Boris Johnson lost Saturday’s Brexit battle – but he’ll win the general election war
“AND all the time Boris becomes more and more popular,” murmurs a Cabinet minister surveying the wreckage left by Saturday’s joke Parliament.
An array of opinion polls give heart to battered Tories — and strike gloom into the breasts of Remainers.
The worse it gets for Boris in Westminster, the more he rallies the country round him.
The PM’s personal ratings keep soaring, while Corbyn’s Labour is in pieces and the Lib Dems tread water.
Boris is popular with every age group, with both men and women and across party lines.
Support for Brexit remains firm, while Remain is fragmenting. Most voters like BoJo’s deal with Brussels. Hardly anyone wants a second referendum.
The Tories may be powerless in Parliament but they are mopping up support across the UK.
LABOUR FACES RUIN
This explains why Boris is convinced he will win an early election, while Labour faces ruin.
“We lost a battle but we’ll win the war,” says a Downing Street samurai after Saturday’s Commons stitch-up.
“We are going to leave with this deal. The question is whether we do it in the next ten days or after the next election.”
Government whips are optimistic of victory in Tuesday’s crucial vote on the withdrawal bill — with or without DUP support.
But defeat will not stop the Boris bandwagon.
“If we win, we are off to the races and we can leave by October 31,” says a source. “If we lose, we will put down a motion for an election and push the deal through after we win that election.”
In which case, despite Remain claims, a Boris victory would take the risk of No Deal off the table altogether.
But just in case, the Government is stepping up its Operation Yellowhammer plans to smooth traffic at ports, airports and transport infrastructure.
“Dover will remain open, trade will carry on and the world will keep turning,” insists a senior Cabinet minister.
Which is why Brussels is unlikely to give Britain’s Remain Parliament the extra time they want to frustrate the Brexit deal. Britain, unlike the EU, is ready for Brexit in all circumstances.
There would be bumps in the road, some severe, but Britain would cope. German car makers, French farmers and Ireland’s entire economy would take a serious hit.
Some EU bureaucrats still hanker for a delay, a possible referendum and a change of mind about EU membership.
But its leaders now see Remainers for what they are . . . losers.
France wants the UK — a big cash contributor heading for the exit — out of the way before the EU lurches into a new round of key appointments and budget-planning.
Euro chief Jean-Claude Juncker also wants Brexit off his desk before he retires on November 1. If Boris wins the next election, everything will change. Politics will be turned on its head.
We will have a Brexit Parliament. We might even have a Brexit civil service. It will be interesting to see how Remainers adapt to being irrevocably Out.
HALF-BAKED MARXISTS
Corbyn will be gone, but what will happen to a Labour Party riddled with those half-baked Marxists and Jew-haters who will chose its next leader?
Does anyone seriously see “Sir” Keir Starmer as the saviour of the working classes? Will the opportunist Lib Dems find another lost cause?
How do the doom-monger BBC, Guardian and Financial Times cope with a UK economy re-energised by a wall of investment cash, a soaring Pound and a rising stock market, while the EU wallows in mass unemployment and a failing currency?
What will Anna “Suck It Up” Soubry do with early retirement? What about poor old Peter Mandelson and People’s Vote campaigner Alastair Campbell? The heart bleeds for them.
These may be questions for another day. There are many difficult months of negotiation ahead on the nuts and bolts of Brexit.
most read in opinion
We will still be listening to BBC Europe editor Katya Adler as she struggles to make sense of the latest EU shenanigans.
But we are already beginning to catch a glimpse of life outside the EU.
And from where I’m standing, it’s looking rather good.
Leave mastermind Cummings
IF Boris wins the next election, how will he reward Dominic Cummings, the man who made it possible?
Cummings’ greatest desire – way beyond Brexit – is to reform “The Blob”, the arrogant hidebound civil service which sees itself as the real UK government.
He blames insular, inward-looking, ultra-conservative mandarins for Britain’s greatest failures – in education, science, commerce and economic flexibility.
Given the chance, the Leave mastermind will promote Whitehall’s greatest talents and remove the fatty tissue clogging the public sector’s arteries.
Stand by, Brolly Brigade . . . The Revolution continues!
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