23 Jul 2019

Veni, Vidi, Vici. Winning was the easy part for Boris Johnson. Now the really hard stuff starts.

D7D5E6D6-C777-4AFB-A15195558B54F692.jpg

He came. He saw. He conquered. As seemed probable from the outset, Boris Johnson has defeated Jeremy Hunt by a very substantial margin (66.4% to 33.6%) and will become Prime Minister tomorrow.

Despite the scale of his victory, the extent to which he can claim a wider political mandate is not obvious. The small size and the clearly unrepresentative character of the membership of his party is such that his obvious popularity within it tells us little of his potential appeal as the PM beyond it.

If there is a message in his triumph, it is that the Conservative Party is desperate to see the delivery of Brexit and believes that the combination of charisma and an enhanced willingness to play hardball should be enough for the new leader to succeed where the soon to be departed one has failed. If that assessment proves to be correct then Mr Johnson could be in a surprisingly strong political position by the end of 2019. If it instead a massive miscalculation then the Conservative Party will be on the edge of yet another leadership crisis and collective nervous breakdown before Christmas.

Events are likely to move (allowing for August) at unusual speed. There are three principal hurdles for the new Prime Minister and inner circle. They are: the immediate (constructing a Government); the very short term (settling on a Brexit strategy and an approach to ensure that it is adopted) and the merely short term (preparing for a general election that looks likely to come within nine months).

Constructing a Government

The scale of the transformation that is likely to be seen in Whitehall this week is considerable. At the Cabinet level it is already clear that a clutch of big figures will depart, including the Chancellor, the Business Secretary, the Justice Secretary, the International Development Secretary, and perhaps the Scottish Secretary as well, because they cannot sign up to the notion of accepting a no-deal outcome as a theoretical last resort.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office and de facto Deputy Prime Minister (David Lidington) is likely to walk the plank as well, although he may choose to be less explicit as to the reasons for his departure. It would be a surprise if Liam Fox continued as Secretary of State for International Trade as his decision to endorse Jeremy Hunt and be a prominent figure on his side has exhausted what credibility he had left in the Leave camp. It would be a surprise if Brandon Lewis is retained as Conservative Party Chairman (the new PM will want one of his own in that slot), although he might resurface elsewhere in the administration.

Others who have long looked vulnerable in their departments, such as the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, may have the chance to spend more time with their families. That is 10 potential new seats to be filled around the Cabinet table. There can also be expected to be a clear-out at the Minister of State level. Forensic attention is likely to be placed on appointments within the Treasury and Department for Business, Enterprise & Industrial Strategy (which might even have another renaming event) as both these sections of Whitehall are regarded with deep suspicion by those of a pro-Brexit feeling.

This presents an initial political choice followed by a second consideration. The first is the extent to which Mr Johnson wants to use the reshuffle to enhance the number of ‘True Believer’ Brexit supporters in his Government substantially, or whether he is willing to mitigate this in the name of constructing what will be seen as more of a ‘Balanced Ticket’, which includes and involves the advancement of those who would much prefer a softer Brexit, and, while they might be willing publicly to keep no-deal as a negotiating option, would obviously hate to do it.

The second consideration is whom in the True Believer category he chooses to offer favour to. Will it be largely that string of individuals who either resigned from Mrs May’s Cabinet over Brexit (as Mr Johnson himself once did) such as David Davis, Dominic Raab, Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom, or who were fired by Mrs May for reasons unconnected to Brexit but who have been strong Boris backers in this leadership election (Gavin Williamson, Priti Patel, at a stretch even Michael Fallon)? Alternatively, will he look to new figures instead in the hope of making a clean break? At the lower levels of ministerial appointments, to what extent will he seek to bring in those MPs allied to the European Research Group contingent with the aim of binding them in to his stance on Brexit?

At the very highest level he may well opt for compromise. Sajid Javid looks a strong favourite to be Chancellor, but with a staunchly pro-Brexit team underneath him (Jacob Rees-Mogg for the role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury would be an interesting wager). The current confrontation between the UK and Iran would be a further argument for keeping Mr Hunt where he is at the Foreign Office.

Mr Javid’s move to Number 11 would open up the Home Office and there are incentives to have a woman in the top team tier. If so, will it be a Remainer (Amber Rudd), a Remainer turned Leaver (Liz Truss) or a True Believer Leaver (Esther McVey) or a more unexpected individual instead? In terms of a willingness to sacrifice doctrinal purity for party unity, there are three figures whose fate BVCA Insight will be keenly looking out for. They are Michael Gove, Nicky Morgan and Tobias Ellwood.

A new Brexit strategy

The relatively comfortable nature of this leadership campaign (bar one rowdy night in Camberwell) has allowed the Johnson Team to think about and send out informal feelers on what its strategy will be towards Brexit. As has been written in Insight over the past few weeks, the new Prime Minister has more of a chance of enacting a revised version of the Withdrawal Agreement than Theresa May ever did.

His followers (and Kit Malthouse is probably the key player in planning this) will have to act extremely swiftly if they are to have any chance of completing all of the stages necessary to have a Withdrawal Agreement Bill through both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and backed by the European Parliament by the self-imposed deadline (supposedly ‘do or die’) of 31 October.

This would mean making enough progress with Dublin on a ‘side letter’ around the vexed Irish border backstop, and with Brussels in terms of an entirely rewritten Political Declaration for there to be an emergency EU Council meeting in early to mid-September that embraced the new understanding. This in turn would allow a Withdrawal Agreement Bill to be published before the party conference season.

It that does not occur then it is very hard to see how the Government could have any kind of shout at enacting such legislation this side of Halloween. If that fails, the new Prime Minister will have an awkward choice between reneging on his original schedule, redefining it (for instance, that success would mean the House of Commons had blessed the Bill on time but others were holding matters up) and seeking a little more time, or entering a showdown with Parliament over no-deal which he would be likely to lose (although some think that may be a blessing in disguise for him).

Election planning

There are few at Westminster who can now see how an election can be deferred to its notional legal date of 2022. The Conservative/DUP accord is due to be renegotiated shortly. Even if that proves to be a smooth exercise (which depends a lot on whether the Assembly at Stormont can be revived), it will still leave the Government with a tiny overall majority, vulnerable to death or defection. In an ideal world, the Conservatives would like to see Brexit take place in this calendar year, conduct a tax-cutting Budget this autumn and roll out some shamelessly populist measures to allow for a dash to the electorate in the first half of next year. If Mr Johnson pulls that off, he will be in Caesar territory.

A further edition of BVCA Insight will be published later this week after the Government reshuffle.

Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA


×

Update your login details

We updated our website and supporting systems on 12th December. 

If you previously had an account, please reset your password. If it's your first-time logging in, please register to create an account. For assistance, please contact the BVCA Membership Team

Login