad, and how many are simply pretending to be mad to further their careers. Even those who are pretending, hoping reason will prevail if they sit tight, seem to be developing a form of Stockholm syndrome. Having kept Mr Johnson out of power for three years because they distrust him, they now hope this very quality will allow him to deliver Brexit and preserve the party from destruction.
They applaud his charisma, while knowing that he is being kept away from too much media questioning by a team that believes the more people see of him, the less they like. They claim to want power, but rushed to mock Rory Stewart, whose leadership bid electrified the public with his honesty about the challenges ahead. Mr Stewart urged his colleagues to think 15 years ahead, not 15 days. Few are, in fact, thinking further than tomorrow.
The Conservative party members who will now choose the UK’s next prime minister have two priorities: going hell for leather to get out of the EU, and keeping Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn out of power. These two aims are contradictory. If the UK gets a bad deal or no deal, the damage to our economy and our security will put the Tories out of power for generations — precisely what Mr Corbyn dreams of.
Not long ago, the Conservative party was regarded as the natural party of government — restrained, competent and pragmatic. Now, judging by the leadership campaign, it stands for unfunded tax cuts, massive public spending, and an illiterate Brexit that would devastate jobs. In Tuesday’s hour-long televised leadership debate, the word “business” was mentioned only once — by Mr Hunt.
Mr Johnson’s camp are relieved to have dispatched Michael Gove, whose eloquence and debating style they feared. But Mr Hunt is a tougher opponent than is being portrayed. I would not underestimate his ability to cudgel Mr Johnson into greater honesty about what is possible.
Mr Hunt was the only contender to land a blow on Mr Johnson in this week’s TV debate, when he quoted a Shropshire sheep farmer whose family business would be destroyed by the 40 per cent tariffs that would follow a no-deal Brexit. Mr Johnson’s assertion that tariffs will not apply under Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, has since been punctured by the governor of the Bank of England. If the rest of the contest can inject more realism into the debate and force Mr Johnson to do his homework, Mr Hunt will have done us all a favour.
Party members may not, however, welcome this dose of realism. A YouGov poll this week found that a majority of Conservative party members would rather break up the UK and see “significant economic damage” done to the country, than forgo Brexit. Talking to MPs facing ugly deselection hearings, it seems clear that entryism from Ukip is higher than anyone has admitted.
The same YouGov poll found that a majority of party members would be happy to see the Conservative party destroyed in order to achieve Brexit. MPs are desperate to save the Conservative party from Nigel Farage outflanking them from the right. Yet their own members, it seems, do not care.
Can Mr Johnson square the circle? If he becomes prime minister, the coalition he has built inside the party could unravel quite quickly. To achieve a new deal with the EU before October 31 is well nigh impossible. Even if he did, there would be precious little time to get parliamentary support.
Not everyone will get a job in his administration; some of those who backed him out of expediency will be disappointed. Mr Stewart has suggested that he will not serve in a Boris cabinet. Philip Hammond, ejected from the Treasury, will be a powerful voice on the backbenches, along with moderates like Justine Greening and Oliver Letwin. Those people will try to block no deal, with Labour’s help, and force the government to seek another extension. No-confidence votes will rain down from both left and right: the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs is already planning one, should the new party leader prove insufficiently purist.
Mr Hunt has sensibly refused to rule out a request for an extension beyond October 31, on the grounds that rushing the decision could usher in a Corbyn-led government. The only thing Tory party members would hate more than no Brexit, according to YouGov, is letting Mr Corbyn into Downing Street.
That should focus minds: the tiny working majority the Conservatives enjoy may shrink even further after the forthcoming by-election in Brecon and Radnor. A prime minister who tries to push the country over the cliff will face a general election. When Mr Johnson talks privately about another referendum, he is calculating that the party might hate an election more. The idea is rampant among Conservatives that if they can only get Brexit “over with”, they can return to normal. But there is no such place. That’s the catch.
The writer, a former head of the Downing Street policy unit, is a senior fellow at Harvard University
