noses to the grindstone
This weekend marked Bumble Boris’s, the man who set his sights on becoming ‘world king’ as a young boy, first month as No 10’s principal resident and all I can say is that this wasn’t how it was meant to be. This wasn’t meant to happen. All sides, all parties and all people, myself included, made catastrophic predictions of uncontrolled chaos and endless bluster. Remember, this was the same previously appointed Foreign Secretary that Saint Theresa joked could “only just about stay on message for a full four days”.
As it transpires the Tories are on the up and, against all the odds, they’ve delivered a tightly run cabinet cohesively centred around one clear message: to deliver Brexit by the end of October. Do or die. It raises the tantalising question, even for a remoaner, does he have the chutzpah to get a deal, potentially a better deal, and a deal he can sell to both his government and to parliament? A more steadfast ‘Brady Amendment’ anyone? Incredibly, can Mr Johnson persuade the EU to incorporate some future, unproven hi-tech exit mechanism into the backstop and reopen the withdrawal agreement, all within twenty-four days? He has, after all, assured us that leaving without a deal is a “million to one”… or as of last night, following his first f2f meeting with Donald Tusk, is now “touch and go”.
That final remark is telling.
With a working majority of one, the imminent deadline, no plausible alternative to the Irish conundrum in the pipeline and the majority of MPs against no-deal, the answer remains a big fat ‘no’. The focus of this currently in-recess cabinet administration, that all have a vested interest is ensuring he does not pass into history as one of the shortest serving prime ministers, is to the general public rather than to wavering MPs. Why, anyone would think he’d be about to wade into the BBC over-75 licence debate to curry favour within the heartland… Their ambition is to reunite the pro-Brexit leave vote behind Boris, to effectively eliminate Naughty Nigel, and prepare to win the up-and-coming general election, whenever that may happen. A no-deal has been the default since his appointment and the only question has been how to shift the blame to those non-negotiating naysayers over the water. Evidence suggesting he has specifically investigated the closure of parliament from September goes some way to confirming it’s no-deal by any means necessary.
For all Bumble’s fizzing, can-do optimism and constant invocation of the blitz spirit, I don’t see any further continuation of his honeymoon period. With parliamentary business finally kicking-off again tomorrow this famously indiscreet, unreliable, frivolous man, tasked with sorting-out the mess he helped create, is running out of time and will very soon be found wanting. Probably…
