Boris Johnson must not rely on desires to ‘get Brexit done’ to glue his New Tory coalition
THIS is Boris Johnson’s victory. He ran the most personal election campaign in recent history. On the campaign trail, it was him hammering home the Tory message every day.
In his determination to make this election about whether he should be Prime Minister, he even took the unprecedented step of agreeing to two head-to-head debates with the leader of the Opposition.
Boris didn’t just do this because he had a double-digit lead over Corbyn on the question of who would make the best PM.
It was also because he wanted to make clear that his Premiership would be different from the nine years of Tory rule that had gone before.
Johnson and his team knew that asking for a fourth term was a hard ask — only once before in the democratic era has a party managed this.
So instead they presented him as a new broom. Just look at how in an interview with me he distanced himself from Tory “austerity”, saying he had never thought it was the right way forward for the country.
I understand from one of those close to the Prime Minister that he intends to treat this majority government as the real beginning of his Premiership, with his past 100-odd days in the job treated as a transition between the old Tory government and this new era.
The new Tory electoral coalition is held together by a desire to “get Brexit done” and a fear of Corbyn. But the problem for Boris is that both of these will soon lose their adhesive quality, with the UK leaving the EU on January 31, while Corbyn will be gone in months.
There will need to be a different glue for this New Tory coalition. Boris believes that can be provided by his common-ground politics, which YOU UNDERSTAND, even if Westminster does not.
‘BORIS’ VICTORY’
His Government will spend more on the NHS, a position Westminster regards as left-wing, and be tougher on crime, regarded as right wing.
But both of these positions are backed by the vast majority of Sun readers and voters in general.
But his biggest challenge is dealing with regional inequality. The Tories now represent swathes of the country that have missed out on much of the prosperity of the past 30 years.
This New Tory Government must improve the lot of these places. In the long term, that will involve building better physical and digital infrastructure. But things need to be done now too.
As one confidant of Boris’s puts it: “If Darlington high street isn’t visibly better in four years’ time, we’ll be in trouble.”
No party has ever won a fifth term in office. As Boris strives to achieve that, he might want to consider a rebrand — calling the Tories the New Conservatives to emphasise just how different they are from what went before.
But the biggest challenge for him is to show the people who lent him their vote to “get Brexit done”, that life is better under the Conservatives.
Boris plans to give us all a Brexit-free Christmas
BORIS JOHNSON wants you to have a Christmas free of Brexit arguments. His plan is to get MPs to vote on his Brexit deal on Friday.
With his big majority, it will pass easily – then we can all sit down to Christmas dinner knowing the process of ending the deadlock and “getting Brexit done” has started.
I understand that Boris intends to keep a low profile over the festive period. As one close friend jokes: “The country needs some time off too.”
Most PMs with a big majority immediately do a radical reshuffle, to recast the Government in their own image.
But I am informed that Monday’s shuffle will be a strictly limited affair, with just the outgoing Secretaries of State Nicky Morgan and Alun Cairns being replaced.
I understand Boris wants to wait until February to do a proper reshuffle. The reason is that he and his team are keen to rewire Whitehall for the Brexit era, merging some departments and reorgan- ising others.
But he doesn’t want to rush this process and intends to use the next few weeks to think about how best to do this.
My sense is that Johnson is considering a far more fundamental reorganisation of the way government works than anyone expects.
ELECTION DOWNER FOR BOJO
ONE of the few downers of this election for Boris Johnson was Zac Goldsmith losing his seat.
The two are close, and Johnson’s partner Carrie Symonds ran Zac’s campaign for him in 2017 and was a regular volunteer this time round.
But I understand that Goldsmith will soon be back in Parliament.
He is expected to go to the Lords, where he will be able to continue his ministerial work on international development and climate change.
Labour’s lost plot
ONLY once before in the modern era has Labour suffered a fourth consecutive defeat by the Tories.
But it followed that loss, in 1992, with a 179 majority in 1997. The path, though, will be harder for Labour this time.
In 1992 the party was desperate to win again – and prepared to do pretty much anything to achieve that.
Now, Corbynistas seem more interested in blaming the electorate than working out why they lost.
Another problem for Labour is there is no stand-out candidate for the leader-ship.
It is hard to imagine Keir Starmer, the Remain-supporting Shadow Brexit Secretary, winning back Bishop Auckland for Labour.
Passport to visit Scotland?
“BORIS JOHNSON had three dragons to slay when he became Prime Minister: Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon,” says one Scottish ally of the Prime Minister.
Well, he has dealt with Farage – the Brexit Party didn’t win a single seat in this Election. Corbyn is on the way out too – the Labour leader has said he won’t fight the next election. Which just leaves Nicola Sturgeon.
The Scottish First Minister will be a formidable foe. She will push endlessly for a second independence referendum.
This has the happy effect for her of turning the debate at the 2021 Holyrood elections into a debate about independence, rather than her government’s poor handling of public services.
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Johnson must find a way to counter Sturgeon’s arguments, to show the benefits the Union brings to Scotland.
She says Scotland must have independence because it wants to stay in the EU. But Brexit complicates the case for independence.
If Scotland is in the EU and the rest of the UK is not, there would have to be border checks at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
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