Boris Johnson’s election as Conservative leader has been greeted in Brussels with a rejection of his Brexit demands and issuing of a warning by the newly appointed European commission president Ursula von der Leyen about the “challenging times ahead”. The chances are bleak that EU leadership will mend its stance on the convoluted issue of Brexit. The situation has been simply complicated by the mess created by former UK Prime Minister Theresa May. Undeniably both sides have a “duty” to deliver a deal notwithstanding newly appointed president offering her congratulations to Johnson on his election as the prime minister of Britain.
Boris who has been a hard line Brexiter has already made known his intentions of pulling Britain out of EU on October 31 by any means. Setting out the dead line is ominous. It would be a tough proposition for Boris to clear the mess created by May within next three months. With EU determined not to nudge from its stand, it is incomprehensible that Boris would take his countrymen along with him and come out of EU by the deadline he has fixed. It is worth mentioning that EU president Leyen has already observed “There are many difficult issues we will tackle together. It is important to build up a strong working relationship because we have a duty to deliver something which is good for the people in Europe and the United Kingdom.”
It is significant that the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has tweeted that he wanted to work “constructively” with Johnson on the basis that both sides were committed to facilitating “the ratification of the withdrawal agreement”, the fact cannot be ignored that Johnson already faces immense challenge and opposition in Brussels as well as in his own country, especially from his party colleagues. With Johnson declaring the deal struck by Theresa May as dead he has very less space to manoeuvre. It would be interesting to watch whether he succeeds in his mission to leave the EU with or without a deal by 31 October.
The EU leaders feel that Boris took a long time deciding whether he was for or against Brexit. And now his position is clear. It is an open secret that Britons had not voted for no deal when they voted for Brexit in 2016. Boris has to keep in mind the past developments and his resignation from the government on this issue. He would have to ensure that Britons do not feel cheated. One thing is absolutely clear that a no deal Brexit will prove to be disastrous for the country. It is not that Boris must not be aware of the emerging political situation. With EU already not in the mood to make a shift from its stand and the Britain voting against a no deal Brexit, Boris will have to work hard to evolve a new policy which would be acceptable to EU leadership.
Nevertheless it would be naïve to believe that Johnson will fall victim to the prevailing political situation. At his victory speech to hundreds of party members and lawmakers, he pledged to “deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn,” leader of the opposition Labour Party. Apparently he is sure to get Brexit, the fact of the matter is he wants to engage with the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and face the elections. He would be making the stand of Corbyn’s ambivalent stance on Brexit as an election issue. Boris would be depending on the media surveys that predict that Corbyn’s support among Labour members has collapsed. Nearly two-fifths of them would like to see the leader step down before the next general election; 43 per cent say he’s doing a bad job; more than 70 per cent see anti-semitism as a genuine problem; and 27 per cent want the leader to stand down immediately.
One thing is quite explicit that Boris cannot settle for no deal Brexit. Economists have already warned that a no-deal Brexit would disrupt trade and plunge the U.K. into recession . Already fears are being expressed that Britain is inching closer to crashing out of the bloc. The currency was down another 0.3 percent at $1.2450, nearly a two-year low.
But US president Donald Trump supporting election of Boris as the prime minister has been causing consternation in Britons. Incidentally Trump told a youth conference. “Good man. He’s tough and he’s smart. They call him Britain Trump, and people say that’s a good thing.” Like Trump the UK Prime Minister Johnson poses threat to black and Muslim communities. Johnson epitomises upper-class contempt for working people. This would be a major factor in the case of Brexit. As British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had made a rallying cry for Brexit in what was then viewed as a challenge to the then Prime Minister Theresa May, one week before her own big speech on the subject. In a 4,000-word article for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson argued for a clean break with the European Union, particularly on the fraught issue of budget payments. (IPA Service)
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