Politics

There is hope: Boris Johnson’s big majority could unleash the social liberal within | Simon Jenkins


Now what? Boris Johnson’s bonus for a stunning election victory is room for manoeuvre. He promised to “get Brexit done” and the UK will surely leave the EU in January. But he was careful not to say how. He only said that he would also leave Europe’s single market and customs union, a choice for which he will now claim a mandate. A mandate is not a plan.

British elections are good at hiding paradoxes. There was no great Tory swing. Johnson actually increased the party’s vote share by just 1.2% on Theresa May’s ostensibly disastrous election two years ago. They won handsomely because of first-past-the-post. Labour and the Liberal Democrats could not bring themselves to do constituency deals and duly split the anti-Tory vote right across the country.

Had this been a transferable-vote presidency, Johnson, with just 43% of the poll, could well have lost. It was the fratricidal incompetence of the left that gave him victory. Evidence of this is that anti-Brexit parties secured more votes than the Tories and Brexit party together. If this really was a “second referendum”, it did not go for Brexit. But still Johnson won. And anyone fed up with the past three years of shambles must be relieved it was with a secure majority. Parliament can withdraw into the political background and attention turn to Johnson’s use of his victory.

Of course Brexit is not done, and will not be in January. Throughout the campaign, Johnson dodged all questions of what the UK’s future relationship with Europe should be, trading or otherwise. For Britain to leave the EU is comparatively small beer compared with whether or not it disentangles itself from the colossal network of economic relationships governing the continent of Europe. Johnson has pledged just such disentanglement. It is a pledge he must break.

The prime minister must know that leaving the customs union and single market is fiendishly hard. He knows because he has just failed to bring it off for Northern Ireland. All experts claim a trade deal cannot be reached in the allotted year – or without tearing up Britain’s relations with third parties who have existing deals with the EU. Withdrawing on WTO terms makes no sense.

Sooner or later, the grownups will have to take charge of this mess. Britain must, like Northern Ireland, remain in a relationship with the EU that is, as promised by the original leavers, “frictionless”. This will involve a long learning curve for Michael Gove or whoever negotiates it. It may require an ability to interpret the words “customs union” and “single market” in new and surprising ways. Either way, what matters is that Johnson’s room for manoeuvre must be used to keep the British economy close to Europe – however much his backwoodsmen protest. Nothing else about his government matters but the “softening” of Brexit.

For the rest, few prime ministers can have taken office with a cupboard so bare. Rightwing headline-grabbers on crime and immigration, vague promises on investment and welfare were classic election dross. Whether a big majority unleashes Johnson the social liberal, or whether it unleashes Johnson the cynical appeaser of the last lobbyist to gain his ear, remains to be seen. Most worrying was the sacking of his most able, and liberal, cabinet colleagues earlier this year. Johnson exchanged a ministry of talents for a ministry of toads. It must be the most underpowered cabinet in living memory.

This places even greater responsibility on Johnson personally for shaping the next chapter in British politics. The weight is awesome. Pessimism may seem in order. But for once let optimism have its day.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist



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