Boris Johnson Is Heading for a Scorched-Earth Election
The soul of Britain’s Conservative Party — and the country itself — is at stake.
ByJenni Russell
Contributing Opinion Writer
The simplest way to decipher what’s going on in British politics these days is not to believe a word that the prime minister says.
Whether he’s declaring that he’ll get Britain out of the European Union by next Thursday, “do or die,” or that he’d rather be dead in a ditch than ask the union for an extension, or that Parliament has already endorsed his deal — these significant and powerful political statements, delivered with what appears to be full-throated conviction, have all turned out to be lies.
That is the lens through which to see Mr. Johnson’s latest ploy: offering members of Parliament a few days longer to scrutinize his recently agreed upon deal with Europe, as long as they agree to hold a general election on Dec. 12.
Ever since Mr. Johnson became prime minister this summer the question facing him has been whether his ambitions — that is, winning five more years in Downing Street — are best served by delivering Brexit and then pushing for an election as the man who succeeded, or whether it would be safer to go for an election with Brexit still a conveniently mythical destination, open to many comforting and contradictory interpretations.
Over the past week, ever since Parliament started debate on Mr. Johnson’s deal, but then made clear that it would use its power to amend it substantially, his closest advisers have been utterly split on the best strategy. Some want to do what the government promised and get Brexit agreed to first, even if it means compromise. The voters, they argue, will reward the Conservative Party even if they think the deal imperfect.
Mr. Johnson has chosen, instead, to respond with deadlines and threats.
On the one hand, it’s important to recognize this demand for an election as the piece of political theater that it is. It’s intended both to reinforce the myth Mr. Johnson’s been building — that he’s the person willing and able to deliver Brexit, and the only reason he can’t deliver it is the obstinacy of Parliament or the Europeans standing in his way — and to distract from his own failures.
The two core pledges of his leadership — that he’d get Britain out of Europe by the end of October, and that he would never request an extension — have been shamelessly reversed this week. The reason his deal is in trouble in Parliament is not general recalcitrance, but the fact that the minute the members have the time to examine it, the fragile coalition that might vote for it dissolves, as both the right wing, the moderates and the opposition rebels will find elements of it they cannot support.
So, yes, the demand for an election is a diversion.
On the other hand, to see it only as theater is to miss something crucial: The fight over whether to hold an election before or after Brexit is about more than what gives Mr. Johnson the better chance of winning. It is, as a senior Tory said grimly to me, a battle for the soul of the Conservative Party, and over the nature of British politics.
An election fought after a Brexit had been agreed to would be on orthodox territory; parties would offer competing visions of a better Britain.
One fought beforehand, with nothing settled, will be on the stark populist territory that Mr. Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, one of the chief architects of the referendum campaign, has been urging and preparing for.
In such an election, the Conservatives’ only chance of success would come by presenting opponents as saboteurs, stoking resentment and populism, whipping up fury against Westminster elites. Such a campaign would abandon the moderate Tory territory of prosperous parts of London and the liberal southeast. Instead Mr. Johnson would hope to win seats by focusing on inciting and harnessing the rage of left-behind Leave voters in traditional Labour areas.
The message will be one not of legitimate political disagreement but of betrayal. “It will be nihilism,” one insider told me, flatly. If it works, the consequences will be a government under huge pressure to cater to that anger. “If you campaign in fury, you will govern in the interests of rage,” a former cabinet minister said.
It is a strategy that is completely indifferent to the dangers it is inflaming, legitimizing suspicions and hatred which can’t subsequently be switched off. Already this week, a shocking report into the electorate’s attitudes shows that for the first time ever, a majority of voters on both sides of the Brexit debate say that the risk of violence against members of Parliament is a price worth paying for the Brexit outcome they support. Most expect and accept that violent protests, in which people are hurt, will also take place. Aggression and distrust is being legitimized as never before.
It is also high risk for Mr. Johnson himself. Elections, unlike referendums, are not about binary choices. Mr. Cummings, insiders say, is naïve about the distinction. He and Mr. Johnson are gambling that Brexit voters will automatically back a Brexit prime minister, but in an election deep tribal loyalties and random political issues could throw all those calculations off course.
None of this has deterred Mr. Johnson yet. In the ruthless pursuit of personal power he has unleashed lies, rage and resentment without a second thought. He claims that after Brexit he wants to bring Britain together. It is yet another of his egregious deceptions. He is instead deliberately, selfishly and recklessly taking the country apart.
Jenni Russell (@jennirsl) is a columnist for The Times of London and a contributing opinion writer.
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